T-Mobile’s Business Push, Technology Advantages, and 5G Slicing with Daryl Schoolar

Full Transcript

0m10s Speaker 0

Hello, and welcome to the two hundred

0m11s Speaker 1

and ninth episode of the week with Roger, a conversation between analysts about all things telecom, media, and technology from Recon Analytics. I'm Don Kellogg, and with me as always is Roger Retner. How are doing, Roger?

0m22s Speaker 2

Hey. I'm great.

0m23s Speaker 1

So, Roger, this week, have a great crew on the podcast. We have Chris Sambar, president of network at AT and T, JR Wilson, vice president of tower strategy and roaming at AT and T, as well as John Wojewoda, AVP for AT and T Mobility. Gentlemen, welcome to the podcast.

0m38s Speaker 0

Thank you. Hey, Great to be here.

0m40s Speaker 1

So, Chris, you're coming to us from the launch facility at Cape Canaveral. Can you tell us a little bit about what you're doing there?

0m47s Speaker 0

Yeah. I'm excited to be here. We are here for the launch of AST Space Mobile and their five satellites, which are gonna go up in the early morning hours tomorrow. Pretty exciting stuff.

0m58s Speaker 2

That's awesome. So finally, we're gonna have device to satellite to device connectivity. Right?

1m7s Speaker 0

That's the plan, Roger. Direct to device, we call it. So straight from a satellite to an unmodified cell phone, which is code for you can use your regular phone in your pocket, and you can get a connection up to a satellite. Pretty neat technology. We've been working with AST on this for about six years now.

1m24s Speaker 0

It's been real quiet up until 2022 when AST launched their first satellite, BlueWalker three. And then we kinda took the wraps off of it and realized, hey, this is working out great, and we're gonna go big with this project. Our engineers have been working really closely together, and now we're pretty excited about what's coming in the future.

1m44s Speaker 2

Yeah. So what's coming in the future? Can you tell us a little bit what it means for consumers? What it means for businesses? What it means for first responders?

1m53s Speaker 0

Absolutely. I'm laughing, Roger, because we're actually outside. The weather was pretty nice, but it just started pouring rain. So I just moved, and now we're under some eaves. Okay.

2m3s Speaker 0

So what does this mean? Today in the market, if you wanna have satellite connectivity, you need to buy a special phone. Right? Big clunky satellite phone. I have one.

2m12s Speaker 0

I carry it around with me. They're great. They work really well. There's other solutions. It's called SOS on some smartphones.

2m19s Speaker 0

If you're out of coverage area and you get lucky, you can connect to a satellite and do a text messaging. But that's not a great solution. What AST has figured out how to do is they're putting satellites up in space, which are much larger than the existing low Earth orbit satellites. Theirs are going into low Earth orbit. They'll be the largest satellites in low Earth orbit, and you will be able to connect directly from a smartphone to their satellites and not just get texting, not just get voice, but you'll be able to get full data service.

2m49s Speaker 0

Tens of megabits per second as they launch more satellites and densify the network.

2m54s Speaker 2

Wow. So tens of megabits per second. What does that allow me to do?

3m1s Speaker 0

The example I'll give is first responders out in remote areas. Because, you know, AT and T has majority market share for the first responders across the country because of our FirstNet program. So the majority of police, fire, and emergency medical use AT and T FirstNet for their connectivity on their cell phones. And so what they'll be able to do is when they're out in remote areas, rural areas, where there's no cell phone service of any kind, they'll actually be able to get a data connection. Emergency medical will be able to send back vital signs for patients, say, a car accident on a remote rural road.

3m35s Speaker 0

Police will be able to get information on a suspect that they might be after or send information on someone that they've apprehended. Firefighters in fire areas where the networks may have been burned up, that happens especially out in the West. Seems like happens more frequently year to year now. They'll be able to get real time information on what's happening with the fire to keep them safe and help them fight the fire. And then lastly, disaster areas.

3m58s Speaker 0

You know, when a hurricane comes through, we've got one right now in The Gulf. When the hurricane comes through and it takes down the network for a portion of time, the AST Space mobile satellites can actually retune their satellites in real time, and they can change to enable additional spectrum bands to be able to cover those disaster areas while we're repairing the network. So it's a really flexible solution, and it really provides bonafide data service.

4m22s Speaker 2

Wow. That's great.

4m23s Speaker 0

Yeah. We're excited about it.

4m25s Speaker 2

And what does it mean for regular consumers?

4m28s Speaker 0

So I've been asked before, what's the target market for this service in time? The truth is the target market is anyone who has a cell phone, which is every single American, I'm pretty sure, at this point, except for real little kids. Well, I've seen some little kids walking around with them too these days. So the target market is everybody. Consumers, businesses, people who use their phones as first responders for their professional lives.

4m51s Speaker 0

They're all the target market, because this will enable connectivity outside of where today's wireless networks can connect people. So it's really the target market's everybody.

5m1s Speaker 2

Wow. That sounds almost too good to be true. Right? What are the limitations of this?

5m8s Speaker 0

Yeah. Good question. Well, six years ago, Abel Avalon is the CEO of ASC Space Mobile, and he came to me at AT and T. We were the first carrier, and I was the first person he talked to. And I didn't know Abel that well back then, and he came to me, and he he laid out the plan.

5m23s Speaker 0

And he said, here's what we're gonna do. And I said, that seems pretty unbelievable, Abel. Are you sure about this? But I did know that he was really smart. He's basically a satellite guy his whole life, and he's essentially a rocket scientist, really smart guy.

