A new report by the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA), the Private-Mobile-Networks August 2022 report, has identified 66 MNO’s and 70 countries/territories where organisations are involved with private mobile network projects. This equates to 889 organisations deploying LTE or 5G Private Mobile Networks (PMN) in one or more locations – up from 794 reported in June 2022.

Manufacturing is the major adopter of Private Mobile Networks with 165 identified companies, growth of almost 50% from the end of 2021, with other strong interest from education, mining, and power utilities sectors.

LTE is the dominant technology, used in 672 of the private mobile networks for which GSA has data, whilst 5G is being deployed by 354 organisations. 5G Standalone currently accounts for just thirty-seven deployments.

The USA leads the way with the most organisations deploying private networks based on LTE or 5G, followed by Germany, China, the UK, and Japan.

Joe Barrett, President of the Global mobile Suppliers Association called private mobile networks a microcosm of the wider 4G and 5G ecosystem and reported “a strong positive correlation between liberalised spectrum and the adoption of private mobile networks.”

An executive summary of the report is available from the GSA website based on dataset of over 50 equipment vendors, 66 operators and 70 countries and territories.

References:

https://totaltele.com/private-mobile-network-deployments-now-in-70-countries/

Private-Mobile-Networks August 2022 Summary

by  Fayre Fan (edited by Alan J Weissberger)

Introduction: 

The fiber optic transceiver is the core component of optical communications.  It is used to realize optical-to-electrical conversion. The transmitter converts the electrical signal into an optical signal, while the receiver does the reverse – it converts the optical signal into an electrical signal.

Increasingly, fiber optics is being used for the transport of 5G signals to and from the edge of the carrier’s wide area network. Optical transceivers are the basic component of 5G backhaul, midhaul and fronthaul.   Their cost accounts for 50%~70% of the total 5G network costs.  

Low cost is the key appeal of the 5G optical transceivers. The industry has carried out extensive research on 5G optical module technology, and currently, there are many solutions.

Increasing demands for 5G transceivers: low cost is the key to 5G optical module:

The growth of optical modules in the 5G network mainly comes from three factors:

• More base stations are needed in the high-frequency band.
• Larger bandwidth is required for high-speed rates.
• More connections are required for added midhaul transmission links.

Global top suppliers of 5G base stations include Huawei (China), Ericson (Sweden), Nokia (Finland), ZTE (China), and Samsung (Korea). China is the largest 5G market, which has captured about 74% of the market, followed by Korea and Europe.  

The development of the global 5G network market stimulates the increasing demand for 5G optical transceivers. According to the forecast data from Lightcounting,  the global market share of 5G fronthaul transceivers will reach 657/632/593 million dollars in 2022~2024. 5G midhaul and backhaul transceivers will reach 242/245/247 million dollars respectively. Therefore, reducing cost is a key objective of 5G transceiver development.  Here’s an illustration of backhaul, midhaul and fronthaul:

5G fronthaul -demand for 25G BiDi transceiver:

In the 4G fronthaul network, the most commonly used transceivers are single-mode 10G duplex transceivers. 5G network has higher requirements for the data rate and optical interface of transceivers. In consideration of saving fiber resources and maintaining high-precision synchronization of uplink and downlink, the simplex bi-directional (BiDi) transceiver allowing data transmitting and receiving over one single fiber, is superior to duplex transceivers. Moreover, considering the 5G download rate is at least 10 times higher than that of the 4G network, the 25 Gbit/s data rate is also necessary for the 5G fronthaul transceivers. Taken together, 25G BiDi transceivers are needed for 5G fronthaul networks.

Optical Transceivers for 5G Front-Haul

5G midhaul and backhaul – demand for 50G/100G/200G/400G transceivers:

The 5G midhaul and backhaul are mainly carried through the metro access layer, convergence layer, and core layer. For the access layer, 50G/100G transceivers are commonly used. For example, 50G PAM4 transceiver is a cost-effective solution for 5G midhaul and backhaul.  It is based on 25G optical components and PAM4 (Pulse Amplitude Modulation 4-level) modulation. For the convergence layer and core layer, 100G/200G/400Gb/s DWDM transceivers are mainly used. And low-cost coherent 100G/200G/400G transceivers are welcomed, which mainly use QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) modulation and DSP (Digital Signal Processing) technology.

