Weekly News: Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband service available in more cities -

December 30, 2019

1. Verizon: Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband service available in more cities
2. Telecomlead: Vodafone selects Nokia for 5G network in Australia
3. Developing Telecoms: Thailand sets 5G spectrum auctions for February 2020
4. RCR Wireless: mmWave auction bids clear $5 billion
5. Light Reading: 4G Hasn’t Even Peaked Yet

Verizon: Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband service available in more cities

Verizon’s 5G mobility service is now available in 31 US cities.

“We said we would lead in 5G and we are,” said Kyle Malady, Chief Technology Officer at Verizon. “We have turned on 5G Ultra Wideband mobility service in 31 cities, 15 NFL stadiums, and four indoor arenas. And this is just the beginning.”

Telecomlead: Vodafone selects Nokia for 5G network in Australia

Vodafone Hutchison Australia has selected Nokia to start rolling out its 5G network in the first half of 2020.

Vodafone selected Nokia after receiving government guidelines on security issues related to 5G network.

The deal between Vodafone and Nokia is for a term of at least 5 years and enables Vodafone to place orders with Nokia for site delivery, thus allowing Vodafone to scale up or down the pace of its 5G rollout according to its requirements.

Nokia presented an advanced 5G Roadmap that will enable 5G for Vodafone in all the spectrum bands currently in use for 4G, and implementation of new generation 5G Massive MIMO antennas, delivering substantially increased gains in capacity and performance.

Developing Telecoms: Thailand sets 5G spectrum auctions for February 2020

Thai regulator NBTC (National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Communication) has confirmed plans to auction 5G-ready spectrum in four bands in February next year.

First up will be 19 10MHz blocks of spectrum in the 2600MHz band along with 27 100MHz blocks in the 26GHz band. Reserve prices for these bands will be revealed at the end of this month. Operators will be able to acquire at most 10 blocks of 2600MHz spectrum and 12 blocks of 26GHz spectrum.

Winning bidders will receive their spectrum in March 2020, with deployments expected to begin that month, reports The Nation.

The 26GHz spectrum is currently unused in Thailand, but the 2600MHz range is held by MCOT.

The next round of bidding will be for the 700MHz and 1800MHz bands in mid-2020, with three 5MHz blocks of the former being made available for a base price of THB17.58 billion ($581 million) each. Seven 5MHz blocks of 1800MHz spectrum will be made available for THB12.5 billion per licence.

RCR Wireless: mmWave auction bids clear $5 billion

The Federal Communications Commission’s ongoing Spectrum Frontiers auction of millimeter wave spectrum has raised more than $5.3 billion in bids, after 24 rounds.

More than 14,100 licenses are up for grabs across three mmWave bands in Auction 103: the upper 37 GHz band (37.6-38.6 GHz), the 39 GHz band (38.6-40 GHz) and the 47 GHz band (47.2-48.2 GHz). The licenses are based on a Partial Economic Area geographic basis which divides the country into 416 sections.

There is more spectrum available at 39 GHz than in the other two bands, with 14 blocks of 100 megahertz available, or 5,824 individual licenses. The 47 GHz and upper 37 GHz bands each have 4,160 licenses available, or 10 blocks of 100 megahertz in each PEA. The FCC has authorized either fixed or mobile use in the bands, and the commission has emphasized the sheer amount of spectrum available: at 3,400 megahertz, it’s the largest amount of spectrum ever offered in an auction.

Light Reading: 4G Hasn't Even Peaked Yet

According to Ericsson’s November 2019 Mobility Report, LTE is still growing globally. As of the third quarter there were 4.2 billion LTE subscriptions around the globe. By 2022, when LTE hits its peak, Ericsson expects there to be 5.4 billion LTE subscriptions globally. After that Ericsson believes LTE will decline to about 4.8 billion subscriptions by the end of 2025 as more wireless customers migrate to 5G networks.