5G might not be a full replacement for Wi-Fi in all settings, but it is likely to happen in at least some industrial settings where manufacturers want greater control over latency performance of [...]
Spectrum aggregation now is among the major new methods mobile operators will use in the 5G and succeeding eras to dramatically boost capacity by orders of magnitude over 4G. Networks will [...]
Since a next-generation mobile network is launched about every decade, and since 5G is being launched now, that means we are roughly 10 years away from 6G. So although it seems crazy, researchers [...]
Consumers say they want 5G. Sure they do, just like they tell researchers they want all sorts of things, when price is not an object. Of course, price and value do matter, quite a lot. After they [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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. [...]
“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 [...]
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 [...]