Optical Transceivers for 5G Mid-Haul/Back-Haul

Technological innovations of 5G transceivers:

Optical transceiver-related technology mainly includes packaging technology and optoelectronic components technology. 

In terms of packaging technology, 5G transceivers can adopt existing mature packaging technologies. For example, since 25G BiDi has a similar optical structure to that of 10G BiDi, the common TO-CAN (transistor-outline-can) package can be used to save cost.

The most vital technological innovation aims at optoelectronic components technology. The technological innovation of optoelectronic devices mainly aims at these goals: function expansion, data rate increase, and cost reduction. 

Function expansion innovation of laser chips example: industrial-grade laser chips no longer require temperature control devices, the laser chip used in the non-airtight environment no longer requires the expensive airtight package, the laser chip with a small divergence angle no longer requires an expensive non-spherical lens,  anti-reflection laser chips no longer require isolators, etc. Those technologies simplify the packaging of the optical module, also providing higher reliability and lower cost.

Data rate increase innovation includes example: the 50G PAM4 optical module uses a 25G baud rate laser/detector, and an electrical chip with high linearity. Compared with the 25G NRZ (non-return to zero) optical module, it allows for higher bandwidth. 

Cost reduction innovation example: coherent 100G transceiver, it reduces the cost on the premise of meeting the transmission distance requirement within 200km.

Ultimately, the key technologies of 5G optical modules are mainly reflected in the innovation of optoelectronic chips. The specific technologies include:

• Industrial temperature grade high-speed laser chip technology
• High linearity 25G baud rate DFB chip and EML chip technology
• Low-cost 25G wavelength tunable laser chip technology
• Low-cost coherent 100G/200G/400G optical transceiver technology

For example, Marvell  and OE Solutions recently announced a collaboration to deliver the industry’s first production-ready 100G QSFP-DD optical modules optimized for 5G backhaul and Metro Access applications.

In conclusion,  5G optical transceivers will play a more important role in the entire optical module market compared with the 4G era.  Technological innovation will be the main driver to realize the low-cost 5G optical modules.

References:

https://www.researchreportsworld.com/global-5g-base-station-sales-market-21017689

https://www.3coptics.com/News/9.html

Investors should expect slower growth ahead for cable companies Comcast and Charter Communications, according to Barclays. Analyst Kannan Venkateshwar downgraded shares of Comcast to equal weight, and shares of Spectrum parent company Charter to underweight, pointing to dwindling subscriber numbers.Barclay’s noted dwindling subscriber numbers for the two companies.

A key source of concern among cable investors is the presence of emerging competition in the market for internet services, as wireless companies push forward with fiber and fixed-wireless-access offerings. While Comcast’s and Charter’s management teams made some acknowledgment of the competitive landscape on their earnings calls, they maintained that the biggest factor driving recent performance was that people have been moving homes in smaller numbers than before.

Venkateshwar didn’t seem sold on the cable companies’ explanations.  “While cable has gained share vs DSL over time and therefore lower moves would impact growth rates, it is mathematically impossible to get to negative growth as seen last quarter, purely on account of lower move activity,” he wrote. “In addition, the decline in move activity is not new and has been going on for years and tends to worsen during recessions.”

He added that even if move rates were to improve, “there are new elements that are likely to reduce cable’s share of gross adds” — namely the emerging competitive dynamics.

“Charter’s management almost seems in denial of competition in talking down its impact, but if TMUS does grow fixed wireless access (FWA) to the full extent of its guidance range (~500k+/quarter), TMUS alone would be bigger than Altice by the end of next year,” Venkateshwar continued. “It is tough to see this not impacting cable structurally when cable net adds overall have been ~3mm in normal years and TMUS and VZ alone could add 2-2.5mm FWA subs a year.”

Venkateshwar isn’t sure that FWA represents “a viable solution for telecom operators long term” given capacity requirements, but said that for the moment, T-Mobile US Inc.and Verizon Communications Inc. have “low marginal costs due to excess spectrum.”

“Consequently, even if FWA proves unviable long term, it could still be a significant headwind for cable over the next 2-3 years,” he wrote.

