Roundup: The latest developments in 5G

India holding 5G spectrum auction in July

The Indian government is reportedly open to allowing 5G spectrum bids from carriers in July, creating an opportunity to invest in 5G deployment in the country, per Light Reading.

• The auction will see the big three service providers, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea, and Reliance Jio, get into a bidding war for 72GHz of airwaves on sale. 
• Spectrum in low band, mid band, and high band will be auctioned and available for 20 years. 
• Assigning 5G bandwidth to carriers is expected to fast-track India’s delayed 5G adoption. In context, the country’s 1 billion mobile users rely mainly on 2G-connections. 
• The networks provider that can get to market first with 5G stands to gain the advantage in converting India’s mobile subscribers into 5G customers.

Qualcomm bolsters 5G radio tech expertise with Cellwize acquisition

Qualcomm’s acquisition of network automation specialist Cellwize can strengthen its 5G radio ambitions for future silicon, per TechRadar. 

• A major supplier of mobile processors and wireless components, Qualcomm plans to integrate Cellwize’s cloud-native multi-vendor radio access network (RAN) automation and management platform into its own 5G solutions portfolio.
• Qualcomm says the capabilities will accelerate the deployment and simplify the management of public and private 5G while also enabling the development of intelligent edge networks and applications. 
• Consolidating 5G radios and cloud solutions helps Qualcomm develop secure enterprise applications, opening a new market of opportunities in enterprise and private 5G deployments.

Dish flips the switch on 5G in 120 cities

Dish Network expanded 5G services in more than 120 cities around the US, per Light Reading.

• There was an urgency for Dish to launch services by June 14, 2022, the deadline given by the US government. In context, Dish needed to offer 5G service to 20% of the US population or face steep fines, per the Verge.
• Dish's smartphone services are limited to customers who purchase a Samsung Galaxy S22 from the operator. "We'll launch additional devices and offers soon, thanks to our close work with our partners … for use on our Smart 5G network," the company noted on Dish's Project Genesis website. 
• Dish’s smartphone offering being limited to one device from one vendor could deter adoption from subscribers who want more choice.

Google starts selling private 5G service

Google unveiled its private wireless networking offering last week, per Light Reading. 

• Joining the growing list of private 5G players, Google will sell the service directly to enterprise customers, putting it in direct competition with NTT, Ericsson, Verizon, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and others.
• Google’s new "private networking solutions portfolio" is based on its previously announced "Google Distributed Cloud Edge." It allows enterprises and other customers to run and manage the Google Cloud inside their own locations.
• Google has been expanding into becoming a network provider, and private 5G and edge computing fits well into its services expansion. The caveat: Encryption and security are not Google Cloud’s forte, which could make it a hard sell against other vendors.

T-Mobile levels up 5G bandwidth to 3GBps

T-Mobile recently hit 3Gbps speeds in a test of mid-band 5G spectrum, per PCMag.

• Achieving this speed puts T-Mobile ahead of AT&T and Verizon, which may not be able to match this performance until 2024.
• T-Mobile achieved this through two 100MHz 2.5GHz channels and a 10MHz 1.9GHz channel. This application is only available with “standalone 5G,” which casts off reliance on the 4G network, T-Mobile says.
• This is a continuation of T-Mobile shedding 4G-dependent technologies to be a pure 5G player. It also recently turned on 5G voice calling in two markets—making it the leading option for customers seeking the fastest 5G throughput.

Dig deeper: Read more about 5G adoption and user growth in our 5G US Mobile Network Users Overview 2021 report.