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

0m22s Speaker 1

I'm great. How are you?

0m24s Speaker 0

Good. So, Roger, this week, we're talking satellites, and we're pleased to welcome Srini Kalapala to the podcast. Srini is the SVP of technology and product development at Verizon. Srini, welcome to the podcast.

0m36s Speaker 2

I'm pleased to be here.

0m38s Speaker 0

So, Srini, recently, you've been working on a partnership between Verizon and Skylow. Can you tell us a little

0m43s Speaker 2

bit about it? Yep. We've initiated a partnership with Skylow. Skylow is a technology provider that allows cell phone users to communicate using satellite signals in the areas where there's no cellular connectivity. The partnership that we have is to allow for our Android customers to start with to avail emergency SOS as well as peer to peer SMS messaging capabilities from their phones in the areas where they have no cellular connectivity.

1m15s Speaker 1

So I can finally climb up a remote mountain, and when I get out of breath on the top of it, I can call Mountain Rescue and get a helicopter?

1m24s Speaker 2

You absolutely can with this service. One caveat if I were to put it there is, this service is available to new devices because it uses what we call satellite spectrum. Very few devices have that capability. The Google Pixel and the upcoming Samsung Galaxy s 25, Pixel nine on the Google side will have this capability. And as time passes, we expect more and more devices to have this capability.

1m52s Speaker 1

So that's like the l band. Right?

1m54s Speaker 2

It is the l band. Yep. Hey, Roger, you know a lot.

1m57s Speaker 1

Yeah. You know, we do our homework. Right? And in The US, that's like very close to the the GPS band. Right?

2m5s Speaker 2

It is, yes. These are the dedicated satellite bands. L and S are the two dedicated satellite communication bands. They are today used by a number of satellite companies to deliver what I call communication to special purpose devices. And we are now able to use that particular spectrum to deliver communication to your normal handsets.

2m28s Speaker 2

That's the innovation here.

2m30s Speaker 1

So you mentioned that this is right now for SOS communications. Similar to what I think Apple does themselves with I think Globalstar. Do you see this expanding from just very importantly nine eleven type scenarios when people are in great need without their own fault, right? Where does this go?

2m55s Speaker 2

Immediately, initially, it's going to be available to your point for emergency SOS. We see early next year, and the exact timing is going to be firmed up, but let's say around, you know, late Q1, early Q2, we expect our customers to be able to actually also send messages, not for SOS, but to your friends. For example, you're on top of the mountain, you're trying to catch a breath, but you can send them text to your loved ones and say, hey, I'm here. I reached the top. And they'll be able to respond back to you from wherever they are, and you'll be able to receive the message.

3m28s Speaker 2

So what we call peer to peer messaging. We expect that also to be available. We do expect satellite communication to eventually evolve towards some level of data and voice. The timing of that, you know, if you had heard our competition, they were saying imminent. The timing of that we see is around 26 onwards, where we could see some low level data and some low level voice services start appearing.

3m53s Speaker 1

Because the satellites are not built to be huge data pipes, at least at this stage, right? That are used for this. When a lot of people are traveling in remote places, and it's amazing how many people are actually in remote places, like a four k video, right, from the top of a really beautiful mountain might crash the whole thing.

4m15s Speaker 2

Yeah. In fact, crashing is one thing. Can they actually even successfully send that level of data through the satellite to other side? You used a very interesting example. They're not built for significant throughputs.

4m27s Speaker 2

Part of that is not just only the constellation size, but part of that is truly the physics. I can take the amount of spectrum, put the spectrum to use on the ground. And typically, when we put a spectrum to use on the ground, we're talking about a few miles. And we can actually deliver a good amount of throughput for that spectrum. The same spectrum, when we put it into the space, even the lowest LEO satellite is probably 500 miles by about.

4m52s Speaker 2

And that means there's gonna be attenuation and whatnot. So the amount of throughput is gonna be less. So, first and foremost, it's a physics. You can't get the same outcome that you would get on the ground for the same spectrum in space. The outcome will be lower.

5m7s Speaker 2

That's one. Second is, these constellations will require multiple things. Number one, they'll need a good amount of capacity. Capacity comes in by having a number of satellites. They need to have a lot many more satellites.

5m20s Speaker 2

The second thing they'll need to have is that very good beam forming. Meaning that the more beams they can deliver to the ground, that means they can deliver more throughput. So, we do expect this technology to get mature, and, you know, we expect, you know, more. But to your point, we're not looking at four ks video uplinks and others. But what we're looking at is low level data.

5m40s Speaker 2

You know, you are driving somewhere. You're beyond cellular connectivity. You need maps to be updated. Yeah, this can help. You need to make a quick emergency call.

5m49s Speaker 2

This could come into the picture. So that's how we see it evolving. Eventually, it might be able to support richer data applications. But our view is that by then, the terrestrial connectivity is going to be even a lot more. Satellite will always be, in our view, one and a half to two generations behind.

6m7s Speaker 1

Yeah. And I think it's great that you're providing this emergency service free of charge, which I think is terrific. So your Skylo initiative, how is this part of like your larger satellite connectivity strategy?

