Sprint & HAPSMobile Will Perform 4G Aeriel HAPS Testing

FierceWireless Reported:

Sprint plans to test a High Altitude Platform Stations (HAPS) communications system for six months starting in November. 

Documents filed (PDF) with the FCC show the carrier has asked for a “special temporary authority” to conduct demonstrations of experimental transmitters using spectrum frequencies ranging from the 1.9 GHz personal communications service (PCS) band and the 2.5 GHz broadband radio service (BRS) and educational broadband service (EBS) bands. 

The tests will be conducted with HAPSmobile, a joint venture between Sprint’s parent Softbank and AeroVironment that was formed in 2017. 

Sprint said it will be testing a HAPS system’s ability to maintain a stable LTE link with ground equipment over the island of Lanai, Hawaii. It will also test handover capabilities with end user equipment and signal coverage over the island. 

Mobile World Live added:

Though initial tests would focus on LTE, Sprint’s proposed use of 2.5GHz spectrum raises the possibility it has an eye toward using the technology for 5G.

Related Posts:

• Connectivity Technology Blog: HAPSMobile - Bringing Connectivity from the Sky for Unserved Areas & Emergencies
• Small Cells Blog: KT 5G Skyship Search and Rescue Platform
• Small Cells Blog: Altaeros’ Autonomous Tethered Aerial Cell Tower, SuperTower ST200

C Spire: Connecting the Rural Unconnected in USA

C Spire is the United States' sixth-largest wireless provider, operating in the three states of Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee.

C Spire started out in the 1950s as  a local exchange carrier, later adding cellular service. In recent years, it has broadened its scope to include building middle-mile fiber and fiber-to-the-home networks and data centers and also offering a wide range of residential and business services throughout Mississippi and other parts of its service area. Many of these developments were made with the aim to spur on economic development in those areas.

C Spire is based in Mississippi one of least connected and most rural states in the country. 
 In 2017 study from the Mississippi State University Center for Technology Outreach that found the state’s lack of broadband access, and slow internet speeds result in rural counties losing millions of dollars each year in deferred economic benefits.

As a result of these disparities and economic losses C Spire along with Airspan Networks, Microsoft, Nokia, and Siklu formed a group in late January 2019 in order to find new approaches to solving the broadband gap. The group also aims to create new business models that regional fixed and wireless broadband providers, and utilities can use to enhance adoption in rural areas.

The group launched a website to house updates on the consortium’s testing and deployment efforts with broadband technologies including TV white spaces, massive MIMO using Band 41 LTE spectrum, and C Spire’s fixed wireless 5G product. And published a white paper (PDF) with information about the rural broadband access issue.

C Spire’s Chief Innovation Officer Craig Sparks said in a statement that the consortium is on track to achieve its goal of developing a new blueprint for closing the broadband access gap, with work initially focused on the state of Mississippi. 

Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee make up the primary territory served by C Spire
and are fairly rural states, ranked 47, 42, and 33 respectively in terms of urban population. Not surprisingly, broadband access in Mississippi is one of the lowest in the nation; it is currently ranked 46, while Alabama and Tennessee are ranked 40 and 25 respectively. Today, approximately 28% of Mississippians (829,000 people) lack access to fixed broadband. As with the rest of the US, lack of access in the state is much higher in most rural counties. 

The primary challenge to bringing broadband to rural communities is economic. Rural areas are less densely populated. The cost to serve each customer increases as customer density decreases. This results in either a much longer return on investment (ROI) period or a
much higher price for services for the rural neighborhood compared to the denser neighborhood. With fewer customers and less available revenue, competition becomes less common in less populated areas.

 There are also technology challenges, including very rough terrain, power and backhaul availability,and distance limitations to fiber and wireless transmissions, etc. that are a struggle to overcome even with an infinite amount of money. It is entirely possible that some areas of the United States (and the world) cannot be served until those technology problems are solved. Therefore broadband adoption initiatives such as this one by C Spire and their partners is of vital importance. 

US mmWave Spectrum Auction Results in 24 GHz & 28 GHz

Fortune reported:

The federal government’s latest auction of airwave rights that can be used for super-fast 5G mobile phone service brought in only $2.7 billion, a fraction of the amounts raised in earlier sales for 3G and 4G airwaves.

AT&T and T-Mobile were the top bidders, with each spending almost $1 billion for rights in the 24 GHz and 28 GHz bands, the Federal Communications Commission said on Monday. Verizon, which already owned a considerable amount of airwaves in the 28 GHz band before the auction, spent $521 million.

