Mobile & Wireless Roundup #20

Welcome to the 20th edition of this newsletter. Yesterday, SMS turned 30 and it’s still going strong. Vodafone UK has a nice little feature on their website on this topic here . Ben Wood has written an article about this on The Mobile Phone Museum Blog here . Omdia has an infographic here but you will have to provide your details. The reason SMS is still so popular can be understood from the XKCD comic below.

For those of you who don’t know me, I am a technologist with over 23 years’ experience in mobile wireless technology, currently working as an independent analyst, consultant and a trainer. This newsletter is a summary of my posts and others news that caught my attention since the last newsletter.

3G4G brands have over 100k followers across several channels. If you need help promoting your company, content or just taking it to the next level, feel free to get in touch.

? 2023 Predictions

• Deloitte: TMT Predictions 2023 (link )

? 6G

• Free 6G Training: Introduction to "6G SENTINEL" Project in Germany (link )
• Light Reading: No 6G, please, we're British Telecom (link )
• Evolution of Extended Reality (XR) devices will play a key role in 6G. Here is a Qualcomm presentation on Enabling the metaverse with 5G. (link )
• Light Reading - 6G spectrum: A game of centimeters (link )

? 5G

• Four Ways 5G Can Improve the Battery Life of User Equipment (link )
• How 5G empowered Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics in China (link )
• Joseph Noronha on LinkedIn: Telco API redux - lessons learnt the hard way (link )
• RCR Wireless: Start-up lays claim to ‘first commercial 5G over lasers’ (link )
• Light Reading: How Asian telcos took on saturated markets with 5G – and lost (link )
• CommsUpdate: stc, Huawei install SuperLink solution in Saudi Arabia (link ) – I explained Super Uplink in Connectivity Technology Blog here .

? 4G/LTE

• The 3G4G Blog: 4G/5G Disaster Roaming in 3GPP Release-17 (link )

? 2G/3G

• Operator Watch Blog: Zimbabweans Still Struggle With Mobile Internet on 3G (link )

? Open RAN/vRAN

• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: NTT Docomo Expands Open vRAN Options in its 5G OREC (link )
• ICYM this tutorial on 'Open RAN Terminology and Players' (link )
• Dell’Oro: Samsung, Fujitsu, NEC, and Mavenir Are the Top 4 Open RAN Vendors (link )
• Light Reading: Deutsche Telekom hits open RAN delays – sources (link )

? Private Networks

• Trade Arabia: Bahrain first in GCC to release spectrum for 5G private networks (link )
• Light Reading: China well ahead on 5G private networks? Depends (link )
• Deutsche Telekom sets even faster pace for fiber rollout. A total of 32 companies are now already relying on 5G Campus Networks (link )

? IoT / M2M / Smart Homes

• MWL: Orange announced it was set to discontinue a smart home service in France along with the associated iOS and Android apps, citing a very weak market for services related to connected objects (link )

? Cloud & Edge

• Cisco: Deploying the First 5G Network with Hybrid Cloud (link ) – LI discussion (link )
• SDXcentral: Edge Compute Adoption Inches Along, Analysys Mason Finds (link )

? Connected And Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs)

• Deutsche Telekom: Automated driving with 5G Network Slicing and Quality of Service (link )

? Smartphones, Devices, Wearables & Gadgets

• 9to5MAC: First reported use of Emergency SOS via Satellite saves snowmobiler in Alaska (link )

? Satellite Connectivity

• PCmag: Huge Satellite for Cellular Broadband Successfully Deploys (link )
• Capacity Media: SpaceX plans giant satellite antenna to enable cellphone services (link )
• Ookla: Starlink Speeds Dipped Slightly During Q3 2022 as the Space Race Heats up (link )

? Wi-Fi

• ComputerWeekly: Wi-Fi ‘essential’ to bridge the digital divide in rural areas (link )

? Metaverse

• Metro UK: EU spends over ￡330,000 on lavish Metaverse party – but only six people turn up (link )

? Other News and Technology Stuff

• DISCO: Internet Traffic Growth Is NOT Out of Control, and Nothing Like Telcos Want You To Believe (link )
• Dean Bubley : “A new post on some dynamics around network costs, large content / cloud players, and some fallacies of those lobbyists demanding payments for network infrastructure from Internet companies” (LinkedIn post )
• James Robinson on Twitter: “NZ outlines 10-year #digital connectivity vision. Reflects on progress towards delivering world-class #telecoms infrastructure and sets outs ambitions for improving access. Rural network coverage and performance two main challenges. 5G, fibre, satellite some of the opportunities” (link )

? Picture of the week: Eutelsat OneWeb , the low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite communications company, will launch 40 satellites with SpaceX no earlier than Tuesday, 6 December 2022, from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This launch will be OneWeb’s 15th to date, and its second since resuming its launch campaign with a successful flight from India in October, placing the company on track to deliver global coverage in 2023. (link )

The picture shows all of the 40 satellites in the dispenser as shared on Twitter here . They will now be encapsulated to the fairing as shown in an earlier Tweet here . Encapsulation is when the payload — a satellite, piece of scientific instrument or other item to be launched into space — is surrounded by the “fairing” — a smooth, protective cover placed around the payload which protects it while reducing atmospheric drag on the rocket as it is launched into space. (read more in MilsatMagazine here )

Happy to hear your thoughts. Feel free let me know what worked, what didn’t, how I can make this better, etc. Get in touch over LinkedIn!

PDF version of this and previous newsletters are available here .