Dish is fretting over T-Mobile's CDMA shutdown plans. But some financial analysts believe the whole issue is just 'an attempt to reduce Dish's burden to provide GSM-compatible devices.'

President Biden has hinted that the federal government might step in to 'reduce Internet prices for all Americans.' But some analysts aren't expecting that kind of heavy-handed regulation.

Verizon is now applying discounts to phones with cracked screens. That's just one indication among several of how the US wireless landscape could soon get a lot more competitive.

Verizon's new hyper-sensitive location service relies on several dozen Real Time Kinematics (RTK) reference stations the operator has constructed across the US.

All of the big US network operators are working to get customers to subscribe to their expensive service plans, but the details of their 5G pricing strategies highlight their divergent network positions.

The biggest wireless network operators in the US announced in 2019 that they would jointly launch RCS messaging services sometime in 2020. But it was not to be.

Dish Network has said T-Mobile's CDMA shutdown plans raise 'significant competition and public interest concerns.' But T-Mobile issued a blistering retort to Dish: 'Go do your job.'

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Fastweb taps Amdocs for network inventory upgrade; MTN seeks $5 billion valuation of mobile money unit ahead of stake sale; A1 Telekom Austria brings your package inside.

Following warnings from the likes of T-Mobile, Gogo and Infinera, Verizon said that it does not expect the global chip shortage to affect its C-band buildout plans.

T-Mobile is now offering a free 5G phone alongside promises of cheaper 5G services than the competition. The operator's announcement may represent the final piece of its 5G puzzle.

The recent misfortunes of Japan's answer to WhatsApp could be an opportunity for Japan's telecom operators.

AT&T primarily used its sponsored data service to remove usage charges from its video services, including HBO Max, for customers who have otherwise had to pay per-GB fees to stream them.

'The requirement for a completely new architecture for developing service products and then delivering and managing them became apparent to me,' says CEO Harley Stowell.

Verizon claims that its C-band spectrum can cover more territory than T-Mobile's 2.5GHz spectrum can. T-Mobile claims the exact opposite. The truth may be somewhere in the middle.

Starry spent $48 million on 24GHz licenses in 2019. Now, the company is working with T-Mobile to test its own equipment for transmissions in that band on the way toward 'final certification and deployment.'

T-Mobile quietly changed its customer privacy policy so that it can begin selling customer data to advertisers without having to obtain the customer's explicit consent.

Dish announced it will purchase T-Mobile MVNO Republic Wireless and its 200,000 customers. The move signals Dish's apparent interest in building an MVNO empire on the road to 5G.

A Rewheel study based on factors including macro cell site counts and customers' average data usage indicates Verizon, Jio and MTS operate networks that could be constrained.

Operator Connect function to allow calls to be placed over the PSTN, part of a raft of Teams updates announced for Microsoft Ignite.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Deutsche Telekom teams up on urban data; Openreach goes with Viavi for network management; Proximus in Bruges.

Late last year, T-Mobile told Dish it would shut down its 3G CDMA network for Boost customers by January 1, 2022. That's a full year earlier than Dish had expected.

T-Mobile is hoping to encourage customers to sign up for new, more expensive Magenta MAX service by removing monthly usage limits.

Improved latency is one of the 'great goals of the designers of 5G,' OpenSignal noted, and it's only available to operators that switch on the 'standalone' version of 5G.

Startup Lynk plans to light up commercial services by 2022 – that's one year earlier than its rival, SpaceMobile. Both companies promise to connect standard cellphones to satellites.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Brits turn to mobile data to survive lockdown logjam; Ericsson deploys private network with Cosmote; Proximus signs up One Bill Global as MVNO.

Deal, which values Synacor at $92 million, comes roughly eight months after Synacor and Qumu called off their proposed merger.

Amazon's Project Kuiper is pledging to deliver 'fiber-like' broadband services to remote corners of America. But the company is also eyeing partnerships with 5G operators.

Minim, a maker of DOCSIS gateways and other CPE, has launched a data usage tool for ISPs and for its retail products to help educate consumers about their usage patterns and to 'demystify' data caps.

T-Mobile said its lowband 5G service, covering around 280 million people, is roughly twice as fast as its 4G network. The operator's midband 5G offering provides peak speeds up to 1 Gbit/s.

Verizon is preparing to mount a public relations campaign against AT&T, FirstNet and others over the topic of interoperability. Caught in the middle are millions of public safety customers.

With backing from the likes of Fortress Investment Group and Columbia Capital, Omnispace wants to build a global 5G network with its 2GHz spectrum using both satellites and terrestrial cell towers.

After an evaluation of Shentel's wireless business, T-Mobile agreed to acquire the company's 1.1 million customers for $1.95 billion.