Meanwhile, United States Cellular spent $256 million, Boston-based wireless broadband startup Starry spent $48 million, and data carrier Windstream spent $27 million. The auction didn’t draw any bids from cable companies and big tech players that have previously shown an interest in wireless.

The total was far less than the $20 billion to $45 billion that the wireless industry spent each at auctions over the past decade covering airwaves in the 600 MHz, 700 MHz, and 1700 MHz bands. Sometimes referred to as the millimeter wave bands, the high frequency airwaves sold at the latest auction can carry a tremendous amount of data, but they don’t travel nearly as far as lower frequency bands and can be blocked easily by buildings and trees.

FCC website:

• Winning Bidders Announced for Auction of 28 GHz Upper Microwave Flexible Use Service Licenses (Auction 101)

• Auction of 24 GHz Upper Microwave Flexible Use Service Licenses Closes; Winning Bidders Announced for Auction 102

Tables from Light Reading Article here.

Pie charts at the top from Allnet Blog post here.


Related Posts:

• New Tutorial on 5G Spectrum

Sprint Keynote from #B5GS 2019 - Power of Massive MIMO and Band 41 5G NR

Sprint CTO, John Saw, talked about their 5G plans and how this new ecosystem promises to disrupt a number of market verticals such as agriculture, health care, and manufacturing at the Brooklyn 5G Summit 2019. He specifically focussed on Massive MIMO and shared a use case of its integration of 4G with 5G.

In case you are not aware, Sprint has a big chunk of Band 41 (above picture) available that they have been using for variety of stuff (see 3G4G blog post on HPUE & Small Cells blog post on MagicBox)

Some great TDD Massive MIMO slides by John Saw, CTO, Sprint (@SprintCTO) from #B5GS #5G #ENDC pic.twitter.com/WceAxel1uF

— 3G4G (@3g4gUK) April 24, 2019

Sprint will be launching 5G on 31st May in 4 cities with LG V50 and HTC 5G Hub. You can learn all about 5G devices from my MWC post on The 3G4G blog here.

Here is the video, courtesy of IEEE TV




Related posts:

• Sprint: Small Cells and 5G
• Sprint's Small Cells in the stadium
• Sprint's Magic Box
• Sprint's Trebl: Magic Box + Alexa + HiFi Speakers
• Sprint's Outdoor Small Cells - In Pictures
• High Power / Performance User Equipment (#HPUE)

AT&T: Winning the Connected Car market in the USA

AT&T has trumpeted their connected car achievements in a recent news article on their website. Their main achievements:

• Added more than 2 million cars in Q3 2018
• Bringing the total number of connected cars to nearly 24 million
• Connect more than 3 million fleet vehicles
• Relationships with 29 top global brands 
• Over a million customers on unlimited data plans where they can convert their connected cars into Wi-Fi hotspots
• Since the introduction of unlimited plans in 2017, subscribers have used 45 million Gigabytes (GB) or 45 Petabytes (PB) of data
• AT&T global SIM provides IoT connectivity across 500 carriers and 200+ countries and territories. 
• AT&T connects cars in 57 countries, including 12 where infotainment is enabled through Wi-Fi hotspots.

According to Fierce Wireless:

A number of those automotive companies physically install an AT&T LTE modem into their cars, thus giving customers an option to pay AT&T $20 per month (or $10 per month for existing customers) in order to create a bubble of Wi-Fi connectivity using AT&T’s LTE network for backhaul. (AT&T said it may slow network speeds for customers who use more than 22 GB per month.)

For those motorists who don’t have a car equipped with an AT&T modem, the company recently introduced the Harman “Spark” device that plugs into the on-board diagnostics port (OBD II) in most vehicles built after 1996 and provides Wi-Fi connections alongside vehicle diagnostics and security. (AT&T’s Spark arrived on the market years after Verizon launched its similar Hum device and T-Mobile began selling its SyncUp Drive device.)

In addition to the above achievements, AT&T are very active in V2X standardisation and implementation. Here is what they say:

We’re serving in leadership positions across the industry, joining with other tech leaders to resolve key standards issues. This includes 5GAA, a cross-industry association between the cellular and automotive industries, the Automotive Edge Computing Consortium  of automotive, information technology, telecommunications, and cloud computing sectors, and the Auto-ISAC for automotive cybersecurity information sharing.

We expect vehicle-to-anything (V2X) connectivity technologies will help driverless vehicles to make virtually real-time decisions based on information that goes beyond the individual sensors onboard the vehicle itself.

