5G Factor: Qualcomm, Ericsson, AT&T Moves Shine Spotlight on IoT EP78

Hello and welcome everyone to the 5G Factor. I'm Ron Westfall, research director here at the Futuring Group, and I'm joined here today by my distinguished colleague, Tom Hollingsworth, the networking nerd and event lead at Tech Field Day here at the FU and Group. And in fact, I believe we're coming off of very successful events, uh, that is Mobility Field Day 12, where I believe we have very stimulating presentations and conversations with Cisco and Nile.

And we'll touch on that a bit more in our conversation today. But first, hello, Tom. Thanks again for, you know, joining the 5G Factor today.

Well, thanks for the invitation, Ron. I'm, uh, rested up after having a great mobility event, and I'm looking forward to having a little bit of Turkey before we close out the year. Naturally, I think we all are, and that doesn't mean we're resting still.

Overall, after all, there are more tech field day events on the horizon, specifically in 2025. And today I'll touch, um, one that's Mobility Field day 13, and it's already scheduled for May 7th, eighth of 2025. We already have folks signing up for it.

And so, hey, now would be a good time to think about it and start signing up before it's spilled out. Tom, anything to add for the upcoming mobility field Day 13 event, as well as Tech Field Day in general? Well, tech Field Day is gonna be a very popular event in 2025.

We're already getting a lot of interest from a lot of different companies, so if this is something that is on your radar, you definitely need to reach out to us because I don't want you to be the last one holding the bag when, uh, when we fill up the event and, uh, we have to wait for the next, That's right. Yeah, so May is the first one, but if you miss the May one, you might have to wait until, I don't know, second half of the year for sure. But with that, let's dive into our conversations today on the 5G Factor.

And one thing I think's important to touch on is what's going on in the IO OT realm, because it's been, and a lot of conversations here over the last month plus, and specifically Qualcomm is focusing on building its i OT portfolio and presence to usher in what is being characterized as the industrial intelligence era. And I think that's a pretty smart way of describing what is on tap here, combining the capabilities of connectivity with, you know, the new evolving capabilities that technology such as AI can introduce into how organizations use edge connectivity to their competitive advantage. And so what we're exploring is really organizations are looking more and more to adding intelligence to, again, their edge.

And whether it's, you know, tracking products in a warehouse or, you know, optimizing surveillance cameras, uh, in a secured energy facility, whatever it is, what they have in common is that they face challenges ranging from non-uniform deployments to unreliable connectivity, and that's something nobody really wants. And so as a result, Qualcomm led by, uh, KU Dugal who's now their group gm, not just for embedded IOT, but also automotive as in cloud computing. He is leading the charge and he spotlighted Qualcomm's ongoing IO OT push at Qualcomm investor day.

Following on, I think what was the very effective debut at Embedded World North America and Austin about a month ago. So what's going on here? Qualcomm Technologies hopes to solve, you know, these challenges by bringing a more strategic and unified approach to its hardware portfolio alongside customized solutions tailored to the specific needs of each industry.

So yes, this is not unique to iot. We've seen this before. You want a portfolio that on the one hand is unified, it can, uh, bring cohesion to, you know, the fragmentation and silos out there, but also it has to strike that fine balance of being able to meet and attune to the specific needs of the customer, really attaining the best of both worlds.

Now, can Qualcomm do this? Well, we're looking at it in terms of, it's starting with two fundamental aspects. First of all, the edge can be intelligent and the edge is connected as a result.

Industrial intelligence, that's, you know, the term I already touched on. And from there, solutions from Qualcomm's perspective and also from mine, can be mixed and matched more to address everything from the energy sector, retail, healthcare enterprises, you name it. We, we can basically span the entire list of major verticals out there.

And what Qualcomm's strategy is doing, it's involving scalable blueprints, uh, or chassis as, uh, they're, uh, uh, making it, you know, that comparison to the automotive route where they've had a great deal of success. And that is, you know, blueprints for every vertical that looks for similarities across industries for different solutions, and then creating bespoke solutions as they are needed. And at its core, Qualcomm components including, uh, specialized enterprise, uh, class processor such as the Qualcomm IQ series, and that they are using AI capabilities alongside 5G and other wireless connections to meet challenges such as extreme environments.

And it includes, uh, among other things, hardware stacks, software stacks, a edge AI infrastructure services and deployment solutions, as well as all important location and observability services. And Tom, with that kickoff, what do you see of our Qualcomm's prospects? What do you see going on here?

