Howard Buskirk

Momentum is growing behind the launch of stand-alone 5G networks, Heavy Reading analyst Ruth Brown said during a Light Reading webinar on service assurance Thursday. The wireless industry remains in a transitional stage, she said. Carriers are “very eager to start monetizing 5G” and offer “long-awaited advanced 5G services,” she said. “Operators are still working through this long investment cycle,” she said. Carriers feel increasing pressure to ensure they can monitor network operations and “respond dynamically, in real time, to service needs,” Brown said. Moving to the cloud will require service assurance changes and orchestration and life-cycle management, she said. Support “really needs to move to this dynamic, real-time model” and “we need to think about how we’re going to get there.” Brown said automation will be critical, but most carriers report they are already automating their networks. Providers' top priorities are tools for developing and testing software network functions and network diagnostics and the resolution of problems, she said. Cloud native and virtual networks are becoming “more normal” for carriers, said Mark Watts, a member of the Verizon technical staff. “We essentially look at each individual application and whether it fits into the cloud-native” environment, he said. Software-based applications are more nimble than legacy, hardware-based applications, he said, stressing the importance of testing. Verizon prides itself on its reliable network “and that starts with service assurance,” Watts said. “Software testing is … more and more important as we’re embarking on this cloud-native journey,” he said. “Ongoing monitoring” of the cloud-based system “continues to be a very high priority" for Verizon and operators across the globe, Watts said. As carriers introduce different hardware and software into their networks, interoperability is also critical to ensure “the longevity and ongoing reliability of the network,” he said. 5G slicing remains “a hot topic,” as is ensuring that the service offered through slices is automated and “supported more quickly and in a more nimble manner.” Slicing could offer increased security, better gaming, high-throughput or ultra-reliable services beyond what is typically available on Verizon’s network, he said.

The FCC on Thursday approved 3-2 a three-year, $200 million cybersecurity pilot program for schools and libraries. Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington dissented, as some had predicted (see 2406040039). The two cited concerns with the FCC using E-rate program funds for the effort. Commissioners Geoffrey Starks and Anna Gomez indicated changes were inserted into the pilot rules at their request.

AI is moving beyond the hype as a technology for telecom providers, Ahmed Hafez, Deutsche Telekom vice president-technology strategy, said during a TelecomTV forum Wednesday on digital support systems. Other executives said carriers continue mulling how they will use AI.

The future is bright for the tower sector, despite a slowdown in major carriers' 5G deployments (see 402290050), American Tower CEO Steve Vondran said Wednesday at a Raymond James financial conference. The U.S. is seeing 20%-30% annual growth in mobile data “and while that's a little bit lower than the 30% to 40% we saw in 4G, the base is exponentially larger,” Vondran said. “I'm excited for the next decade and the demand for the goods and services we sell has never been more certain than it is today,” he added. Vondran said when he started in the business 24 years ago, consumers viewed cellphones as a luxury and even a few years ago there was speculation about when demand would stop. Carriers will continue to deploy 5G and eventually 6G, he said: “This is a good business, not just historically, but today and going forward.” Crown Castle Chief Financial Officer Daniel Schlanger said at the conference that new CEO Steven Moskowitz is “getting his arms around things” following the company's recent proxy fight (see 2405220071). Unlike other recent CEOs, Moskowitz has an operational background, which the board wanted, Schlanger said. One of the biggest challenges for the tower sector is that no one wants macro towers in their backyard, he said: “They're ugly. … Most people look at them and say, 'I don't want that anywhere near me.'” Small cells can help meet growing data demand, he said, and he discussed the effects of consolidation, most recently T-Mobile’s buy of Sprint. “There has been rationalization of the networks because when two customers come together, they don't need all of the equipment to do everything that they did separately,” he said.

Industry experts are hopeful the FCC will make several changes in a proceeding on draft rules for a proposed $200 million cybersecurity pilot program for schools and libraries (see 2405160076). While commissioners are expected to approve the order Thursday, officials said dissents are possible from Republican Commissioners Brendan Carr or Nathan Simington.

Investors aren't concerned with much that regulators do, but some are closely watching the FCC's reimposition of Title II net neutrality rules, discrimination rules and the agency’s bulk-billing proposal, said former FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, now a partner at private-equity firm Searchlight Capital. Pai spoke during a Free State Foundation webcast posted Tuesday. Also joining the webcast was former Commissioner Mike O’Rielly, who served with Pai.

The FCC should include ship-to-aerostat transmissions in rules for the 70/80/90 GHz bands, Aeronet said in reply comments to a January Further NPRM (see 2401290032). The FNPRM asks about including fixed satellite service (FSS) earth stations in the light-licensing regime for the 70/80 GHz bands and was expanded to also inquire about aerostats -- airborne transmitters operating within a small area, below 1,000 feet of elevation.

T-Mobile’s proposed acquisition of UScellular’s wireless operations, including about 30% of its spectrum, has already seen opposition (see 2405280047), with more expected. In addition, the deal will likely face heavy scrutiny from DOJ and the FCC, industry experts agree. Handicapping whether the transaction will receive approval is difficult, especially headed into a presidential election in November, industry officials say. Some of the 21 states where UScellular has a presence could play at least limited roles reviewing the deal, state and other officials said. T-Mobile’s buy of Mint and other assets from Ka’ena, a smaller deal that didn’t involve spectrum, took regulators more than a year to approve.

Broadband access, equity and deployment program funding is flowing more slowly than expected and likely won’t start in mid-2025 as originally expected, Diana Eisner, USTelecom vice president-policy and advocacy, said during a Georgetown University Center for Business and Public Policy webcast Wednesday. Most of the money will start to flow in mid-2026 or later, she predicted. It could even be the second half of 2026, she said.

Making money has to be the goal when providers expose their application programmable interfaces (APIs), experts said during a Mobile World Live webinar on Wednesday. Open APIs are a growing focus of carriers (see 2404160065) and of the GSMA (see 2402260054). “Monetization is really the end goal,” said Peter Jarich, head of GSMA Intelligence. Operators need to expose network capabilities in a consistent way, he said. Consistency is “particularly important” because that leads to interoperability, he said. That allows carriers to “monetize those network capabilities that they built out in a transparent way” so that developers don’t have to go to every operator and “figure out how to integrate with them” and “start from scratch with every single operator they want to work with,” he said. When APIs are exposed consistently, you get the scale that’s attractive to developers, Jarich said. The industry is seeing “traction” since GSMA launched its API Open Gateway initiative last year (see 2302270069), he said. Carriers responsible for nearly 70% of worldwide connections are focused on open APIs, he said. Security is a top concern of providers, and it’s not surprising that many open APIs are focused on security and anti-fraud efforts, Jarich said. GSMA surveys show that operators aren’t just joining the open gateway initiative but are exposing their APIs, he said. Providers are building out fiber and 5G networks against the backdrop of challenging economic conditions and shrinking profit margins, said Ana Redondo, product strategy lead in the Networks Division at telecom tech company Amdocs. “There’s very intense competition worldwide,” she said. “It isn’t an easy environment to operate in,” she said. Carriers are trying to reduce costs and grow core revenues where possible, she said. 5G hasn’t worked as well as carriers hoped, but fixed wireless access “has proven to be very successful,” she said. Open APIs can put carriers “in a far more competitive position,” she said. Carriers have a lot of assets they can monetize in the data that they have, their data centers and edge capacity. Carriers are asking how they can expose everything they do as APIs, she said. It’s a “fundamental shift,” but it puts providers “closer to how the cloud vendors work,” she said.