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The funding is part of President Biden’s ‘Internet for All’ initiative, which promises a high-speed internet connection to every American citizen by 2030 

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), part of the US government’s Department of Commerce, has awarded seven grants worth nearly $3.5 million to seven Tribal entities as part of the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Programme (TBCP). 

The TBCP is a $3 billion subsidy programme designed to help bring fast internet to Tribal lands. The scheme is funded by President Biden’s Internet for All Initiative, part of The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which will provide $2 billion in funding. The Consolidated Appropriations Act provides a further $980 million, bringing the total funding to just under $3 billion. 

The seven new grants bring the total allocated funds to over $1.79 billion, with money awarded to 198 Tribal entities since the programme began in 2021. Successful recent applicants of the $3.5 million in funding include the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma, who received $500,000 for the set-up of a wireless site, and the Quileute Tribe of the Quileute Reservation of Washington, which received $466,902 to connect unserved homes and businesses in the community. 

“President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda is helping to close the digital divide on tribal lands,” said Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. 

“These grants will reduce barriers to Internet access for tribal communities across five states, connecting them to the education, good-paying jobs, and health care they need to succeed in our 21st century economy.” 

The expansion of high-speed internet access across the US will result in increased economic development, improve quality of life, allow for the creation of remote learning and employment opportunities, and improve access to telehealth within Native American societies, according to the programme. 

Join the discussion around President Biden’s connectivity goals at next year’s Connected America 2024 live in Dallas, Texas 

Also in the news:
Dish seeks extension for purchase of T-Mobile’s low-band spectrum
Brazil making rapid 5G progress but challenges remain on the horizon
ASA bans ‘misleading’ 5G ads from EE 

News 

Huawei is currently the world’s largest 5G patent owner with 20% of global patents 

Chinese tech giant Huawei has signed a deal with Sweden’s Ericsson to renew their patent cross-licensing agreement.  

The deal, which was last renewed in January 2016, allows each company to access each other’s patented technologies deemed vital to product standards set by 3GPP, ITU, IEEE, and IETF, covering 3G, 4G, and 5G cellular technologies. 

 “We need to pay Ericsson and Ericsson need to pay Huawei, so there is some net payment from one company to the other company,” explained Emil Zhang, Head of European Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) at Huawei. 

Financial details of the deal have not been disclosed. 

“This agreement demonstrates the commitment of both parties that intellectual property should be respected and rewarded, and that leading technological innovations should be shared across the industry,” said Christina Petersson, Ericsson’s Chief Intellectual Property Officer. 

“We are delighted to reach a long-term global cross-licensing agreement with Ericsson,” said Alan Fan, Head of Huawei’s Intellectual Property Department. 

“As major contributors of standard essential patents (SEPs) for mobile communication, the companies recognize the value of each other’s intellectual property, and this agreement creates a stronger patent environment. It demonstrates the commitment both parties have forged that intellectual property should be properly respected and protected.” 

Under the agreement made in 2016, Huawei would make “ongoing royalty payments” to Ericsson based on the sale of products using the Swedish vendor’s patents. 

Today, Ericsson says the new deal will contribute to it increasing its IPR revenues for 2023 to approximately SEK 11 billion ($1 billion). Huawei, similarly, has been a major contributor to mainstream ICT standards for over 20 years, including cellular, Wi-Fi, and multimedia codecs. Last year, the company filed 4,505 patents to the European Patent Office, the most of any company.  

Patent licencing is a major revenue stream for the company, which reportedly made between $1.2 billion and $1.3 billion from licencing between 2019 and 2021. Since then, the company has only increased its research efforts, claiming to have spent  $125 billion on R&D in the last decade. 

This revenue stream has not been without controversy, however. Back in May, it was announced that US-based network equipment maker ADVA Optical Networking would sue Huawei for charging “grossly excessive” fees for the use of their intellectual property , and asking ADVA to pay for patents not required by international standards. ADVA argue that Huawei is using its dominant position in the IP area to apply disproportionate influence over the market. 

