Author: Pat Kline

In a recent move that left some analysts scratching their heads, Ericsson plans to acquire The New Jersey-based Vonage Holdings for about $6.2 billion, representing the Swedish vendor’s biggest acquisition to date.

Vonage was founded in 2001 as a VoIP provider for consumers and grew into a cloud communications provider focused on businesses. In 2020, it reported revenues of $1.25 billion. 

To hear Ericsson tell it, the deal will give it access to more than 1 million developers and a foot into an enterprise market expected to reach $700 billion* by 2030. In addition to consumer use cases, 5G is really designed for enterprises and it can make wireless the primary choice of their connectivity, according to Ericsson President and CEO Börje Ekholm.

Opensignal is out with its quarterly report on 5G in the US. For the October study, the findings include T-Mobile having the fastest average 5G download speeds for the fourth time in a row – now more than doubling its competitors. Meanwhile, Verizon came in on top for 5G video, games, and voice apps.

Opensignal published its October 2021 5G User Experience Report today based on millions of devices and billions of measurements in the US from June to September 2021.

When looking at the overall categories, T-Mobile took first place again for download and upload speeds, availability, and reach.

And Verizon took first for the 5G video, games, and voice app experience with AT&T trailing in every category. When it came to 5G availability, T-Mobile users saw the latest cellular standard 34.7% of the time. That was more than double AT&T and more than triple Verizon. Meanwhile, average 5G upload speeds were much closer between the three major US carriers and saw if any, very slight improvements.

Here’s a throwback: Verizon is launching a new LTE cellular phone, but it’s not your typical smartphone. It’s a phone that looks and feels like a desk phone, but it’s got LTE and eSIM for maximum mobility and easy set-up.

Verizon Business and Yealink announced the One Talk T67LTE wireless desk phone, based on the Android operating system. It’s available with Verizon’s One Talk service, which was launched about five years ago.

It’s a business phone system in the cloud but designed from the ground up to be mobile-first, according to Alex Doyle, executive director, Advanced Communications Products at Verizon. It’s not as easy as one might think to make a desktop phone that’s “mobile-first.” Most business phone systems today are wireline-oriented, and the biggest challenge here is making it work with existing infrastructure.

The One Talk service runs over the Verizon wireless network, but a lot of customers don’t use Verizon for their last-mile broadband.

In fact, it’s a first in that the One Talk desk phone is built and deployed to make it look and feel like a smartphone. It uses eSIM technology and over-the-air connectivity.

AT&T cellular carrier has a new agreement with the U.S. military that includes experiments to connect unmanned robots, aerial drones, and autonomous underwater vehicles in a single system, assisted by 5G and edge computing.

It’s a three-year collaborative research and development agreement with the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) to support a variety of 5G-focused experiments at NPS facilities. NPS is the Department of the Navy’s applied research university.

The main aim of the agreement is maritime technology solutions for national defense and homeland security, but could also benefit commercial industries like shipping, oil and gas, and recreational boating.

Research is slated to take place at Camp Roberts in South Monterey County, and to a lesser degree on the NPS main campus and at a beach lab north of Monterey, California. Part of the agreement involves NPS’ Sea Land Air Military Research (SLAMR) program, with tests happening in the SLAMR’s multi-domain laboratory

Hundreds of thousands of internet users continue to wait for access to SpaceX’s broadband network. So how will the company keep up with the demand?

SpaceX has revealed a few more information about its second-generation Starlink network, which will be made up of nearly 30,000 satellites—or about 17 times larger than the existing network.
Starlink has released the plans in a presentation last week to the FCC, which was first spotted by CNBC. The documents say Starlink is “rapidly rolling out internationally,” and is now serving 90,000 users in 12 countries, up from 69,000 in late June. In addition, the company has launched 1,740 Starlink satellites to expand the network, which can currently deliver download speeds from 50Mbps to 150Mbps or higher.

However, the demand for Starlink is massive. The same presentation notes “over half a million” have placed orders or submitted deposits to sign up for the service.