In 2016, Verizon said it planned to shutter its 3G network on December 31, 2019. Now the carrier believes it will be finished with that effort no later than January 1, 2023.

Analysts thought AT&T would report 400,000 new mobile customers in the fourth quarter. Instead, the operator netted 800,000. The figure reflects AT&T's new 'growth' mantra.

Verizon said it will double the number of its mmWave transmission sites this year. But the operator reported fewer new customers in 2020 than expected, and its 2021 capex is also below projections.

'Verizon continues to hold a solid lead over its peers' when it comes to 5G network perception, according to Cowen analysts. Whether T-Mobile can cut into that lead remains to be seen.

'We had thought that the launch of a 5G iPhone could be a catalyst,' wrote the analysts at Evercore. 'As it turned out, churn and upgrade activity has remained modest.'

'I have already spoken to at least a dozen CEOs of telecoms companies. I think they are all excited to work with us,' said Sunil Bharti Mittal, an executive involved with OneWeb.

The US government's Lifeline program collects fees from telecom companies in order to help poor Americans pay for connectivity. AT&T and Verizon are proposing sweeping changes to that setup.

Apple is reportedly preparing to unveil a virtual reality headset as early as next year. But the gadget shouldn't excite 5G operators just yet.

The FCC's recent Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I auction came in below expectations and will provide money to fresh faces. President Biden will need to decide whether that's good or bad.

Vivint Internet announced plans to shut down service to 8,500 customers just two weeks before COVID-19 rampaged across the US. This is the story of the company's collapse.

Some offer predictions and prognostications. Our former cloud analyst steps in with her reactions and reminds us that moving critical telco systems to the public cloud for telcos is a considerable challenge.

Samsung, the world's largest smartphone vendor, released new flagship Galaxy S21 phones. The gadgets have significant implications for the 5G industry.

Activity in the C-band auction is slowing with $80.7 billion in gross proceeds. Already T-Mobile is looking to raise $2 billion, likely to help pay for its purchases.

CSG is the top 'challenger brand' in wireless revenue management and will back that up with big deals and potential M&A opportunities aimed at bulking up the company's product portfolio, CEO Brian Shepherd says.

T-Mobile reported that its postpaid phone churn was 1.03% in the fourth quarter of 2020, which the financial analysts at New Street Research said was 'down dramatically year-over-year.'

First Verizon planned to shutter its 3G network at the end of 2019. Then it delayed that plan to the end of 2020. Now, Verizon says 'we don't have a plan to shut it down at this time.'

Intelligent Wireless Network Steering (IWiNS) technology is designed to help mobile users optimize their connections across Wi-Fi, LTE and CBRS networks on an application-by-application basis.

A new report from Omdia says lockdown measures have underlined the importance of business continuity over disaster recovery and shunted unified communications and collaboration (UCC) to the fore of industry thinking.

Wireless network operators are already moving to cloud-native applications, but experts say the industry will see more automation and re-architecting of services in the coming year.

A new report indicates that making money from 5G could well be network operators' biggest challenge as they move into 2021.

Omdia envisages the next-gen PON market to heat up next year due to greater demand for capacity and ROI attractions of GPON infrastructure reuse.

Sky-high prices for 3G spectrum licenses helped to ruin many European operators after auctions in the 2000s. With $70 billion in current bids, the C-band auction could do the same to US operators.

Startup SpaceMobile said it now has the $500 million it needs for 'Phase 1' of its launch. Likely as a result, Vodafone and AT&T are SpaceMobile's two official customers.

Following his launch of standalone 5G, T-Mobile's Neville Ray hopes to push the envelope further by launching carrier aggregation and VoNR technology in 2021.

Looking ahead to 2021, Ciena's CEO talks about its 800G systems, network automation and webscale supplier status as the company looks beyond the pandemic.

'5G Ultra Wideband,' 'Extended Range 5G,' '5G+,' '5Ge,' '5GTF,' '5G Nationwide' and plain-old '5G' are just some of the labels Americans will have to navigate. Good luck with that.

In 2018, AT&T loudly boasted that it was the first operator in the US to launch mobile 5G in mmWave spectrum. Now, two years later, the operator has little to show for its efforts.

T-Mobile expects to close much of Sprint's network starting in 2022, but steps toward that goal are already underway.

Docomo in Japan is now selling 5G for around half of what its fellow incumbents charge. If Dish enters the 5G market in the US, AT&T and Verizon might be forced into a similar position.

New video monitoring tool is designed to help service providers auto-detect and diagnose the root cause of video streaming issues and impairments.

New findings from OpenSignal show a surprising parity in 5G download speeds among AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. But, as always, the devil is in the details.

A testing request from wireless network operator Viaero hints at fixed wireless services in the C-band using equipment from Airspan and BEC Technologies.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Ziggo adds probes to boost network performance; Colt upgrades its SD-WAN offering; Iskratel touts new OLT for easier virtualization.

