Alianza Expands, Ericsson Antennas Wax, Nokia 5G Advanced Moves EP79

Hello and welcome everyone to the 5G Factor. I'm Ron Westfall, research director here at the Futurum Group, and once again, I'm pleased to have my distinguished colleague, Tom Hollingsworth, the networking nerd and event lead at Tech Field Day here joining me for today's conversation. In fact, I believe we've come off a successful string of tech field days to round out the end of the year, Q4 and so forth.

And, uh, today we're gonna focus on, you know, one aspect that the tech field days, uh, address, and that is the mobility world, and specifically the 5G ecosystem, some of the important co, you know, announcements that have come out over the last, uh, couple weeks. And, uh, with that, I'd like to say, speaking of tech Field Day, uh, there are more on the horizon. I know we're, uh, you know, getting toward the end of 24, but on 25 it's never too early to start planning.

For example, we have Mobility Field Day 13 that's already pegged for May 7th and eighth. And with that, Tom, I think that's a great segue. Uh, you know, any thoughts on the upcoming tech field day schedule and you know, what's going on, uh, in 5G?

Well, it's been an exciting time, and I know we're getting kind of down to the end of the year, and some people are trying to decide, you know, do I get this announcement out before CES? Do I wait and maybe save it for Mobile World Congress? But the answer is, of course, always, uh, there's gonna be news coming out that we're gonna want to cover, uh, here and in a lot of other places.

And, you know, tech Field Day is another great place that we do that. com is a great place to see what events that we have lined up, uh, coming up in 2025. We're already deep into planning for those and, uh, we can't wait to share more once we get everything kind of nailed down.

Outstanding. I couldn't have put it any better. And with that, let's dive right into, now we're looking at in terms of, you know, 5G ecosystem and, uh, a, you know, a slightly different variation.

Uh, let's start with, you know, Aliza, uh, which has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Metaswitch, at least, you know, most of its assets from Microsoft. And basically the deals aimed at advancing, you know, the path for CSPs, you know, the communication service providers to enter the cloud, uh, natively and also play a more integral role in the AI services, uh, economy. And now with the acquisition, what Allianz is hoping to get is really, first of all, a broader customer base.

You know, there's no harm in that. There weren't any, uh, a specific financials attached to the deal, but you could be pretty much bet that they got a good deal since, you know, Microsoft had already dialed back Azure for operators, which included Metaswitch and basically was, you know, looking to potentially sell Metaswitch assets at a very deep discount. But what that means though, is good news for aza, probably a very good deal taking, uh, Metaswitch off of, uh, Microsoft's hand.

And now they're, and they're, uh, they can say they're in 19 of the top 20 global operators. So that in itself, you know, is a coup, you know, they're quite simply expanding, uh, their customer account where it counts the most amongst the operators. And to recap, ZA is focusing on how CSPs can face the challenges in managing legacy services, for example, voice side by side with the development and delivery of new capabilities.

And what we're seeing out there in terms of the competitive reality is that when it comes to revenue growth, uh, the telcos are still trying to figure out how can they optimize their role and of course, you know, protect their revenue streams, let alone grow them because they have a, a lot of competition from over the top competition. And, you know, the OTT players, you know, the RingCentral's and so forth, uh, let alone Microsoft itself in some, uh, circumstances are pretty much not having to obligate themselves to maintain network infrastructure and, you know, uh, and also other full service, uh, capability obligations. And also, uh, there's, you know, not as many regulatory, uh, restrictions attached to, uh, their services.

So what's a telco to do? Well, what allianz's portfolio does is help business customers basically, you know, manage and administer, uh, the full ecosystem of, uh, service offerings and eliminate the need to have to integrate lots of different partners and navigate the complexities of integration. That is, they have a purpose-built cloud communications platform that does this.

And so this allows the operators to come in and say, Hey, we cannot only meet your, you know, traditional needs, but we can help you get to the next phase without having to okay, support, you know, a traditional telco service alongside a new OTT offering alongside, you know, other, you know, Microsoft Office capabilities and so forth. So what this is really doing is streamlining, you know, the ability for ZA to support telcos and basically making their offerings a lot more attractive to businesses. And that's another important thing.

