Randall Stephenson expects "rapid deployment of 5G wireless technology in rural areas." WTF?

Virtually certain: Almost no deployment of 5G highband to rural areas anytime soon. The CEO of AT&T personally came to D.C. to make an absurd argument for protecting very high pricing for rural backhaul, absolutely the right policy choice. 

He told Commissioner Mignon Clyburn "the decision to regulate prices for business data services (“BDS”), particularly fiber-based BDS, will deter incentives for the rapid deployment of 5G wireless technology in rural America." 

Everyone knows that AT&T is not going to deploy meaningful amounts of 5G wireless technology in rural America for at least a decade and probably longer. Millimeter wave has a very short reach. Verizon is hoping to get 500 feet. That means an enormous number of cells are required, literally millions for a wide U.S. rollout. It's a sure money loser for a very long time except in dense areas.

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Ambani pricing isn't crazy. France, Finland, and Denmark are similar.

Xavier Niel is making $billions pricing as low as 40 euro cents. The wireless world is shocked by Reliance Jio's low price of $0.74/gigabyte. I picked up an Indian Express comment "Cheapest 4G-LTE data rates the world has ever seen." By some measures, that's true; by others, such as price/gigabyte at 50 gig, France and Finland are lower. The other Indian carriers are frantically trying to find a way to match Ambani's pricing without going broke.

European data demonstrate today's LTE networks are efficient enough to thrive on low prices. Datamonitor provides this handy chart of best European prices. For 20 gigabyte usage, Denmark is about the same price as Reliance. At 50 gigabytes, Finland and France are actually a little cheaper. In comparison, U.S. prices are astronomical. Germany and Italy, with only three carriers, are very high. (Data below)

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128 Antenna MIMO from Ericsson in 2017

Tom Keathley of AT&T approves. No one believed Arogyaswami Paulraj in the 1990's when he claimed MIMO (his invention) would one day lead to a 100x improvement in wireless capacity. That day is now close, with Ericsson making the first announcement of commercial Massive MIMO. 

"We must have MU-MIMO," Sanyogita Shamsunder of Verizon said this spring. "Massive-MIMO, also known as 3D MIMO, is an important milestone in China Mobile's technology roadmap," Huang Yuhong of China Mobile says in the pr below. Keathley adds a comment from AT&T. 

Many of us have seen how well four antennas work in 4x4 Wi-Fi, raising theoretical speeds over a gigabit and real world tests at 500 megabits. Four antenna MIMO is a crucial enabler of gigabit LTE, about to start deploying. Add more antennas and performance continues to improve. See 1000% MU MIMO gain in gigabit tests by Universities, Facebook. 

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10 gig LTE $7.40 at Reliance. All calls free.

"Cheapest 4G-LTE data rates the world has ever seen." India will shortly have more 4G connection that the U.S. has people (317M.) China already does. In a few years, Indians with 4G phones will probably number more than the combined population of Western Europe and the United States. This is a very different Internet.

Mukesh Ambani spent $20B on the network across India. He intends to get 100M users as soon as possible. The other telcos are dropping prices to match or going out of business. India has 12 wireless carriers competing, but many think that will quickly come down to 4 or 5. Telenor is the latest to give up. 

Everything is free until December 31. If $7.40 is too much, you can buy one gig for $0.74 on a day pass.

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The next 6 years of wireless; 6 things you need to know (Draft for comment.)

Forget "5G" marketing hype. LTE is going to a gigabit in 2016 at Telstra in Australia and SK in Korea. AT&T and just about every other large carrier plans 600 megabits to a gigabit in the next few years. (Update September - AT&T confirms 12-18 months.Qualcomm is shipping the gigabit X16 LTE chip. Gigabit LTE uses more bandwidth, 60-100 MHz in total (Carrier aggregation); more antennas, 4x4 and 8x8 MIMO; and more bits per signal, 256 QAM. 

Aggregation, MIMO, and 256 QAM will dominate the next five years. 5G highband will be exciting, great pr, and only minimally deployed until at least 2021 and probably a few years later. NTT DOCOMO's CTO Onoe expects nearly all "5G" advances to be under 6 GHz until 2022-2023.

Update Sept: Softbank Japan has turned on world's first 5G. It's Massive MIMO, not mmWave.

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Comcast promises "100% of advertised speeds, even during peak"

Shared networks can work remarkably well. Across the U.S., AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon are in a fierce marketing battle to offer fiber to new developments. Table stakes now are a reliable gigabit network and premium TV offerings. 400,000 new apartments go up every year. They add less than 1/2 of 1% to the housing stock but are a prime growth market. 

I suspect there's a slight exaggeration here, but 97-99% would make most of us very happy. U.S. & U.K. government testing (SamKnows) have long demonstrated that most cable networks are darn close to 100% delivery. In 2014, FCC tests showed 95% of Comcast customers received between 109% and 119% of advertised upload speeds.

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Cuts at Google Fiber: No one switching, wireless and cable going to a gig

If cable/DSL is good, people won't switch. Kevin McLaughlin's article is unconfirmed but makes sense. Update Someone who knows thinks this is false. The analysis stands whether or not there are cuts today.End update.

 I have 200/20 cable; Jennie 50/50 fiber. Both are rock solid and uncongested. For most people that's fine and Google's gigabit isn't worth switching for. Reported result: Cost per new customer blows out the economics. Fiber needs to win ?30% to 50% of the market. That's hard if the existing carriers aren't so bad. LTE by the end of this year will be at a gigabit, (shared) with more antennas likely to allow servicing more fixed customers.

LTE by the end of this year will be at a gigabit, (shared.) Many antenna MIMO will allow servicing more fixed customers even before 5G is ready. Comcast and Cox are promising a gigabit (shared) to half the country within two years.

People hate to switch.

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Gig LTE: Telstra 2016, Swisscom 2017; AT&T joining the parade

Who needs 5G? I was wrong last issue to say SK in Korea was the first to announce gigabit (shared) LTE deployments. I had missed a Telstra announcement earlier this year.  Huawei, Nokia, and Ericsson are ready to deliver gigabit gear to any carrier who can clear an additional 40 MHz. Most carriers will have the bandwidth needed as they refarm 2G and 3G spectrum. AT&T is officially ending 2G later this year, and many will follow. LTE now carries almost all data at Verizon, so they can reuse much of the 3G spectrum soon. "The spectrum crisis" was invented by lobbyists who wanted governments to give them more spectrum cheaply, but was wildly exaggerated: except in India, most large carriers will be able to dedicate 60-100 megabits to LTE and achieve peaks of a gig and more.

AT&T's Andre Fuersch promised the gigabit in an important speech,

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