Hype about 5G was high at the Mobile World Congress, but reality will be “tougher,” Wells Fargo’s Jennifer Fritzsche wrote investors Thursday. “Hype of 5G seems to be reaching a point of too much euphoria,” she wrote. Carriers likely won’t see revenue growth until 2020-21, the analyst said: “Early 5G winners will be the ‘arms dealers’ which supply the infrastructure. There seems to be particular focus on the Edge infrastructure theme with mobile edge computing capabilities.” Sprint said it will deploy 5G in four markets by May and nine cities the first half of the year, offering “very specific” coverage maps with more detail than any other carrier, Fritzsche said. T-Mobile indicated more interest in the high-band spectrum for 5G than it showed in the past, she said.

The Senate Commerce Security Subcommittee set a Thursday hearing to probe “the security implications of China's harmful practices in the marketplace,” including “intellectual property challenges, data localization requirements, standards-setting, and cybersecurity threats.” Set to testify are: Information Technology Industry Council Executive Vice President-Policy Josh Kallmer, the Rhodium Group's Daniel Rosen, Harvard University Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs co-Director Eric Rosenbach and New America China Digital Economy Fellow Samm Sacks. The panel will begin at 10 a.m. in 562 Dirksen, the Senate Commerce Committee said. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, meanwhile, tweeted Wednesday that the U.S. “must ensure the security of 5G equipment by limiting authoritarian regimes' access to, and control over, our networks.” President Donald Trump's recent comments about 5G and two Chinese telecom equipment manufacturers -- Huawei and ZTE -- caused confusion about his future policy moves (see 1902210057 and 1902220066).

Verizon received special temporary authority from the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology to test devices that use the 3.5 GHz citizens broadband service band in Utica, New York. The carrier said in an accompanying document it plans tests in various locations there. The authorization runs March 15-Sept. 14. “Field tests will be conducted in a production network, in a highly controlled field environment, in order to assist in the development of commercial products,” the company said. “The testing will benefit the public interest by enabling the pre-commercial testing of new products outside of a lab environment but in a controlled and managed manner.”

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai encouraged other countries at the Mobile World Congress Latin American Dialogue Roundtable to work with the U.S. headed into the World Radiocommunication Conference later this year. “On some issues, like spectrum for both terrestrial and space-based services, we simply cannot do it alone,” Pai said Wednesday. "Many of the countries represented in this room have been working hard and steadily to advance regional proposals on spectrum harmonization” ahead of the WRC. “We bring different ideas to the table, but there are far more areas where we agree,” he said. Pai’s speech mostly involved what the FCC is doing to prepare for 5G. He mentioned work on mid-band spectrum but didn’t offer anything new on the bands under consideration. Pai promised more action on wireless infrastructure. “We cannot and will not let today’s red tape strangle the 5G future,” he said. “The FCC has reformed our wireless infrastructure rules, and why we’ll keep doing so.” Pai spoke in Spanish, and the FCC released an English version.

AT&T has a smooth path ahead after an appellate court ruled Tuesday DOJ didn't prove its case for stopping the company’s buy of Time Warner (see 1902260017), said Chief Financial Officer John Stephens Wednesday at a Morgan Stanley conference. “It was a very good day yesterday,” Stephens said. “It was a ruling we expected to receive.” AT&T can now develop “a great asset,” he said: “We had made some commitments until the end of this month to hold it separately.” The wireless industry is competitive, but advertising spending isn’t out of hand, Stephens said. “We’re seeing promo activity in the industry, but it seems to be rather rational and it seems to be rather measured,” he said. With the FirstNet build, AT&T will increase its spectrum capacity by 50 percent by year-end, he said: “That gives us a significant advantage. … Our customers who have phones in their hands today are going to get those benefits.” AT&T sees lots of potential in the first responder market, Stephens said. First responders number about 3 million, but most use multiple devices so devices total closer to 10 million, he said. The buildout is about six months ahead of schedule and should hit 60 percent this year, he said: “I would hope that we would get even farther.” Verizon’s 5G buildout will likely continue over several years, with costs falling within its historic capital expenditure numbers, Chief Financial Officer Matt Ellis said at the same conference Tuesday. The move to 5G could prompt more customers to upgrade their devices, Ellis said. “We don’t see necessarily a massive shift in the upgrade trends.” Verizon expects to keep churn low, he said: “When we have the combination of network performance and the right offer in the marketplace, our churn continues to be good.” With other new generations of wireless, early devices tended to have problems, he said: “It’s either had a really low battery life or it looked like a brick.” The Samsung Galaxy S10 5GB Verizon announced last week (see 1902200065) “is a fully fledged, iconic” smartphone, he said.

