5G WIRE: White House 5G crash course! Macau! Monaco! Yachts!

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5G action this day: Trump admin takes crash course in 5G, FCC outlines cunning plan; CTM will launch 5G in Macau in mid-2020; Huawei helps Monaco Telecom fly 5G drone over yachts; Ericsson and Qualcomm make another 5G smartphone call; Verizon turns on 5G Home

Trump admin takes crash course in 5G, where FCC outlines cunning plan

The US White House is holding a 5G summit, at which the FCC revealed its ‘5G FAST’ plan that promises to enable faster rollouts and more economic growth overall for the US (and, in the process, ensure US superiority in its 5G war with China).

According to VentureBeat, the summit was slapped together quickly and is mainly to educate admin officials who admitted they don’t know the first thing about 5G.

Meanwhile, the FCC’s three-pronged 5G strategy – much of which it has announced previously – involves assigning more spectrum bands for 5G and Wi-Fi, infrastructure policy improvements at federal/state levels to facilitate faster small-cell rollouts and updating regulations to encourage 5G investment and keeping “companies that may constitute national security threats” (that means Huawei and ZTE) out of government-funded 5G projects. Read more …

CTM will launch 5G in Macau in mid-2020 if govt cooperates

CITIC Telecom-owned Companhia de Telecomunicacoes de Macau (CTM) revealed it has begun testing 5G equipment and plans to launch 5G services by the middle of 2020, provided the government provides the necessary licences and spectrum for CTM to stick to that timeline.

Declan Leong, CTM’s VP of network services, said that the challenges of deploying 5G in Macau mainly revolve around spectrum resources and cell sites deployment, as 5G will require mmWave spectrum, which in turn requires small cells and greater site density. CTM has made recommendations to the government on how to address these issues. Read more …

Huawei helps Monaco Telecom fly 5G drone over yachts

Huawei announced that Monaco Telecom has “unveiled its nationwide 5G mobile network at the Monaco Yacht Show”, although the network it unveiled isn’t literally nationwide yet, but limited to a pilot area in Port Hercule.

Huawei said further down in its press release that Monaco Telecom’s 5G network be completed in the coming months, covering 100% of the city-state. Monaco Telecom demoed the technology by flying a 5G-connected drone over the yacht show, broadcasting live 360° HD footage to a virtual reality headset. Read more …

Ericsson and Qualcomm make another 5G smartphone call, now via 28 GHz

Ericsson and Qualcomm Technologies announced they have completed a standard-based, over-the-air, non-standalone (NSA) 5G NR lab data call on the 28 GHz band using commercial radio and a smartphone form-factor device.

This follows a similar demo last month in which the companies made a 5G call to a smartphone-sized device over the 39-GHz band. Both test devices used a Qualcomm Snapdragon X50 5G modem. Read more …

Verizon turns on 5G Home, which is 5G and not WiMax

Verizon Wireless’ fixed-wireless service 5G Home is officially live in parts of Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles and Sacramento.

Verizon launched the service last month and has been taking pre-orders on its “First on 5G” website. The operator says it began installing the service on Monday for pre-order customers, with the first one in Houston.

“The world’s first commercial 5G service is here,” said Verizon Wireless president Ronan Dunne. Sure …

(Compiled and edited by John C. Tanner)

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