Why Qualcomm is putting so much more effort into addressing the iot realm? Because Qualcomm realizes that there is a finite horizon for user facing devices. I mean, we all have them, right?

I have a phone and I have a laptop and I have a tablet. Do I, do I need two? Do I need, do I need four?

Like, like eventually you get to a point where you realize that there's, there's not a, there, there's, there's only so many things that can have in my hands, right? Whereas with iot devices, we know that those get deployed by the dozen when we're using them as sensors, when we're using them as data collection points when we're using them in a variety of industrial applications. I mean, think about something as simple as an access point.

You, you don't buy those one or two at a time. You buy them one or two cases at a time. And so Qualcomm realizes that there's a lot of value in providing the chip sets that go into those things.

And they've been doing a lot of research into providing specifically low powered, full featured chip sets. Look at the, uh, the windows, uh, you know, re the recall PC that's powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. I mean, okay, the, the main CPU of the laptop is, is doing the work, but the, the Snapdragon send of Northern side basically accelerating the AI functions on it.

So if you have something that capable in a small set, uh, form factor where I, I need to deploy this not in a desk where there's power and proper air handling and things like that, but I need a, a small box that's maybe two or three inches square stuck on the side of a piece of milling machinery. Like if I can collect data and, and provide information and control to that device with something that is, you know, consistent, repeatable, uh, that I can count on it, then I'm gonna buy those and put them everywhere because we've been told for years that we've gotta start being able to do less or do more with less staffing. And I think that companies like Qualcomm have realized that the future is iot.

You know, there's gonna be billions of iot devices that are gonna be deployed in just the next couple of years. Being able to have a foothold in that market is a huge competitive advantage for any company that can work with the challenges that exist there. Yeah, I, I agree, Tom.

I I think the, the market is really coming to, you know, that threshold where it's gonna take off all the more, you know, Qualcomm has already has a presence here. It's like, okay, let's really expand our presence. And so in addition to providing chip sets that are, you know, optimized for IOT applications, it's also raising the channel profile, working with systems integrators, resellers, developers, tapping into resources that Qualcomm can bring to the table, um, at areas as well, such as the Qualcomm AI hub and Qualcomm iot solutions, uh, framework.

And also in Qualcomm's case, even working more directly with large enterprises in terms of, you know, how can we get these so solutions customized to meet those, uh, specific needs. And so taken together, I think Qualcomm can attain that Goldilocks, if you will, now being able to have a platform that is built to overcome the existing barriers out there, but also at the same time meet the specific needs of each customer and as a result, basically enable industrial intelligence to become really a widespread global phenomena to make IOT scaling all the more secure and well, uh, rapid. And so I think this is encouraging that Qualcomm is indeed throwing its, uh, hat into the ring in terms of this, uh, specific, uh, initiative.

And I think it's tying into, and you touched on it, is how is the connectivity going to be optimized for enterprises in these high demand verticals? Certainly when it comes to wireless connectivity. And, uh, in addition, Ericsson is promoting private 5G or cellular, uh, connectivity specifically for the oil and gas vertical or the energy vertical.

And from my view, private cellular networks can provide advantageous coverage, higher throughput, lower latency, you name it, uh, uh, for the oil and gas application specifically. And why is that, and what am I comparing it to? Well, specifically, uh, wifi comes to mind, but hold on.

Uh, there's more here than just, okay, is private 5G automatically better for, uh, than wifi for addressing evolving oil and gas needs? And I think what we're seeing is that they needs to basically understand better the business value of these use cases. That is the connectivity pro, uh, providers and how can private 5G adoption, uh, be driven amongst the operations teams within, uh, this vertical.

And, uh, to address this challenge, Ericsson developed its ROI calculator now, and of course, these calculators can be disagreed with, but it does at least provide a way to better understand, okay, what is it in my environment that I need to know about and consider in terms of how can I make my connectivities all the more business friendly that is improved business outcomes? And that is really the ultimate line. So really the ROI calculator that Erickson is unfolding focus on, uh, three major use case areas as well as other ones, but it's really looking at what's the reality on the ground today in oil and gas.

And that is the connected worker, and he touched on that, Tom, the field workers better equip the smartphones, the tablets, the video connected helmets, et cetera, including, I would say increasingly AR capabilities, you know, for being able to look at know construction designs and so forth on a flexible basis as well as of course, iot connectivity. And here's the one that I find intriguing as to how private 5G could have an edge, and that is robotics and drone capabilities using them, you know, for whatever is required. Inspections, uh, specifically when it comes to energy and oil comes to mind that is, you know, teach increasingly using d drones to do things like leak detection, integrity checks, you name it, and it's just, they're well suited for that versus sending a person out there in a, you know, a challenging environment to do those things.