Additionally, with the help of government funding, more people could move from DSL over to fiber, which would benefit AT&T which has been laser focused on growing its fiber footprint.

Venkateshwar acknowledged that one criticism of his analysis may be that he isn’t giving the cable companies enough credit for growing their own footprints, but he doesn’t see much correlation between footprint expansion and broadband growth rates for Comcast, Charter, and Altice USA Inc. when looking at the past five years. Accordingly, he expects the companies could get even less marginal benefit in a world with growing competition.

“Overall, these factors imply that the largest cable companies, Comcast and Charter, are likely past peak growth and the debate therefore boils down to the degree of downside to broadband net adds going forward,” he wrote. Venkateshwar said that his analyst suggests “cable providers could be at flat growth next year and potentially negative thereafter unless their pace of footprint expansion and marginal penetration of this expanded base accelerates.”

He noted that the companies have been growing wireless subscribers, though he has questions about the long-term economic potential of their wireless involvement. As it stands, Charter and Comcast have a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) arrangement with Verizon that allows the companies to leverage Verizon’s network.

This strategy makes sense to test out the market and launch a service, but to anchor long-term strategic pivot of the scale that cable companies are attempting on someone else’s network is not viable in our view,” he wrote. “If cable companies continue to face challenges in broadband, which we think is likely, they may have little choice but to invest in more extensive wireless infrastructure in some form to extract the benefit of scale in wireless.”

References:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/comcast-charter-stocks-downgraded-as-barclays-says-companies-are-likely-past-peak-growth-11659361451

AT&T remains committed to investing in its network operations, including a focus on its 5G and fiber-optic related assets.  AT&T gained 813,000 mobile postpaid subscribers during the quarter that ended in June, more than doubling analyst predictions and raising its wireless revenue forecast for 2022.

AT&T posted flat results for its now dominate communications segment, which includes its 5G wireless, wireline, and fiber operations. Segment revenues increased 2% year over year to $28.7 billion. However, increased costs and a loss of wireline customers dropped segment operating income by 2.1% to $7.2 billion.

AT&T CEO John Stankey said on today’s earnings call:

“In Fiber, we continue to invest in building out a premium network, drive a great build velocity and deliver on our stated expectations for accelerated customer growth through improved penetration rates. We’re finding success in serving more customers in new and existing markets with what we believe is the best wired Internet offering available. This is evidenced by our more than 300,000 second quarter AT&T Fiber net adds, marking our 10th straight quarter with more than 200,000 Fiber net adds.

The strength and value of the AT&T Fiber experience is enabling us to increase share in our Fiber footprint and convert more IP broadband Internet subscribers to Fiber subscribers. Ultimately, our Fiber strategy is a sustainable and long-term technology play that will support key macro trends.

We expect to see a continuation of favorable ARPU trends as we expand the availability of what we believe is a best-in-class network with a multi-decade lifespan. So I’m very pleased with the strong customer growth we’re seeing.

Our success only reinforces the improved value proposition we’re providing, and we expect our investment in top-tier technology to translate into strong resiliency for our services for years to come.

Over the last eight quarters, we’ve achieved an industry-best six million postpaid phone net adds while adding nearly 2.3 million AT&T Fiber customers, increasing our Fiber subscriber base by more than 50%. I’m also very proud with the progress our teams have made in rapidly expanding our 5G and fiber footprints.

I’m pleased to say that we’ve achieved our target of covering 70 million mid-band POPs 2 quarters ahead of our year-end target, and are now on track to approach 100 million mid-band POPs by the end of this year.”

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AT&T  reduced its free cash flow expectations (FCF), saying that customers were paying bills later than usual due to economic stress. AT&T said it now expects 2022 free cash flow of $14 billion. About $1 billion of the difference was tied to the “timing of customer collections.”

The gloomier FCF outlook overshadowed second-quarter results that topped estimates for profit and wireless subscriber growth.

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AT&T CFO Pascal Desroches told investors that AT&T was bracing for a delay in consumers paying their bills due to surging recession concerns. He explained that “it’s taking about two more days than last year to collect customer receivables,” which resulted in a $1 billion impact in Q2, and that AT&T had around $130 million in higher bad debt expense.

