Ted and friends go terahertz

Ted Rappaport's paper, Millimeter wave mobile communications for 5G cellular: It will work! inspired 5G.  The new Wireless Communications and Applications Above 100 GHz: Opportunities and Challenges for 6G and Beyond points the way forward in wireless above 100 GHz. Ted and colleagues believe, "The mobile industry will be able to work well up to 800 GHz in the future using the small-cell architectures envisioned for 5G."

The reach of millimetre wave 5G is a major issue, due to signal loss. The paper discusses several ways to compensate for the increased loss in even higher frequencies. The key is that the antenna size goes down as frequencies go up. At 28 GHz, a 256 antenna module is the size of a chip. The beam will be pencil sized and hard to detect.

"THz will enable new sensing applications such as miniaturized radars for gesture detection and touchless smartphones, spectrometers for explosive detection and gas sensing [49], THz security body scanning, air quality detection [24], personal health monitoring systems [48], precision time/frequency transfer, and wireless synchronization [10], [22], [59]."

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China 2019 5G: 70,000, 150,000, 200,000?

Until the companies or MIIT reveal definite plans, it's impossible to give a firm estimate of China's 2019 build. China just moved up the date of officially going commercial, and Minister Miao ordered the telcos to accelerate 5G. Training the tens of thousand installers needed could hold things back. My guess is the higher estimates are more likely, especially after Minister Miao Wei ordered the telcos to "accelerate."

Analyst Joe Madden last summer predicted a "tidal wave" of China 5G. Early this year, Bing Dong of Nomura estimated 172,000 5G cells in 2019.  Few in the West accepted those figures. After all, the combined networks of AT&T and Verizon are below 172,000 bases.

In February, the three Chinese carriers released capital spending plans for 2019. They weren't explicit about how many base stations they would cover, but my inference from their numbers was the 2019 total would be about 70,000.  Several Chinese news sources continue to use similar numbers.

Late May, China Daily reported that the three giants would each have 30,000 to 50,000 5G bases in October, referencing ZTE and China Mobile. This week, Sina.com.cn reported an analyst estimate over 200,000. 

The companies may be waiting for a few months results before making a plan. 

Soon 100,000+ 5G sites as China goes commercial. Headed over 1,000,000

Until today, China's 5G was officially "non-commercial" but building rapidly. The country is set to pass the entire Western world before the previous  Oct.1 launch date.  See 90,000-150,000 Chinese 5G sites go live Octoberfor an earlier report.* Probably for political reasons, Minister Miao Wei just moved up the date.  China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom will build rapidly. They will be joined on the China Railway Towers by China's Radio and Television cable systems.

China Tower has 2.2 million sites and expects the carriers to upgrade most of them in the next few years. Towers and backhaul are in place. The upgrade will only require new radios, usually less than 15% of the cost.  

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China MIIT: Share!

1 network is cheaper than 2. 2 networks are cheaper than 4. Minister Miao Wei tells the telcos to "promote the sharing of 5G networks," and issues a detailed set of directions for how that should be done. (Below) Miao placed sharing second after, "accelerating the pave of 5G commercialization was listed before sharing." At left: Miao Wei (with glasses) smiles as he hands a 5G license to China Mobile.

China already shares towers in a separate company. The European regulators at BEREC estimate that brings down costs by 16% to 33% when two share. The interesting addition in the directions below is that indoor radios should also be shared, a farsighted opinion.  

Comrade Miao also, "should thoroughly study and implement Xi Jinping's new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and resolutely implement the decision-making arrangements of the Party Central Committee." Of course.

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Etilsalat 5G covers much of Abu Dhabi & Dubai

The green areas on the map show 5G availability in central parts of Abu Dhabi. The company has a similar map showing good coverage in Dubai. The National reports Etisalat is rapidly putting up 1,000 base stations. Those should be able to serve most of the 9.4 million population, concentrated in a handful of densely packed cities. 

You do not buy a 5G service, just a phone. Your 4G plan will automatically connect to a 5G tower when in range. Service plans start from about US$50/month. The available phones are from XTE, Oppo, and Huawei, all costing over US$1,000. 

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5G: $150-300 phones in 2020 at China Mobile

China Mobile Vice President Jian Qin: "5G mobile phones will be reduced to 1000-2000 yuan next year." (Google translation) (US$145-289) This corresponds to my earlier report from Peter Chou of Huawei that he is targeting $300 phones in 2020.

The question shouldn't be how they can go so low but rather "Why are 5G phones so expensive for now?" 5G phones are no longer mysterious. They require a better processor like a Qualcomm 855 or Huawei Kirin 980. A 5G modem and larger battery are also needed. The hardest part is the radio frequency front end (power amplifiers, transceivers, and especially filters.)  5G uses many more frequency bands. At the high speeds, only a few companies can make the parts. 

The difference in the costs of parts (bill of materials) between 4G and 5G models today should be US$40-75.  That will come down next year as MediaTek and UNISOC ship the 5G chips they have announced. Four companies - Skyworks, Qorvo, Broadcom/Avago, and Qualcomm/TDK - offer the RF parts, with several Chinese companies racing to deliver similar products.

Decent 4G phones this year cost US$200-300. Even US$110 buys a usable phone.

Next year, as always, costs will come down. 

343 Mbps 4G LTE at BT

No telecom engineer will be surprised that Peter Clarke recorded 344 Mbps downloads on 4G LTE to a BT Huawei tower. LTE has been testing over 1 gigabit in the lab and hundreds of megabits in the field for two years. 

T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray says that in theory the difference with NR should be 19% to 50%. In practice, I would expect less. If Peter had a 5G phone, the same spectrum at most would deliver about 480 Mbps. Huawei has improved 4G however, and the difference should be half.

Only salesman, politicians, and pundits believe ten times improvements from 5G. Interesting video of the actual test below

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Streaming games: Angry Birds beats Google to market

Vodafone and Sprint are offering Hatch, a service created by Vesa Jutila and other former execs of Rovio Angry Birds. After three years in stealth, for £6.99 Brits will be able to play Angry Birds, Hitman Go and Monument Valley, and 100 other games. It is currently only offering traditional mobile games, designed for limited phones and connections. It will probably work well with low latency Edge Networks. 

Tom Bedford believes, "5G gaming’s popularity could be dependant on its affordability, as people aren’t going to be likely to stream games if it’ll cost them a fortune."

For now, many telcos are pricing 5G at a premium. Hans Vestberg of Verizon estimates his costs are going down 90%. That implies that 5G prices will rapidly fall where competition is working.

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