We’re retiring our oldest plans, some of which were built nearly 15 years ago – in the 3G and 4G eras, and well before our 5G network was fully deployed. Customers will transition to modern plans that provide access to America’s best wireless technology, enhanced features and a 5-year price guarantee for peace of mind….
3GPP Release 19 continues the evolution of 5G-Advanced and, among many other areas, brings important enhancements for satellite access, Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN), Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS), Air-to-Ground networks and positioning. While NTN was initially seen by many as a way of extending mobile coverage to remote areas, Release 19 shows that the ambition is now…
Mid-band spectrum has become one of the most important parts of the mobile network story. Low-band spectrum is essential for wide-area coverage and better indoor reach, while high-band spectrum, including mmWave, can provide very high capacity in selected locations. Mid-band sits between these two extremes and provides the practical balance of coverage and capacity that…
The Citizens Broadband Radio Service, better known as CBRS, has often been described as an experiment in spectrum sharing. Based on the latest OnGo Alliance webinar on the state of CBRS, that description no longer feels accurate. CBRS is now a sizeable and maturing wireless ecosystem in the United States, supporting mobile operators, cable companies,…
The evolution of channel bandwidths in 5G NR has been relatively conservative compared to earlier generations, but recent developments in 3GPP Release 19 show that this is beginning to change. The introduction of 7 MHz channel bandwidth in FR1 marks an important step towards addressing practical spectrum realities that many operators have faced since the…
As the journey towards 3GPP Release 20 and 6G (3GPP Rel-21) continues to gather pace, the recently concluded Release 19 comes with a clearer view of what the next phase of 5G evolution, often referred to as 5G-Advanced, will look like in practice. One of the most useful artefacts in this process is the recently…
The development of each new mobile generation is not only about new technologies and capabilities. It also requires evolution in the way standards themselves are created, maintained and consumed. As work on 6G gradually begins to take shape, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has started examining whether the tools and processes used to write…
The buildout of 5G networks continues apace, with wide-scale deployments across much of the developed world. Yet, one of the largest challenges with closing the gaps in coverage maps are constraints on 5G transmissions. Because of the spectrum that 5G technology uses compared to 4G, telecom operators need to install many times more towers to…
Dutch social enterprise Fairphone has announced its first 5G smartphone, the Fairphone 4. The “greentech” mobile maker differentiates from almost the entire smartphone industry through a promise of sustainability via repairable modularity. It combines this with a big push around social responsibility and ethical electronics — touting fairly sourced materials and better conditions for workers…
At Amazon’s AWS re:Invent conference this morning, the company announced the preview of “AWS Private 5G,” which is a new service that aims to make it easy to deploy and manage your own private network. The launch is meant to address the challenges companies are facing with leveraging 5G. AWS CEO Adam Selipsky said that…
