Articles by Patrick Hindle, Editor, Microwave Journal

Ericsson has just released their Mobility Report Nov 2018 and on a global level, they predict major 5G network deployments from 2020 and by the end of 2024 estimate 1.5 billion 5G subscriptions for enhanced mobile broadband. They think this will account for close to 17 percent of all mobile subscriptions at that time. Since the report is more than 30 pages, I thought I would extra some of the overview and devices specific data important to the RF/microwave community.

The Brooklyn 5G Summit celebrated its 5^th meeting for 2018 at NYU WIRELESS. Leaders and technologists from leading operators such as AT&T, DoCoMo, KT, T-Mobile US, Verizon and Vodafone discussed the latest results and plans for future 5G networks. In addition, major infrastructure leaders like Nokia, Ericsson and Huawei, plus smaller companies such as Phazer, Blue Danube, BluWireless and InterDigital, were on hand showing off the latest results and technology. It was the most exciting 5G Summit to date by many accounts, as the rollout of 5G starts this year with the accelerated standards and deployment schedule from a few years ago.

I was suppose to fly down to DC on Tues  to spend a couple of days catching up on the newest trends and products at Satellite 2018. But the Nor'easter dumped 2 feet of snow on Boston and every flight I could find was cancelled. So I remotely monitored the happenings at the event and collected the following materials from press releases and emails about what was on display for RF/microwave products.

With all of the focus on 5G these days, we tend to forget about Wi-Fi which actually carries the bulk of mobile traffic relatively effortlessly. That is not typically the case at events where there are hundreds or thousands of people using their mobile devices in a confined area. But the upcoming generation of Wi-Fi, 802.11ax, will change those poor service experiences into noticeable better ones.

The Cambridge Consultants Innovation Day 2017 addressed how insightful design, smarter products and digital services are transforming business with keynote sessions and seminars given by their experts and customers. The day started off with CEO Eric Wilkinson discussing how Cambridge Consultants (CC) is investing in digital services, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and synthetic biology.

Yole Developpment just reported that between 2017 and 2022, an 8% CAGR is expected for acoustic wave filters. The market is dominated by historical players with a strong international position that has a big barrier to entry. They also reported that acoustic wave filter patenting activity was very high between 2000 and 2006 but since then, it has progressively decreasing reaching a plateau in 2010.

Early this year, T-Mobile identified 1 million square miles where the 600 MHz spectrum is available for deployment and acquired 35 MHz of contiguous uplink spectrum between 663-698 MHz and corresponding 35 MHz of downlink spectrum between 617-652 MHz. See how Qorvo and Qualcomm are meeting the demand for this band.