Editor’s Note: RCR Wireless News goes all in for “Throwback Thursdays,” tapping into our archives to resuscitate the top headlines from the past. Fire up the time machine, put on the sepia-tinted shades, set the date for #TBT and enjoy the memories!
T-Mo tests 5G at 600 MHz
Last month T-Mobile US tapped its millimeter wave spectrum holdings to turn up 5G services in parts of Atlanta, Cleveland, Dallas, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and New York to coincide with availability of the Samsung S10 5G. But the company’s plan to deliver nationwide 5G is pinned to its trove of 600 MHz spectrum, as well as a pending merger with Sprint that would bring with it access to 2.5 GHz in more than 100 major markets. This week the carrier provided an update on its ongoing testing of 5G transmission at 600 MHz, announcing a successful data session using Qualcomm’s commercially available X55 modem, RF transceiver and RF front-end. Ericsson provided gear from its Ericsson Radio System portfolio. T-Mo has for some time differentiated itself from competitors by calling out its ability to provide “5G for all” using its 600 MHz spectrum, and dinged AT&T and Verizon for pushing millimeter wave which has shown in excess of 2 Gbps down in field testing albeit with limited coverage range. In January T-Mobile, citing test results, said it was capable of providing 5G coverage over a more than 1,000-square-mile area from a single tower. That round of activity involved Ericsson and Intel and resulted in 5G data and video calls. At the time, the carrier also achieved a tri-band 5G video call using 600 MHz, 28 GHz and 39 GHz. … Read more
Lessons learned from testing STIR/SHAKEN for fighting robocalls
As carriers move to implement a new framework to provide more information to end users on incoming calls, they are learning more about both how to deploy the STIR/SHAKEN framework as well as how to work with other operators to ensure cross-network traffic functions the same way as traffic within one operator’s network. At the Federal Communications Commission’s event focusing on efforts to fight robocalls, representatives of a number of major service providers discussed their ongoing efforts to test and implement the STIR/SHAKEN framework for providing consumers with verification and notification about the origination of incoming calls. ATIS established a testbed hosted by Neustar Trust Labs for STIR/SHAKEN several years ago, to help with implementation, and that has been a helpful resource, according to Kathleen Foster, core networks engineering director at T-Mobile US. “One of the biggest challenges early on was, we didn’t really have meany people to test with,” said Foster. She said that the ATIS testbed enabled T-Mobile US to learn some of the basic functionality of STIR/SHAKEN, and it provided negative test cases so that they could see how things worked in the real world. She advised that companies which are just getting started with STIR/SHAKEN to take advantage of the Trust Lab. … Read more
Huawei objects to blacklisting
Chinese vendor Huawei has not yet seen any benefit from President Donald’s Trump recent decision to allow U.S. firms to sell components to the company and urged the U.S. government to remove the company from a security blacklist, Chinese press reported Huawei’s chairman Liang Hua as saying. The executive said that the decision to put Huawei in a list that restricts exports of components and software is “unjust and unfair.” “We’re not saying that just because things have relaxed a little, we’re fine with being on the blacklist,” he said. “Actually, we believe our listing on the blacklist should be lifted completely,” the executive said during a press conference. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump said that U.S. companies can sell their equipment to Huawei as long as the transactions won’t present a “great, national emergency problem.” Trump made these comments during a press conference at the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan, after a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, which had the main aim of discussing an impasse in the ongoing trade dispute between the two countries. … Read more
EU makes progress on 5G cybersecurity assessment
With commercial 5G service popping up around Europe and the globe, public officials are involved in ongoing discussion around the cybersecurity of these next-generation networks, particular in the context of to what extent if any Chinese network infrastructure vendors Huawei and ZTE should be allowed to participate. In the European Union, last week 24 member states submitted “national risk assessments” to the European Commission in the first phase of an EU-wide cybersecurity analysis slated for completion by October 1. In a statement, Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society Mariya Gabriel said the goal is develop “concrete measures to help ensure the cybersecurity of 5G networks across the EU;” she referred to 5G as the future “backbone of our societies and economies. We urge member states to remain committed to the concerted approach to to use this important step to gain momentum for a swift and secure rollout of 5G networks. Close EU-wide cooperation is essential both for achieving strong cybersecurity and for reaping the full benefits, which 5G will have to offer for people and businesses.” The U.S. has led the global charge to have Huawei and ZTE blocked from 5G deployments, particularly among intelligence allies. … Read more
Final pieces falling into place for CBRS deployments
The bureaucratic wheels continue to turn in the process to get initial commercial deployments of the Citizens Broadband Radio Service underway. It’s … so … close. On Friday, a blog post confirmed that the final test reports for the first wave of Spectrum Access System administrators — which include Federated Wireless, CommScope subsidiary Comsearch and Google — were officially completed and submitted to the commercial participants on Thursday. By Friday afternoon, Federated Wireless had already submitted its final SAS test results to the Federal Communications Commission for review, and the CBRS Alliance put out a statement saying that it expects all of the SAS administrators who have received results to submit those reports to the FCC within days — which will complete all of the related industry work necessary for initial commercial deployments (ICD) to begin. The only hurdles left to clear before initial commercial deployment (ICD) can start, are the review of those SAS test results by the FCC, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the Department of Defense, and — assuming that the results are acceptable — the official authorization of the SAS administrators, based on those results. … Read more
Korean 5G users complain about service quality
Mobile subscribers in South Korea are complaining about the quality of the nation’s 5G service, according to a report by the Financial Times. Users say that the 5G services offered by the country’s three carriers have poor quality, slow connections and lack applications that use the new technology. South Korean carriers SK Telecom, LG Uplus and KT initially launched 5G services in the country in April. As of the end of June, there were a total of 1.6 million 5G subscribers, according to the latest available data from the GSMA. The entity said that this figure represented 77% of the global base of 5G users. The U.K. ended June with 150,000 5G subscribers while the U.S. had approximately 100,000 subscribers at the end of the month. A total of 62,641 5G base stations have been deployed as of June 21, which is only 7 % of the number of 4G stations across South Korea, according to data compiled by the Ministry of Science and ICT. Most of the 5G base stations were concentrated in the Seoul metropolitan area. “The number of base stations falls short of demand,” the Financial Times quoted Kim Young-woo, of SK Securities as saying.”Operators need to expand their facility investment to quickly solve the problem,” he added. … Read more
Check out the RCR Wireless News Archives for more stories from the past.