It's focused on businesses so it's not overreaching to consumer and, uh, not having to deal with the margins on, on the consumer side. So, uh, to kind of, you know, wrap up, okay, why did ZA acquire, uh, Metaswitch? It's, well, uh, it's about, again, allowing those business customers to simplify how they can have, uh, new capabilities that are, you know, cloud-based, uh, you know, more, uh, software, uh, centric and so forth.

And this, you know, again, is avoiding what can be characterized as integration quagmires with competing approaches that don't really bring the full spectrum of capabilities in one neat package. And with that, uh, Tom, uh, what do you see about this deal that, you know, jumps out to you? I think this was probably a really good move by Microsoft for the simple reason, kind of as you stated, they were really finding themselves into a bit of a, a quandary because they have what is considered to be one of the premier communications platforms out there teams, and they were effectively competing against themselves.

And, and you're right, the biggest challenge is not getting people to collaborate and communicate. The biggest challenge is getting them to do it in one central location. And when you talk about existing technologies like, you know, mobile communications or traditional PSTN type stuff, that's hard.

Uh, there's a reason why everybody has gone the way of the app, right? Whether it's teams or WebEx or Zoom or any of the other things. But realistically speaking, we're talking about those three because this seems to be the ones that the industry has landed on.

Microsoft had to look at this idea from metaswitch and go, oh, well, this will allow us to integrate these traditional communications forms into teams. And then they woke up and realized that that's not how that works. Uh, they actually, they, they really should have called Cisco because Cisco's had this problem for a long time.

Uh, there is a market difference between using WebEx and using traditional phone systems. And while those two have deeper integrations than metaswitch and Microsoft teams, it's still not as seamless as one might hope for. So, like you said, the, the challenge for companies like Microsoft that really want the, the user counts, but they don't want to have to maintain the hardware or the infrastructure, is that ultimately what they would really just like for people to do is dump their phone system and go to teams.

And so by getting rid of Meta Suite switch and giving it to Alianza, who has these kinds of infrastructure plays, what they're allowing ZA to do is provide a value add for customers that leverage their platform, right? So think about all of those solutions out there that are like, oh, well, if you go with us, you can do you cloud-based infrastructure, and we can toss in these other things on top of that and provide service for them. And it, it's almost like an MSP model, and I think that's appealing to a lot of folks that want those services, don't wanna move for whatever reason.

And I, I can think of a lot of reasons why you wouldn't wanna move, especially if you're a traditional kind of business that maybe doesn't have the capability. Think like a hospital. Hospitals need phones and not just phones for the hospital.

They, they need phones in the patient rooms, right? You wanna be able to call, or, or hospitality is another good example. Do you wanna manage that infrastructure?

A lot of people will say no, whereas, you know, now ZA could drop a box on site to run that information, uh, set up for you and then have it managed in the cloud, and that's an easy win for them to get, uh, some uplift in their service offerings and increase their average selling price. So I think that it's good because it lets the people focus on what they're good at and not necessarily try to create some of those infamous Jack Welsh synergies that aren't really there. Uh, all excellent points, Tom.

And that actually triggered a couple reminders, you know, why Aliza? Now, first of all, I think they do have a distinct competitive, uh, approach here that is, again, it's all cloud based and it's all focused on enabling telcos to do what you're just talking about. And I think it's, uh, also they've really thought it through, because some of the competitive offerings don't really think through things like, you know, what about fax machines?

What about the circuit based telephones on an elevator? These are things that need to be supported in places like a hospital or any, you know, major facility. And this is something that ZA actually brings to the table.

It's not, uh, gonna leave you hanging like, oh, here's an exception. You're gonna have to continue running your traditional, you know, uh, implementation in order to support it. So I think those are important, you know, considerations in many of these environments.

And yes, uh, I think it's also important to note that, uh, what about Microsoft? I think, Tom, you did a great job covering that and also, you know, a snapshot of the, a competitive trade out there. Uh, but to be clear, Microsoft is not abandoning the telco space by stretch of the imagination.