And quite simply, I think you need, uh, private 5G connectivity to really make that work on an optimal basis. Now, Ericsson sees wifi networks in this environment, at least as spacing limitations in terms of scalability, reliability, and security, let alone coverage. And as a result, so they're kind of, you know, tipping the balance in private five G's favor.

But we saw at mobility field day 12 vendors like Cisco are saying, now, hold on, maybe you don't need a private 5G uh, implementation because from a wifi vendor perspective, or at least one who is, you know, touting wifi specifically for these, uh, situations, is that you can use ultra reliable wireless backhaul integrated into a, say a new wifi seven access point to achieve these same capabilities. So, I don't know, can they peacefully coexist more or is there, uh, really a more head-to-head competition going on? Tom, uh, from your perspective, what do you see going on here, uh, at least when it comes to oil and gas, let alone other verticals that have similar demands?

What, uh, what is the competitive mix and how do you see it playing out? Well, Oil and gas has always been a really weird kind of, um, industry to be involved in, because so much of it takes place in places that are, well, for lack of a better term, hostile to IT environments. If you've never been on a drilling rig before, it is the dirtiest, dustiest most dangerous place that you could ever deploy an access point or a sensor or something like that.

And so I get the, the need to be able to have like the, you know, IOT devices, drones, uh, you know, robot inspectors. Like, like you've gotta think there are hundreds if not thousands of miles of pipeline out there. And having a a, a person driving it looking for damage is just not feasible.

But if you could have some kind of a drone system that can just constantly watch it or have these things, you know, plugged in, that's great. The problem of course, is that those thousands of miles of pipeline don't run next to your average Starbucks wifi hotspot. Uh, they, they weren't through the middle of nowhere.

And so what are your options? Well, if you have cellular connectivity in that area, I guess you could use a private 5G LTE type deployment, but you can't even count on that sometimes. So what companies like Cisco and, and others who are kind of in this ultra, uh, reliable, uh, backhaul area, our thinking is, you know, what if you just create this, you know, mesh network and, and I see the value in that.

I mean, if you can backhaul those signals down that pipeline as needed, that's super valuable to people. Now, you gotta think about it this way though. When you, when you look at who's proposing which solutions they're playing to their strengths, the, the Ericssons of the world, the Celonis of the world, they're gonna tell you that private 5G is the best solution.

It's because that's what they sell. That is their primary way of, of getting the technology out there. If you talk to the Junipers of the world, the Ciscos of the world, the HPEs of the world, they're gonna have a different story because they have historically been very all in on the wifi side of things.

But I think that I mentioned HPE as, as a company that does this, HPE actually has a foot in both realms, right? Because they have the pedigree of the H HP Aruba Networking Access Point portfolio, but they also have the ANet acquisition that they made, uh, last year that has, you know, private 5G capabilities. So I think a lot of companies that are, you know, they're, they're working on one solution.

I think some of them are gonna pivot and, and it'll be interesting to see if they come up with dedicated use cases that work better for one case over the other, or if they say, you know what, um, you know, this is the one that we do that works the best, and that's what we're gonna go with. Yeah, I, I, I grieve wholeheartedly in terms of, you know, the competitive mix. It's going to be really correlated to, on the one hand, what the customer's needs are.

And oil and gas does have some rather distinct challenges that don't really apply to say manufacturing, let alone, you know, other transportation applications where ultra reliable wireless back hauler, UR wb, uh, could be, uh, uh, well suited. And, and I think you, uh, have an excellent point there in terms of, of, you know, what HPE has doing with its portfolio. Yes, they acquired Athena, and yes, they have the Aruba assets so they can bring both to the table, and they have positioned, uh, at least H HP Aruba, uh, networking Central to be able to provide visibility and administrative oversight for both implementations when they need to coexist.

And I think that will increasingly be the case where wifi is used for what can be characterized as carpeted areas, or even in some scenarios, you know, outdoor if using URWB and it so happens to work as it's advertised to work, but ultimately still could require private 5G for fleets and remote drones and things like that where, uh, the connectivity options are just, uh, more expanded because of, you know, coverage and things of that nature. And so, yes, the, uh, the players out there are going to, I think, increasingly, uh, and take this approach because Cisco, you know, also has a private 5G side of the house. And so there will probably be more coordination as this market evolves, because while private 5G has been victimized somewhat by the hype cycle, it is actually making more inroads.

