China: 1.1B 4G, >400M BB, 328M fiber home, rapid growth

In June, China Mobile added 4.6M landlines, reaching 135M. China Telecom added 1.3M to come to 140M + 24M in the areas covered by parent company CTC. China Unicom added .3M to 70M. Add independent Dr. Peng and the relatively modest cable totals and the country total is well over 400M, about 40% of the world's 1,000,000,000 connections. 

Mobile connections topped 1.4B. Most are 4G but several hundred million have not yet upgraded. China Telecom was the June leader at 5.5M added, China Unicom's newly found aggressiveness has created a price war, but revenues continue to grow.

Nokia, Ericsson, and Samsung ban could cripple U.S. 5G (Satire)

Donald Trump tweeted, "All three are massively involved in upgrading networks in Syria, Iran & Cuba, our enemies. We must ban them from the U.S." Trump discovered that Ericsson is working with ETECSA on Campo Proyecto in Cuba. Ericsson & Nokia both have large, active teams in Syria and Iran. Samsung supplies almost half the cell phones in Iran. Most Nokia wireless gear is made in China in a joint venture 50% owned by the Chinese government

With this move, all five companies with 5G networks cannot sell in the U.S.

"Ericsson bragged about a $B sale to China Mobile just a few days after we banned them from the U.S. Just like Germany's gas deal with Russia, this means they are under control. 5G bragging rights are important, but not as important as U.S. power around the world."

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Adtran expects G.fast boost from AT&T & Australia but Century still isn't buidling

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300,000,000 connections at stake in rural India

625,000 villages are being connected with fiber by the remarkable Bharatnet, on track to complete in 2019. One to five Wi-Fi hotspots in each area (GP) will offer services including banking and e-gov for eight cents (U.S.) per day to $1.50/month. These "Common services centres" will often be run by "Village level entrepreneurs," perhaps as many as 100,000.

DOT's goal is 500,000 deployed in 2018 under a light licensing procedure. 43,000 are already in place and 300,000 more on the way. Some will be solar-powered.

This is the largest Internet access program on earth, originally conceived by Sam Pitroda in the government of  Dr. Mammohan Singh. It is a credit to the government building it.* Telcos are also connecting; Bharti has 30,000 cells planned. Reliance Jio, now with 4G to 96% of Indians, will raise that to 99%. Jio has better coverage than most of the major Europeans, all state of the art 4G LTE.

The big four telcos now are demanding a delay and a huge increase in costs.  "Establishing public WiFi networks without licence will be illegal being in violation of the Indian Telegraph Act 1885."

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5G Why Verizon thinks differently and what to do about it

Only one telco on Earth has publicly committed to a large, millimeter wave 5G build designed for true gigabit service: Verizon. The Europeans are all using 5G Low, 70%-90% slower.

STL Partners, a British consulting outfit I respect, commissioned me to ask why. That report is now out. If you're a client, download it here. If not, and corporate priced research is interesting to you, ask me to introduce you to one of the principals.

It was fascinating work because the answers aren't obvious. Lowell McAdam's company is spending $20B to cover 30M+ homes in the first stage. The progress in low & mid-band, both "4G" and "5G," has been remarkable. In most territories, millimeter wave will not be necessary to meet expected demand.

McAdam sees a little further. mmWave has 3-4X the capacity of low and mid-band. He sees an enormous marketing advantage: unlimited services, even less congestion, reputation as the best network. Verizon testing found mmWave rate/reach was twice what had been estimated. All prior cost estimates need revision.

My take: even if mmWave doesn't fit in your current budget, telcos should expand trials and training to be ready as things change. The new cost estimates may be low enough to change your mind.

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India unreal: Jio goes for 50M FTTH in 1100 cities, already 215M 4G and 96+% covered

Audited financials* report a profit with prices of $2-10/month. Rio sells with feature phones from $30 and smartphones from $60. Ambani offers LTE to 96% of India, confirmed independently by OpenSignal. heading to 99%. No government subsidy, ET predicts prices will start at $8.

If India can do this with a $7K per capita income, so can Poland $29K per capita, Malaysia $28K, Argentina $20K, Mexico $19K, Dominican Republic $17K, Egypt $13K, Indonesia $12K, and many, perhaps most, of the 110 countries with higher incomes than India. Myanmar, one of the world's poorest, is over 90% covered and will soon be 95% LTE. Less than that is a government failure.

The primary secret is the incredibly low costs of today's wireless networks. Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam says his current cost per bit is 90% less than just a couple of years ago.

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Fiberhome acquires wireless pioneer Datang

Datang, like the Tang dynasty that inspired the name, exits with remarkable achievements. The Tang Dynasty introduced woodblock printing and many of the first manuscripts. The Tang poets remain admired after a millennium. Datang has played a crucial role in wireless since developing the TD-SCDMA standard before 2007*. That was extended to 4G TD-LTE, which is the basis in turn for much of mid-band 5G. In fact, when the technology was developed for wireless in the 3.5 GHz band, it was called TD-LTE.

Datang was so important in wireless standards that only three weeks ago Qualcomm signed a major agreement with them (below.) They have thousands of patents; it is probably impossible to build a 5G network without using Datang patents. (Huawei and ZTE also have primary patents on advanced wireless.)

Datang is still known for test and measurement equipment, but at $3B sales/year was too small to compete.

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AT&T, T-Mobile, & Huawei allies hire Trumpians

AT&T just hired Margaret Peterlin — who was an aide for Trump's Secretary of State Rex Tillerson — as senior vice president, global external and public affairs. T-Mobile hired Trump's tech guy, Jeff Eisenach, for analysis backing the Sprint deal. Jeff is a skilled economist who can always make an argument that reads well in a policy brief.* I don't know the actual numbers here, but the best-placed lawyers and DC advocates bill out at well over $1,000/hour. Peterlin's job presumably pays well into the $millions.

That's typical D.C. behavior, where we have the best Congress money can buy. 

Former U.S. Solicitor-General Ted Olsen declined the role of defending Donald Trump in the Mueller investigation, despite his strong ties to the Republican Party. But as a Washington lawyer-for-hire, Olsen is happily opposing the FCC de facto ban of Huawei through rules on universal service purchases.

Like most lobbyist filings, it's mostly hyperbole.

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