“Assets” and “value” are not the same thing. The former can be shown on financial statements; the latter not so much. And an argument might be made that mobile operator asset value is becoming more driven by spectrum licenses and troves than other network-related [...]

Structural separation of retail opeations from network ownership was a bigger idea several decades ago than at present, even if a handful of markets have moved that way in a formal sense in Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The key idea is to create an independent [...]

There is plenty of room to debate how fast new applications might arise in the 5G era, but some believe commercialization of new applications in the 5G era could be faster than in the 6G era, as enterprise use cases will dominate in 6G, while consumer apps might still lead the way in 5G, albeit [...]

As the U.S. spectrum auction of 3.4-GHz spectrum nears an end, $22 billion already has been bid on those assets, with an average price per MegaHertz per person of about 65 cents. Some will argue that directly increases capital investment by the winning entities. Others will agree, but enumerate [...]

Despite some criticism of 5G value at the moment, 5G subscriptions are on a growth trajectory that seems at least the equal of 4G and arguably is happening faster. And most forecasts fast 5G adoption compared to 3G, for example, on the model of 4G, which also was adopted faster than 3G.   [...]

As new data from PwC shows, mobile networks are the way most human beings globally get access to the internet. Fixed connections continue to increase, but at a low rate. Mobile connections not only represent most of the connections, but also are growing faster than fixed connections. As a [...]

Most observers now seem to agree that 5G incremental revenue is likely to come in a few ways: new enterprise use cases; fixed wireless access and some incremental shift of consumer service plans. But only fixed wireless allows immediate opportunities to vertically integrate and [...]

What 5G means is different for mobile operators, consumers and enterprises. For mobile operators, 5G means lower costs per bit, a new way to create virtual private networks that can be differentiated, ways to create roles in internet of things and edge computing. Latency performance, which [...]

Proponents of open approaches to radio access networks tout its cost savings. Opponents often argue the savings will be not as great as claimed. Much hinges on assumptions about radio access network cost. Some argue the radio access network represents 70 percent of capital investment. Others [...]

Low earth orbit satellite constellations such as Spacelink will allow satellite broadband provides to serve 3.5 million subscribers in 2021, growing at an eight-percent compound annual growth rate to reach 5.2 million users in 2026, according to ABI Research. To keep that in perspective, in [...]

One occasionally hears comments about whether 5G “is real” or “will succeed.” The implication is that 5G so far is over-hyped, and that is a reasonable view, for the moment. The longer-term issue is whether 5G could actually fail. That seems an infinitesimally-small danger. No mobile [...]

Right now, there is a possible gap between users of 5G phones and users of 5G. Nearly 40 percent of 5G phone users leave 5G turned off all the time, a survey by Android Authority finds. What is not so clear from the results is whether all the surveyed users actually have 5G subscriptions. That [...]