Telecom Daily
Welcome to Faulkner's Telecom Daily. We publish Monday through Friday, updating top stories as events warrant.
Tuesday, September 17...
Opensignal Shows US Far in Front of 5G Speed Race
According to the
most recent report from
Opensignal, the US remains the global leader in terms of maximum 5G speeds
available to the public. The latest version of the company's regularly conducted
study shows customers in the US had access to peak speeds of 1,815 Mbps, or
1.8Gbps. This represents a speed three times faster than the maximum 4G speed
recorded in the US, and one far ahead of the second-place finisher Switzerland's
max download rate of 1,145 Mbps. The remainder of the top 8 included South Korea
in third with 1,071 Mbps, followed by Australia (792 Mbps), the United Arab
Emirates (665 Mbps), Italy (657 Mbps), Spain (602 Mbps), and the United Kingdom
(569Mbps). Opensignal noted that several competitors--including Italy, Spain,
and the UK--were held back by a lack of 100MHz of free, contiguous spectrum in
which to operate their 5G networks, with all three of those countries currently
being constrained to approximately 40MHz of available spectrum. The full report
is available at Opensignal's Web site.
Google Pegs October 15 for New Hardware Reveal, Likely Pixel 4 Debut
Google's oft-leaked Pixel 4 smartphone
refresh finally has an official reveal date. The search giant has sent out
invitations to an event on October 15 in New York City, where it will reveal "a
few new things Made by Google." While the company's Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL
smartphone are almost certainly on the table, the other products slated for
debut remain more mysterious. Recent rumors suggest that Google may be expanding
its smart speaker line, including alleged leaks of a new Nest Mini speaker that
would fill the Home Mini's current slot at the lower end of its
Assistant-equipped range. This would represent an update to Google's aging line
of smart speakers, while also aligning its offering under the Nest brand. Google
recently integrated Nest into itself, and is no longer managing its products as
part of a separate company. All should become clear on October 15.
Verizon Confirms its 5G Mobile Network will Support In-Home Broadband in
All Markets
Verizon Communications' EVP and CEO of the
Verizon Consumer group, Ronan Dunne, told investors at this year's
Bank Of America Merrill Lynch 2019 Media, Communications & Entertainment
Conference that his company intends to launch in-home 5G broadband
everywhere its mobile network is upgraded to the new technology. This means that
all markets receiving access to 5G services for mobile devices on the company's
network will also be able to support in-home broadband over the same hardware.
Verizon has already previewed the service, which offers download rates of about
300Mbps via a 5G-equipped home modem. Although the telco has already said it
plans to fully launch in in-home 5G services some time late in 2019, Dunne would
only say that the service will be available to the public "in due course."
Verizon's 5G network is currently live in small portions of 10 metro areas, with
many more expansions planned for the remainder of 2019 and beyond.
....Michael Gariffo, Faulkner Information Services
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