“While bad debt is now slightly higher than pre-pandemic levels, it is being offset by better than expected customer revenue growth,” Desroches said, citing recent price increases.

Desroches also warned that AT&T was cutting its full-year free-cash-flow guidance from $16 billion down to $14 billion due to ongoing economic and recession uncertainty. That cut looked modest next to the carrier only posting $4 billion in free cash flow for the first half of the year, which was well below expectations.

The executive explained that AT&T had front-loaded its $24 billion in full-year capex due to its mid-band 5G and fiber deployments. This will lessen second-half spend needs, though AT&T remains committed to spending another $24 billion on capex in 2023.

“It underscores the importance of transitioning to our own operating connectivity services as well as rolling 5G and fiber integrated solutions,” Desroches said of its capex push. “In fact, our connectivity services revenue growth continues to accelerate as we are up nearly 15% year over year. Both areas, business 5G and fiber, continue to perform well.”

AT&T has previously stated that its ability to tie together its 5G and fiber networks allow it to better support enterprise SD-WAN, secure access service edge (SASE), and security needs. The carrier has struck a number of deals with vendors like Cisco, Fortinet, and Palo Alto Networks to power these SD-WAN, SASE, and security initiatives.

“As people migrate away from VPN and we have a more dense fiber base, we’re selling more fundamental underlying transport, frankly, at higher speeds and therefore higher connection values in that segment of the market, and that’s where our future is,” added AT&T CEO John Stankey on the Q2 call.

Analyst Craig Moffett Comments:

To be sure, AT&T’s results in Mobility haven’t been bad.  They’ve walked a tightrope of heavy promotions in return for good-enough subscriber growth, and, up to now.  On the back
of those passably good results in Mobility, the company has (arguably) provided at least some degree of confidence that they can sustain their new, lowered, dividend.

Meanwhile, they’ve promised faster capital spending on fiber deployment in their Consumer Wireline segment, something they have promised will result in at least positive longer-term growth in a segment that accounts for about 10% of revenues. (They’ve largely been silent about their much larger Business Wireline segment, which is shrinking badly and still getting worse).

AT&T’s consolidated growth prospects rest entirely on their Mobility segment.  Their Business Wireline segment, which represents nearly 20% of revenues, is shrinking by high single digits, while their Consumer Wireline segment is at best marginally better than flat. Their Mobility segment has maintained modest service revenue growth through a mix of relatively rapid subscriber growth, offset by shrinking ARPU.  Mobility is AT&T’s largest and most important business, accounting for two-thirds of consolidated pro forma revenues.

Subscriber growth trends remain very strong:

• AT&T added 1.06M post-paid subscribers, much better than the Street consensus  expectation of 804K, in line with last year’s 1.16M.

• Better still, they added 813K post-paid phone subscribers on an as-reported basis, and with migrations (for comparability to the reporting of the other carriers), would have been a still-impressive 793K. Reported post-paid phone net additions were much better than consensus of 562K, and better than last year’s 789K.

• Pre-paid net additions of 231K also beat Street  consensus of 131K, but were down from last year’s 297K gain.

We won’t know the industry’s growth rate until everyone else has reported, but it seems clear that AT&T is gaining unit market share. At their heart of their subscriber gain story is low churn. AT&T’s “best deals for all” promotion continues to keep churn very low.

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According to Seeking Alpha, six analysts rate AT&T stock (“T”) a Strong Buy, while seven have a Buy rating on the stock.  15 analyst rate “T” as a Hold, while there are 0 Sell recommendations.

References:

https://investors.att.com/financial-reports/quarterly-earnings/2022

https://edge.media-server.com/mmc/p/f8ituzue

https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/att-warns-of-recession-concerns-remains-committed-to-5g-fiber/2022/07/

https://investors.att.com/~/media/Files/A/ATT-IR-V2/financial-reports/quarterly-earnings/2022/2Q22/final-t-usq-2q-earnings-transcript-2022-07-21.pdf

https://investors.att.com/~/media/Files/A/ATT-IR-V2/financial-reports/quarterly-earnings/2022/2Q22/T_2Q22_Earnings.pdf