Verizon and the NFL have announced a deal that extends their long-running partnership for 10 more years. The move will bring Verizon’s high-speed 5G ultra wideband coverage to 25 stadiums this football season, power its 5G Multi-View, “Next Gen Stats,” and look to enhance the overall experience for fans, coaches, players, staff, press, and more. And along with the announcement, the carrier, and the NFL are giving away tickets to the next 10 years of Super Bowl games.

Verizon has announced this news in a press release this morning. Expanding from the current 13 stadiums since 2019, Verizon’s 5G UWB service will be available in “parts of 25 NFL stadiums” for the 2021-2022 NFL season.

Cradlepoint is a global leader in cloud-delivered 4G and 5G wireless network edge solutions. Cradlepoint’s NetCloud platform and cellular routers deliver a pervasive, secure, and software-defined Wireless WAN edge to connect people, places, and things anywhere. More than 28,500 businesses and government agencies worldwide, including many Global 2000 organizations and top public agencies, depend on Cradlepoint to keep mission-critical sites, points of commerce, field forces, vehicles, and IoT devices always connected. Cradlepoint was founded in 2006, acquired by Ericsson in 2020, and operates today as a standalone subsidiary within Ericsson’s Business Area Technologies and New Businesses. Cradlepoint is headquartered in Boise, Idaho, with development centers in Silicon Valley and India with international offices in Asia Pacific, Canada, Europe, and Latin America.

Wired WAN connections no longer meet the needs of today’s agile, resilient, and cloud-centric business environments. While LTE has been enabling businesses to leverage wireless and “cut-the-cord” solutions for a while, the speed, intelligence, and resiliency of next-generation 5G services are becoming a catalyst to Wireless WAN adoption. Not only does it make today’s applications better, but it will also enable a new generation of immersing customer experiences at the network edge, as well as more cost-effective SD-WAN 5G architectures, anywhere connectivity, and high-speed wireless failover for larger sites.

Cradlepoint, the global leader in cloud-delivered LTE and 5G wireless network edge solutions, is continuing its mission to enable businesses to connect beyond the limits of wired networks through the expansion of its second-generation 5G product portfolio. The Cradlepoint E3000 Series 5G Enterprise Router, orderable now, is the industry’s first enterprise-class router that provides businesses with fast, agile, secure, and resilient 5G connectivity for primary, failover, or SD-WAN use cases without traditional performance compromises.

Cradlepoints E3000 5G router

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The telecom giants promise that 5G technology will wow us with dramatically expanded, superfast wireless service. But they don’t mention that it also means installing a greater amount of equipment, including cell towers, in ugly and intrusive ways.

Property owners and local governments across the country are pushing back with a surge of grass-roots objections pressing the industry not to erect poles that spoil a view or crowd home and potentially reduce property value.

Such a protest in Dewey Beach, Del. — summer playground for thousands of Washingtonians — has drawn national attention. The resort has emerged as a champion of the movement after persuading Verizon to promise to remove three of five towers that marred the scenery along the dunes.

“It’s very positive to see a success story in Dewey Beach,” said Elizabeth Ellis, a lawyer representing clients opposed to 5G towers in the seaside town of Hull, Mass. “Maybe if we all band together, these local municipalities that are experiencing this may have a better chance.”

The market for cellular-connected cars is predicted to be worth over $215 billion by 2027.

With today’s demand for greater connectivity set to grow, 5G connected cars will become the new era for the automotive industry. What we expect of a vehicle is fundamentally changing from a tool used to merely move us from A to B, to an integrated, fully-connected hub. 5G connected cars have clear greater benefits, being potentially safer and less harmful for the environment. They will also present the car industry with an opportunity to originate and create stronger relationships with its customers than ever before. 5G connectivity is the future of the auto industry and will redefine mobility as we know it.

Here are four ways in which 5G-connected vehicles are redefining the world’s driving experience.

1. Improved safety

2. Consumer experience

3. Environmental benefits

4. Alternative revenue streams for automakers