Consumers are rational. That is why they use Wi-Fi. But they might be equally rational in the 5G era when there is no financial advantage to offloading mobile device access. The data seems [...]
With the caveat that many continue to doubt the likelihood, an argument can be made that, as mobile substitution has become a reality for voice services, messaging and now stands to happen for [...]
Coming 5G networks might change use cases in many ways. Growth of new use cases might well be driven by enterprise, not consumer apps, by sensors requiring communications, more than people needed [...]
One of the bigger problems with the shift of all forms of content and communications to internet protocol is that legacy services are disrupted by free and cheap product substitutes. “Voice,” for [...]
A new “big switch” is coming for the communications industry. Back in the 1980s, much was made of the idea that former over-the-air (wireless) broadband traffic (TV) was moving to the fixed [...]
One of the frustrations I have with discussions of network neutrality is the overly-broad application of the concept of “treating all bits alike” with the obvious reality that all bits are [...]
The internet has almost uniformly been positive for consumers–generating new value–while allowing some firms to ride new value propositions to huge business success. On the other [...]
Not too often does even the biggest bit of thinking by a research and development organization actually wind up adopted at a high commercial level. Nokia now is calling its 5G [...]
From 2009 to 2017–a period of eight years–consumer costs for mobile bandwidth fell two orders of magnitude (100 times). Over that period, their consumption also grew by about two [...]
There seems to be growing confusion about “5G” and other next-generation networks. I’ve heard commentary at recent conferences about how this or that platform is relevant for, or part of, 5G. It [...]
Will the telecom industry globally eventually look like the airline industry? Many would argue that will happen. In the global airline industry, not every nation has its own “branded” air [...]
Satellite roles in 5G are being adopted by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), the mobile standards development group. Specifically, 3GPP is looking at standards ensuring that [...]
As with all business decisions made by telecom firms, 5G strategies are shaped by the realm of possibility and practical evaluations of revenue and profit potential. Sprint has lots of 2.5-GHz [...]
Bandwidth might be a key issue for human users of mobile and fixed networks. For most machine-to-machine applications, bandwidth is far less an issue than sensor battery life, as the amount of [...]
The 5G era is going to be different from all others in the history of telecom, for several reasons. Traditionally, scarcity has been the paramount business constraint. Bandwidth was scarce and [...]