T-Mobile will be the first to offer the Motorola Edge, Motorola’s newest 5G smartphone, when it becomes available in the “coming weeks,” said the carrier Thursday. The handset’s pricing starts at $499, and it will be available for free to new and existing customers who add a “qualifying line,” it said. The phone has a 50-megapixel camera system and Dolby Atmos stereo speakers, plus its 6.6-inch polymer OLED display supports HDR-10+.

MoffettNathanson downgraded Verizon to “underperform” Thursday, with a revised price target of $41, down from $55. It also lowered its target on AT&T from $19 to $17, warning that tough times are ahead for two of the three major U.S. wireless carriers due to continuing pressure from cable wireless. “It has now been more than two years since AT&T adopted its aggressively promotional stance in wireless,” analyst Craig Moffett told investors: “Things have played out pretty much as one would have expected. AT&T has accelerated its subscriber growth, but at the cost of repeatedly cutting their free cash flow and dividend coverage forecasts. They are left with a larger, but arguably lower quality, customer base whose preservation is more dependent than ever on lucrative giveaways.” But the “biggest loser” has been Verizon, he said. “They have seesawed between periods of promotionality and financial restraint, optimizing neither,” he said. “They have recently pulled back sharply on promotions, a reversal of their approach in Q2, and have introduced a suite of lower priced plans instead. There are no easy answers.”

Qualcomm wants the FCC to “introduce the option” for broadcasters to use “5G Broadcast,” as an "alternative broadcast transmission standard” to ATSC 3.0 to beam over-the-air TV content to smartphones, because five years into 3.0's voluntary use, “broadcasters still lack the capability to reach on-the-go viewers via their mobile devices,” said the Snapdragon supplier in comments posted in docket 16-142. Comments were due Monday in the FCC’s NPRM on ATSC 3.0 deployment, including progress in broadcast and consumer adoption of the technology (see 2208090040). The agency’s June 22 rulemaking notice didn’t ask for public input on the progress to deploy 3.0 transmissions to mobile devices (see 2207060019), which Qualcomm correctly asserted don't exist. Qualcomm recommends the FCC “seek comment on implementation of the 5G Broadcast standard in this proceeding,” it said. “If allowed, this standard would provide mobile viewers with immersive broadcast content and critical public safety messages on their mobile devices when conventional broadcast alerting systems or cellular infrastructure are unavailable during a power outage,” it said. 5G Broadcast "would not replace ATSC 3.0 for fixed reception of television broadcast signals as the former technology targets mobility use case scenarios," said Qualcomm. 5G Broadcast "would complement the ATSC 3.0 services broadcasters are offering, reaching viewers wherever they are, including when they are out and about," it said. ATSC 3.0 “is not supported in mobile devices today” because a 3.0 modem “must be included in the mobile device along with additional hardware and software,” it said. 5G Broadcast, in contrast, “can be supported by mobile devices without any additional hardware,” it said. ATSC President Madeleine Noland said Tuesday she had no immediate comment "beyond that ATSC is reading through all of the submissions and may have an opinion to share after digesting what’s been written." Qualcomm was among several companies to oppose a commission mandate on 3.0 reception in smartphones in 2017, just before the FCC authorized 3.0's voluntary deployment for broadcasters; the commission never put such a mandate proposal on the table (see 1709200016). NPRM replies are due Sept. 6.

Dish Network joined RS Access in dismissing DirecTV's analysis about the viability of 5G/satellite sharing of the 12 GHz band (see 2208020049) as full of distortions. In a docket 20-443 filing Monday, Dish made many of the same arguments RS Access did and said the DirecTV study "showcas[es] the worst possible scenario no matter how implausible." Dish said the DirecTV study ignores 5G mitigation techniques like account horizon nulling and time variability, and it doesn't account for the direct broadcast satellite subscriber declines and DirecTV's minimal use of the 12 GHz band. DirecTV didn't comment.

Pacific Gas and Electric is creating “unnecessary and unwarranted delays and expenses” for Dish Network as it builds a 5G wireless network in California, Dish said in a complaint posted Wednesday by the California Public Utilities Commission. Dish must get power from PG&E for cellular equipment on towers and rooftops, but since Aug. 1 the power company changed its interpretation of the Electric Rule 16 and started requiring cellular carriers to pay for new consolidated power service points on towers, said the Dish complaint in docket C.22-08-002. That especially affects Dish because it's "in the process of deploying hundreds of sites throughout the state as part of its efforts to meet an FCC-mandated nationwide wireless build,” it said. "Because of PG&E's unlawful rule change, DISH would be required to convince its competitors (i.e. existing facilities-based cellular carriers) to re-wire their cellular equipment and to pay for all equipment necessary for them to obtain power from the new consolidated service point on the tower." PG&E is reviewing the complaint, "and will respond within the process that the [CPUC] sets forth," said the utility's spokesperson. A Crown Castle official noted barriers to getting power for California 5G facilities at NARUC's conference last month (see 2207180021).