Yes, they, uh, dial back Azure for operators significantly, and, uh, that means that they're really focused on the platform, but also, uh, uh, they emphasize that they'll be continuing to provide AI services to, you know, their telco customers as part of their platform play. So, you know, this is something that I think is, well, it's a cliche, but benefits both sides in terms of the deal itself. And, you know, speaking of, okay, what are some details that are important about, you know, successful 5G service?

What are, you know, the things that are gonna be needed? And well, I think this is an opportunity to take a snapshot of something that we haven't really talked about for a while specifically, and that's antennas. Now antennas I think we all understand are integral to, uh, communications and, you know, 5G is no exception, but what is going on in the antenna world that is going to make a difference in terms of, you know, making just that, you know, five GA better experience for all?

And I think Ericsson, uh, did some important, I think, work here in terms of, you know, why they are developing, uh, their antennas investing, you know, more, uh, significantly in it, not in, uh, in, uh, just for North America, but really, uh, across the board. But I think, uh, we'll look at some North America examples here to demonstrate what is going on. And basically it's having a significant impact.

Uh, in terms of, you know, the overall end-to-end 5G implementation. We hear a lot about, you know, how open ran can be run and how, you know, there are, there are these alternatives in terms of, you know, du uh, uh, implementations and, and du to RU communications and so forth. But I think what's important here is that antennas themselves, for example, the Ericsson antenna system is really playing a pivotal role in making 5G more efficient, but also again, delivering that better experience.

And, uh, before, you know, looking at North America a bit more, I think it's important to note that in a recent trial by European top tier CSP Ericsson antennas helped deliver more than four times the coverage and double the capacity of, yeah, the previous antenna implementation. So that's, you know, something that nobody's gonna say no to. This is something that I think will translate into production environments.

And even if they don't hit those exact same, you know, uh, multipliers, uh, anything that approaches fourfold improvement in coverage or doubling capacity is something that I think will, uh, certainly drive, you know, how the mobile operators or will be more adept at delivering 5G services. And how else is Ericsson, uh, making a difference? 5% higher, uh, with the traffic volume, um, metric on the per kilowatt basis.

Uh, that's specifically with the radio output power reduced by, uh, over 25% translating into real savings that could be more than 4,700 kilowatts an hour, excuse me, per year, uh, per site. So you multiply that out. And as we all know, when it comes to, you know, uh, you know, implementing a mobile network or any network energy efficiency is just gonna become increasingly important, especially as, you know, not only operators, but their customers are looking at ways to run AI workloads more efficiently.

Certainly when it comes to ha, hybrid AI implementation, as well as the telcos themselves supporting, say, AI inferencing capabilities within their, uh, existing assets at the edge of the network. But ano, I think another thing that's cool is that Ericsson is supporting a honeycomb ray do structure that can result in 49% lower embodied carbon footprint. So that's reinforcing.

Now why Ericsson, and this is something I think they've established a reputation for, why they've made progress in North America most recently with the at and t uh, deal coming to, uh, the front of the mine. And that is they're simply producing in, in the field products, you know, on the, on the ran side, but on the antenna side and so forth that are lighter, more energy efficient than, you know, the competitive alternatives out there. And they're not resting on their laurels.

What they're doing is, uh, looking ahead is supporting advancements such as remote electrical tilt that uses an R app, uh, for remote control, uh, that could enable real time adjustments to antenna patterns that improve naturally the network coverage and capacity based on changing conditions. So that is futuristic something that I might see a say, a blade runner, uh, sequence. But, uh, with that, Tom, I know antenna is a relatively mundane subject, uh, except for us, you know, 5G heads, but, or you know, the folks out there.

Why is it important that antennas continue their innovation path? Well, here's a quick question. For all of those of you out there who are complaining about whether or not you have really good cell coverage, uh, can I build a cell tower in your backyard?

You're probably sitting there shaking your head very vigorously back and forth. No, and that's one of the issues that a lot of people are concerned about is they want everything to be better, but they don't want that stuff around them. You know, call it whatever you will.

