Ericsson said it won a contract from KT, formerly Korea Telecom, to launch nationwide commercial 5G services in South Korea starting in early April. “Korean consumers are known as early adopters of technology such as advances in mobility, gaming, streaming, infotainment, and interactive functionality,” Ericsson said Thursday. Ericsson also announced a 5G memorandum of understanding with Korea’s SK Telecom. The companies are “teaming up to drive the evolution of next-generation 5G stand-alone core networks technology, architecture, implementation and operations,” Ericsson said Friday.

T-Mobile, eager to land regulatory approval of its Sprint buy, said Thursday it’s launching a pilot to help close the digital divide: a Home Internet program available to up to 50,000 existing customers, by invitation and by year-end. It expects speeds of “around” 50 Mbps with fixed unlimited wireless service over LTE, with no data caps. The $50 monthly service will be launched in rural and underserved areas, T-Mobile said. “LTE network and spectrum capacity constraints” limit the program's size, the carrier said: “But if T-Mobile’s pending merger with Sprint is approved, with the added scale and capacity of the New T-Mobile, the Un-carrier plans to cover more than half of U.S. households with 5G broadband service -- in excess of 100 Mbps -- by 2024.” New Street’s Jonathan Chaplin told investors Thursday if the Sprint buy doesn’t go through, T-Mobile may have to increase prices. “If the Sprint acquisition is approved, we would expect them to deploy Sprint’s spectrum and use the increased capacity to take share,” Chaplin wrote. “If the acquisition is blocked, they will have a choice between increasing capacity by some other means or increasing price to slow subscriber and usage growth. Increasing capacity would be their first choice, but this may not be possible, at least not initially, making higher prices necessary.”

A new generation of smart cities will require 5G, said Verizon Tuesday, with one autonomous auto's daily data output equal to that of 3,000 people. "The future of connectivity isn’t just a handful of intelligent sensors chirping information back and forth at an intersection. It’s billions of devices performing highly complex, mission-critical functions, in near-real time.”

The FCC posted last week’s presentation by Ted Rappaport, founding director of NYU Wireless at New York University School of Engineering, on the importance of spectrum above 95 GHz. Rappaport presented his vision of the 6G future to commissioners before a vote on the spectrum horizons order (see 1903150054).

Complexity of radio components for 5G will lead to higher smartphone prices that could impede 5G, Strategy Analytics reported Thursday. New sub-6 bands for 5G, license shared access, uplink carrier aggregation, MIMO and millimeter wave present “stiff technical challenges” to RF component suppliers Skyworks, Broadcom, Qorvo, Murata, Qualcomm and others, and will require cost-effective solutions to the more complex radio needs of 5G phones and user equipment, said SA. In the past five years, RF systems have transitioned from discrete filters, switches and amplifiers to largely system-in-package RF front-end modules encompassing multiple technologies in a single package, noted analyst Stephen Entwistle. The resulting consolidation among RF front-end component suppliers has benefited Qualcomm as a supplier of the entire radio system, he said. Pressure on suppliers will increase with 5G: Those that can supply more complex and sophisticated modules and SoCs at attractive prices will see a revenue opportunity, he said.

The FCC 24 GHz auction had $304.4 million in provisionally winning bids after the first day Thursday, on two rounds. The 28 GHz auction had $41.7 million at that point, closing in January with $702.6 million. New Street predicts prices per MHz/POP will be similar to the earlier high-band auction, with an estimated $3.3 billion in proceeds (see 1903050006). Other analysts made similar predictions. The highest prices so far are in the three largest markets -- New York, followed by Los Angeles and Chicago. Bidding continues Friday with three rounds. The auction started despite House Science Committee members seeking a delay (see 1903130057). The auctions are very different, so comparisons are hard to draw. The 28 GHz auction used the standard simultaneous multiple round auction format, with two 425 MHz blocks in each county. The 24 GHz uses a clock format and requires bidding on generic blocks in each partial economic area. A second phase will allow winners of the generic blocks to bid for frequency-specific license assignments. The 24 GHz licenses are offered in seven 100 MHz blocks in each market.

Market uncertainty over the “T-Mobile/Sprint conversation” is partly to blame for the “halting nature” of the 5G infrastructure “spend out there, at least as it relates to the contractors and the integrators doing work for those carriers,” said RF Industries CEO Rob Dawson on a Q1 call Tuesday. His company supplies interconnects and other wireless-infrastructure products. That the deal's regulatory review seems to keep “starting and stopping” doesn't “necessarily help any of us get a clear sense of a forecast of real timing” on the 5G buildout, he said. “I'm hoping that gets resolved one way or the other here in the next quarter or so.” Dawson thinks carriers “are clearly committed to deploying 5G in multiple cities” this year, but “I don't think we're close” to any “full-blown spend,” he said. “We're certainly seeing it ramp up,” but nowhere to the point of what it “will be, ultimately,” he said. “I'd be surprised if we get a full-blown spend this calendar year.”

Verizon will begin its 5G “Ultra Wideband Network” in Chicago and Minneapolis April 11, with a launch in 30 cities by the end of the year, the company said Wednesday. It will start offering the new 5G moto mod, exclusive to the carrier, nationwide Thursday. “Continuing our track record of 5G ‘firsts,’ we are thrilled to bring the first 5G-upgradeable smartphone exclusively to Verizon customers," said Chief Technology Officer Kyle Malady.

The Utilities Technology Council is making a “concerted effort” to raise the importance of spectrum for monitoring and control of utility networks at the upcoming World Radio Communication conference, UTC reported Tuesday on why 5G is important for utilities. There's "hype around all things ‘5G’" that "dominates the global telecommunications landscape,” said President Joy Ditto. “In spite of all we hear about the ‘Race to 5G,’" and "while the impact of 5G wireless service could be profound, it is years away from being widely deployed.” Fifth-generation could help with the ultra-reliable low latency communications important to utilities, but questions remain, UTC said. “Even if the 5G network were optimized for this particular application by deployment of infrastructure closer to the end points, the costs of this additional equipment would be prohibitive if only required for this specialist application.” New 5G networks with millimeter-wave technology “will require much denser infrastructure -- dense networks of small cells, an order of magnitude greater than currently,” UTC said. “This presents enormous challenges in finding sites, powering the base stations and backhauling the data.”

Nokia representatives told FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly they agree with his support for “innovative business models” for offering broadband, including permitting paid prioritization. It's an "option for consumers to best control their broadband experience and for third party content providers to potentially reach new users,” Nokia said Tuesday in docket 17-183. “Paid prioritization business models also promise to restore balance in monetization of innovation across the entire value chain, to fuel robust broadband network deployment to all communities.” The Nokia reps underscored the importance of midband spectrum for 5G, especially the 3.45-3.55 and 3.7 GHz bands.