Perhaps the most-startling new argument T-Mobile US is making in support of its merger with Sprint is the ability to use the 5G network to provide the equivalent of fixed network internet access without using fixed wireless, relying solely on the mobile network to reach about half of all U.S. [...]

Most observers spend way too much time worrying about which firm or country is ahead or behind in 5G. Ultimately, what matters is how much value any firm or nation can wring out of a platform. We have seen this before, in fixed network broadband generally. “Is there a broad economic societal [...]

The value of 5G is more clear, the danger less real if two somewhat contradictory sets of values are kept in mind. As a practical matter, 4G capacity–even with a massive shift to small cells–runs out of ability to support ever-growing demand. In that vein, 5G is simply the next [...]

5G will produce some incremental revenue. Just how much is not yet clear. It seems clear enough that 5G prices will be constrained by competitive pressures, no less than 4G was.   Mike Sievert, T-Mobile US COO already has said that 5G pricing plans will not be set at higher rates than today’s [...]

In the 3G era, business models were  unclear at the onset. And though we forget, that was true for the 4G era as well. So we should not be surprised that uncertainty exists around 5G. In fact, present views on 5G introduction seem similar to that of 3G, according to McKinsey consultants. “The [...]

It was easier to find skeptics about 5G capital investment costs a few years ago, when some predicted service providers could not afford 5G at all, because of the huge increase in cell sites an backhaul requirements. But service providers have found many ways to contain costs, in part by [...]

The amount of traffic offloaded from smartphones will be 59 percent by 2022, and the amount of traffic offloaded from tablets will be 72 percent. Some have speculated that Wi-Fi offload would be less relevant after 4G networks are in place because of the faster speeds and more abundant [...]

Over the past 20 years (some time after consumer Wi-Fi was launched about 1997)  there has been a recurring–if now relatively muted–theme in the wireless access business: is Wi-Fi a substitute for mobile access? The 2006 launch of Fon showed the degree of commercial interest. In [...]

Everyone seems to agree that mobile 5G networks using millimeter wave spectrum will require denser backhaul networks, as the millimeter waves will not reach as far as lower-frequency spectrum. How much new fiber will be required depends on how much smaller the cell sites are, existing assets to [...]

“Mobile substitution” for voice has been a global trend since the advent of 2G networks. In fact, mobile is the only sort of ubiquitous network in most parts of the world. But that now might become an issue for internet access as well. “I will say over time three to five year time [...]

As U.S. mobile operators get ready to launch–or have already launched–5G services, the sparring over “who is first with 5G” and “who is offering real 5G” has intensified, just as some of the mobile service providers argue about who has “the fastest [...]

The global telecom industry began to move from monopoly to competition in the late 1980s and early 1990s. So in some cases we now are 40 years into that process, and most countries have telecom markets that are competitive in most respects. But we might be on the cusp of something maybe we did [...]