While Cisco supports licensed low-, mid- and high-band spectrum for 5G, its priority is the release of additional unlicensed spectrum in the 5 GHz, 6 GHz and high-band 60/70/80 GHz ranges. Cisco believes that the workhorse of digital networks now and in the future, is license-exempt spectrum, which it considers… Read more...

Amazon, Google, Facebook and Microsoft continue to lobby for the opening of mid-band spectrum resources for unlicensed and flexible use, with varying positions on licensing rules for mmWave bands. All four OTT players are positioning, in varying degrees, to move into telecom networks markets as vendors supporting 5G, edge computing… Read more...

While Amazon is focused on the unlicensed spectrum on which its devices, services and fulfilment centers rely, it also has interests in drone and autonomous vehicle delivery systems as well as private IoT networks and mobile satellite communications. Read more...

Facebook is interested in a broad range of spectrum resources across mid-band and mmWave frequency ranges. It considers that making spectrum accessible to a wide range of use cases will require it to be made available through a balance of unlicensed, lightly licensed, and licensed spectrum allocation regimes. Read more...

Google has broad interests in spectrum resources across a range of bands that are predominantly unlicensed. Read more...

Microsoft sees significant opportunities for the use of license-exempt, lightly licensed, and shared spectrum as part of the 5G ecosystem. Read more...

Are the network economics of traditional 5G networks unsustainable? 5G operators are spending billions of dollars building out networks with increasing operational complexities also adding to costs. At the same time ARPU is languishing. Can Open RAN solve the problem? Read more...

The defining theme of South Korea’s policy making, at least from the perspective of the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT), the body in charge of spectrum management, is to establish consensus. Read more...

Indian operators balked at the high reserve prices for the 700 MHz band, but the telecoms sector may get future opportunities to access the 700 MHz, 3.3 - 3.6 GHz, and unlicensed access to the 6 GHz band. Read more...

Telecom Italia and Vodafone launched 5G services in June 2019, followed by Wind Tre in April 2020 and Iliad in December 2020. Fastweb provides 5G services through a network sharing agreement with Wind Tre. TIM and Vodafone also have a passive network sharing agreement for 5G including all antenna sites… Read more...