China Mobile 5G era: Profits Q1 up 2.3%, prices flat, traffic +37%

Productivity at China Mobile increased 35-40% overall, confirming the trend at Verizon and AT&T. 37% more traffic was carried at flat ARPU (+0.9%.) Profit was up slightly, 2.3%, implying that overall productivity rose at roughly the rate of traffic growth. That's a very rough measure, of course, but it corresponds to numerous results from carriers around the world.

"5G Network Customers" were 92.76 million, compared to "5G Package Customers" of 189 million. Analysts around the world are cheering that we now have more than the very misleading "package customer" figure. 4G & 5G packages cost the same, so subscribers took "5G packages" even though they didn't have a 5G phone. Fortunately, MIIT releases monthly figures of phone sales, which I used for my figure of 5G subscribers in China.

Phone manufacturers shipped 27 million 5G phones in China in the month of March. The total 5G in 2021 should be over 300 million in China, about as much as the rest of the world combined. 

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$1 average worldwide cost/gig; 35% traffic growth 2020; US 4X world

This remarkable chart from Phil Kendall is worth intense study. (Larger below) It shows the wireless cost per gig has gone down 88% in 5 years.

Prices continue to fall rapidly except in the US, almost flat the last three years. In competitive markets, price drops should continue as Massive MIMO, carrier aggregation, and other tech improvements will continue driving costs down. 

Worldwide traffic growth is down to 35%; I've noted many developed countries are now below 30% and falling. The explosive growth is over in much of the world, although the pandemic may create some anomalies.

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4G NB-IoT reading meters in India

It's good to see some demand for telco IoT, which despite the hype is growing very slowly. Tata Power in Delhi has just signed on with Reliance Jio for reading smart meters. Jio has 96+% 4G coverage of India. It has a massive Edge cloud & services build planned. 

Telco IoT demand is developing so slowly outside of China that companies like NTT are cutting back. The 5G hype for IoT is so extreme I've been part of a chorus of skeptics. 90%+ of IoT will use Wi-Fi. Telco revenue will mostly come from applications like meter reading, connecting outside the home or office.5G does little or nothing for IoT, which works fine in 4G.

China Mobile is the only carrier that has done well in IoT. It is approaching a billion connections. To do that, CM provides massive support, whether a company wants a turnkey system or just API access. It's driven prices all the way down, including for the modules manufacturers need. Massive orders achieved prices of just a few dollars, which it passed on.

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$152 Realme 5G Q2i

 There are 5 name brand 5G phones for sale on e-commerce giant jd.com for $152-$208. $152 (998 yuan) buys the 6'5" Realme Q2i, with a 5000mAh large battery, 18W flash charge, and three cameras.

The low price gets you "only" a 60 Hz refresh rate, "only" 13 megapixels, and no wireless charging. But it does have a headphone jack.

For $274, the realme GT Neo Super AMOLED display. This panel has a resolution of 2400 x 1080 pixels (FHD+), 120Hz refresh rate, 360Hz touch sampling rate, a 64 megapixel camera, and the more advanced Mediatek 1200 chip. 

Here are some reviews from Jingdong

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Robin Mersh passes Broadband Forum on

Robin Mersh has been central to the industry as head of the Forum since it was still the DSL Forum. He's now moved on to be SVP Sales for Virtuosi at QxP. 

Ken Ko is the new Managing Director. He was for many years a senior engineer at Adtran and Paradyme.

Dozens throughout the industry have commented on the change.

Tom Starr, for many years Chair of the Forum and ITU-T WP1/15 Chair

"Four Billion thanks to you Robin, for leading the BBF's effort to build the broadband network. The four billion people connected to the internet are benefiting from the BBF's help in making the internet better and connected to more people. Thank you and best wishes."

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5G tested peaks: 707/79 Mid-band, 3294/210 mmWave

Your speed will almost always differ. But testing by Milan Milanovich of Ookla, in an ideal location on lightly loaded networks, did get remarkable speeds: 3.294 Gbps down, 210 Mbps up on Verizon mmWave and 707 Mbps/79 Mbps on t-Mobile Mid-band. That's two or three times the likely typical speeds on those networks.

5 years ago, Huawei showed me 5G delivering 20 Gbps; there never was a doubt these high speeds were not impossible. No one expects common speeds to be this high, however.

The latest testing from Ookla on mid-band download speeds was in the low hundreds. Based on that, the speeds reported by British and other European carriers, and precise comments from T-Mobile, I've been saying typical mid-band is 100-400 down, and occasionally higher. 

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5G China Price: $201-$262, sometimes $154

On January 7, 2021, six major brands were selling decent 5G phones on jd.com for $201-$262. During special sales, including 11/11, some models fell in price to 999 yuan, now $154. 

All six are ~6.5" and have 3 or 4 rear cameras. They are from Oppo, Xiaomi/Redmi, Hisense, Vivo, Honor, and Realme. Three of them have 48 megapixel main cameras. The Vivo has a 120 Hz refresh rate.  

These prices are moving West, virtually guaranteeing explosive growth in sales of 5G phones. The new TCL 20 5G device will be launched in Italy for € 30020 5G device will be launched in Italy for € 300.

For what's coming here in the States, see $300 5G OnePlus Nord N10 T-Mobile. The 5G explosion moves west.

G.Network raises £1bn to fibre London

1.4 million premises - about half the city - are set for fibre over the next five years.  100 Mbps goes for  £22 ($30) and900 Mbps symmetric £48 ($65.) 10 gig will also be available. 1,250 workers will tear up around 4,500 km of streets.

G.network - also the company's web address - received a permit from OFCOM in 2017. Mark Jackson reported in 2018 it had raised £60 million to run fibre to London businesses. For the consumer build, G.network is getting £295m from a big pension fund and the rest from banks. 

BT is rapidly becoming the sick man of European telecom, with half a dozen well-funded companies running fibre and soon taking millions of customers. Unlike the French and Spaniards, the Brits didn't run fibre home, relying on DSL (including G.fast) and the absence of cable across half the country.  It is paying a very high price and doesn't have a good turnaround strategy.

Marc Allera of BT thinks he can raise prices 3% above inflation.

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