Are we at the beginning of a more integrated connectivity market?
Over the past year, 5G rollout has been a major priority for communications service providers worldwide. However, something else is making waves simultaneously – satellite broadband. With the ability to reach more users than...
Run fast
Imagine yourself in the mountains with a friend on a back-packing adventure. While watching the sun rise up between the trees, you see a bear running straight at your tent. You shout to your friend that a bear is headed your way, but...
The conversations around, and investment in, spectrum and C-Band have accelerated rapidly.
In 2020 alone, companies spent over $80 billion purchasing C-Band spectrum at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) auction, which covered operating licences in the frequency range of 3.7 - 3.98 GHz. The...
Globally, telecoms spent over $8 billion in 5G infrastructure last year, while in the U.S. alone operators spent more than $80 billion on 5G spectrum. The key to unlocking a return on investment will depend on how effectively telecom service providers can monetize those...
Shortly after LTE reached maturity, service providers started facing new challenges to meet customer demand for high capacity and “always-on” connectivity with quick set-up and transition time, spurred by diverse new applications and extremely high data usage by subscribers. To address some of these...
Vendors and communication service providers (CSP) have been discussing the benefits of artificial intelligence (AI) for some time now, but so far it has amounted to little more than talking points. However, with 5G networks coming online around the globe, advanced use cases being...
You can't keep a good technology down! According to recent industry data, 5G is the fastest growing mobile technology in history – despite a pandemic and widespread lockdowns. Between Q3 2019 and Q3 2020, there were 225 million 5G subscribers. This remarkable feat took...
2020 was the year Open RAN became mainstream. As more operators started to trial and deploy the technology across the globe and as more radio, server, and software vendors joined the ecosystem, it became apparent that disaggregation of previously tightly coupled radio, hardware, and...
It is not often that a singular event has a profound impact on nearly every industry, but this year’s global pandemic did just that- and the telecommunications industry is no exception. In fact, in 2020, consumers and businesses relied on the connectivity provided by...
The 5G era is representative of many things – innovative new services, unprecedented speeds, new monetization opportunities and the spread of high-speed connectivity to previously untouched geographies. Yet, unlocking all this potential has been a challenge for service providers, and while the obstacles seem...
2020 saw the successful conclusion of 3.5 GHz CBRS spectrum auctions for Priority Access Licenses (PALs). Run by the FCC, the process raised $4.58 billion in bids and gave U.S. enterprises a golden opportunity to take direct ownership of their own future connectivity needs....
The coming of 5G networks represents a major advancement for the digital age—and it is coming rapidly. As of August 2020, 92 commercial 5G networks have been launched in 38 countries, according to the GSMA. Mobile data traffic is expected to quadruple by 2024, with 25 percent...
Editor's Note: You can read Part 1 of this piece here.
Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while you could miss it.
Wi-Fi has never been more important than it was in 2020, with distance learning and remote...
Pandemic, social distancing, flattening the curve, positivity rates, super-spreader events, quarantining, contact tracing, respiratory droplets, PPE – when we look back on 2020, these might be the obvious reflections. With a significant amount of work, school, and life conducted from home, 2020 highlighted the...
The hype of 5G is ushering in the potential for drastic network change and is driving service providers to prepare for the future. Today’s networks provide ubiquitous all-purpose IP connectivity to support all services. 5G, by definition, supports three major service classes: enhanced mobile...
5G has quickly become a technology that will affect everyone everywhere. While networks are still in the early deployment phase, the worldwide rollout has already begun. Almost every day we see a new announcement on another 5G deployment. GSMA Intelligence has reported that almost...
Most people familiar with the Citizens Broadband Radio System (CBRS) understand the three-tiered sharing model that designates lightly licensed General Authorized Access (GAA) users to the bottom tier with the lowest level of priority. However, CBRS players are often surprised to learn that while the...
Mobile network operators are investing heavily in next-generation 5G architecture. This new, more modern infrastructure puts enormous pressure on businesses to generate additional revenue. Even with subscriber taxes that offset the cost of high-speed 5G data, service providers must contend with perpetually decreasing profits.
But...
The disintermediated nature of open virtualized radio access networks (Open vRANs) is the key to the flexibility, cost savings and innovation that have made it a part of the plan for many mobile network operators (MNOs) that are expanding a 4G network or embarking...
Without accurate maps, it’s impossible to know what communities lack wireless services or how much it will cost to reach them
One thing that the COVID-19 global health crisis has taught us is that wireless connectivity is not a luxury but a necessity. Millions of...
The merits of Open RAN has become a topic of much debate in wireless circles. This is unsurprising since Open RAN will – or won’t – drive hundreds of billions of dollars of investment by telecom equipment manufacturers, mobile network operators and the investment...
5G deployments are starting to expand beyond the few city-wide showcases of the last couple of years. And new use cases for consumer and enterprises are being developed all the time. But it will take the parallel implementation of edge computing in the next...
Opening the C Band for 5G networks frees up spectrum for a number of years and represents a major opportunity for mobile operators. At 280 megahertz, the C Band is the largest chunk of mid-band spectrum the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has made available...
Delivering indoor connectivity has long dogged mobile network operators (MNOs). Whether it be the location of a building or the construction materials used, it is frequently difficult for mobile subscribers to get a reliable wireless signal from the MNO towers located outdoors. High-bandwidth wireless...
