Rakuten representatives argued for its open radio access network technology, in a meeting with FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington, said a filing posted Thursday in docket 20-32. U.S. wireless carriers can deploy a cloud-native network running on the Rakuten platform "at lower cost, higher security, and more quickly than traditional wireless appliances in order to close the digital divide in rural areas,” the filing said. Former NTIA Administrator David Redl, now at Salt Point Strategies, was at the meeting for Rakuten.

Millimeter-wave technology for 5G is “redefining mobile experiences,” by enabling users “to access the full potential of 5G by utilizing untapped frequency bands above 24 GHz,” blogged Philippe Poggianti, vice president-business development at the Qualcomm Communications SARL R&D center in France. “This abundant spectrum can deliver the fastest available speeds, extreme capacity and low latency,” said Poggianti Thursday. Qualcomm thinks 5G mmWave is a “game changer” for businesses and consumers, though it’s best suited for “prosumers” for shooting, editing and uploading “hi-res 8K videos” to the cloud “in no time at all,” he said. “Once the work day is over, users can download feature films in seconds, engage in high-quality video chats in crowded spaces, and enjoy high-speed elite gaming with low-latency and desktop-level framerates.” Poggianti thinks mmWave is “the missing piece of the 5G puzzle and a complementary building block of a high-performance 5G system,” he said: “It’s essential for users -- and there’s also significant monetization potential and return on investment for operators.”

The U.S. is “in great shape” on 5G competition internationally, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr told a Media Institute virtual event Thursday. He said the agency's approach over the past five or six years of freeing up spectrum and lowering infrastructure barriers has been a proven success. He waved off former Google Executive Chairman CEO Eric Schmidt's repeated warnings of the U.S. lagging behind other nations such as China as "the Chicken Little of 5G leadership." Google didn't comment. Carr said more should be done in spectrum availability and infrastructure reform, citing completion of the 2.5 GHz auction and authorizing very low power use in the 6 GHz band as goals. Asked about 6G planning, Carr said the U.S. could start contemplating issues like the terahertz spectrum it might require, but the U.S. has "got to tend to our knitting" with 5G foremost. Asked about the likelihood of a resumption of net neutrality rules, he said it's "largely baked in" that the agency will at least debate a return to Communications Act Title II rules, though he was dismissive. "It's such an old debate of the past," he said, saying regulatory focus shouldn't be on ISPs but on edge provider behavior. He said if rate regulation were taken off the table, it would be relatively easy to find consensus about net neutrality rules for blocking and throttling. He said there could be a route for Communications Decency Act Section 230 changes that puts an affirmative anti-discrimination requirement on platforms while remaining consistent with the First Amendment. He said the Supreme Court's rulings on the First Amendment, when put on a continuum, include an opening for regulating tech companies' actions as a speech conduit while not implicating the First Amendment. Asked whether the FCC's 2018 broadcast ownership quadrennial review is likely to get done in 2022, Carr said there "is some precedent" for rolling it over: "These may start to run together a little bit."

Representatives of the 5G for 12 GHz Coalition spoke with aides to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and Commissioners Geoffrey Starks and Nathan Simington on use of the 12 GHz band for 5G. “The Coalition has drawn a diverse group of supporters that have coalesced around the evidence showing the feasibility of coexistence” there, said a filing posted Thursday in docket 20-443: “The technical, engineering and economic studies submitted into the record were intended to assist the Commission staff in evaluating the feasibility for coexistence in this band and address other questions raised by the Commission in the 12 GHz NPRM and by third-party commenters.” Representatives of Incompas, Dish Network, Airspan, the Rural Wireless Association, Public Knowledge, Open Technology Institute at New America and RS Access were among those on the calls.

T-Mobile said Wednesday it's working with the 5G Open Innovation Lab at the University of Washington to allow hardware startups to develop, test and deploy new devices and services using T-Mobile 5G. “Lack of 5G access and connectivity is a bottleneck for many innovators,” the carrier said: The lab “allows entrepreneurs, researchers, and student teams to build, innovate, and integrate additional capabilities into their companies and products using next-generation connectivity.” T-Mobile said use cases may include biotech/medical devices, remote sensors, edge computing and “anything requiring low latency and high capacity where vast volumes of data must move almost instantly.”

Qorvo thinks 5G is still “in the very early innings,” CEO Bob Bruggeworth told a virtual Barclays investor conference Wednesday. “As we start to see the second- and third-generation devices being rolled out in 5G, they continue to add more bands,” and “complexity” in the antenna area “goes up,” he said. The addition of “more complex Wi-Fi” is also more prevalent in new generations of 5G devices, he said. “We've talked a lot about Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E. We've also started to expand in the Wi-Fi 7. So we expect those trends to continue.” Increased complexity is reminiscent of the “same discussions” for LTE, he said. Ultra-wideband technology is already built into the iOS ecosystem, and “we expect that to now start to proliferate through the Android ecosystem,” he said.

Gogo's 5G network construction "is officially under way," with its first 5G site of ground antennas, radios and servers installed, it tweeted Monday. With the partnership of Airspan Networks, everything at the site "is up and running," it said. "Let the testing begin!"

Dish Network “is a factor now” in the competitive wireless space “with millions of customers,” T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert told a UBS investors conference Monday. Dish has a “fantastic” arrangement with mobile virtual network operators, he said. “At some point, they'll start releasing their own network” for 5G, said Sievert, “and we take them at face value on that. We've always assumed that in our forecast.” Dish didn’t comment Tuesday. Chairman Charlie Ergen said last month that “we’ll get our fair share” as the “fourth player” in the wireless market (see 2111040048). The T-Mobile CEO thinks “it's really neat to see how people are responding” to 5G, he said. About 30% of T-Mobile customers own 5G smartphones, he said. Those who subscribe to T-Mobile’s Magenta Max premium unlimited 5G data plan are doing “8X more gaming than people on LTE,” plus “many more times of video consumption,” he said.

IDC projects 5.3% unit growth in smartphone sales this year to 1.35 billion handsets globally, reported the research company Thursday. Lower than expected Q3 shipments, plus the continued component shortages and logistical challenges, caused IDC to downgrade its 2021 growth forecast from 7.4% in the previous guidance. "Although we expected a slowdown in the third quarter, the market declined by almost twice the projected rate as the supply chain and logistical challenges hit every major player in the market,” said IDC analyst Nabila Popal. “The shortage is more heavily concentrated on 4G components than 5G, which will impact vendors with a higher portfolio mix of 4G devices than vendors with a higher proportion of 5G models,” she said. "On the positive side, this is expected to accelerate the jump to 5G, which is now forecast to be almost 60% of worldwide shipments by this time next year.” 5G devices are expected to have 117% year-over-year sales growth in 2021 "driven by a supply-side push from both vendors and channels," said IDC. It pegs the average selling price of 5G smartphones at $643 in 2021. That's 1.7% higher than in 2020, "thanks to the massive success of iPhone 12 and 13 devices that are all 5G," it said.

Revenue generated from 5G services will reach $600 billion globally by 2026, representing 77% of global operator-billed volume, says a Juniper Research report being released Tuesday. Adoption of 5G services in consumer and IoT sectors is being driven by a strong uptake of 5G-capable devices, “coupled with attractive 5G subscription pricing models, despite the semiconductor crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic,” it says. Multi-device subscriptions will be key to maximizing 5G revenue growth the next five years, says Juniper: “As geographical 5G coverage expands, operators will capitalise on revenue streams beyond smartphones.” There will emerge an opportunity for “bundling multiple device subscriptions under a single recurring payment to enable operators to benefit from connectivity revenue from other consumer devices,” says the report.