6m23s Speaker 2

Good question by the Roger. We've been using satellites for a long time. I've been a veteran of Verizon. I've worked for a long time, and I don't believe in my early days here, we used to talk about how we use satellites to provide emergency connectivity. Now, here is how we use satellites.

6m39s Speaker 2

Today, we use satellites to provide emergency connectivity in all kinds of weather and other events. So we have these vehicles called sell on wheels. You know, have all kinds of animal names, you know. Sell on wheels is a cow. Sell on a light truck is a colt.

6m54s Speaker 2

All of these vehicles, they deliver cellular connectivity in areas of tornadoes or hurricanes or wherever, and they use the backhaul to be satellite. They actually have satellite connectivity on these vehicles so that they can go anywhere and set up a cellular connectivity. And we've been using this for a long time. We do use in a very limited capacity, again, a satellite connectivity for enterprises, consumers. I don't think we use that much, but perhaps down the road in areas of extreme rural, remote connectivity areas where economically or physically, we can't just have a fiber or cellular connectivity deployed.

7m36s Speaker 2

In those cases, we do work with partners and bring in broadband by partnering with them. So, as I said, remote enterprise connectivity, remote broadband, remote backhaul, we've been using it for a long time, and we continue to use it. We also made an announcement with Kuiper to deliver broadband to our consumer customers in remote areas. And again, we announced a partnership. We are working through the mechanics there.

8m0s Speaker 2

This is different because this is the first time where we're delivering the connectivity to the existing handsets. In all other examples, you needed a special purpose CPE, some kind of a end user device that is designed to work with satellite. Now with Skylo and AST partnership that we announced, our existing devices, normal smartphone devices, they not only can deliver you the normal cellular connectivity, now they can also deliver satellite connectivity.

8m30s Speaker 1

Yeah, and AST just announced that the first satellites will go up September, I believe twelve.

8m37s Speaker 2

Yeah, twelve to morning, 7AM.

8m39s Speaker 1

Early in the morning. Should look spectacular if you're there. What's really interesting is we just ran over the Labor Day holiday module on what consumers think about satellite connectivity, and we asked about 8,000 people. And what was really interesting, because we were like internally betting of who customers will say is best positioned to provide satellite based communication. And what was really impressive was the mobile network operators were seen by consumers as the best positioned to provide satellite based communications to them.

9m21s Speaker 1

And so that's really a license for you to play. It was followed by Starling, Google, Apple, and then Samsung. It was like really interesting. Starling takes away so much oxygen out of the room and is viewed as like, you know, the players, but it's really the mobile operators that are seen as the go to partner from a consumer perspective.

9m43s Speaker 2

I'm glad to hear, in fact, that's what our consumers think. Because let me explain to you how we look at this. Ultimately, we want to provide the best connectivity for our customers no matter where they are. And we look at all different options to deliver their best connectivity. That's why, you know, our primary would be that where possible, we'll deliver the connectivity through cellular terrestrial cellular networks.

10m8s Speaker 2

That's what we're known for, and that's what we'll deliver. But to, you know, my earlier point, there's always going to be situations where either the environment is extremely remote, like your example of being top of a mountain, or is so remote that it's not just economically possible to deliver cellular connectivity, that is when we look at, okay, what other means can we deliver them? The ways the customers can stay connected, where it's reliable and optimal. This is where, you know, we partner with Skylo and AST. By the way, as I explained, with Skylo, it's satellite spectrum.

10m41s Speaker 2

But with Skylo, you need new devices because it's satellite spectrum. With AST, it uses our terrestrial spectrum. The service will be available in remote areas where our cellular networks are not available. And the users don't have to upgrade their devices because it will work on existing devices. Our view is look for the best technology options that we can leverage to deliver the most reliable and optimal connectivity for our customers.

11m6s Speaker 2

And in our options, we look at all the optionality, and and that's where we ended up with these multiple options.

11m12s Speaker 1

At the same time, I think you are already covering 99 plus percent of people. And this really will help then close the rest of the people gap and the geographic gap of places where you can't build a sell side like national parks, very, very remote places where it would be just not feasible to do that.

11m35s Speaker 2

Exactly, exactly. And in those cases where our customers are looking for some level of connectivity and mainly safety use cases, public safety use cases. But then eventually, as we get to the peer to peer messaging and in the long run, some low level voice and data, it is our customers wanting to stay close to their loved ones to indicate they're safe and they're having fun in this case. Right? They're on top of mountain.

12m1s Speaker 2

Yeah.

12m1s Speaker 1

I think it's exciting times coming.

12m4s Speaker 2

It is. Indeed.

12m5s Speaker 0

It's a terrific initiative, and it's gonna save lives. Right?

12m8s Speaker 2

Yeah. We hope, uh, that this sort of emergency connectivity and others that, you know, when customers do get into a trouble situations, they'll be able to reach out to both the public safety officials as well as they'll be able to, you know, stay in contact with their loved ones.

12m22s Speaker 1

Another example of how technology makes our lives better and hopefully longer.

12m27s Speaker 2

Indeed.

12m28s Speaker 1

Thank you, Srini. This was awesome. Really appreciate you coming on the show.

12m34s Speaker 2

It's my pleasure.

12m35s Speaker 0

Alright. Thanks everybody, Roger.

12m36s Speaker 2

We'll talk to

12m37s Speaker 1

you next week. Thank you.