Here’s the latest summary of news that caught my eye last week. It was a busy one, as I was in Shanghai for the EDI CON conference, in parallel with the first week of earnings announcements from industry companies. I couldn’t keep up with all the earnings releases, so I’ll report on those I missed via social media this week and include them in next week’s weekly report — as well as the earnings releases that occur this week.

Companies and Products

AT&T reported Q1 revenue of $39.4 billion, down 2.7 percent from the $40.5 billion achieved in Q1 2016. Wireless revenue from business and consumer accounts was $17.2 billion, down 4.4 percent from the $18 billion in the prior year’s quarter. Wireless had 134.2 million subscribers at the end of the quarter, an increase of 2.1 million during the quarter. AT&T plans to continue 5G trials, adding Indianapolis and 18 others to the trials already underway in Austin. Read the Mobile World Live recap of AT&T’s earnings release.

Custom MMIC has developed GaN-based passive mixers, using the characteristics of GaN to achieve what the company cites as “benchmark” linearity: >30 dBm input IP3 with 20 dBm LO drive. Read their technical brief.

Ericsson reported Q1 financial results: revenue declined to SEK46.4 billion ($5.3 billion), down 11 percent from Q1 of 2016, and the company reported a net loss of SEK10.9 billion ($1.2 billion). While revenue declined in Networks, the business was the only profitable segment (excluding write-downs and restructuring charges).

MACOM introduced a distributed amplifier LNA, in die form, covering 0 to 28 GHz. At 8 GHz, the LNA has 1.4 dB noise figure with 17 dB gain and a 1 dB compression point of 16 dBm. It draws 60 mA biased at 5 V. More information here. MACOM also released seven CATV amplifiers for DOCSIS 3.1 networks: four single-ended and three differential designs covering the 5 to 300 MHz upstream and 45 to 1218 MHz downstream bands.

Skyworks published a corporate sustainability report for 2016, describing their CO₂, energy and water use and municiple and hazardous waste generation.

AT&T’s bid for Straight Path Communications, which holds 28 and 39 GHz spectrum, was topped by an unsolicited offer from an unnamed company. The bid of $104.64 per share is 9.4 percent above AT&T’s deal, struck at $95.63 per share. AT&T has five business days to respond.

Tektronix entered the VNA market, announcing a USB-based VNA covering 100 kHz to 3 or 6 GHz for $9,000 or $12,000, respectively.

T-Mobile gained 798,000 postpaid subscribers in Q1, using unlimited data plans to capture share from AT&T, Sprint and Verizon. The attempt to limit consumer data usage failed, as AT&T and Verizon capitulated and now offer unlimited plans, attempting to stem subscriber churn.

Despite any distractions from the failed acquisition by Infineon, Wolfspeed grew revenue in their fiscal Q3 to $56.1 million, which was 3 percent above the prior quarter and 29 percent above the prior year’s quarter. Gross margin was 47 percent, down from 52 percent in last year's quarter.

Markets and Technology

Semiconductor Technology — Swiss researchers demonstrated X-ray ptychography as a possible technique to reverse engineer an IC. The method has 14.6 nm resolution, not quite good enough for the latest process nodes.

Cellular and 5G — The heady days of China's LTE infrasture buildout are over: IHS Markit estimates that the network sharing arrangement between China Telecom and China Unicom led 2016 LTE capital expenditures to decline 16 percent from 2015, with slightly more than 1 million eNodeBs deployed by all three operators. IHS Markit forecasts another double-digit decline in 2017, as the LTE buildout completes.

The Brooklyn 5G Summit, co-sponsored by Nokia and NYU WIRELESS, was held 19-21 April. Amy Nordrum, associate editor of IEEE Spectrum, described what impressed her.

Coinciding with the 5G summit, Nokia published a white paper modeling the return-on-investment from 5G use cases. They see viable business cases from immersive video in a stadium, city-wide IoT and a smart factory.

Spectrum is the equivalent of today's Oklahoma land rush, as operators vie to acquire GHz for Gbps. J. Sharpe Smith of AGL eDigest surveys a few of the claims being staked.

Not surprisingly, Facebook says the future is millimeter wave communications. Yael Maguire, head of Facebook’s Connectivity Lab, painted this vision at their recent F8 developer conference.

Despite the bullish outlook for millimeter wave, successful use will lie in managing the unique and possibly capricious propagation characteristics. The following interview shows how the UK aims to “map” millimeter wave propagation to aid operators with 5G deployment.

Broadband — Comcast says the company will have Gbps service available in all markets by 2018. Yet will their pricing draw customers, especially in markets where they have no competition?

In a speech at The Newseum in Washington, FCC chairman Ajit Pai outlined his plan to reverse net neutrality and reinstate “light touch” regulation. His proposal will be voted on by the FCC on May 18; assuming it passes, the proposal will be open to public comment. Read Pai's speech and see whether you think this is a step forward or backward:

Speech by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai on Internet Regulation by speedybits on Scribd

Defense — With the growing threat of a North Korean ballistic missile strike on the U.S., the DoD is considering improving missile defense capabilities in Hawaii, both radar and interceptor.

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