They're worried about electromagnetic interference. Uh, they're, it's an unsightly thing to have in your backyard. Um, they're just not for certain.

If we need to increase the amount of eyesore in the, the city landscape, well, if I can't build more, I have to do more with what I already have. And while you can do a lot with the base station equipment, it's the antennas themselves that are the broadcast medium for the signal. So how do we fix that?

Well, you have to start optimizing the antenna. And if you don't believe that, just open up any CWNA book by David Coleman and you can learn everything there is to know about antenna radiation patterns. And, you know, what's the difference between an omni versus a Yagi versus a dish versus a patch?

Those all matter on small scale with the access point in your house. You know, you probably think, oh, that's no problem, I'll just stick it on the wall and it'll work because sticking on the wall, those things are kind of optimized for that. But when you're trying to do things like se send a wifi signal down warehouse rack space or something like that, you have to direct it.

And that's what Ericsson's trying to do here, is they're trying to create a system that incorporates some of the latest advancements in technology like, uh, MIMO and, uh, beam efficiency and things like that to better optimize the signals that they have. And that means that they have to spend a lot of time doing the effort on those antenna designs to make them work, right? It's not like you can just stick it up there.

I mean, anybody who's ever tried to set up a home antenna to get broadcast tv, now that we've gone digital knows how difficult it can be to find just the right placement in just the right part of the house to capture just enough of the signal, and that's for your house. Now imagine trying to scale that to thousands of, of users on a sell site and trying to do that adjustment. And oh, by the way, if you ever try to fix anything that requires a bucket truck at the very least and a lot of extra work, and most of the time that you put those things up, they're kind of up there and they're locked in place.

I like this idea that you're talking about with, you know, the ability to remotely control the antennas hilts, you know, like for example, let's say you have a a, a cell tower that's actually looking over on like a sporting arena or a baseball field or something. Well, on, uh, any given day, I don't necessarily need to have any coverage on that field because it's empty, right? But on the days where the people are on the field, I may need to adjust my antenna tilt to give a little bit more coverage down there so that people can upload pictures of their kids, uh, hitting a home run to Facebook.

And, and these are the kinds of complicated usage patterns that modern engineers are having to try to solve, because more than any other time in our history, the populace is mobile and the populace is connected, and when they hit bad coverage areas, they're gonna let you know about it. Yes. I think that was a very important point you put out there, Tom.

That is, you know, the NIMBY aspect not in my backyard. And so yeah, it becomes all the more, I think, essential to, you know, improving the antenna technology. And I think, uh, a fair amount of, you know, attention is paid to, you know, improving that coverage, including, uh, improving the beam forming, uh, the massive, you know, M-I-M-O-T-C-O and so forth.

But I think what's important here is Ericsson is keeping a very close eye on the energy efficiency aspects, and that's always, uh, been important, but this I think will become increasingly a differentiator for the very reasons he touched on, is like, we have to leverage not only the existing assets, but when, you know, there are more opportunities to, you know, deploy dent small cell sites, for example. We have to know what the energy impact is going to be. So, you know, there's not gonna be any surprises he talked about in terms of coverage, because that's the one thing that operators need to deliver on.

It's just that consistent, reliable coverage or, you know, it's, that's, is this bad for business? And I think this is actually a good topic that segues into looking, you know, broader into what to expect in the future. And I know we've, uh, certainly have touched on, you know, 5G advanced and so forth, and not too much, uh, specifically on six G.

However, I think, you know, we can address it and I'll, I'll, I'll talk about a bit more, you know, why, uh, we, you have that approach. But, uh, for now, let's look at something that Nokia has spotlight, and I think that's important. And that is 3G PP release 20, uh, which is really, uh, delivering several important improvements to the 5G advanced standard that is still unfolding.

And, uh, and this is all going to be happening in 25 naturally. And this is all also aligning with, you know, what about six G? 5.

It's the bridge between the initial, uh, iteration of 5G and ultimately what will become six G, uh, with, you know, like some consensus that six G itself probably won't be more, uh, commercially viable until, uh, near 2030. But, you know, uh, that aside, I think what's important about release 20, it's that it's really, again, honing in on that network, uh, energy efficiency aspect. It's not just about the antennas and the cell sites, but hey, can we make sure that the entire network is actually improving on these energy efficiency metrics?

