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T-Mobile, Nokia Reach $3.5 Billion Agreement To Build Nationwide 5G Network (phonedog.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the two-is-better-than-one dept.

T-Mobile has entered into a $3.5 billion multi-year agreement with Nokia to build out its 5G network. Nokia will supply T-Mobile with its end-to-end 5G technology, software, and services, including commercial AirScale radio platforms and cloud-native core, AirFrame hardware, CloudBand software, SON, and 5G Acceleration Services," reports PhoneDog. From the report: Nokia will help T-Mobile build a nationwide 5G network that'll use both 600MHz and 28GHz millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum that'll be compliant with 3GPP 5G New Radio (NR) standards. T-Mobile has said that it'll deploy its 5G coverage in 30 cities in 2018, including New York City, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. The carrier's first 5G-capable smartphones are expected to arrive in early 2019. The T-Mobile announcement can be viewed here.

40 comments

  1. creimer is a fat cuck! Smells like a butt? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    mmWave? So it's the length of creimer's microcock?

  2. so that bit about "needing" sprint for this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    was just total bullshit? meant to try to con government entities into approving the merger between them?

    1. Re: so that bit about "needing" sprint for this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Like apparently. They needed other help regardless.

    2. Re:so that bit about "needing" sprint for this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Building out population centers are the easy part. That's why T-Mobile competes so well with big 2 in major cities. It's when you get to outskirts of cities and rural areas where things get downhill for T-Mobile.

    3. Re: so that bit about "needing" sprint for this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not even in the same fucking universe as a merger of 2 of the 4 major carriers. It's called hiring a company to do work for you and purchasing products from them. No carrier builds their own hardware and radios or develops the software that powers them.

    4. Re: so that bit about "needing" sprint for this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Rural areas will always be on the teat of public subsidies. There is simply no business model that makes any significant outlay of capital there meet the opportunity cost. A shame they vote against their interests as the current administration is gutting them.

  3. 5g needs to be legally defined as net neutral by xack · · Score: 1

    Otherwise it’s fancy 4g, which was fancy 3g, and so on.

    1. Re:5g needs to be legally defined as net neutral by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Its wireless so it can escape any federal NN rules :)

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  4. perspective!! by zlives · · Score: 2

    perspective,
    what FB lost in market cap could have built a fiber to each home and then some.

  5. Imaginary money is imaginary. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This shit is why we should stop accepting currencies where imaginary money is legal.

    With imaginary money I mean all money that was just made up, and that nobody actually worked for. Plus, I expect them to have worked just as much as I had, for the same amount of money. Essentially, profit is not far from theft an robbery, precisely because it it the part of the money, that nobody worked for.

  6. How about the basics. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How about starting with the basics? Like being able to make a phone call. I was with a friend of mine on a road trip. I have Verizon and he has T-Mobile. We were at a job site setting up some equipment. I couldn't call him because, even outdoors, T-Mobile had no signal of any kind for 3-4 square miles around where we were working. Even outside, in between buildings he had nothing. It made the job quite a bit harder.

    And it would be one thing if the T-Mobile coverage map didn't show full LTE coverage for the entire area without even a splotch of no coverage area. Basically, it was a complete lie.

    I had T-Mobile once. It didn't work inside my house. It was a joke. It's almost like having Sprint but with more friendly customer support.

    1. Re: How about the basics. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sprint has amazing coverage some places and literally deadzones in others. Their coverage maps are a COMPLETE lie and always have been.

      I have used AT&T, Verizon, and currently am on Sprint. AT&T only rarely was lightning quick, but had coverage eveeywhere I cared about. Verizon was like a better covered version of Sprint: solid speeds most places, decent connection in most others. Sprint is great at my house and most places I travel, but fades fast off the beaten path.

    2. Re: How about the basics. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have used AT&T, Verizon, and currently am on Sprint. AT&T only rarely was lightning quick, but had coverage eveeywhere I cared about. Verizon was like a better covered version of Sprint: solid speeds most places, decent connection in most others. Sprint is great at my house and most places I travel, but fades fast off the beaten path.

      Interesting that you put a higher priority on data. I really don't care much about data speed (where I live Comcast can't seem to get above 2Mbps at home so I guess I'm used to it). But voice is very important to me. I had Sprint long ago too. It really had lots of outages -- as in my whole city would loose Sprint service. Sometimes for a day (again, mainly voice). That's unacceptable when you're using your phone for business and answering every call is important.

      AT&T also seems to never have coverage issues. My biggest gripe with VZW is they still need CDMA phones and in general I try not to buy carrier branded phones that are full of crapware (NFL, thanks Verizon, yeah, I care about that).

  7. Underdogs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I realize that Nokia never truly went away. They still kept making network gear and other stuff besides handsets. However, it sure is strange to hear that these two underdogs are teaming up to do anything "next gen".

    1. Re: Underdogs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Underdogs? Nokia is the world's largest supplier of mobile phone network equipment and Deutsche Telekom is one of the world's largest telecoms firms.

    2. Re:Underdogs by The+Cynical+Critic · · Score: 3, Informative

      Nokia bought Televa, founded at the end of WW, major innovator in the area of telephone systems and the originator of their network business, in 1981 and only started selling mobile phones, trough a company called Mobira they had founded together with Salora, in 1985. In other words Nokia had been making networks for years before they sold their first cellphone.

      I get where you're coming from, networks are kind of business-to-business products consumers never really come into contact with, but networks have been a big part of their business for longer than their mobile phones.

