Cable wireless will be "humongous," in the U.S. a cable VP tells me. The cable buildout appears inevitable. I see evidence of that at every wireless event. One possible roadblock: wireless incumbents offering cable an almost unbelievably cheap deal is a rational business move.

The marginal cost of bits on wireless is falling 40%/year and is already very low. If cable is coming in anyway, a telco like Sprint or AT&T could offer a resale deal not far above the cost of cable building their own networks. No one at the telcos has suggested this would happen, but the possibility belongs in the analysis. 

The cablecos are moving already. I see Charter ads in the New York subway. C & C are offering attractive deals to their existing customers, the majority of the population. Both are reselling Verizon service for now and moderating their growth while they build systems.

ITU IMT 2020 defined 5G. FG 2030 is an open group, free to all. At the first meeting last week, I moved forward a draft proposal that EMBB - Enhanced Mobile Broadband - be designed to make broadband available to all. The EMBB problem was addressed but wasn't adequately solved in 5G. (Some  of) the performance is being achieved by 5G but not at a cost affordable to half the world. My thoughts were treated respectfully and several encouraged me to attend the next meeting in Hong Kong in December. There's an active mailing list and ITU believes in remote participation.

All you have to do is go to http://bit.ly/6Gfuture and find the mailing list information in the lower right. You may need to register for an ITU TIES guest account, but it's free. 

If you are respectful and have relevant points to make, you will be welcome. Like any group, you're most effective if you understand the way people are accustomed to working. I will be happy to point people to the right information and help understand the systems. The Chair, Dr. Richard Li, and the staff treated me graciously.

Much of the discussion is about advanced topics like the latency needed to deliver holograms, but I was welcomed by the group on "use cases." Delegates from India and Brazil supported, and the leaders of the group helped me understand how to shape my ideas into the right form. 

5G is not going to be an expensive network build, according to Verizon, NTT DOCOMO, France Telecom, and Qualcomm. The latest data come from Qualcomm, the only company able to demonstrate a mobile phone sized set of chips. Qualcomm simulations, based on data from several test trials, show existing towers can cover two-thirds of most cities.“Based on our extensive over-the-air testing and channel measurements, significant outdoor coverage  (> 65%) is possible utilizing actual existing LTE sites. The 65% coverage figure is outdoor only. mmWave is blocked by some wall/windows and passes through others. Verizon is using outdoor antennas but hopes to allow customer self-installs indoor. 

Upgrading existing cells first drastically brings down costs. Verizon and I believe AT&T are choosing to do most mmWave from existing cells. The illustration is from a Verizon presentation. It shows a dense area where fewer cells are needed in 5G. In areas like this, the greater capacity of the new tech allows shutting down cells. Verizon hasn't given us enough data to know what percent of the network can have fewer cells. They certainly will not be able to reduce the number in rural areas, where they are needed for coverage. 

5G phones will be in short supply until the fabs, especially TSMC, add more high-end capacity. (Probably second half of 2019.) 5G New Radio requires much more complicated chips. Linley, an analyst I respect, estimates NR chips are ten times as complicated as previous generations. Without the most advanced chip processes, speed and power requirements cannot be met. Only three companies in the world are manufacturing at that level: TSMC, Samsung, and Intel. Only TSMC is shipping this year. At this node, the plants alone cost US$6 billion and development support costs billions more. Global Foundries gave up.

Ted Rappaport says we'll have mmWave phones by Xmas, but that may be only a very few around the world. Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg doesn't expect very many phones until the second half of 2019. He told Wall Street he is pressing his suppliers to do better

Huawei, and MediaTek are reliant on TSMC's 7 nm chip foundry. Apple has already bought 75% of what TSMC can produce in the near term. See chart from EE Times.

Ted Rappaport pointed me to Jerry Pi's paper from 2011, one of the very earliest contributions to 5G mmWave. Pi wrote An introduction to millimeter-wave mobile broadband systems when was at Samsung. He writes, "The first publication is a patent application in 2010. As you know, Samsung was the first to show a 28 GHz 5G demo to the world in 2013, while most other companies just started to look into this idea. In my view this certainly helped Samsung establish its technology and product leadership in 5G and grow its 5G business."

Samsung's leadership in wireless research is paying off big time, with Samsung now supplying Verizon. Samsung's showcase customer is Reliance Jio in India, now with 225 million 4G subscribers after only two years. Jio and China's 344M fiber home lines connected (not passed) are the two most spectacular achievements in my 20 years reporting broadband.

In 2012, Samsung became true believers in mmWave and put hundreds of engineers to work. (Ted visited and presented to them.) The complexity of chips and networks today is astonishing. An effort like Samsung, Qualcomm, or Ericsson involves thousands of engineers and billions of dollars. 

4G can be faster than 90% of 5G currently planned. LAA allows a telco to combine their licensed spectrum with any other available spectrum, such as the Wi-Fi bands. It usually adds 50% to 100% more capacity, as it did here. Every engineer knows mid-band 5G is just 4G LTE with a little software, New Radio. Verizon's 5G is millimeter wave, with three times the capacity. But almost everyone else, including the Chinese, Koreans, and every European, are planning on mid-band for at least the next four years. It's 70% to 90% slower than millimeter wave.

Mid-band is mostly 100-400 megabits, actual speeds to customers. 4G might be 100-330 megabits, perhaps a quarter slower, with similar spectrum and antennas. LAA can add 200 megabits or so to LTE. 5G does not support LAA so is slower than an advanced 4G system. When 5G LAA is introduced, it will be slightly faster. The difference will mean nothing to most customers.

Without Ted Rappaport, Verizon would not be turning on 5G today. In 2012, almost nobody believed millimeter wave was practical for consumer wireless. In 2013, NYU's Ted Rappaport wrote Millimeter Wave Mobile Communications for 5G Cellular: It Will Work! based on thousands of tests his team did in the skyscrapers of New York. (Abstract below) 

      Ted's results were much better than almost anyone else expected and inspired the Nokia and Ericsson to confirm with their own testing. On October 1st, 2018, Verizon is turning on a true gigabit 5G network. Yes, I realize my headline is an exaggeration. Someone else would have discovered the properties of mmWave, probably years later. We wouldn't have it today.

      He just won the Armstrong Medal from the Radio Club of America. He's particularly honored to win this because, "when I was a dirt poor college student, and newly married, this organization gave me a scholarship that helped me decide to stay for grad school instead of taking a job." 

Prepared for the ITU Focus Group on Technologies for Network 2030. Technology plans should be designed to advance the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. Will the design produce robust infrastructure, everywhere?  Will the proposed networks be affordable for all? What will be the requirements for investment and are they realistic for developing nations? What is the impact on competition and the resulting effect on consumer costs?

People more qualified than I will be discussing possibilities like terahertz spectrum and microscopic antennae. What I want to do is put some questions on the table crucial to the cost of access and deploying everywhere. These are questions, not conclusive opinions. The groups making standards very rarely have considered the requirements of the developing world, which include low costs and simple deployment.

Some issues that might arise in coming wireless networks include: