5G

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration is seeking comment on how the US can support the development of the next generation wireless network. Although it’s a super early procedural step and it feels like we just got 5G, we could be at the halfway mark to a new generation — they tend to launch every decade, and it’s been about five years since 5G began rolling out.

That’s what US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said on 60 Minutes about the in-house 5G chip powering Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro:

What it tells me is the export controls are working because that chip is not nearly as good... We have the most sophisticated semiconductors in the world. China doesn’t.

Remember how T-Mobile won a bunch of mid-band spectrum in 2022? And then the FCC couldn’t actually grant the licenses? So Congress had to pass a bill allowing the FCC actually hand out the spectrum?

That really happened. Today, T-Mobile finally got access to over 7,000 licenses touching mainly rural areas across the country. The new spectrum will start coming online in the next few days.

But it is the modem-RF chip that’s likely to be paired with Qualcomm’s next-gen processor in 2025’s big Android flagships. The Snapdragon X80 5G modem is an update to the X75 and supports six-carrier aggregation, 5G Advanced standards, and certain satellite-based non-terrestrial communications. And there’s a bunch of new AI optimization, because it’s 2024 and of course there is.

Qualcomm’s Q1 2024 earnings presentation has wrapped up, with revenue of $9.9 billion and net income of $2.77 billion that’s up compared to last year.

But more notably, analyst Ben Bajarin points out that execs revealed Apple extended the licensing deal they signed in 2019 for an additional two years. It now runs through 2027, aligning with reports that Apple’s own 5G modem tech isn’t ready, while Samsung has added “several years” to a multiyear deal for Snapdragon chips in Galaxy phones.

LG showed off a “digital cockpit system display AR / MR platform AI and 5G telematics technology” AlphaWare concept at CES today. It includes its Automotive Content Platform, which puts LG software on screens throughout cars, and uses AI to do things like recognize drivers or detect when kids have fallen asleep.

The company says the software is based on webOS and integrates with automakers’ infotainment systems.

The company’s “film-type antenna” will work either attached to glass or built into it and supports 5G, Wi-Fi, and navigation using GNSS. LG says this will free carmakers from designing and building custom housing for traditional antennas.

LG didn’t say in its announcement when the tech will appear in cars, but it plans to show it off at CES in January.

T-Mobile paid for a chunk of 2.5GHz spectrum licenses earlier this year, but hasn’t been able to access them because the FCC’s authority to actually hand out the licenses has been in limbo. Now, Congress has passed a bill that allows the FCC to give T-Mobile access to the spectrum, which appears to be destined for fixed wireless. How thoughtful!

It’s 2023 and mobile operators are still convincing general news pubs to write about the wonders of 5G. This time The Post in Wellington, New Zealand heroically tries to make a 5G robotic cooking demonstration sound convincing but, well.

There’s no camera on the robot, rather it relies on clever spatial programming while two phones set up above the stainless steel prep area allowed Gault, armed with a tablet in Auckland, to issue it instructions.

Local chefs lay the groundwork ‒ prepping and seasoning the tails, preparing the slaw and precise placement of the ingredients for the arm to collect.

Two phones, a tablet, and local chefs, all to misplate the food! At this one actually happened. Will the wonders of 5G ever cease? Or... begin?

You know that nature is healing when Verizon issues a press release that doesn’t mention 5G. This one’s about a trial on the company’s fiber network that sent 1.2 terabytes per second of data over a single wavelength. In 2020, a similar trial achieved 800Gbps — in service of an impending “explosion of data” over 5G. How times change!

The “ultra capacity” label is just a fancy name for T-Mobile’s mid-band and mmWave 5G networks. In addition to reaching this coverage goal “months ahead of schedule,” T-Mobile also announced that it has expanded its overall 5G coverage to over 330 million people.

“It has the potential to change the world,” said Samsung at the IFA event in Berlin, without any shame.

Now where have we heard this before? Prepare the HYPErdrive!

We’ve been talking about whether 5G was worth the hype for a few weeks now (sometimes, sort of, mostly it hasn’t returned the investment) and the best idea anyone really has is “private networks” where commercial customers can set up their own high-bandwith low-latency 5G networks to do... stuff. And now T-Mobile can do that by “slicing” its public 5G network, which it says it did successfully in June at a Red Bull event, creating a slice for a broadcast drone to achieve 276Mbps uplink speeds.

Meanwhile, nearly 20,000 visitors were in attendance, using their devices as they normally would – uploading pictures and videos of the event. Because of network slicing and traffic management, their traffic did not impact the Red Bull production – and vice versa.

Neat! But let’s not forget T-Mo can do this because it was allowed to buy Sprint and reduce wireless competition, which in turn has allowed it to raise prices and act way more like a traditional carrier.