Because sustainability, certainly when it comes to regions like, uh, Europe, this is something that's going to continue to drive the decision making of major telcos, you know, whether it's the Vodafone, a BT, or dt, you get the idea. It's also gonna be impactful, of course, in other regions. But, uh, this is something that is going to drive, again, you know, what to select in terms of a solution.

But what else is on the agenda when it comes to release 20? Well, again, AI and its cousin ml are basically going to be even more important for, you know, how, how 5G networks are implemented. And that is, uh, in this case, they're looking at ways to improve measurement prediction.

So again, it's being more proactive, having more visibility into the overall network, and that's what Release 20 is, uh, really looking to do. It's getting, you know, into that, you know, holistic ability, having it built into the products. So this is something that won't require too much heavy lifting on the part of the operators or anybody else who needs this information.

And it's also, uh, again, not just about, you know, the energy, but also being able to predict, uh, more accurately, uh, potential, uh, failures. So it's not just okay about rolling a truck out, it's like, Hey, maybe we ultimately won't need to roll a truck out if we can fix this, you know, using, you know, existing, uh, capabilities that are built into, you know, the 5G advanced standard. And as a result, again, great savings for the operators, but also it's again, preparing for the future of release 20, and that is post quantum cryptography, yeah, PQC, which is getting a lot of, you know, uh, marketing attention toward the end of 24 here.

But we'll sit, uh, certainly see more of it in 25. It's really, uh, about aligning, you know, uh, the 3G PP, uh, standards to, uh, adopting, uh, existing protocols on, uh, the quantum side as well as algorithms to, you know, what could be characterized as p qc ready standards. So there's is smart thinking, it just can't, you know, take your eye off of this as well, but this is, again, a promising improvements across the board and including areas such as, you know, cybersecurity across, uh, the mobile network.

I think also interestingly is, you know, uh, release 20 is going to offer improvements in non-terrestrial network capabilities, uh, particularly on focusing on the specialized use cases of voice communications at very low data rates, and also over I-O-C-N-C-N, uh, N connections. And I think that's something, uh, it's, uh, also, uh, reiterating, you know, what's going on with REDCap that is not a headline grammar because, uh, uh, or grabber because most people are thinking about, okay, you know, more enhanced mobile broadband is needed for, you know, scaling all, all these, you know, uh, AI intensive use cases and so forth. Uh, but the other hand, the reality is, uh, there's a lot of warrant for, particularly in the IOT and voice communication, to not have to, you know, throw a more bandwidth at the capabilities that is by building this in, it's really addressing the full, I would say, uh, spectrum of requirements out there.

And so I think that's actually pretty interesting that the, uh, standard is really, uh, putting, you know, uh, a focus on this in terms of resources. Also, I know XR has gone through the height cycle, hasn't met many expectations, but when it comes to extended reality, it's going to have, I think an increasing play, whether it's, you know, the enterprises usually using digital twin technology, including an enlisting 5G to support the capability. But we are seeing very interesting compelling cases, like at construction sites, we need a a 3D map of what's going on with the construction, so what is better, uh, than a 5G capable device that can support an ar, ar rendering, uh, an ongoing construction sites to make sure things are going in in the right direction and so forth.

So this is something that I think will have increasing merit and traction and, uh, I can go on with more examples, but I'll stop with sensing, because really when it comes to 5G advance, this is an area that I think will, uh, pick up I think more, um, uh, uh, capabilities, but also, uh, commercial interests because we're talking about things like augmented and intelligence that is improving human to machine interactions. And certainly 5G or the, uh, upcoming six G standard will be ready to help support this as that quickly evolves. And so I know, uh, that was packing a lot in, uh, but Tom, you know, in terms of, you know, 5G advance and what's the expected 25 to be beyond, you know, uh, what are you looking at?

Well, I think it's interesting to note that we've already gone through the cycle once before and anybody who has an iPhone knows what I'm talking about. 5 G. It was trying to do the same thing.