T-Mobile's buying Sprint is all about 5G, T-Mobile CEO John Legere blogged Wednesday. “Only the New T-Mobile will have the spectrum, network assets and scale to light up the country’s first truly nationwide, broad and deep 5G network across all types of radio spectrum -- from big cities to rural America,” Legere said. “We’ll do it by bringing together T-Mobile’s low-band and mmWave spectrum and Sprint’s mid-band spectrum on a combined network, to build the highest capacity network in U.S. history -- a whopping 400 MHz+ total spectrum for customers nationwide on average.” Legere contrasted T-Mobile’s 5G with what has been unveiled by the top two U.S. carriers. “Verizon is talking up what amounts to 5G hot spots in big cities” and leading on 5G “fakery,” he said, while AT&T is pushing 5G Evolution (see 1901080024). “AT&T isn’t even bothering to roll out fake 5G -- they’re just rolling out a fake 5Gicon,” Legere said: “They’re literally changing the icon on your phone -- the same phone you had six months ago.” AT&T and Verizon didn’t comment. The transaction is "scaring the sh*t out of the competition," Legere claimed.

The administration’s push to persuade Europe to avoid Huawei equipment (see 1902260016) is falling flat “with unknown future consequences,” American Enterprise Institute Resident Scholar Claude Barfield blogged Monday. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited European capitals last week raising concerns but “received a mixed reception at best,” Barfield said. “Whatever the overall lack of credibility of the Trump administration on a myriad of domestic and foreign policy issues ... 5G technology, and the stunning new technological world it will underpin, does present cybersecurity challenges far beyond those of 2G, 3G, and 4G,” he said: "Obama administration officials agree with the Trump administration” on Huawei. It has about a third of the EU telecom market, Barfield said. “There is as yet no European-wide policy for 5G telecoms equipment, so each nation (and each company) has gone its own way,” Barfield said. “European telecoms operators … have a strong interest in competitive pricing. They have certainly benefited from having a technological giant such as Huawei facing off against the local European companies.” European carriers view Huawei 5G as “more sophisticated and often cheaper than comparable kits from Ericsson and Nokia” (see 1902250016), Barfield said. Lack of evidence Huawei is doing anything wrong “has been highlighted by other governments,” AEI Visiting Fellow Shane Tews blogged Tuesday: “Some European governments have suggested the US has ulterior motives in what the Europeans consider to be a trade dispute.” Equipment used for 5G must be reliable and resilient, Tews said. “A manufacturer with questionable trustworthiness that may play a role in state-sponsored espionage doesn’t fit these characteristics.”

Some 64 percent of U.S. consumers are aware of 5G connectivity, up from 44 percent in June, and a third are interested in buying 5G phones when available, NPD reported Tuesday. Premium prices and larger sizes than consumers are used to could temper that enthusiasm, said analyst Brad Akyuz. Half of millennials indicated interest in upgrading, and 43 percent of consumers on unlimited data plans are “eager” to do so. The survey of 3,600 adult U.S. cellphone users was completed this month.

While 5G specifications for satellite communications seem "unattainable" today, "5G is great news for the satellite industry" because it points to easier integration and opening of new markets like IoT and multicast streaming, Northern Sky Research analyst Lluc Palerm-Serra blogged Monday. He said the "highly touted" 10 Gbps per connection target shouldn't discourage satcom: LTE had been aiming for 1 Gbps for a decade after the standard was finalized and the majority of LTE networks still don't meet that performance level, "so do not expect networks to meet 5G promises overnight." He said top satellite performance reaches terrestrial specifications.

Apple chip modem supplier Intel told Reuters Friday its 5G modem chip won’t appear in smartphones until next year. At Mobile World Congress, starting Monday in Barcelona, 5G phones will be announced or teased. Samsung announced plans to deliver a 5G phone in Q2 (see 1902200065). While Apple is Intel’s major customer for modem chips, the phone maker has reportedly had talks with chipmakers Samsung and MediaTek about 5G modem chips for iPhones to be released this year, and the company reportedly moved modem engineering into the division that makes its proprietary processor chips. Intel and Apple didn’t comment.