Ten million Chinese "reserved" 5G phones in the first two weeks of October, a powerful signal of high demand. Huawei thought they could all get phones in October. But the official figures are less than 1M 5G phones in October and ~5M in November. WTF? It could be an ordinary problem of ramping supply of a new product. It could be the official figures on phone sales are lagging reality by several weeks. more
Until now, the 5G industry has spread a lot of hype, but it hasn't affected customers. That's all starting to change as the cellular carriers are starting to offer 5G phones. Many customers who spend extra for 5G phones are going to quickly be frustrated and disappointed as they try to participate in the new 5G world. Consider both AT&T and T-Mobile. Both companies are introducing both a low-band and a high-band 5G phone, and customers who want 5G will have to choose... more
In the short ten years that they've been around, mobile apps have grown to become a staple of modern digital life. With more than five million apps currently available for download in the major app stores, and with over 2,000 new apps being uploaded every day, mobile apps are big business. Fifty-eight percent of shoppers consistently browse e-commerce apps and 49% of all website traffic now comes directly from mobile app users. All this browsing directly translates into spending. more
The past week in the 5G world was notable because of some major events in Reno in the 5G race to roll out the full 5G specifications known as Release 16. A set of seven major concurrent industry standards meetings were hosted there over five days last week. The metrics are indicative of who really participates in and shapes the rapidly emerging 5G platforms. more
The big wireless companies have been wrangling for years with the issues associated with placing small cells on poles. Even with new FCC rules in their favor, they are still getting a lot of resistance from communities. Maybe the future of urban/suburban wireless lies with the big cable companies. Cable companies have a few major cost advantages over the wireless companies, including the ability to bypass the pole issue. The first advantage is the ability to deploy mid-span cellular small cells. more
We've now entered the period of 5G competition where the wireless carriers are trying to outdo each other in announcing 5G rollouts. If you believe the announcements, you'd think 5G is soon going to be everywhere. Device manufacturers are joining the fray and are advertising devices that can be used with the early carrier 5G products. Buyers beware -- because most of what the cellular companies and the manufacturers are hyping as 5G is not yet 5G. more
Everyone knows the $100B/year U.S. security apparatus taps almost the entire Internet. Friendly governments help from Australia to Canada to France. Companies like AT&T, Ericsson, Verizon, and Nokia obviously cooperate. The NSA assumes that China is attempting to do the same and that Huawei, as a Chinese company, will provide assistance. The evidence suggests otherwise. Huawei is the primary opponent of U.S. security. more
U.S. companies were selling $11 billion a year of parts to Huawei before the blockade. Losing those sales is just the start of the damage. Every other Chinese and Russian company is making sure to find non-US suppliers. The U.S. has threatened India and Turkey with sanctions as well. As other companies replace U.S. components, the impact will be tens of billions more than the $11 billion of Huawei suppliers. more
A colleague sent me an article that had been published earlier this year in MachineDesign magazine that predicts that driverless cars can't be realized until we have a ubiquitous 5G network. When looking for the original article on the web I noticed numerous similar articles like this one in Forbes that have the same opinion. These articles and other similar articles predict that high-bandwidth, low-latency 5G networks are only a few years away. more
This year is the twentieth anniversary of the formation of the Wi-Fi Alliance and the launch of commercial Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi has become so ubiquitous in our lives that it's hard to believe that it's only been twenty years since all broadband connections came with wires. In 1999 most people were still using dial-up, and that's the year when early adapters started buying DSL. I remember having incredibly long phone cords so that I could use my laptop at different places around the house. more
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