Sprint is largest 5G deployment in N. America or Europe. Sprint?!

T-Mobile 4G faster than T-Mobile 5G. Sprint has covered 8%+ of the US population with robust 2.5 GHz 5G. IHS three city testing found 5G on 51% of tests in Atlanta, 32% in Chicago, and 25% in Dallas. The 25-40 million people Sprint covers dwarfs any carrier in Europe, where no telco has reported even 2 million people in its serving area. Adjusted for population, only Swisscom and Sunrise Switzerland come close. (Neither has released coverage.details.) The median download speed in Chicago was 124 Mbps, about as predicted. 

Sprint's John Saw is an obvious candidate for CTO of the year. Despite a low capex budget, Sprint is bringing 5G to far more of the US than any other carrier. Verizon covered 7% of Chicago and lower percentages of the population in Dallas and Atlanta. AT&T & T-Mobile are far behind with coverage of 3% or less. "T-Mobile’s 5G median download speeds in both Atlanta and Dallas were slower than its non-5G mode speeds in each city." 

At left, how T-Mobile serves Rockefeller Center and Wall Street but provides little in Harlem or Black Brooklyn.

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AT&T's remarkable claim: Difference between 5G & 4G meaningless

Karl Bode discovered that AT&T doesn't think 5G matters, at least to consumers. In return for eliminating regulations, the US telcos nominally provide all the information consumers need to make a good choice and the FCC needs to make sensible regulation. But as consumer groups and Congressmen alike demand accurate broadband maps, AT&T is resisting bitterly.

Require mobile providers to report on their broadband networks by speed capability rather than technology. The record reflects that speed is more important to consumers than the air interface used to provide it. AT&T therefore proposes that the Commission require mobile providers to report their mobile voice and broadband coverage with coverage maps depicting two service levels: (1) voice and broadband service below 5 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload, and (2) voice and broadband service at or above 5 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload.

Since the NR air interface is AT&T's definition of 5G, if that doesn't matter, neither does 5G. That's true in one sense - good 4G LTE matches the performance of 5G in low and mid-bands.

In addition, the AT&T comments were inappropriate. So I filed a rebuttal:

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China 5G: 9M+ subs, Korea ?3M, rest of world 1M

China Mobile had 5.32 million 5G customers. China Telecom and China Unicom each have about 1.75 million. Almost all have signed up in the last couple of weeks. The pace will presumably pick up after the opening later this month. The monthly price is US$20-30/month. Phone prices are down to US$520-700. The telcos are giving only modest subsidies, typically $50-70.

Those figures have been widely reported in the Chinese press but not officially announced. These are mega-billion dollar companies with audited financials and stock listings. I believe the figures are accurate. If so, China will almost certainly have more than 25 million subs by yearend. A low prediction for 2020 is 100 million; 206 is a plausible working estimate. Data is still very limited, however; we'll know more by the end of November.

Korea reported 2 million phones sold by August. The carriers have confirmed 5 million expected by yearend,

One confusion: Some articles report this as 10 million "reservations" as people wait for phones.

 

Verizon, AT&T working to catch Shenzen's 45K 5G radios

The city of Shenzen will likely have more (robust) 5G radios deployed than either Verizon or AT&T for the next year. Robert Clarke reports Shenzen will have 15,000 5G radios in the next few months and 45,000 by August. One Chinese city has more 5G than the entire United States.

Neither Verizon nor AT&T have provided any real information about coverage but their figures likely will be lower. There is no technical reason for delay. The technology now is working for over 10 million people. The limiting factor is the carriers' investment budgets. In the West, investment has been flat to down.

Verizon & AT&T each have 60-70,000 towers and have virtually stopped adding macrocells. Well under half will be upgraded to mid-band or mmWave 5G. Verizon is adding some small cells, but probably not enough to match Shenzen figure. 