      --
      "Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."
  8. What the what? by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    Otherwise itâ(TM)s fancy 4g, which was fancy 3g,

    I am pretty sure almost everyone omg earth would slap you for such a casual equivalence of 4G with 3G.

    I hope someday you are lost and forced to use mapping software over only a 3G connection.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:What the what? by webmistressrachel · · Score: 0

      No problem. Android 2.3+ with GPS and MM Tracker and a bunch of high-resolution Ordnance Survey .QCT files on all my SD cards, purchased (not rented) with "Memory Maps" surveying software for the PC... even a $30 Chinese tablet supports my bodged offline mapping setup!

      I don't even need GSM or WiFi for my universal setup to track a satellite, download the almanac, and fix position and height using satellites only in 2 minutes at most. Come the apocalypse, I'll have more maps than most. :-) How long do we think the satellites will stay up if I'm the only one left, with my menagerie of crazy offline-ready devices of all different sorts? Lol

      --
      This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen
    2. Re: What the what? by cyber-vandal · · Score: 2

      Until you need to charge them anyway

    3. Re: What the what? by webmistressrachel · · Score: 1

      I deliberately left that open just for you. I have battery holders, one-use batteries, rechargeable batteries and solar chargers, and wind-up chargers. I use large waterproof map cases to store "kits", containing a device, some batteries, two SD cards containing the maps for each device, and a charging device. Having a number of these packs ensures a networked computing environment anywhere, anytime, whatever the weather for me and my tribe. And they all weigh less together in my pack than my Toshiba Qosmio, which was my previous (less well-thought-out) "bugout" computing setup.

      So, care to actually attempt an answer to the question, i.e. how long are my satellites likely to continue to orbit and function as a positioning system once the operators are gone?

      --
      This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen
    4. Re: What the what? by cyber-vandal · · Score: 1

      Looks like you've got everything covered. Good luck with the impending apocalypse.

  9. I have to wonder why the interest in 5G by Snotnose · · Score: 1, Troll

    I see 2 big problems:

    A) At those speeds you can hit your monthly bandwidth cap in an hour or so.
    B) The frequencies involved kinda suck outside of line of sight

    I see 2 reasons for the interest
    A) Bragging rights
    B) Big $$$ on people going over their bandwidth cap.

    1. Re:I have to wonder why the interest in 5G by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Likely bandwidth caps will be raised, since 5g should be more spectrum efficient. If things go as promised with 5g, the cable companies should be quaking in their boots, there will finally be a realistic other option for those who can only get home broadband from a single provider. This last decade was about people chopping the telephone and video cord, The next decade will be those chopping their final tether to their cable company, the internet cord.

      If the likes of Comcast, Charter, Verizon don't do something to update their infrastructure, it's going to leave what exists out there today rotting up on the poles like the POTS lines are today.

    2. Re:I have to wonder why the interest in 5G by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Its new and its fast. Consumers have to upgrade.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    3. Re:I have to wonder why the interest in 5G by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      B) Big $$$ on people going over their bandwidth cap.

      Since T-Mobile doesn't charge for going over your cap (they just lower you from 4G to 3G speeds), I am curious what you mean here.

    4. Re:I have to wonder why the interest in 5G by neo-mkrey · · Score: 1

      Why the OP has gotten his comments moderated Troll is confusing to me, as he is correct on both points.

  10. Dual band by JBMcB · · Score: 1

    From what I've read 5G is going to be dual band - one near the current frequencies to do long distance at slightly higher bandwidth, and the really high frequency stuff on minicells all over the place to do the high bandwidth stuff.

    I've also heard that the idea is to get the 5G and WiFi standards to overlap, so you can hop from one to the other without interruption, and the commodification of the hardware would make it cheap enough to put minicells *everywhere*

    --
    My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
    1. Re:Dual band by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      5G is nowhere near Wi-Fi bands. In the US 5G covers 600MHz (2 x 35MHz channels) and 28GHz (24.25-24.45, 24.75-25.25 and 27.5-28.35GHz).

    2. Re: Dual band by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Gigabit air interfaces require gigabit backhaul. That is not yet ubiquitous.

  11. Nokia is on disaster right now because of intel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nokia bet everything on Intel 10nm without any backup plan for 5G technology, and it is well known Intel 10nm is a disaster right now.

    More info: https://www.semiaccurate.com/2018/07/02/intel-custom-foundrys-10nm-meltdown-is-crushing-a-20b-market-cap-tech-giant/

  12. 5G is dangerous and will give everyone cancer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    5G is dangerous and will give everyone cancer. Enjoy your cancer. I'll be living far far away from 5G.

    1. Re:5G is dangerous and will give everyone cancer by Fly+Swatter · · Score: 2

      Hey I've seen your stickers! How is California?

    2. Re:5G is dangerous and will give everyone cancer by zlives · · Score: 1

      probably true, I for one welcome the X-Men overlords

  13. Which nation? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The terms “T-Mobile” and “nationwide network” can never seriously be used in the same sentence.

    1. Re: Which nation? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why Germany of course!

    2. Re: Which nation? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      T-Mobile has a nationwide network in at least a dozen nations.

    3. Re: Which nation? by quenda · · Score: 1

      Why Germany of course!

      Oh. Silly me, I assumed the article was about Finland. In hindsight, $3.5b does seem a bit much to link Helsinki and a bunch of igloos.

  14. Re: so that bit about "needing" sprint for this.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No but they do "test" and "approve" configurations for their network, which really means reinstalling crapware and spyware for lucrative financial deals with shovelware authors.

  15. Poor journalism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You had to read the whole news just to indirectly get the information about which nation the "nationwide" refers to.