Optimism infects Big 5G Event

BIG 5G EVENT, DENVER – The Big 5G Event is wrapping up today, and I think it's fair to say that the mood of the show overall has been fairly optimistic.

There's no secret why: The US government appears poised to funnel a historic – almost unseemly – amount of money into the telecom industry. In fact, former FCC commissioner Mike O'Rielly, now of MPORielly Consulting, told me that he expects Congress to pass its massive infrastructure bill within the next few weeks (though he cautioned the industry likely won't get any money for at least a year or so, as the FCC finishes its revised broadband maps).

When it is ultimately released, that government money will undoubtedly trickle down into the coffers of many of the companies attending the Big 5G Event, whether by funding the construction of networks they can build or by helping low-income Americans pay for the services they're selling. Most Big 5G attendees were clearly pleased at that prospect.

Indeed, federal spending on telecom was a big reason why Dish Network purchased its latest MVNO, Gen Mobile. Dish plans to use the Gen Mobile brand to offer services under the government's new Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) program, which may well dramatically expand under Congress' big infrastructure bill.

Frothy fiber

But that's not the only reason executives here appeared to have a bit of a bounce in their step. For example, AT&T, Windstream, Frontier and others are already collectively in the midst of what some analysts describe as a "historic" fiber buildout effort. Some estimates from earlier this year predicted the companies together could install fiber into a total of 5 million new homes in 2021 alone (though that figure might be affected by ongoing component shortages).

"There is a lot of money that is flowing into infrastructure," acknowledged Mo Katibeh, the AT&T executive in charge of its fiber and 5G buildouts, during his keynote appearance here. He explained that AT&T is hiring thousands of additional technicians for its current network buildout, and suggested the industry collectively might face a workforce shortage if government funding and other factors spark additional network buildout programs that require even more technicians.

"It is an incredibly frothy time to be in our industry," Katibeh added.

A midband bonanza

The situation is similar on the wireless side. AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile are all in various stages of massive 5G midband spectrum buildouts. T-Mobile's buildout started last year after it closed its purchase of Sprint, and it ultimately could span five years and $60 billion in spending. AT&T and Verizon, on the other hand, are both working to put their new C-band spectrum licenses into action after spending a combined $80 billion to purchase them in an FCC auction earlier this year.

Perhaps not surprisingly, T-Mobile, Verizon and others may use their new 5G capabilities to chase some of that government spending. That's because 5G technology can support fixed wireless Internet services that meet the government's 100Mbit/s threshold for federal subsidies.

"We're super excited about what's earmarked in there [in Congress' infrastructure bill] for broadband," said Mike Irizarry of UScellular during one of his virtual appearances at the show. UScellular has been testing 5G-powered fixed wireless services with Qualcomm, Ericsson and others.

Of course, all this spending and activity in telecom doesn't really come as a surprise following a pandemic that forced a large portion of the world's population to work and school from home, online. Just about every speaker here at the show made at least a passing mention to the pandemic and how it increased traffic on telecom networks.

Avoiding infections

Unfortunately, the pandemic continues to affect the telecom industry today, despite the widespread availability of COVID-19 vaccines. At the Big 5G Event, roughly a quarter of attendees wore masks, as has been recommended by local and national health officials. Further, in-person attendance at the show was clearly far less than the 2019 show in Denver, prior to the pandemic. (Officials from Informa, Light Reading's parent company and the firm behind the Big 5G Event, declined to provide attendance figures for this year's show.)

Partly as a result, the Big 5G show was a "hybrid" event this year, wherein some attendees and speakers participated virtually and others attended in-person. For example, Light Reading's Phil Harvey, who attended the event in-person, interviewed a virtual Neville Ray during T-Mobile's keynote session. Further, several panels at the show featured a mix of both in-person and virtual speakers. Not surprisingly, there were a number of technical glitches that slowed – or in some cases completely halted – the various sessions. However, I was surprised at how quickly I adjusted to this type of event. Obviously it would have been better to have everyone attend the show in-person, but listening to virtual speakers wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as I thought it would be.

Of course, it's unclear how the rest of this year's telecom trade show schedule will play out. Most of the people I spoke to said they plan to attend other trade shows this year, such as the MWC show in LA in October. I certainly hope we can return to in-person events. But others aren't so sure that's going to happen. For example, Paramount recently delayed the release of two new Tom Cruise movies – Top Gun: Maverick and Mission: Impossible 7 – to 2022.

O'Rielly, the former FCC commissioner, told me he would probably skip the MWC show in LA because of his two children, who are too young to receive the vaccine. He told me how angry it made him to think about all the people in the US who have chosen not to get vaccinated. I told him that I agreed. After our socially distanced meeting, we both put our masks back on and tried to remain optimistic.

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— Mike Dano, Editorial Director, 5G & Mobile Strategies, Light Reading | @mikeddano