We are only days away from the biggest telecom show, Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2019. The industry announcements are slowly trickling in and will soon turn into a flood! I am trying to do what I always do at this time of the year—pause,...
Does your influencer marketing program work, or is it a total waste of time and money? The answer is simple: it depends. The vast majority of influencer marketing is probably not worth it. So much effort is a waste for a simple reason we...
The 5G era is quickly approaching. This next generation of mobile networks will provide high-bandwidth mobile broadband and underpin many converging technologies and use cases: smart cities, smart factories, autonomous vehicles, augmented and virtual reality, video communications, the Internet of Things (IoT), and more....
With the announcements by the Korean mobile service providers and AT&T in the US, turning up 5G service in late 2018, this might be a good time to pause and reexamine the road to 5G - how we got to this point, and where...
Innovation, new competitors and a changing industry are both a threat and an opportunity. Something I call the “sticky-bundle” is helping existing companies hang onto and stabilize their customer base as their industry transforms around them. Let me explain how and why the sticky-bundle...
Several studies have concluded that 5G will be very expensive--costing nationwide US carriers tens of $billions each. That raises concerns about whether 5G is a wise investment. Operators may be able to deliver, say, five times as much data with 5G--but consumers are not going...
5G, unlike previous generations of standards, will be more than just a cellular radio definition. Instead, it will be a broad platform which integrates multiple radio access technologies (RATs) in unlicensed, shared and licensed spectrum. Wi-Fi in general, and its latest amendment Wi-Fi 6...
After a decade of swings and misses, Microsoft finally threw the smartphone towel and is exiting the business. I have discussed this many time over the last decade. Microsoft has wanted to win in the wireless space for so long. So, why did they...
There are numerous distributed organizations with dozen, hundreds or even thousands of remote locations, venues, branches, or sites reporting to one or more regional offices and central headquarters. In many cases, these remote locations operate like small businesses, which is typically the case with...
Analyzing the long term impacts of FTC’s activist litigation
In all the chaos of allegations, counter allegations, scores of testimonies, rebuttals, cross-examinations, and others, I humbly request that Judge Koh and the FTC pause for a moment and ponder this question: “If Qualcomm loses this...
As a telecom and wireless analyst and columnist for more than 30 years, countless companies have tried to get on my radar. Of that long list, only a small percentage actually become leaders in their space. Let me tell you about one of these...
Much of the activity on 5G spectrum in the US to date has focused on millimeter (mmWave) spectrum, but it is not clear that mmWave spectrum will be suitable for mobile 5G network deployment in the near to mid-term future. High-band spectrum offers higher...
A critical challenge facing 4G LTE fixed wireless operators is how to cost-effectively increase site capacity. Although there are many options available, including Massive MIMO, sectorization is one of the most cost effective, expedient and practical means of doubling site capacity.
Most LTE base...
The ongoing saga between FTC and Qualcomm
It is unbelievable when one of the world’s richest companies complains that it is an undue burden to pay for the innovations that power its high margin products. But it sure looks like a well-orchestrated war on innovation...
Mobile World Congress 2019 in Barcelona, Spain, is coming soon. This is the largest international wireless trade show and MWC19 is expected to be full of big announcements from the global leaders in wireless. Let’s take a sneak peak, regarding what we can expect...
The notion of “peak smartphone” is widely discussed of late, including by the Economist. Revenues are flattening with longer replacement cycles, saturating markets, resistance to Apple’s price increases, decreasing prices among Android’s fiercely competitive OEMs and allegedly diminishing technical improvements in successive new device...
All municipalities are challenged to implement a smart cities strategy. There is interest to ensure that the mobile infrastructure can provide excellent coverage and meet the ever increasing capacity demands. They also want to implement smart city applications to streamline their municipal operations, provide...
The industry announcement of the Open Retail Initiative (ORI), (see this blog as well), spearheaded by Intel and Dell, couldn’t have come at a better time. Pithy statements like “Data is the new oil” and “Data is the future” sound great, but the reality...
Apple presented bad news last week about iPhone sales, and their stock came tumbling downhill. While this crisis does not have to be permanent, as a wireless analyst, I have been following this company and their key product the iPhone for more years than...
Wireless pay TV is growing, and that growth will only accelerate with 5G in the next couple years. AT&T DirecTV NOW started the party by offering wireless pay TV over the last year or two. Based on their success, Verizon says they will follow....
We’ve been hearing more and more about 5G wireless pay TV, but when will it come to market? It started several years ago when the wireless world was all about 4G. AT&T DirecTV NOW started the whole ball rolling. Verizon seeing the success of...
Have you heard the phrase “converting poison into medicine?” Well, that’s kind of what is happening to the PC industry now. Let me explain. Not too long ago, the rise of powerful smartphones and tablets, which were primarily powered by ARM processors, decimated the...
What is the IoT edge? Where is the IoT edge? I want to put a stake in the sand on my definition of this oft misunderstood term.
Having just completed a podcast with Qualcomm discussing IoT edge computing (take a listen here), I was struck...
So, you want more social media followers? Who doesn’t? Whether you use Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram or any other platform, it seems everyone is focused on building their social media follower list. I have had discussions with many successful people who have earned tens...