While the FCC reallocated the 6 GHz band for unlicensed use two years ago, GSMA said Wednesday the better use would be licensed spectrum for 5G. The group urged countries worldwide to allocate 700-1,200 MHz in the band for carriers. The report “warns that allocating the full 6 GHz band to unlicensed use risks countries losing out on the full benefits of scarce spectrum resource, and damaging their ability to maximise the societal impact of governments’ and operators’ investments in 5G networks.” The band is “crucial for 5G expansion in many countries,” said Luciana Camargos, GSMA head-spectrum: “Without it, operators will often struggle to meet the predicted average of 2 GHz of mid-band spectrum needed for 5G, impacting service quality. Countries may, in consequence, lose out on the full societal and economic benefits of investment in modern 5G networks.”

Dell’Oro Group sees limited opportunities for moving 5G workloads to the public cloud and projected cumulative revenue of $4.6 billion over the five-year forecast period of 2022-2026, said a Wednesday report. “The report finds that the vast majority of 5G [stand-alone] networks will be in the Telco Cloud, limiting the short-term opportunity for the Public Cloud to host 5G workloads,” Dell’Oro said. Dave Bolan, research director, said the opportunity for hyperscale cloud providers “to penetrate the Telco Cloud market is very limited in the short-term, with the momentum already established by Mobile Network Operators committing to the Telco Cloud”: Dell’Oro said 27 5G stand-alone networks have been commercially deployed, and only one is running 5G workloads in the public cloud.

Components manufacturer Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea, and Asia Eastern University of Science and Technology, New Taipei City, Taiwan, joined the Open RF Association, the consortium told DOJ and the FTC in simultaneous “written notifications” June 10, said a notice in Monday’s Federal Register. Membership in the association, which promotes open interoperability between chipsets and front-end modules to expand 5G adoption and whose members include Broadcom, Intel, MediaTek, Qorvo and Samsung Electronics, "remains open," said Suzanne Morris, chief-premerger and division statistics in DOJ’s Antitrust Division. The notifications are required to extend association members antitrust protections under the 1993 National Cooperative Research and Production Act, said Morris.

5G is starting to take off, speakers said Wednesday during a Mobile World Live. Experts agreed 5G networks and services require a new approach to radio access network (RAN) planning and design. “All the pieces are starting to fall into place for 5G deployments,” said James Joiner, analyst-mobile operators and networks at GSMA Intelligence. So far, 56 countries have held 5G auctions, mostly for mid-band spectrum, with “activity picking up” in auctions for low- and high-band, he said. To date, 240 carriers across 106 markets have trialed 5G, with nearly 200 launches in 77 markets, he said. “We expect this momentum to continue over the next few years” with another 55 markets seeing 5G networks by the end of 2025, Joiner said. There are now an estimated 650 million 5G connections worldwide, which is almost 10% of mobile connections, he said. GSMA expects 5G connections to account for 25% of connections by the end of 2025 and more than half by 2030, he said. China, South Korea and the U.S. are leading the world, he said. Providers are finding it “more and more difficult” to find the expertise they need to manage their networks, said Regis Lerbour, vice president-product and R&D at Infovista, a network optimization company. Optimizing investments in 5G requires a combination of more accuracy and more efficiency, he said. “There’s no point in becoming more efficient if you’re not as accurate as you can be,” he said. Network planning needs to be based on “real-live data from their network,” he said. Automation of the RAN can make managing it more efficient, Lerbour said: “You don’t always need your engineers involved and running standard workloads when they could be working on real problems in the network.”

New Street cut growth estimates for Verizon Monday, saying “guidance for medium-term growth of 3-4% looks increasingly out of reach” after last week’s Q2 report (see 2207220061). “Verizon is in a difficult position, in large part due to their past success,” wrote analyst Jonathan Chaplin: “Market share of close to 40% will be tough to defend in a market with four well-resourced competitors. The Company’s position is made more untenable by the fact that they are priced at a substantial premium and the network differentiation that justified that premium in the past is waning. Verizon’s pricing will be still more difficult to sustain if we enter recession.” Chaplin said Verizon invested in promotions during Q2, which failed to “stem the loss of subscribers”, then raised prices for some customers “which will only widen the gap in value with T-Mobile and Cable, the two most prominent challengers.”