The technology has matured, lessons have been learned, solutions have been simplified, and to overcome some of the complexities and also, okay, is there, you know, a little extra CapEx upfront sometimes. And yes, that can be the case, but the benefits can pay off because of this ROI calculators that folks like Ericsson are offering. So stay tuned.

It's gonna be exciting. This is actually, I think, a very exciting space to watch in terms of, okay, how this will play out, because wireless connectivity, no matter how it's deployed, and no matter how it's implemented, it's going to become just that integral. That's why Qualcomm's vetting so heavily on it in terms of, you know, edge intelligence and AI being a key reason why that's becoming so strategic for a lot of organizations out there.

And speaking of IOT, well, we had an interesting announcement come out that is at and t said it will start decommissioning its narrow ban IOT network next year in 25. However, Verizon and T-Mobile reaffirmed that they are going to continue supporting their N-B-I-O-T offerings. And what is going on here?

You know, why would at t do this? Well, first of all, it just hasn't gained much traction, at least from at t's perspective. And as we know, N-B-I-O-T is really, uh, predominant, uh, in terms of the global market in China.

Uh, I believe up to 90% of all rabban IOT deployments are in China. But however, that does not deny that it still can be very applicable to markets here, right here in the US and other parts of the world. And so that also brought to attention, well, why, uh, would you stop NBIT?

What can you then run with, well, you have Laura, you have LTM, you have 5G REDCap. There's just really a interesting, interesting plethora of options out there if you want to, uh, replace, uh, NBIT, like an at t's case. And as a result, all of them, if you look at at t specifically, but also T-Mobile and Verizon are going with TEM.

And you know, part of it is the fact that, uh, it can accommodate, uh, more deployment flexibility, it can share spectrum with other applications and so forth. And also what's interesting about REDCap as it's coming on board, specifically in alignment with the 5G Advance standard, it's actually designed specifically for iot environments that are, you know, uh, being supported by 5G networks. And as such, that's why we've seen T-Mobile already announced red cap services and Verizon will be following suit.

Uh, and as a result, uh, it's interesting what's going on here in the IOT space. I'm not gonna pile on Cisco and announce also a, an interesting IOT move. And Tom, what do you see going on here?

Why is the IOT space suddenly so kinetic, you know, know what, what are, what to do with all these options? What do you see winning out? Well, If you gimme just a second, I can, uh, give you a presentation on this laser disc that I own.

And, and if anybody got a chuckle out of that for you kids that might be listening to this laser disc was a format, uh, years ago. No, I'm, I'm, I'm kidding. The reason why at and t is dumping, uh, narrow band is because it's very narrow, right?

Yes, it is huge market in China, but we are not China. And, and that is a problem for at and t because just like the last big format, war, H-D-D-V-D versus Blu-Ray, I mean, you've got proponents on it both sides, right? Uh, you know, this is gonna be the next big standard.

We're gonna make this the big deal, we're gonna give away the players and we're gonna put the best movies on it, and eventually there is a winner, right? Like both of them will not really coexist. Yeah.

Maybe what you'll run into is that weird thing where you have like, um, you know, in, uh, narrow Band is, is still big in China, and that's the only thing, but the rest of the world ends up going with Laura Wan or, or what have you. Uh, you know, it's, it's no different than the the television sets, right? NTSC versus Powell, uh, you know, Europe still uses Powell, uh, US and Japan still uses NTSC.

Um, but I think that at t's kind of seeing the writing on the wall here, like, it, it, they, I think, believe maybe that what they were hoping was that they supported, uh, N-B-I-O-T, that they could break into the Chinese market. And I think they're seeing that that's probably not gonna be the case. So why would you try to bang your head against the wall to develop these deployments when you could sign on to one that seems to be popular, like Laura or even REDCap, and say, well, this is what we're gonna go with in the future.

Because it seems to be that there's already more traction for those here for Verizon and T-Mobile. Maybe their customers are not really deploying it right now, so they think that they have an end to get there. But I think more likely than not, what we're probably going to see in a few years is that they will slowly deprecate support for the protocol, especially if one of the others becomes ascendant here in North America and in Europe.

Um, I guess time will tell would be the best way to put it, but I also know that, you know, market that moves this fast time will tell is basically like saying, I don't know what's gonna happen. Fair enough. Yeah.

And it's an interesting, uh, mix. Uh, I think part of it is that T-Mobile and Verizon, it's not broken, so we're not fixing it at and t is like, well broke enough. We're just not making money off of it.