Want to keep up to date with all of the latest international telecoms news? Click here to receive Total Telecom’s daily newsletter direct to your inbox 

Also in the news: 

Huawei’s secret semiconductor strategy to skirt sanctions
Battle for Ethiopia’s mobile money market begins as Safaricom’s M-Pesa takes on TeleBirr
What’s in a name? 6G Internet falls foul of advertising regulator over consumer confusion 

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The announcement comes as the firm fights with rising costs in the increasingly competitive market 

T-Mobile US has announced that it will cut 5,000 jobs in the US, reducing its 71,000-person workforce by 7%.  

The job cuts will take place over the next five weeks, and will include both corporate and back-office roles, although the cuts will not impact the firm’s retail and customer care divisions. 

“Impacted roles are primarily duplicative to other roles, or may be aligned to systems or processes that are changing, or may not fit with our current company priorities. Some areas of the business will be implementing more centralized models where they can improve efficiency and effectiveness and save costs. We’re also taking opportunities to build bigger, broader people manager roles with deeper spans and fewer layers, to provide longer-term growth opportunities. At the same time, we’ll also be decreasing our reliance and spend on external workers and resources,” said CEO Mike Sievert in an email to staff. 

“Today’s changes are all about getting us efficiently focused on a finite set of winning strategies, so that we can continue to out-pace our competitors and have the financial capability to deliver a differentiated network and customer experience to a continually growing customer base, while simultaneously meeting our obligations to our shareholders,” he added. 

In the release of its Q2 reports last month, T-Mobile reported profits of $2.2 billion, up from a $108 million loss for the same period last year. Furthermore, the firm announced a gain of 760,000 postpaid mobile customers, its highest increase in the quarter for eight years, and the most in the US mobile industry. 

Considering the firm’s recent success, laying off so many employees may appear questionable, especially given the company’s promises of job creation surrounding the company’s merger with Sprint. Sivert added that “the time to challenge the status quo and write the next chapter, is WHILE we are still successful. That’s how we sustain it.” 

It is estimated that the firm will incur a charge of around $450 million as a result of the move. 

Upon the announcement on Thursday, shares were down 2%. 

T-Mobile’s largest rivals are also undergoing major workforce reductions in recent years; AT&T has cut roughly 45,000 in the last two years, while Verizon has cut around 18,000 in a similar time frame. 

Join the discussion around America’s changing telecoms market at next year’s operators in discussion at Connected America 2024 live in Dallas, Texas 

Also in the news:
Dish seeks extension for purchase of T-Mobile’s low-band spectrum
Brazil making rapid 5G progress but challenges remain on the horizon
ASA bans ‘misleading’ 5G ads from EE 

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News

According to statements from the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel)’s president Carlos Baigorri, standalone 5G coverage now reaches almost 46% of the country’s population

Brazil’s road to 5G has been a bumpy one, full of delays, regulatory clashes, and spectrum clearing issues.

But now, just over one year since standalone 5G services were first switched on in the nation’s capital of Brasilia, the nation’s mobile network operators are surging ahead with their infrastructure deployments, with coverage reportedly now reaching almost 46% of the country’s population.

According to figures published by Brazilian consultancy firm Teleco, population coverage for 5G in the 3.5GHz band reached 45.7%, with Vivo covering 40.2%, Claro 39.7%, TIM Brasil 36.8%, and Algar 0.7%.

This encompasses 180 municipalities around the country as of July, up from just eight the same time last year.

The coverage has been achieved via the deployment of 14,796 5G base stations, almost a thousand of which had been deployed between June and July this year.

Achieving this level of coverage in such a short span of time is no small feat. The GSMA recently forecast that Brazil would only reach 47% population coverage by 2025, increasing to 84% by 2030, hence the country is already proceeding far faster than anticipated.

In the same report, the GSMA expected 5G subscribers to increase to 36.2 million by 2025 and 179 million by 2030. As of July, the country currently has just over 10 million 5G subscribers.

“The growing coverage of 5G networks in Brazil should drive take-up of the service, which accounted for around 3% of connections at the end of 2022. 5G adoption will also be supported by the increased availability of 5G smartphones. For example, TIM claimed in September 2022 that 75% of devices on sale in its stores were 5G-ready,” read the GSMA report.

Naturally, this is all very positive for the Brazilian mobile sector, reflecting a group of operators highly committed to modernising their networks and unlocking new services for customers.

