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

Full Transcript

Don Kellogg 0m10s

Hello, and welcome to the two hundred

Roger Entner 0m11s

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?

Guest Speaker 0m22s

Hey. I'm great.

Roger Entner 0m23s

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

Don Kellogg 0m38s

Thank you. Hey, Great to be here.

Roger Entner 0m40s

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?

Don Kellogg 0m47s

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.

Guest Speaker 0m58s

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

Don Kellogg 1m7s

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.

Don Kellogg 1m24s

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.

Guest Speaker 1m44s

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?

Don Kellogg 1m53s

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.

Don Kellogg 2m3s

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.

Don Kellogg 2m12s

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

Don Kellogg 2m19s

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.

Don Kellogg 2m49s

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

Guest Speaker 2m54s

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

Don Kellogg 3m1s

The example I'll give is first responders out in remote areas. Because, you know, AT&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&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.

Don Kellogg 3m35s

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.

Don Kellogg 3m58s

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.

Guest Speaker 4m22s

Wow. That's great.

Don Kellogg 4m23s

Yeah. We're excited about it.

Guest Speaker 4m25s

And what does it mean for regular consumers?

Don Kellogg 4m28s

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.

Don Kellogg 4m51s

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.

Guest Speaker 5m1s

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

Don Kellogg 5m8s

Yeah. Good question. Well, six years ago, Abel Avalon is the CEO of ASC Space Mobile, and he came to me at AT&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.

Don Kellogg 5m23s

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.

Don Kellogg 5m36s

He had done ventures similar to this with AT&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.

Don Kellogg 6m7s

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.

Don Kellogg 6m18s

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.

Don Kellogg 6m37s

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

Guest Speaker 6m45s

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

Don Kellogg 6m50s

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&T.

Don Kellogg 7m2s

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.

Guest Speaker 7m13s

Does that mean I will no longer have dead spots?

Don Kellogg 7m16s

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.

Roger Entner 7m29s

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

Don Kellogg 7m36s

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

Don Kellogg 7m42s

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.

Don Kellogg 8m11s

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&T and a handful of other carriers around the world have been able to accomplish in the last handful of years.

Roger Entner 8m28s

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

Don Kellogg 8m36s

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.

Don Kellogg 8m53s

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.

Don Kellogg 9m19s

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.

Roger Entner 9m32s

So when will this be available?

Don Kellogg 9m34s

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.

Guest Speaker 9m42s

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

Don Kellogg 9m45s

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.

Don Kellogg 9m53s

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.

Guest Speaker 10m10s

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

Guest Speaker 10m18s

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&T customers and, you know, others who have access to that technology. Terrific. Thank you.

Don Kellogg 10m35s

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.

Guest Speaker 10m42s

I promise. Alright. Thank you, Chris.

Don Kellogg 10m45s

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.

Roger Entner 10m50s

Thank you, gentlemen. Bye bye.