5m36s Speaker 0

He had done ventures similar to this with AT and T in the past around satellites. So I knew he had a track record of success as a really smart entrepreneur. And I would say over the last six years, every year and every time we test something and since the launch of BlueWalker three in late twenty twenty two, we have gained more and more confidence in the viability of the solution, and it's working. I mean, for the past year, we've been testing it in remote areas in Hawaii. In Hana, for example, in Hawaii, if you're familiar, there's no wireless connectivity out there at all, and the solution works.

6m7s Speaker 0

And we've done over the top calling. We've done data sessions. We've done exchange of information, voice calls, and it's working great. So it's not perfect. I would be lying if I said it's a perfect solution.

6m18s Speaker 0

Nothing ever is. We are using some great spectrum on it, so it will have the ability to penetrate structures. So it's not like a satellite phone today where you have to have direct line of sight to the satellite. So you will be able to get connectivity inside of structures. But how deep inside of structures compared to the terrestrial networks, that remains to be seen.

6m37s Speaker 0

But I think the solution itself, really robust, and it's really flexible, and we're really excited about the potential for it.

6m45s Speaker 2

Yeah. I think it works on the cellular band, guard band. Right?

6m50s Speaker 0

Today, we've enabled it on multiple spectrum bands. We've tried it on multiple spectrum, and we tested it. That is one of the options that we're looking at is those guard bands. Yes. Those are unused spectrum bands with AT and T.

7m2s Speaker 0

We also have another carrier who's in the partnership with us now too. The guard bands are unused for them as well. So that'll be our initial test because we can get near nationwide coverage with those guard bands.

7m13s Speaker 2

Does that mean I will no longer have dead spots?

7m16s Speaker 0

I would never say that you'll have zero dead spots, but I do believe it's gonna dramatically change your experience and the number of dead spots that you have. There'll be significantly less, not zero, but close in time.

7m29s Speaker 1

So are devices gonna be able to automatically roam onto this spectrum when they lose terrestrial signal? How does that part work?

7m36s Speaker 0

Yeah. That's the beauty of it. It's seamless. Because to the device, it just looks like regular AT and T spectrum. It is.

7m42s Speaker 0

It's the same spectrum that the devices used today on the regular wireless network, except instead of the cell site being a half a mile or two miles away, the cell site is up in space. Honestly, the device doesn't really know the difference. I mean, there's obviously some technical stuff in the background that's happening, but essentially, the device doesn't know the difference. So it just moves from one spectrum band to another, and the network says, you're going out of coverage from this cell site. It's three miles away, so I'm gonna bump you up to the satellite cell site up in space, and that's gonna be your next connection point.

8m11s Speaker 0

And so the device won't know the difference, and the user won't know the difference either. Wow. It almost sounds too good to be true. I know. But it's really that's why I say it's so exciting because it's just amazing what the smart engineers at AST and AT and T and a handful of other carriers around the world have been able to accomplish in the last handful of years.

8m28s Speaker 1

Yeah. So you mentioned disaster response. What sort of capacity are we looking at in terms of how many users can this serve?

8m36s Speaker 0

It's a really good question because we have one satellite up today. We have five satellites launching tomorrow morning. They have another 17 satellites in plan that should go up in the coming months, and then they've got additional planned after that. You know, they're really well funded, especially with what's been going on in the with their equity these days. So they're really well funded.

8m53s Speaker 0

They've got a lot of room ahead of them to go. As they get more densification, meaning more satellites in orbit, you can obviously increase the number of users on the satellites. But keep in mind and again, I won't quote numbers and specifics because it is some pretty sensitive proprietary technology that they have. But these satellites are significantly larger than any other satellite, especially in low Earth orbit. These will be the largest satellites ever put into low Earth orbit.

9m19s Speaker 0

Close to the size of the International Space Station, they're so large. So these are massive satellites. Yeah. So the ability to connect a large number of users as they continue to put satellites up in orbit, they got a lot of opportunity ahead of them.

9m32s Speaker 1

So when will this be available?

9m34s Speaker 0

I would love to give you an answer to that question. I don't have a date for you. Not yet. Not yet. That's the official answer.

9m42s Speaker 2

Well, that's okay. You know, it we know it's coming.

9m45s Speaker 0

Yeah. No. It's coming. Absolutely. So five satellites will get us they're thinking up to around fifteen minutes of continuous service with five satellites strung together.

9m53s Speaker 0

And then we keep launching after that. And once we get another handful of them up, we should be able to get commercial service going, at least on a limited basis. But five satellites coming tomorrow, and then 17 that are in production right now out in Midland, Texas in their factory, and then we'll keep going past that. So we're on a good path.

10m10s Speaker 2

You're on an excellent path. This is really exciting. Yeah. Agree. Well, thank you very much for taking the time.

10m18s Speaker 2

This was exciting. As you can see, we're very excited about this technology. And thank you for spending time with us and telling us more about the exciting things that were coming to AT and T customers and, you know, others who have access to that technology. Terrific. Thank you.

10m35s Speaker 0

Absolutely, Roger. Now you gotta promise me the next time we do a launch, you're gonna come down here. Okay? I thought I was gonna see you down here.

10m42s Speaker 2

I promise. Alright. Thank you, Chris.

10m45s Speaker 0

I'll make sure the weather's nicer than it is today. Alright, you guys. Thanks again. We appreciate your time. Have a good one.

10m50s Speaker 1

Thank you, gentlemen. Bye bye.