mobile broadband

T-Mobile, Sprint about to turn U.S. mobile market into a threesome

29 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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Update: the deal is done.

The competitive mobile broadband market might not be as red in tooth and claw in the near future. According to several media outlets, T-Mobile and Sprint, the number three and four mobile carriers in the U.S., are on the verge of announcing a merger. It’s the second time they’ve gone down this path. According to CNBC, this time it’s because the competition is too much for the smaller Sprint…

Talks most recently broke off late last year after SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son decided he didn’t want to lose control of a combined company.

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U.S. mobile capacity still trailing demand

28 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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U.S. mobile network speeds dropped during 2017 when operators went all in with unlimited data plans, according to an analysis done by OpenSignal, a London-based mobile metrics consultancy. Carriers responded well, although speeds weren’t back up to pre-unlimited levels. But you can forget about mobile as a replacement for wireline service.

In the first half of 2017, AT&T and Verizon responded to competition from T-Mobile and Sprint and went back to offering unlimited data plans.… More

Truth is the first casualty of small cell deployments

5 March 2018 by Steve Blum
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Mobile broadband companies are increasingly getting it when it comes to aesthetics, but pledges made on the front end aren’t always fulfilled by construction and operations staff or backed up by management. Wireless lobbyists and public relations people understand that they need to speak the right words to massage away concerns about how small cell installations will look as they proliferate along urban and suburban streets. But those oh-so-sincere promises, accompanied by beautifully rendered conceptual drawings, don’t always survive the descent into contract language, let alone appear on poles.… More

Is it time for mobile carriers to scrap unlimited plans and bring back caps?

28 January 2018 by Steve Blum
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Pricing has a major impact on mobile data usage, and when marginal bits are free – as with unlimited plans – traffic jumps significantly. That’s the conclusion of a study by NPD Group, a market research firm that covers a number of industries, including telecommunications.

Subscribers with unlimited plans use 67% more mobile data than subs who have caps. Interestingly, though, people with capped plans consume 8% more data overall, when WiFi offloading is factored in.… More

5G mobile tech finally moves from marketing hype to a hard standard

23 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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A formal, implementable set of specifications for 5G mobile broadband technology and service is now final. The international organisation responsible for the standard – 3GPP – reached agreement on an initial set of specs at a meeting in Portugal on Thursday.

That means that equipment manufacturers can start making gear – first fixed, because that’s easiest, and then mobile – that meets an agreed upon 5G standard. Carriers can implement pilot projects that won’t be orphaned as the technology develops.… More

App challenge: what if you knew an earthquake will hit 5 seconds from now?

9 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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The biggest natural disaster threat to Californians comes from earthquakes, wild fires notwithstanding. One quake can take out more homes, businesses and infrastructure in a few seconds than all of this year’s fires combined. There’s no scientifically valid way of predicting earthquakes, so most people assume they strike without warning.

Not so. Earthquakes run for many seconds, even minutes. The first vibrations that ripple out are called P-waves, which seldom do damage but carry critical information about location and intensity several seconds ahead of the big shake.… More

Mobile industry group calls for less 5G hype while standards are established

2 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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A European trade group wants more 5G coordination and less marketing misdirection, while at the same time AT&T is running as fast as it can in the opposite direction. On the one hand, it’s an interesting contrast between the technocratic central planning that European telecoms companies often take comfort in (and often ignore, when it suits them), and the Wild West, grab-it-while-you-can ethic of the U.S. mobile industry.

On the other, it’s a useful reminder that the overheated press releases and aggressive lobbying by U.S.… More

Mobile data traffic forecast says seven-times growth in six years

30 November 2017 by Steve Blum
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Mobile data traffic growth will continue on a hockey stick trajectory, according to Ericsson’s latest Mobility Report. North American smartphone users will, on average, be consuming 7 gigabytes of data per month by the end of this year, and by 2023 will be burning through 48 GB per month, the most of any region.

This growth is the reason that mobile carriers are pushing hard to increase the density, and consequently the capacity, of their networks.… More

AT&T turns good 4G tech into bad 5G hype and worse public policy

29 November 2017 by Steve Blum
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Minneapolis is AT&T’s latest case study in deceptive, but well-lawyered, public statements. According to a company press release, AT&T is rolling out something that a casual reader might think is 5G…

Minneapolis is one of 20 markets where we plan to bring AT&T 5G Evolution by the end of the year, with this technology already available in parts of Austin and Indianapolis today. 5G Evolution offers customers a taste of the future of entertainment and connectivity on their devices.

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The hunt is on for a "balanced solution" to preemption of local wireless discretion

19 October 2017 by Steve Blum
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Preemption of municipal ownership of street lights and other vertical infrastructure failed in Sacramento this year because of overreach, not because there’s fundamental opposition to the concept. Mobile carriers and other telecoms companies will deploy bus loads of lobbyists armed with bags of cash sincerely worded nonsense arguments to push it through again next year.

The California legislature approved senate bill 649 by a slim, but sufficient, margin. Governor Jerry Brown finally nixed it, but said in his veto message that “there is something of real value in having a process that results in extending this innovative technology rapidly and efficiently”.… More