Whether the operators can maintain the pace of this rollout, however, is a different story. As is always the case with infrastructure deployments, the most commercially viable areas – typically the largest cities – will be covered first, typically leaving more expensive and complicated hard-to-reach areas for last. Extending 5G coverage to these areas economically represents a challenge even in highly urbanised countries, but in Brazil – where various estimates put the rural population at between 24% and 46% of the total population – reaching the upper percentiles of population coverage will be almost impossible.

In addition to this rural challenge, it is also worth noting that Brazil is notorious for its outdated municipal legislation, which can lead to delays in deploying antennae even in some of the country’s largest cities. Operators have long called for clearer and more uniform rules regarding site deployment, but it is unlikely legislation will be introduced in time to simply the majority of the 5G rollout process.

To conclude, great progress so far for Brazilian 5G, but there are still many challenges to overcome down the road.

Want to keep up to date with all the latest telecoms news from around the globe? Sign up to receive Total Telecom’s daily newsletter direct to you inbox

Also in the news:
Dish seeks extension for purchase of T-Mobile’s low-band spectrum
Battle for Ethiopia’s mobile money market begins as Safaricom’s M-Pesa takes on TeleBirr
What’s in a name? 6G Internet falls foul of advertising regulator over consumer confusion

News

Chinese telecoms equipment company is accused by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) of building numerous new chip fabs in China under different company names in order to circumvent US sanctions

According to a report from Bloomberg, Huawei may be seeking to sidestep US sanctions by operating a network of semiconductor facilities under different company names.

U.S. Commerce Department added Huawei to its export control list back in 2019, with the company having been deemed a risk national security risk. As a result of this designation, US companies can now only sell products to Huawei if they are granted specific licences from the government.

Matters were made worse in late October, when President Joe Biden levied additional restrictions on chip technology exports,

Combined, the various sanctions in place have left Huawei largely cut off from accessing US semiconductor technology – a major blow to almost all of Huawei’s core business units, particularly smartphone manufacturing.

Huawei, meanwhile, maintains that they pose no security risk, arguing that they are simply caught in the middle of the geopolitical tug-of-war between China and the US.

Nonetheless, it launched its own semiconductor business last year, seeking to solve its chip supply issues through domestic production.

This move was largely in line with the policies set out by the Chinese government, which has made bolstering its domestic semiconductor research and production industries a major priority in recent years, seeking to remove the industry’s heavy reliance on US tech.

Indeed, these measures appear to be working for Huawei, with the company noting in recent months that they could soon return to the 5G smartphone business by procuring 5G chips domestically.

In fact, according to the SIA, Huawei has received around $30 billion in government subsidies to expand this new business. Using these funds, the SIA says Huawei has already acquired two chip-making facilities and is in the process of building three more.

By operating these businesses under new names – such as Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co. and Pengxinwei IC Manufacturing Co. (PXW), in the cases of the acquired plants – Huawei can potentially bypass at least some of the sanctions against them and retain access to key US technologies.

Naturally, such tactics are sure to draw the ire of the US government, who say they are monitoring the situation carefully.

“Given the severe restrictions placed on Huawei, Fujian Jinhua, PXW and others, it is no surprise that they have sought substantial state support to attempt to develop indigenous technologies,” a speaker from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) told Bloomberg. “BIS is continually reviewing and updating its export controls based on the evolving threat environment and, as evidenced by the Oct. 7, 2022 rules, will not hesitate to take appropriate action to protect US national security.”

Want to keep up to date with all the latest telecoms news from around the globe? Sign up to receive Total Telecom’s daily newsletter direct to you inbox

Also in the news:
Dish seeks extension for purchase of T-Mobile’s low-band spectrum
Battle for Ethiopia’s mobile money market begins as Safaricom’s M-Pesa takes on TeleBirr
What’s in a name? 6G Internet falls foul of advertising regulator over consumer confusion

The Southwark Crown Court in London has today found an autistic Oxfordshire teenager, Arion Kurtaj (18), responsible for having hacked a number of major companies – including, among others, broadband ISP and mobile giant BT (EE)- while acting as a member of the wider Lapsus$ hacking group. The jury concluded that Kurtaj, who due to […]