The TM Forum's much-publicized Open Digital Architecture could enjoy a boost from the latest move.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Plymouth hosts 5G marine testbed; Ericsson upgrades Mozambique's TMCEL; Swisscom spotlights 5G startups.

Buoyed by demand for gaming chips and data center tech, US chipmaker sees record revenue of $4.73bn – yet shares slide 3% on supply chain worries and Mellanox.

The work of physically installing radios on top of cell towers is often the most expensive part of any wireless network buildout. Dish Network said it will use 20,000 Crown Castle towers for 5G.

AT&T plans to shutter its 3G network in the early part of 2022. But the company, and some top analysts, don't expect the action to affect many of the 40.5 million cars connected to AT&T.

The Japanese company is pitching its tools and applications to other service providers and says it can satisfy demands for ownership and data privacy.

Verizon officials outlined the company's 5G buildout efforts, as well as 5G revenue opportunities spanning 5G smartphones, 5G fixed wireless services and edge computing.

The government has cleared the Production Linked Incentive scheme supporting 4G, 5G, next-generation RAN, IoT access, enterprise and wireless equipment.

With eye to NBN sell-off, Telstra embarks on sweeping restructure, breaking into three entities including a tower business, and reveals energy reseller ambitions.

Verizon's Ronan Dunne said the operator's new cable MVNO deals ensure that 'we're their primary provider of connectivity for the foreseeable future.'

Predictably solid results are sweetened by an AWS deal expansion, making the cloud giant the preferred provider for Amdocs' internal IT transformation.

C Spire is using equipment from Nokia to deploy non-standalone 5G across its PCS, 700MHz and 600MHz spectrum holdings, with plans to add 28GHz in the future.

The companies once labeled 'irrelevant' by T-Mobile's former CEO are now accounting for roughly 8% of the industry's new mobile subscribers. And they're not stopping there.

Paul Garnett is no longer heading up Microsoft's Airband initiative, a move that coincides with the company's shift in focus to expand broadband in urban as well as rural areas.

The Internet 'bent but did not break,' research firm concludes.

Asia's ride-hailing unicorn continues move into payments and banking, becoming minority investor in the Indonesia-based e-wallet and mobile money provider.

President Trump fired the Secretary of Defense who signed off on a 5G spectrum-sharing project. What that means, alongside a likely President Biden, remains unclear.

Despite losing $1.3 billion in a tech stock buying spree, Masayoshi Son's conglomerate profits after big tech stakes and a Chinese startup's IPO.

Dish Network is set to join AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile in operating a 5G network. Here are the executives, vendors and government-mandated timeline it's using.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Ucell opts for Nexign on billing; Proximus does deal with Citymesh; Telecom Italia joins government broadband voucher scheme.

T-Mobile reported 689,000 postpaid phone net customer additions during the third quarter, while AT&T notched 452,000 and Verizon posted 283,000.

Optical/IP technology specialist beats analyst estimates with Q3 results.

Optical security and performance products buoyed by strong 3D sensing demand star performer, field instrument recovery anticipated as 5G rollout accelerates.

South Korean telco KT Corp has recorded a sharp fall in operating profit in a quarterly result salvaged only by an accounting change.

T-Mobile's financial results exceeded Wall Street expectations 'by a mile,' according to some financial analysts. The situation may position T-Mobile to take a commanding lead in 5G.

Comcast said it wants to 'evaluate coverage, throughput and mobility of equipment and facilities' in C-band spectrum ahead of the FCC's December auction of licenses in the band.

IBM assembled 35 companies, ranging from Nokia to Cisco, to underpin its new 'Cloud for Telecommunications' offering for 5G network operators.

South Korea mobile leader SK Telecom has posted a 44% spike in third-quarter earnings, driven once again by non-core businesses.

Verizon's CBRS spectrum purchases stretch across a variety of US markets. But the operator did not purchase spectrum in its most congested markets, according to Tutela.

Chipset manufacturer said its investments in 5G 'are coming to fruition.'

Emerging-markets operator has appointed CTOs at individual country level to drive market-specific digital strategies.

China's telecoms regulator counts fully 600,000 5G basestations in the country. Meantime, one analyst firm has recorded sales of just 6 million 5G phones in the US this year.

Middle Eastern telco giant Zain expands its Kuwait and Saudi Arabia 5G coverage and unveils a data park to build cloud business.

NASA, T-Mobile and Verizon are among the companies fretting over SpaceMobile's plans to beam 5G from satellites. But AT&T thinks the whole thing could be 'a game changer.'

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Ericsson completes Cradlepoint acquisition; BT takes 5G to university; Nokia faces knock-back in patents battle with Lenovo.