Another week, another round of the industry grappling with exactly what 5G is, how they’re going to make it work and what they’re going to do with it — oh yes, and how they’re going to make it profitable.
I heard slightly less of the usual 5G-will-solve-all-network-problems-and-we’ll-all-get-a-pony hype — particularly at the antenna focus day, where there was a much more practical discussion of the challenges in terms of cost, hardware/footprint limitations (hey guys, not everything can be software-defined!) and return on investment on the network investment. A few other hints: ATIS’ representative talking about how the 5G framework evolving in standards bodies isn’t radically different from LTE — he called it “LTE on steroids.” Meanwhile, Bob Everson, mobility domain leader for Cisco’s Global Service Provider segment, told the audience that in a report published earlier this year, the GSM Association found that 51% of operators saw the lack of a clear business case as their most significant concern about 5G — and their second biggest concern was spectrum fragmentation. Given that T-Mobile US and Sprint are talking about 5G in 600 MHz and 2.5 GHz respectively, that seems like a reasonable concern (and probably a huge challenge for device support).
Still giving this GSMA tweet the side-eye, though. Covering one-third of the world’s population by 2025, just five years after the standard is actually finalized? This industry can move quickly when it wants to, but that seems awfully optimistic, particularly if you’re talking about small-cell-intensive millimeter wave deployments.
We forecast that 5G networks will cover a third of the world's population by 2025 #MobileEconomy pic.twitter.com/gbPq4jTCEt
— GSMA Intelligence (@GSMAi) May 19, 2017
In case you missed it, the Federal Communications Commission voted to start the process of rolling back its two-year-old “net neutrality” regulations. Twitter, predictably, exploded in a mix of wrath and satisfaction (okay, mostly wrath — it’s Twitter!): consumer groups and Democrats largely on one side, and broadband providers and Republicans largely on the other.
I commend @AjitPaiFCC for taking this step to address the #netneutrality issue, and to keeping the Internet open for consumers — permanently
— Leader McConnell (@LeaderMcConnell) May 18, 2017
Outnumbered Democrats say they'll keep fighting for net neutrality https://t.co/uerUmxgkyW pic.twitter.com/vF4n8BoP0t
— Bloomberg (@business) May 19, 2017
Katie Couric gave a run-down for the net neutrality neophyte:
FCC votes to begin rollback of net neutrality regulations https://t.co/bFrRWOoHYw If you need a refresher on the subject, watch this video: pic.twitter.com/RBbTS8xTwD
— Katie Couric (@katiecouric) May 19, 2017
Expect that battle to continue over the next 90 days of the comment period.
And lest we forget, Sprint and T-Mobile US merger rumors, probably the most well-worn telecom rumor of all time, emerged again in the past week. Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son said he wanted to be proactive in starting negotiations and that T-Mobile US was the company’s “first priority,” although it would be open to other tie-ups. Deutsche Telekom execs, meanwhile, were considerably more reserved — Deutsche Telekom CEO Tim Höttges basically acknowledged that conversations were likely, but also commented that DT ought to be given credit “for the the deals we have done, and for the ones we did not do.”
This pretty well sums it up:
https://twitter.com/ModernMsp/status/863232535597154304
I was asked a few times this week at 5G North Americas if I thought the merger was likely — and I have to say, I’m a skeptic. T-Mobile US is in a much stronger position now than it was during the failed 2014 attempt, and despite Sprint’s recent financial performance improvements, the company has a track record of being less-than-stellar on execution — which, given how well T-Mobile US has proved it can execute to gain competitive advantage, it seems like a merger would be a great thing for Sprint and Softbank and probably not so much for T-Mobile. The one thing that does give me pause is the spectrum position that a merged Sprint + T-Mo would have — that seems like it would be a boon to both sides, but I’m not sure even a great spectrum footprint would make up for what seems like a likely clash of cultures.
I welcome comments at khill@rcrwireless.com or on Twitter: @khillrcr