So we're gonna, uh, cut loose, uh, at the front end, at least amongst the major three, uh, US carriers, uh, in the us. And so yeah, stay tuned. I mean, already T-Mobile and, uh, Verizon on board for LTA, uh, M and uh, 5G REDCap.

So I, I think, you know, there's some running on the wall, and that's a fair point about China. It's that rather unique market. Part of the reason why, uh, narrow ban has had so much traction, well, it was heavily subsidized, and so it just made it, uh, all the easier for, you know, the carriers in China to deploy it in other organizations.

And, uh, so it was just that, you know, very cheap to adopt. And as a result, it's widely embedded. However, you know, China itself will be evolving its iot implementation implementations.

And speaking of LoRa, which is still certainly alive and kicking its ecosystem so forth, but we saw Cisco announced that it was going to discontinue its Laura Ann support. And I guess Tom, uh, any, uh, insight on, you know, why Cisco made this move and you know, what's going on, you know, with the Laura community, I would almost be willing to bet it has a lot to do with the announcement of their support for the ultra reliable wireless backhaul. They're doing the exact same thing that at and t is doing.

They're looking at the support for standards and saying, well, do we need to have an option for every one of these? Some people might say, well, why don't you, and then I would remind them that Desco doesn't make a token ring switch anymore. Um, just because there has been a standard around for years doesn't mean that you can't decide to standardize on something else.

Um, you know, could they, yeah, they could. But here's the thing, if the leader in a market or a large player in the market decides to drop support for protocol and then other groups follow suit, does that mean that you're gonna end up dropping support for it across the board? I don't really have a good answer for that.

I, I will tell you though, that we did record a podcast on the Tech Field Day podcast about how wifi isn't always the perfect solution for what you need. There's other things like, you know, 5G, red cap, lo win, uh, wifi halo, you name it. And there's a lot of people out there that are huge proponents for those non wifi protocols.

They're still wireless, but they're not wifi. And I think that the, it's, it's gonna always be that chicken in the egg problem. Is the protocol gonna gain support because it's backed by big vendors, or are big vendors going back it because there's wide support for the protocol?

If I was a vendor, I, I don't know how to bet on that. Uh, but I think that Cisco's probably trying to focus on areas where they feel like they can have a material impact on the way that the standard is developed, which gives them a little bit more input into how it will be implemented to help we sell more hardware. Yeah, no, I think that, uh, ties it together and yes, uh, I think that's very helpful in terms of, you know, the why behind this decision making.

And yes, we will definitely be following what's going on in the iot realm and how it relates to 5G ecosystem. Clearly, uh, their destinies are intertwined. It's been, you know, projected to have that for a while, but now it's becoming increasingly clear.

But hold on, there's plenty of ways to support iot without necessarily involving 5G and beyond, you know, coexistence. And so this is gonna make it an exciting market. Maybe the competitive mix will be like streaming services.

It'll just be multiple choices, and each customer will decide what bundles and combinations they need, and one, and there you go. The, the provider will supply that, uh, uh, capability. And that's not to say that somebody like Cisco can't help, you know, make a difference when it comes to specific protocols and so forth.

So yeah, that will just add to, I would say, uh, the entry as, uh, the competitive terrain evolves rapidly as we step into 2025. And with that, I would like to, again, thank everyone for jumping on and listening to our perspective as to what's going on in the 5G ecosystem or really the 5G iot ecosystem for today's conversation. And Tom, thanks again for hopping on before, you know, the Thanksgiving holiday kicks in.

I think we're all looking forward to that. I'm always happy to be a part of this, Ron. It's, it's interesting to see where people are taking wireless technology and, and what is being adopted.

And you know, it's not just wifi, it is, you know, 5G it is, uh, it is ultra reliable, uh, wireless backhaul, you name it. There's a lot of technologies out there to investigate. And the more time we spend talking about it, the more informed decisions you people out there can make.

Yeah. And that could make, you know, mobility, field day, all the more important for, you know, how is this, uh, breaking out? How is this evolving?

And that'll be a great snapshot about six months from now to better understand how this is indeed evolving and who is, you know, really prevailing in terms of the competitive landscape. So again, everyone, don't forget to bookmark us. It's 5G Factor on the Futureum Group website, as well as we're on Textron tv and we're certainly also on Tech Field Day in terms of, you know, uh, talking about these key topics.

And with that, everyone have a happy bye, g and IOT Day.