And I believe it was actually 3G PP released five that, that did that. So I should tell you how long ago it was. Um, we're, we're already seeing kind of the need to put more things on there.

And, and don't get me wrong, post quantum crypto is probably the most important thing because as we have discussed at length, uh, over, you know, months since we've, we've started seeing the, the final candidates from nist, the value of post quantum crypto being deployed now is that we can start securing data so that in the future when quantum computers finally hit that magical threshold where they're able to break RSA encrypted, um, schemes very quickly, you've already, uh, had a lot of time built up to encrypt the data that you already have. But I also think that it's important to understand, you know, that, that this is kind of in a way preparing for that rollout. And this is something that a lot of people really have to understand.

Just like when you go to any rumor site for the latest, uh, release of a given handset, it doesn't feel like groundbreaking anymore. Like, remember, everybody kind of used to be on, on the tips of their tongues of what the next iPhone is gonna look like or what the next galaxy or the note is gonna be like, and now it's just like, okay, it's, it's a little bit faster and, and it has a couple more buttons on it. But, but you gotta think that a lot of that comes down to several of these things are solved problems.

It's working on the software behind the scenes that makes it feel snappier, that gives it more capability. I mean, that's literally than the latest iOS release is software functionality behind the scenes. Well, that's what we're getting with 5G advanced, we're still running the same 5G the modem in your phone hasn't changed at all and likely won't for several years.

It's using software to drive faster speeds. I mean, let's be honest, if you're sitting in a city center with your phone out, are you really complaining about mobile speeds? Like, like are, is it not fast enough for you?

I, I can remember a time when I was forced to connect to wifi to download apps and going to large conferences and my phone just wouldn't work until I got into the wifi area and everybody suddenly wasn't on the towers anymore. And now, unless I'm in a bad coverage area, my phone just kind of works. So do I really need all of this groundbreaking technology in a brand new modem every couple of years and all this stuff?

Or am I more interested in the other things that are going on? You know, like power efficiency, because that's one thing that a lot of people don't understand is that when your phone is struggling to get a good signal from a tower, that's when it starts chewing through battery. If you find yourself traveling a lot in places where there's no good coverage, your battery is more likely to be eaten up because the system keeps beaconing for towers that it's not gonna find.

So by increasing coverage, uh, capacity, by making it so that the phone doesn't have to spend so much time searching for these towers, it actually makes it a whole lot easier and better on your battery life, which is one of those things, like you kind of said in the previous story, antennas are very mundane and so are batteries until you need them, until you need them to be more efficient and more useful. And I think that that's the goal here is to set this up to be efficient, because that's what 5G has really been about. It's been about efficiency, it's been about, um, using more commodity hardware and software as opposed to these custom integrations that require basically breaking the system to upgrade it.

And now we can kind of roll out some of the advanced features that we're looking forward to in the next generation of, of these technologies and maybe give them a little bit of a trial run before we try to implement them so we get all the bugs worked out. Yeah, I think those are excellent points, Tom. And yes, on the quantum front, I thought, I think that's an excellent point.

It's like, oh, you know, quantum breakthroughs can, you know, basically tear through an existing, you know, encryption scheme. And so what does that mean? It's like, well, it's like ai, if wanna fight ai, well you enlist ai, same with quantum, you wanna counter quantum, well, you enlist quantum.

So I think again, it's this back to the future aspect here, uh, that we can certainly appreciate, you know, with the evolution of, uh, you know, the mobile standards and particularly when it's 5G advanced or 5G to six G and to circle back when I noted, okay, we haven't really talked a lot about six G and I think part of it is because 5G itself hasn't really that a lot of the initial expectations. I think there's a broad consensus in that. Uh, but I think what's important to note here is that, yeah, okay, you need to keep an eye on six G, what's going on there?

But certainly what's going on with 5G Advance is gonna be a lot more pertinent and a lot more, uh, roadmap. Um, uh, I would say aligned. And I think what's, uh, interesting is that we're kind of in some, you know, um, I guess you could say conversations, uh, not understanding fully that 5G itself is still not, uh, been fully implemented in the market.

