MediaTek gained “meaningful share” globally last year in 5G and Wi-Fi 6 “in the first year of the end-market takeoff” of those technologies, said CEO Rick Tsai on a Q4 call Wednesday. “We are seeing increasing Wi-Fi 6 demand in high-end routers, broadband and TV.” Laptop and Chromebook brands are adopting “MediaTek Wi-Fi 6 solutions,” he said. The first high-end Wi-Fi 6 gaming laptop “will hit the market in the first quarter with more to come,” he said. MediaTek is “on the test bed” for Wi-Fi 6E development and already has “started Wi-Fi 7 investments,” he said. For 2021, MediaTek forecasts global 5G smartphone shipments will exceed 500 million, a 250% increase over 2019, said Tsai. He estimates “at least” 60% of that growth will come from China. MediaTek launched a complete 5G “product portfolio” last year and “engaged with all global major Android smartphone brands,” he said. “Our 5G market share has already exceeded 40% in markets we serve.”

The pandemic gave 5G a needed push yet slowed work on standards and deployment, said Kaniz Mahdi, VMware vice president-advanced technologies, at an IEEE webinar Thursday. The wireless industry had high expectations for 2020, "expected to be a year of transformation,” Mahdi said. “5G was expected to be the driving force,” she said: “Then COVID happened.” The transformation instead has been driven by the pandemic, which changed “the way we do our work, the way we shop … the way we are educated,” she said. For years, it wasn’t clear what “killer app” would drive 4G adoption, she said. Then came apps like Uber and Airbnb, and “you have widespread adoption of massive broadband, universal data.” 5G will enable “highly interactive collaboration” among devices, she said: Machines will become “the ultimate end user.”

The 70/80/90 GHz bands are well suited to 5G communications to aircraft using ground stations spaced across rural regions, Qualcomm officials said in a call with FCC Wireless Bureau staff. “Highly focused, three-dimensional communications beams between ground stations and aircraft at elevation angles above 3 degrees will avoid interfering with current and future co-primary terrestrial fixed services and future mobile terrestrial services that transmit at much lower elevation angles,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 20-133: “Real time coordination techniques can address rare cases of interfering geometries.”

NTIA set Feb. 10 for comments on a 5G Challenge notice of inquiry, in cooperation with DOD, says Monday's Federal Register. The goal is to “accelerate the development of the open 5G stack ecosystem in support of Department of Defense missions.”

Verizon 5G Home Internet will expand this month to parts of Anaheim, Miami, Phoenix, San Francisco, St. Louis and Arlington, Texas, the carrier said Thursday. Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband service is coming to Colorado Springs, Knoxville and Columbia, South Carolina.

Verizon and AT&T executives told a Citigroup virtual conference Tuesday they have the spectrum they need now. Both are expected to add to their portfolios through the ongoing C-band auction (see 2101040061). Only about 60% of Verizon’s existing spectrum holdings are “actually deployed for LTE at this stage,” said Ronan Dunne, Verizon consumer group CEO. “We have the ability to deliver more from the existing spectrum we have.” The “creme de la creme” of the portfolio is its extensive 28 and 39 GHz holdings, he said. Verizon closed 85% of its stores during the early days of the pandemic, with a second wave in late 2020, but stores are now at about 85% capacity, he said. AT&T has the “deepest low-band and medium-band spectrum portfolio” for 5G, said Chief Financial Officer John Stephens. “We have the fastest, highest-quality, best coverage, best speeds for iPhones. All those network investments that we made are paying off.” Stephens said the pandemic “significantly impacted our overall business,” but “we're still generating $26 billion in free cash flow.” The C-band auction hit $79.8 billion Wednesday in provisionally winning bids.

Dell CEO Michael Dell spoke with FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington about the importance of the 12 GHz band, and open radio access networks in general, for 5G. “Open, interoperable systems would create more opportunities for innovation and allow new entrants into the market than earlier-generation systems,” said a filing posted Friday in RM-11768. Dell “also emphasized the critical need for dependable and resilient communications networks to bridge the digital divide.” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has circulated a neutral NPRM on the 12 GHz band (see 2012290032).

Some 4.1 billion people, more than half the global population, will have access to 5G technology by 2025, said Bankr Tuesday. About 15% now have 5G coverage, rising to 25%, or 1.95 billion people, next year, it said. 5G’s peak download speeds of 20 Gbps can handle a wide range of IoT applications in healthcare, energy, education and transportation, Bankr noted. Coverage is being driven by select regions in Asia, the U.S. and Europe, while other regions are still building out 5G infrastructure. Asia leads in 5G after undergoing a "rapid migration" in mobile broadband networks and smartphones, Bankr said.

Dish Network completed the sale to Morgan Stanley of $2 billion in 0% convertible notes due 2025 through a “private unregistered offering” Monday, said an 8-K Tuesday at the SEC. The agreement grants Morgan Stanley a 30-day option to buy $300 million more, it said. The filing didn’t say how Dish plans to use the proceeds, and the company didn’t comment. Chairman Charlie Ergen faced repeated questioning on recent earnings calls from analysts skeptical about the company’s ability to raise the $10 billion it says it needs to fund its open radio access network 5G buildout (see 2011060043).

The appellate National Advertising Review Board upheld a decision by the lower National Advertising Division of BBB National Programs recommending T-Mobile discontinue claims implying that 5G is more reliable than 4G and that no 5G network is more reliable than T-Mobile’s, said the board Monday. NARB also wants T-Mobile to discontinue claims implying its 5G service is “generally available in locations that have traditionally been challenging for cellular service” and to stop denigrating other carriers’ 5G coverage as “so limited in any area as to cover only the space taken up by a single bench,” it said. NARB said T-Mobile’s superior coverage claims “did not imply overall network superiority, rejecting NAD’s conclusion that such claims required the disclosure of material differences,” it said. T-Mobile plans to comply with NARB’s recommendations and welcomes its decision that T-Mobile “can continue to advertise its superior 5G coverage without qualification,” the company said. Verizon, which challenged T-Mobile’s ad claims at the NAD, didn’t respond to questions.