American Tower closed on its $10.1 billion buy of data center management company CoreSite, it said Tuesday. “As 5G deployments and wireless and wireline convergence accelerate, we expect to leverage CoreSite’s highly interconnected data center facilities and critical cloud on-ramps to drive strong, consistent, recurring growth while enhancing the value of our existing tower real estate through emerging edge compute opportunities,” said American Tower CEO Tom Bartlett.

CTIA, the Aerospace Industries Association and Airlines for America are sharing data and working together to find a way to allow use of the C band for 5G, they said Wednesday. “We are pleased that after productive discussions we will be working together to share the available data from all parties to identify the specific areas of concern for aviation,” the groups said: “The best technical experts from across both industries will be working collectively to identify a path forward, in coordination with the FAA and FCC.” Verizon and AT&T have been deploying gear but agreed not to turn it on until Jan. 5, a month later than originally planned (see 2111040042). Aviation interests noted concerns, in calls with commissioner aides (see 2112210063). “The wireless industry remains on track to launch 5G in the C-band on Jan. 5,” CTIA said. CTIA also reported on a call with staff from the Office of Engineering and Technology, Wireless and International bureaus. “C-Band 5G operations commencing in January will co-exist safely with aircraft and altimeters,” said a filing in docket 18-122. “The aviation industry’s public, unredacted data … does not support its sweeping pronouncements about coexistence concerns.” The FCC and FAA didn’t comment.

Aviation and aerospace representatives spoke with aides to all four FCC commissioners on wireless industry use of the C band for 5G. “Further delay and cooperation from the telecom industry are both essential to develop mutually agreeable temporary mitigations on cellular operations in order to maintain public safety,” they said, in a filing posted Tuesday in docket 18-122. The groups urged consideration of a safety proposal the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) filed Dec. 6. “The telecom industry’s proposed mitigations cannot adequately protect public safety, and we have yet to receive any feedback about our proposal or a willingness to consider it,” they said. “Absent further mitigations, and with the implementation of the FAA’s recent Airworthiness Directives (ADs), the aviation industry is anticipating impacts on 345,000 passenger flights, 32 million passengers, and 5,400 cargo flights in the form of delayed flights, diversions, or cancellations.” On the calls were AIA, Airlines for America, the Air Line Pilots Association, Aviation Spectrum Resources, Boeing, Collins Aerospace, Helicopter Association, Honeywell International and Lockheed Martin.

The “precise positioning” that 5G can render will benefit “a broad range of use cases and devices,” by bringing a “new dimension of location awareness” to IoT devices, blogged Qualcomm Technologies Friday. Though satellite-based global positioning works very well when there’s “clear line of sight” to multiple satellites, accurate positioning in “urban canyons with tall buildings” and other more challenging radio environments “needs the support of other technologies,” it said. When combining “next-level 5G connectivity” with AI, Qualcomm envisions a “wireless innovation platform” it calls the “connected intelligent edge” that leverages “on-device capabilities and analytics” that will grow stronger with “smarter, more capable devices,” it said.

Dish Network said Thursday it’s working with FreedomFi on what it calls the “world's first community-driven” neutral host 5G hotspot network, using citizens broadband radio service spectrum. “This collaboration furthers DISH's position that the next generation of wireless networks can be cloud-native open source platforms, leveraging” open radio access network technology, Dish said. FreedomFi, meanwhile, said it's making available a consumer-deployable cellular base station, which uses CBRS spectrum.

Pixelworks signed an “independent software vendor agreement” with MediaTek to collaborate on advanced visual display processing support for smartphone OEMs in the production of high-end 5G handsets, based on MediaTek's Dimensity 5G “open resource architecture” platform, said the companies Thursday.

The best way to measure the “network advantage” of 5G millimeter-wave technology isn't by its “coverage or connected time,” but by its ability “to reduce the growing data strain placed on cellular networks,” blogged Qualcomm Technologies Director-Product Marketing Nitin Dhiman. The “intended purpose” of 5G mmWave is to deliver “massive increases in localized capacity to address the ever-growing demand for data in key areas,” said Dhiman Wednesday. A Qualcomm analysis of field management data found 5G mmWave “offloads significant portions of the data traffic,” he said. “That figure will only increase as the penetration of 5G mmWave-capable devices increases. Using traffic measurements rather than coverage or connected/active time is the key performance metric that evidences the importance of mmWave in the evolution of 5G.” When mmWave capacity is available, “offloading traffic to the wider capacity helps achieve dramatically higher burst rates and average data rates” than 5G sub-6 GHz and LTE, he said. An analysis of the video streaming data set in the field tests found 95% of the data bursts “were observed to be carried over mmWave spectrum, resulting in 10.5x the burst rate with mmWave, compared to sub-6,” he said.

An Ookla analysis of Speedtest Intelligence data from the most popular Android and iPhone phones found 5G Android devices are twice as fast as 4G devices in the U.S., said a Tuesday report. The iPhone 13 was found to be almost three times faster than the iPhone 11. Ookla said Tuesday it has acquired RootMetrics, which also looks at network connectivity data.

A market for 5G network security is materializing quickly with the rapid pace of global 5G buildouts picking up speed, reported ABI Research Tuesday. It forecast an $11.6 billion global “revenue opportunity” for 5G network security solutions and services by 2026. “Delivered initially through hardware sales to telcos, the software and services opportunity is expected to grow significantly in the latter part of the forecast period,” it said. Communication service providers “are buying the solutions required primarily from network equipment providers and pure-play cybersecurity vendors,” said analyst Michela Menting. “In time, other specialized third parties will penetrate the market.”

Global wireless 5G connections hit 438 million in Q3 and are projected to exceed 540 million by Dec. 31, 5G Americas said Tuesday. It noted Omdia predicts connections will reach 4.8 billion by the end of 2026, with 516 million in North America and 301 million in Latin America and the Caribbean. “While Oceania Eastern & South-Eastern Asia, which includes China, will account for more than half of all 5G subscriptions at the end of 2026, the Americas region will manage to carve out a 17% portion after growing 1,000% from 2021 to 2026,” said Omdia analyst Kristin Paulin.