US$58,680,000,000 is the value of U.S. spectrum from 3.7 GHz to 4.2 GHz based on the actual prices paid in the Italian auction. I'm putting the figure out there in the hopes of inspiring the D.C. press watchdogs to learn enough to report accurately. Unless they do, far too much will be wasted in the usual lobbyist-dominated FCC process.

That figure is a good starting point. Prices in England and Korea were lower. A merger reducing the number of telcos would reduce the proceeds by billions. I know to be careful estimating auction proceeds. The last U.S. auction came in far under the estimates. The one before was far above. Technologies like Massive MIMO and carrier aggregation dramatically reduce the need for spectrum and will have an impact.

Spectrum can seem infinitely confusing but here are some of the current highlights:

There will be very few phones until H2 2019 but a handful are ready to trickle out. Qualcomm's demo phone made a call at a show in Hong Kong. They announced there will be phones from Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, Sony, Motorola, Asus, HMD/Nokia, HTC/Google, and LG in 2019. Xiaomi is rumoured to announce a phone this week. Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei, Samsung, and ZTE claim their base stations are ready to go. Verizon is live, ready to serve tens of thousands. CEO Vestberg is frustrated because his vendors can't deliver the phones until June or July.

Unfortunately, no one can produce the chips in quantity today. 5G NR is so demanding that it requires absolutely the most advanced chip manufacturing. Qualcomm is ready with the X50 modem, a new small antenna, a remarkably small RF front end and a reference design. 

Only TSMC, Samsung, and Intel can produce the necessary chips.

Mukesh Ambani's US$30 billion gamble is paying off with early profits* and 12 million joining every month. He built an extraordinary network to 96% of Indians. It's all 4G and designed well enough a Verizon senior executive is envious. He expects to cover 99% of the 1,324,000,000 Indians within a year. Speeds in government tests average 20 megabits and have been rising.

The financials show a profit already, despite revenue per user of less than US$2/month. If one day passes are excluded, the ARPU remains in low single digits. The enormous number of users is essential for profitability at a low price. So is extreme efficiency. It's a 4G only network, state of the art and pure IP for minimal complexity. Lee Hicks at Verizon leads One Verizon, which is building a simplified network. He estimates his cost savings at 50% in the first year. Jio shows it works.

Next step: 50 million fibre to the home connections, not just homes passed. That's three times as many as the United States. The massive fibre backbone keeps that cost low.

Cable wireless will be "humongous," in the U.S. a cable VP tells me. The cable buildout appears inevitable. I see evidence of that at every wireless event. One possible roadblock: wireless incumbents offering cable an almost unbelievably cheap deal is a rational business move.

The marginal cost of bits on wireless is falling 40%/year and is already very low. If cable is coming in anyway, a telco like Sprint or AT&T could offer a resale deal not far above the cost of cable building their own networks. No one at the telcos has suggested this would happen, but the possibility belongs in the analysis. 

The cablecos are moving already. I see Charter ads in the New York subway. C & C are offering attractive deals to their existing customers, the majority of the population. Both are reselling Verizon service for now and moderating their growth while they build systems.

ITU IMT 2020 defined 5G. FG 2030 is an open group, free to all. At the first meeting last week, I moved forward a draft proposal that EMBB - Enhanced Mobile Broadband - be designed to make broadband available to all. The EMBB problem was addressed but wasn't adequately solved in 5G. (Some  of) the performance is being achieved by 5G but not at a cost affordable to half the world. My thoughts were treated respectfully and several encouraged me to attend the next meeting in Hong Kong in December. There's an active mailing list and ITU believes in remote participation.

All you have to do is go to http://bit.ly/6Gfuture and find the mailing list information in the lower right. You may need to register for an ITU TIES guest account, but it's free. 

If you are respectful and have relevant points to make, you will be welcome. Like any group, you're most effective if you understand the way people are accustomed to working. I will be happy to point people to the right information and help understand the systems. The Chair, Dr. Richard Li, and the staff treated me graciously.

Much of the discussion is about advanced topics like the latency needed to deliver holograms, but I was welcomed by the group on "use cases." Delegates from India and Brazil supported, and the leaders of the group helped me understand how to shape my ideas into the right form. 

5G is not going to be an expensive network build, according to Verizon, NTT DOCOMO, France Telecom, and Qualcomm. The latest data come from Qualcomm, the only company able to demonstrate a mobile phone sized set of chips. Qualcomm simulations, based on data from several test trials, show existing towers can cover two-thirds of most cities.“Based on our extensive over-the-air testing and channel measurements, significant outdoor coverage  (> 65%) is possible utilizing actual existing LTE sites. The 65% coverage figure is outdoor only. mmWave is blocked by some wall/windows and passes through others. Verizon is using outdoor antennas but hopes to allow customer self-installs indoor. 

Upgrading existing cells first drastically brings down costs. Verizon and I believe AT&T are choosing to do most mmWave from existing cells. The illustration is from a Verizon presentation. It shows a dense area where fewer cells are needed in 5G. In areas like this, the greater capacity of the new tech allows shutting down cells. Verizon hasn't given us enough data to know what percent of the network can have fewer cells. They certainly will not be able to reduce the number in rural areas, where they are needed for coverage. 

5G phones will be in short supply until the fabs, especially TSMC, add more high-end capacity. (Probably second half of 2019.) 5G New Radio requires much more complicated chips. Linley, an analyst I respect, estimates NR chips are ten times as complicated as previous generations. Without the most advanced chip processes, speed and power requirements cannot be met. Only three companies in the world are manufacturing at that level: TSMC, Samsung, and Intel. Only TSMC is shipping this year. At this node, the plants alone cost US$6 billion and development support costs billions more. Global Foundries gave up.

Ted Rappaport says we'll have mmWave phones by Xmas, but that may be only a very few around the world. Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg doesn't expect very many phones until the second half of 2019. He told Wall Street he is pressing his suppliers to do better

Huawei, and MediaTek are reliant on TSMC's 7 nm chip foundry. Apple has already bought 75% of what TSMC can produce in the near term. See chart from EE Times.

Ted Rappaport pointed me to Jerry Pi's paper from 2011, one of the very earliest contributions to 5G mmWave. Pi wrote An introduction to millimeter-wave mobile broadband systems when was at Samsung. He writes, "The first publication is a patent application in 2010. As you know, Samsung was the first to show a 28 GHz 5G demo to the world in 2013, while most other companies just started to look into this idea. In my view this certainly helped Samsung establish its technology and product leadership in 5G and grow its 5G business."

Samsung's leadership in wireless research is paying off big time, with Samsung now supplying Verizon. Samsung's showcase customer is Reliance Jio in India, now with 225 million 4G subscribers after only two years. Jio and China's 344M fiber home lines connected (not passed) are the two most spectacular achievements in my 20 years reporting broadband.

In 2012, Samsung became true believers in mmWave and put hundreds of engineers to work. (Ted visited and presented to them.) The complexity of chips and networks today is astonishing. An effort like Samsung, Qualcomm, or Ericsson involves thousands of engineers and billions of dollars.