- Mobile & Wireless Roundup
- Posts
- Mobile & Wireless Roundup No. 146
Mobile & Wireless Roundup No. 146
By Zahid Ghadialy

Welcome to the 146th edition of this newsletter. Regular readers will know I have often shared updates about the ongoing building work at my home, including its challenges, lessons and occasional insights. Today I want to share a story about one of the labourers who worked on the site. Let’s call him Tim.
From my perspective, Tim seemed punctual and hard-working. He always arrived on time and was constantly busy with something. I never saw him idle. Yet, his supervisor was often critical of him and regularly told him off.
One day, I asked the builder why he was so unhappy with Tim when he appeared to be putting in the effort. His response surprised me. He explained that to an untrained eye, Tim looked like he was working, but in reality he was just keeping himself busy. Rather than following a plan or progressing the work, Tim would often undo what had been done in the morning and put things back by the end of the day. Instead of asking what needed to be done next, he would stay occupied just to give the impression of being productive, without contributing to meaningful progress.
This made me think about our own industry. Over the years, many organisations have been created with a clear purpose. People joined with energy and commitment, often volunteering their time to drive progress. But sometimes, once the original goal has been achieved, the organisation struggles to find new purpose. Rather than winding down, it creates new problems to solve, just to stay active.
There are also individuals who seem to be active in every forum, committee and initiative. Occasionally, I wonder how they find the time to do their day job. While I do not want to downplay the real value many people bring to these voluntary roles, I sometimes question whether all the activity is genuinely productive or if some of it is just like Tim’s work, appearing busy but not really moving things forward.
For those of you who don’t know me, I am a technologist with over 25 years’ experience in mobile wireless technology, currently working as an independent advisor, analyst, consultant and a trainer. This newsletter is a summary of my posts and other news that caught my attention since the last newsletter.
⦿ 6G
Free 6G Training: GITI Forum 2025 Highlights Japan's 6G Vision and NTN Strategy (link)
⦿ 5G
3GPP Release 18 Signal level Enhanced Network SElection (SENSE) for Smarter Network Selection in Stationary IoT (link)
Michael Thelander on LinkedIn: "I FINALLY put this one to bed – the industry’s first independent assessment of uplink transmit switching (UL Tx switching). To keep it real, I compared UL Tx switching with FDD-TDD uplink carrier aggregation (UL-CA) to show why I believe this 5G feature will one day be commonplace across all 5G smartphones…" (link)
The 3G4G Blog: L4S and the Future of Real-Time Performance in 5G and Beyond (link)

⦿ Spectrum
⦿ Private Networks

⦿ Telecoms Infrastructure, Small Cells, Antennas & others
Paul Rhodes on LinkedIn - Thursday School: Wireless Internet on the Beach?? (link)
CCS Insight: Network Operators Continue to Invest in Coverage at Major Events (link)
Paul Rhodes on LinkedIn - Monday Musings: Site Access Issues? (link)
FT: The surprising success story of British fibre broadband (link)
⦿ IoT / M2M / Smart Homes
⦿ Security & Privacy
⦿ Smartphones, Devices, Wearables & Gadgets
⦿ Satellites, HAPS, Drones, UAVs & Space
Light Reading: Software failure triggers nationwide Starlink outage (link)
⦿ Other News and Technology Stuff
Operator Watch Blog: Resilient Networks and Future Ambitions in Azerbaijan’s Telecom Sector (link)
Reuters: Microsoft to stop using engineers in China for tech support of US military, Hegseth orders review (link)
Allan T. Rasmussen on LinkedIn: How Walmart's MVNO Bait Conquered Mexico's Telephony Market (link)
Different Types Of Service Providers and the transformation of CSP into DSP (link)
⦿ Picture of the week: A picture of Starlink antennas from the Okavango Delta in Botswana shared by Albert Venter on X (f.k.a. Twitter).

Happy to hear your thoughts. Feel free let me know what worked, what didn’t, how I can make this better, etc. Get in touch over LinkedIn!
PDF version of this and previous newsletters are available here.