Vehicles will be able to “see” around corners, in front and behind other vehicles – and at greater distances. This will eventually allow vehicles to quickly make sense of their surrounding environment as well as road ahead to help guide safe and efficient operations on the road.

For self-driving cars to interoperate with their environment and surrounding areas, it will be critical to have connectivity between vehicles, roadside units, pedestrians, and other infrastructure elements while navigating the roadways. Data analysis and decision capabilities will be largely processed onboard the vehicle utilizing various data sources from the vehicles and the surrounding intelligent transportation system.

But one of the most exciting aspects of automated vehicles is their ability to learn from other vehicles’ driving experiences in ways that human drivers simply cannot. This is where our 5G network comes into play. 5G will eventually allow for the necessary distribution of processed data to meet and exceed the needs of the automated vehicle.

The algorithms that govern AV operation can be continually improved as automated vehicles encounter new driving situations. For those improvements to be made, data must be collected, analyzed, and synthesized into improved algorithms to then be distributed to other vehicles. 5G will ultimately help create faster and more efficient exchange of this data, allowing these automated vehicles to distribute and receive data and function even better.

5G multi-gigabit speeds, distributed edge networks, and low latency services can help these capabilities to become a reality in years to come.

And self-driving cars and 5G will ultimately usher new opportunities for in-vehicle entertainment and engagement when drivers have more time on their hands.

USA gets two faux 5G networks

From Android Headlines, back in July:

Regional wireless carrier C-Spire claims it already launched 5G service in the United States, having announced it’s now offering a next-generation fixed wireless access solution in select locations across Mississippi earlier this week. While the company is referring to its solution as 5G, it’s not basing it on the 3GPP’s Release 15 or any other standard released by the wireless consortium. Instead, it’s using proprietary hardware and a set of close-sourced IEEE 802.11 specifications, so while the service offers faster speeds compared to 4G LTE, it likely wouldn’t be considered as “true” 5G by anyone outside of C-Spire.


Another one from Android Headlines regarding Verizon's 5G Fixed Wireless:

A number of officials from the stateside wireless segment dismissed Verizon’s claim of having the world’s first commercial 5G network and customers. Speaking with AndroidHeadlines under the condition of anonymity, several industry veterans pointed to the examples of Qatari carrier Ooredoo and Mississippi operator C-Spire as clear evidence that Verizon’s claims about the uniqueness of its 5G Home service are entirely false. Much like Verizon, C-Spire and several other telecom companies abroad already launched fixed wireless access solutions reliant on a proprietary specification that’s in no way associated with the 3GPP, the organization responsible for standardizing the next generation of cellular connectivity.

Here is what John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile USA had to say about Verizon's 5G launch

We have a different vision! @TMobile will have 5G across the country – and the New T-Mobile will build a 5G network that’s both broad & deep - NATIONWIDE. Ask Verizon if their proprietary non-standards 5G* will eventually work on any phones in the market.... (SPOILER: they won’t)

— John Legere (@JohnLegere) October 1, 2018

Related Posts:

• Lesotho: First 5G launch in Africa
• Orange Romania: 1st European 5G multi-vendor Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) test
• San Marino launches first nationwide 5G network
• Three Middle East Operators launch 'World's First' 5G Networks

T-Mobile, USA: 5G, LAA & Small Cells

T-Mobile has a bold vision of providing nationwide 5G network. They have 600 MHz band available which can provide them with a nationwide 5G coverage layer but would that be enough? I have done some analysis on this topic on 3G4G blog here. They have a nice video on their 5G vision as shown below:



Recently they have also deployed a 5G tech truck to bring these benefits to end users.

According to TmoNews:

The T-Mobile Tech Truck hit the road today, beginning a journey that’ll take it across the country to help people experience the benefits of 5G as well as other tech being developed by T-Mobile. The exhibit will include connected drones, interactive displays to show how smart cities will become cleaner and more efficient, and AR and VR experiences that T-Mo says will improve how we communicate.


In addition to 5G, T-Mobile has been deploying small cells with LAA or License Assisted Access. This is helping them reach Gigabit LTE.

With Verizon and AT&T working towards 5G in high throughput mmWave band both T-Mobile and Sprint can differentiate themselves with nationwide 5G. In fact this is the main value proposition for T-Mo and Sprint merger, that they complement each other with regards to 5G bands and if they merge than US could be 5G leader.

Source: ZDnet

We will have to wait and see who wins the 5G race in the USA.