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1/3rd of Koreans buying 5G phones

"Samsung’s Galaxy S10 5G dominated sale in the second quarter, followed by another phone available in 5G, LG V50 ThinQ with a share of 7 per cent, according to the data compiled by industry tracker Counterpoint Research." These latest results confirm South Korea's position as the first leader in 5G and show what's possible.

2 million Koreans have 5G phones. KT and SK are confident 10% of Koreans - about 5 million - will have 5G by the end of 2019. They estimate 30% of Koreans will go 5G in 2020. That would require well over half of the Korean phone sales in 2020 will be 5G.

If China by the end of 2020 matches Korea's 2019 figure of 2019, that would be 140 million. The US would be ~33 million. Almost all estimates except mine are lower than that. 

Wrong, Elliott! AT&T has one of the best managements in world telecom

AT&T's Randall Stephenson, John Stankey, John Donovan, Ralph de la Vega and Bill Smith were probably the most effective telecom management of the last decade. Paul Singer and Jesse Cohn of Elliott Management - or whomever they brought in - could never match the record of the current management they want to displace. The contentions in the letter (below) are often misleading and in some cases simply errors. The best pros, like Craig Moffett, don't see a potential for big gains in T.

For example, Singer writes

"AT&T today is in prime position to be the early market leader in 5G given its premier spectrum positioning, ... We believe AT&T will be able to quickly move forward while its main competitors remain either spectrum-disadvantaged or distracted as they integrate major transactions. However, while AT&T is well positioned, success in 5G will require meaningful investment and improved execution; anything less and AT&T risks missing this opportunity and falling behind again."

That's nonsense for two reasons. First, Verizon and Sprint have better 5G spectrum positions than AT&T. AT&T and Verizon have similar low band spectrum. Verizon has 800 MHz of 28 GHz mmWave spectrum, more and better than AT&T's mmWave. Sprint's 160 MHz at 2.6 GHz is providing exceptional reach. It currently has covered over 11% of the U.S., more than any one else in the U.S. and could rapidly expand - with or without the merger.

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China Mobile: 5G will cover most of China from existing cells

5G rarely will need new cells, especially in mid-band 2.6 GHz bands. Very respected Huang Yuhang of China Mobile Research told the Huawei Chengdu event that CM will not need "to build lots of new sites for 5G or interfering with its existing LTE network. Its spectrum in the 2.6GHz band is sufficient to support both networks in a shared architecture."

Sprint in the US, which also has 160 MHz of 2.6 GHz spectrum, is getting excellent coverage of 5G despite dedicating half the band to 4G enhancement. Massive MIMO in mid-band is performing so well that 5G needs few more cells than 4G requires.   

When 5G was defined as millimetre wave, the short reach meant many areas would need new cells. Then 3GPP redefined 5G to include almost any new system. Most notoriously, 4G TDD-LTE now is called 5G if a very modest software tweak is added, "5G NR." The software has a very limited effect on performance.

21 of the first 23 "5G" deployments are mid and low-band, with reach comparable to the 4G already in the network. Few new cells are required in the 2.6 GHz band. That's mostly true in the more common 3.5 GHz band, although the data is more limited. 

Ronan Dunne of Verizon confirms the speed of the new "5G" is very close to 4G. 

30% 5G in Korea in 2020 forecast

2 million of the 51 million Koreans bought 5G phones in the first four months and 5 million are expected by the end of 2019. KT forecasts 30% will go 5G by the end of 2020. The only other reliable figure for 5G phones sales is from Huawei, which sold 1 million phones in the first two weeks. Everything else is speculation, usually from limited information. 

From SK, the #1 mobile carrier: We believe that the 5G subscriber mark -- number will exceed the 1 million mark during August and we see that the -- by the end of this year, we will achieve at least 2 million. So it is indeed increasing at a faster pace than we had first expected. And in 2020, considering current trends continue, we expect that number to reach 7 million subscribers.

From KT:  By the end of year 2019, we will see about 10% of 5G subscribers out of its total handset subscribers. And also in light of the broadening of the handset and device lineup and the stabilization of the network, we expect to reach around 30% by 2020.