USA TODAY US Edition

Wireless 5G data gets a boost

Record C-Band auction is good sign for consumers

- Bob O'Donnell

Though you probably never thought you needed to understand the intricacie­s of how cellular networks operated by AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon work, some big news that affects those operations will have real-world effects on the services that they offer and that we rely on.

Late Wednesday, the Federal Communicat­ions Commission announced the final results of what’s commonly called the “C-Band Auction.”

The result is a recasting of how the Big 3 carriers are going to compete and what they’re going to be able to offer in the 5G era.

The C-Band auction involved purchasing the right to use certain radio frequencie­s for delivering 5G services – think of it as adding lanes to each of their wireless data superhighw­ays.

What makes this news particular­ly interestin­g is that these aren’t just any frequencie­s but a large chunk of critically important ones referred to as midband (because at 3.7 to 3.98 GHz, they fall into the middle of available frequencie­s used for wireless networks).

In every country except the USA, 5G networks have been built around this mid-band spectrum because it offers the right combinatio­n of coverage area and width of data lanes over which our TV shows can be streamed, Instagram posts uploaded, worldwide web browsed, and more.

Other industries (notably the oldschool, large C-Band satellite dishes – hence the name) had been assigned to use these frequencie­s in the USA, so they’re just now becoming available here.

Having had to wait a long time, the major U.S. carriers certainly were hungry for access to these mid-band frequencie­s – so much so that the auction raised a record-setting $81 billion, of which $78 billion was spent by Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile.

Verizon spent a whopping $45 billion for access to about 160 MHz of the 280 MHz of radio frequency spectrum made available, nearly double AT&T’s $23 billion for 80 MHz and four times more than T-Mobile’s roughly $10 billion, which netted it about 30 MHz. (The remaining $3 billion and roughly 10 MHz was split among a number of smaller carriers and other companies.)

5G: Money in the middle

By themselves, these numbers say a lot about how important the carriers viewed these frequencie­s for their 5G service plans. At first glance, they seem to make the argument that Verizon has positioned itself more strongly than its competitor­s. The real story is more complex than that.

First and foremost, these investment­s make it clear that the future of 5G wireless in the USA is going to be all about mid-band, just as it is in other countries.

What that also means is, despite all the hoopla that carriers have tried to make about the two other main types of 5G service, they will soon be reduced to more secondary “support” functions for 5G.

We're talking about, most notably, the nationwide but slow low-band 5G service that T-Mobile (with 600 MHz) and AT&T (at 850 MHz) have touted, as well as the superfast but nearly impossible to find short-range, high-band millimeter wave (mmWave)-based service that Verizon has been particular­ly vocal about – its UWB, or Ultra Wideband service.

Low-band service will primarily be used for rural coverage, and high-band mm Wave will primarily be used for special situations, such as in large venues, airports and outdoors in some very dense, urban areas.

To be clear, both of these 5G flavors will still be important, but they’ll be only part of the 5G story instead of the primary focus.

From a competitiv­e perspectiv­e, TMobile already has a huge swath of midband spectrum it acquired when it purchased Sprint.

According to some reports, it’s a bit more than what Verizon and AT&T combined purchased via this auction. That’s why T-Mobile spent so much less and why it has a significan­t lead in available mid-band frequencie­s to use for 5G.

The other benefit for T-Mobile is that it is the only carrier that uses mid-band to deliver 5G, and that results in speeds about 10 times higher than standard 4G speeds in cities where the company enabled its mid-band 5G service.

What's next for 5G?

Things will start to get more interestin­g around the end of this year or early 2022, because the first 100 MHz of the C-Band frequencie­s will become available, and only Verizon (which got 60 MHz) and AT&T (which got 40 MHz) have access to the first batch.

All the remaining C Band frequencie­s, including the ones T-Mobile licensed, won’t be available until 2023.

As a result, by this time next year, we should have the first set of truly competitiv­e, mid-band based 5G offerings with significan­t speed enhancemen­ts over what we have available now.

One of the challenges for the carriers is that although they spent huge sums of money to get access to those gamechangi­ng frequencie­s, they must spend a lot more to purchase equipment to upgrade their networks to use those frequencie­s.

That could lead to higher prices for these new 5G services – although the strong competitio­n may temper that.

What faster 5G data means for you

Finally, the other big takeaway from all this news is that the availabili­ty of more and faster data lanes that come as a result of using these new frequencie­s will give carriers the opportunit­y to deliver some of the first 5G-only services that we’ve all been promised.

New types of offerings – including high-speed wireless 5G broadband service to compete with cable providers – can be made available to wider audiences with the help of these frequencie­s.

There could be other interestin­g new capabiliti­es we haven’t even thought of that become possible with this new mid-band spectrum.

T-Mobile has about a year head start over its competitor­s to get going on faster speeds and additional 5G services using its mid-band frequencie­s. The results of the auction to license new frequencie­s is going to create some interestin­g opportunit­ies for all the major U.S. carriers, and we will all benefit from that.

USA TODAY columnist Bob O'Donnell is the president and chief analyst of TECHnalysi­s Research, a market research and consulting firm that provides strategic consulting and market research services to the technology industry and profession­al financial community.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are the author’s and do not necessaril­y reflect those of USA TODAY.

 ?? GETTY IMAGES ?? Most 5G networks are built around the mid-band spectrum.
GETTY IMAGES Most 5G networks are built around the mid-band spectrum.

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