Related Posts:

• 3G4G Blog: Minimum Bandwidth Requirement for 5G Non-Standalone (NSA) Deployment
• 3G4G Small Cells Blog: T-Mobile USA is deploying 25K small cells with LAA
• 3G4G Small Cells Blog: Some pictures of Small Cells from California (USA)
• 3G4G Small Cells Blog: T-Mobile USA Small Cells - backhauled via dark fiber

Sprint: Small Cells and 5G

Sprint has been in news for their small cells and 5G, in addition to possible merger with T-Mobile. In a recent blog post, Jon Saw, CTO of Sprint mentioned that they have over 15,000 outdoor small cells and over 65,000 magic boxes. Here are some links regarding small cells:

• 3G4G Small Cells Blog: Sprint's Outdoor Small Cells - In Pictures
• 3G4G Small Cells Blog: Sprint's Small Cells in the stadium
• 3G4G Small Cells Blog: Sprint's Magic Box

Sprint are also building on their legacy TD-LTE experience to deploy massive MIMO for LTE and 5G. The fact that Sprint has a lot of 2.5 GHz spectrum will help them massively in 5G rollouts.

To make their subscribers aware of their 5G vision, they have also created a new Sprint 5G YouTube channel. The playlist below expands further on their vision.


Related posts:

• The 3G4G Blog: High Power / Performance User Equipment (#HPUE)
• The 3G4G Blog: Using 8T8R Antennas for TD-LTE

AT&T: Lessons learned from 5G Trials

Dave Wolter, AVP, Radio Technology & Strategy, AT&T Labs, Inc spoke at the 5G New Horizons event back in May and talked about lessons learned from 5G trials.  I wrote about AT&T trials couple of years back. In the last couple of years, there are a lot of lessons learned. Here is the video:

Verizon's 5G Progress & Plans

Verizon plans to launch 5G in at least 4 cities this year, two that have already been announced being Sacramento and Los Angeles. This information is based on Lowell McAdam, Verizon chairman and CEO, speaking to CNBC's David Faber back in May.

Their intention is still to use millimeter wave bands (mmWave) in 28GHz and do a Fixed-wireless access (FWA). Lowell McAdam referred to this as ultra-wideband 5G as he says there will be different flavors of 5G.

The videos (playlist) below shows some of the trials and applications and the first video is particularly interesting as it tries to dispel the myths associated with mmWave bands.


Verizon have publicly announced that they are doing trials with Samsung, Ericsson and Nokia. According to Light Reading, Samsung is supplying the gear for Verizon's fixed 5G network in Sacramento, Calif., while Ericsson's equipment will be used in Los Angeles, the only two markets announced so far.

We will see Nokia equipment being deployed in another city soon as its being heavily promoted by their marketing department and rightly so.

Verizon is also working with innovative universities, start-ups and other companies to develop the use cases that will run on tomorrow’s 5G networks. At Alley, site of Verizon’s 5G incubator, five of these innovators are getting to use real 5G technology to develop, refine and demonstrate ways 5G networks will change the ways we live, learn, work and play.

We are looking forward to seeing real world results after the services are launched on Q4 2018.

Further Reading:

• Introduction to Fixed Wireless Access (FWA)

AT&T and Verizon are now tied for the rank of largest U.S. mobile carrier

Who leads the U.S. in mobile subscribers? According to mobile analyst Chetan Sharma, it’s now a neck-and-neck race between AT&T and Verizon who collectively controls 68 percent of the market.

At the end of March, AT&T had 116 million total connections, but that number includes all of its wholesale subscribers (those that connect with one of AT&T’s mobile virtual network operator partners) and machine-to-machine links attached to cars, gadgets and other devices in the internet of things. Verizon doesn’t report any of those numbers. It only reveals business and consumer retail subscribers buying their service directly from Verizon. That number totaled 103 million.

If you only factored in AT&T’s retail prepaid and postpaid customers you would get 85.1 million, but AT&T has a substantially larger wholesale business Verizon. So by Sharma’s calculations just as many people are connecting their phones and tablets and hotspots to AT&T’s network as Verizon.

Any way you look at it, these two carriers are huge. They collected control 68 percent of the U.S. wireless market. It’s also interesting to note that if Sprint were to merge with T-Mobile – as Sprint’s new chairman Masayoshi Son is so keen on doing– the two would hold a combined 30 percent of the U.S. mobile market.

That’s still smaller than either Big Red or Ma Bell, but definitely qualifies as a mega-carrier. And it doesn’t leave much room for the other guys. The 125 or so regional and rural carriers in the U.S. accounted for a meager 2 percent of all mobile subscriptions.

Source

US Wireless Market Trends Q1 2014