Monica Alleven

Critics may have proclaimed 5G a flop, but T-Mobile certainly doesn't see it that way. The operator's President of Technology Ulf Ewaldsson said that the 5G story isn’t so bad after all. Ewaldsson is one of the relatively rare individuals with a good 5G story to tell. He recounted how 10 years ago, T-Mobile was dead last in the race for network superiority and its network was full of coverage holes. T-Mobile had a 3G network when everybody else had moved onto 4G LTE. Then the wave hit. “5G for us became a wave that we could ride all the way out,” he said.

At the beginning of 2024, Verizon executives were skeptical about the direct-to-device (D2D) market, uninterested in using their spectrum for a satellite-based service. Now, Verizon is bragging about how it will be the first mobile carrier to commercially launch smartphone connectivity on Skylo’s non-terrestrial satellite network and be the first mobile carrier to launch a commercial D2D service offering. Not only that, but it’s made a $100 million investment in AST SpaceMobile, which will use 85

Like a phoenix, Starry is on the rise again. The fixed wireless internet service provider (ISP) took the world by storm a few short years ago before declaring bankruptcy in 2023. Besides climbing out of bankruptcy, much of the past year has been focused on upgrading its hardware and software to offer gigabit speeds (1,000 Mbps).

Chances looked pretty good that a class action suit would be filed after T-Mobile said the “price lock guarantee” that many customers thought they had signed up for wasn’t actually a lifetime guarantee. Indeed, four named plaintiffs filed a complaint in U.S.

To hear well-known Wall Street analyst Craig Moffett tell it, Verizon spent a mind-boggling $52 billion on C-band spectrum which “isn’t very good” and fixing its 5G coverage problem is going to require even more money—“lots of money.” That was one of the hottest and most publicized take-aways from Verizon’s Q2 earnings call. While Moffett described Verizon’s overall wireless Q2 results as “fair,” the gist of his report focused on “Verizon’s C-band problem,” one that he said will take a whole lot of densification to rectify.

AT&T claims it is the first carrier in the U.S. to introduce 5G Reduced Capability (RedCap) technology for the IoT sector, with commercial service now available in select areas of the Dallas metro area. The service was launched on June 14 via a software upgrade from Ericsson, but AT&T is working with both Ericsson and Nokia on its RedCap rollout, according to Jason Sikes, AVP of Device Architecture at AT&T. RedCap stands for “reduced capability,” which sounds like something’s gone missing, but it actually refers to reduced complexity and therefore, reduced costs.

Once more, legislation addressing some of the nation’s biggest spectrum issues is scheduled for a markup, but it’s not winning any accolades from the U.S. wireless industry’s biggest trade group. The Spectrum and National Security Act – introduced by Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) in April 2024 – was most recently set to be marked up on June 12. That was postponed and rescheduled for Tuesday, June 18.

Verizon is among several entities that told the Federal Communications Commission to hold off on any plan to grant FirstNet – and by extension AT&T – a nationwide license to the 4.9 GHz band. In case you aren't up to speed, here's the recap: The Public Safety Spectrum Alliance (PSSA) supports a proposal to assign the 4.9 GHz band to FirstNet, which runs on AT&T’s network. The Coalition for Emergency Response and Critical Infrastructure (CERCI) opposes that plan and argues that the 4.9 GHz band should remain in the control of local authorities.

Judging by the online comments, T-Mobile’s price increase didn’t go over well. That’s putting it mildly—and it’s also no surprise. People generally don’t like to be told their monthly bills are increasing. But in T-Mobile’s case, customers are seething because T-Mobile is raising prices on plans that were offered with “guarantees” they wouldn’t go up, such as T-Mobile One plans. A T-Mobile spokesperson said customers who have Price Lock are still covered under that guarantee.

T-Mobile acquired a boatload of 2.5 GHz spectrum when it acquired Sprint in 2020, and it paid $304 million to win the lion’s share of licenses in the Federal Communications Commission’s Auction 108. Now it’s involved in a spectrum swap with SoniqWave Network to get even more 2.5 GHz spectrum.