The last time I looked, I think only one third of the operators who have implemented 5G are at the standalone base. 5 G. You can say it's was a combination of 4G 5G or you know, what's, uh, characterized as 5G non standalone.

So stay tuned. I mean, you know, let's not really, you know, pull the plug on 5G in terms of, oh, you know, it's gotten stale, so let's really put more eggs in the six G basket, even though 5G itself was a commercial disappointment. Well, I think we we'll see some, uh, breakthroughs that we haven't really seen yet, simply because most of the networks have not reached that standalone implementation phase, which to be called, you know, pure 5G.

So I'll get off the soapbox. Yeah, uh, a bit passionate about that, but I think, uh, this is important in terms of how we are looking at the market. We had to keep that, you know, a very, uh, detailed look at, you know, what's going on with 5G itself and what is gonna be realistic in terms of what to expect in 25.

But also, yes, we had to be prepared for, you know, release 20 and the, uh, certainly the 5G advanced capabilities. And, uh, with that, uh, as we are, you know, heading into 2025, uh, Tom, any thoughts about, you know, what's is exciting, uh, to you about 2025 that, you know, might stand out? Oh, there's a ton of things out there that are, you know, kind of top popping off the top of my mind.

Of course, you know, we've gotta see if these, the AI market continues to accelerate, or if people start pulling back their spending as, you know, kinda like with 5G, they struggle to find an application for it that really meets the investment requirement. I think we're gonna start seeing a lot more companies kind of taking advantage of this bigger bandwidth that's out there, or maybe even start integrating, uh, 5G radios into more iot devices in sensors so that they kind of have a survivable, uh, capability. I mean, we've even seen rumors that there could be a MacBook coming out in the next couple of years that has an integrated radio in it, which would be a huge driver for new adoption.

Yeah, I get that. Having a, an ai uh, you know, algorithm running on your laptop is cool for summarizing your emails and, and, uh, being able to write better. But man, what if your laptop could get online no matter where you are?

And, but, uh, that's just 'cause I'm a hardware nerd, right? Um, I, I'm, I'm cautiously optimistic that, you know, you, you said it, um, people are a little disappointed that 5G hasn't lived up to their lofty expectations. I don't think it's been a failure by any stretch of the imagination.

I I really do appreciate the fact that we've, we've just, uh, had it, uh, rolled out as much as we have. I think it's just a matter of increasing its reliability, increasing its capabilities as it is today, so that when we get to that future where we kind of move from 5G to 5G advanced and eventually to six G hopefully by 2030, if the protections are right that we, uh, that we are sufficiently wowed by the next generation. And who knows, it's probably gonna be like, you know, Mac Os or Windows where the next version is gonna be the last version and we're just gonna call it, uh, you know, mobile G now or whatever, you know, I, I don't really know, but, but I'm, I'm glad that they're continuing to put the work in because, uh, there's always gonna be an application out there that needs a little bit more than we're providing today.

Yes, uh, I think those are certainly gonna be major factors. Now, AI is gonna be, you know, a factor no matter what, uh, as 5G, uh, unfolds in 25. And that's certainly, uh, on the network side using AI ml, uh, that is, you know, improving, you know, the energy efficiencies, uh, specs, uh, advancing automation across, uh, the network itself.

But of course, you know, there's the gen AI side using those chat bots, natural language processing to improve, you know, the experience with the operator to improve, uh, the workforce ability to do field, uh, tech, uh, troubleshooting, uh, and improve coding and so forth. So all of this is going to, I think, make for a very interesting 25. And that five GI think will actually have a, a slightly more positive view.

As, you know, the standalone implementations become broad, more broadly implemented and so forth. And so with that, again, thank you Tom for joining. Uh, 5G Factor.

Always welcome your, uh, great insights and perspective. And with that, again, I thank everyone for, uh, coming on board and listening to us. Uh, again, don't forget to bookmark us.

It's the 5G Factor. We're on the Futurum Group, uh, website. And, uh, with that, everybody have a great 5G and 5G advanced day.

Good day all.