Mobile & Wireless Roundup No. 153

Welcome to the 153rd edition of this newsletter. Some of you may know that I am originally from Mumbai (or Bombay, as it was called when I left 25 years ago). It is a busy city that makes people resilient. For instance, after travelling on Mumbai’s local trains, you never really find any other train crowded – not even the famously packed Japanese commuter trains at peak hours.

One of the most fascinating services in Mumbai is the hot lunch delivery system, known locally as the Dabbawalla. For decades, they have provided a seamless, large-scale operation that pre-dates modern logistics software. Although similar services have since emerged in other Indian cities and around the world, the scale and efficiency of Mumbai’s Dabbawallas remain remarkable.

Today, such services are being reinvented on an entirely different level, powered by advances in logistics and infrastructure. Arnaud Bertrand recently shared on X how, in China, passengers can order food from restaurants in the next city and have it delivered to them when their train arrives at the station. Readers from other countries, including India, have pointed out that they also enjoy similar conveniences.

Drone deliveries are becoming increasingly common in China too. I came across an example where people in a park could order from their phone and receive their meal by drone within 10–15 minutes. Behind the scenes, this relies on a great deal of technology, not least robust, high-speed connectivity. I am curious how well such systems hold up in more demanding situations, such as large events or festivals.

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

• William Webb on LinkedIn: 6G air interface will be the same as 5G (which was the same as 4G) (link) – good discussions in the comments.

• Free 6G Training: The Future Role of Transport Networks in 6G (link)

⦿ 5G

• GTI white paper: 5G-A Ignites the Three-Types of New Intelligent Services (link)

• Nick vs Networking: The NRF in 5GC – Common Dialogs – Nnrf_NFManagement (link)

⦿ 4G/LTE

• Chris Cockings on LinkedIn - Field Testing: LTE SIB2 High Speed Flag - Mobility Impacts Explained (link)

⦿ Open & Disaggregated Networks (including Open RAN, vRAN, etc.)

• i14y Lab Summit 2025 | Implement & Consolidate – pictures and video (link)

• Ookla - Boost Mobile: What the U.S. is Losing (link)

• TMN: Telus heads towards a RIC future with Samsung (link) – a short summary by Keith Dyer on LinkedIn here.

• Jun Song on LinkedIn - O-RAN's 6G Journey: Why We're Taking the Scenic Route (And That's Perfectly Fine) (link)

⦿ Spectrum

• Telecom Review Asia: Fiji Grants 5G Licenses to Vodafone, Digicel, and Telecom Fiji (link)

• VietnamNet: VNPT wins bid for 700 MHz spectrum to power 4G and 5G expansion (link)

⦿ Telecoms Infrastructure, Small Cells, Antennas & others

• Turning street poles into discreet 5G sites is helping boost coverage and capacity while keeping cities looking clean (link)

• Frank Rayal - Powering the AI Revolution: Unleashing High-Speed Connectivity for Next-Gen Data Center (link)

• Paul Rhodes on LinkedIn - Thursday School: When I grow Up I want to be a Life Sciences Building! (link)

⦿ Security & Privacy

• Denis Laskov on LinkedIn: Hacking satellites is like hacking cars: SpaceCAN and vulnerabilities in satellite communication protocols (link)

• Dmitry Kurbatov on LinkedIn: eSIM Reality Check and Privacy Leak (link)

• Denis Laskov on LinkedIn: Hacking a Smart Home hub for $40,000: a long and interesting hardware security journey to Pwn2Own (link)

• Dmitry Kurbatov on LinkedIn - KT: Fake Base Stations Exfiltrate Subscriber Data (link)

• Denis Laskov on LinkedIn: Cybersecurity and attack surface of floating robots: from cargo giants to military drones (link)

• Smart Energy International: Defending the future of UK utilities infrastructure (link)

⦿ IoT / M2M / Smart Homes

• Transforma Insights: What will the SGP.32 standard mean for enterprise IoT connectivity? (link)

• Chris Cockings on LinkedIn - Field Testing: Good Signal ≠ Working DNS (link)

⦿ Connected And Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs)

• Transforma Insights: What does SGP.32 eSIM/remote SIM provisioning mean for car makers? (link)

⦿ Satellites, HAPS, Drones, UAVs & Space

• Lluc Palerm Serra on LinkedIn: "Starlink can't become a global carrier directly competing with MNOs after the recent spectrum deal with Echostar…" (link)

• Telecom TV: Economics of D2D satellite lifecycles and replacement strategies (link)

• Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation: We’ve Abandoned the Gold Standard for GPS, Let’s Adopt it for PNT – Inside GNSS+ (link)

• Nokia white paper: Satellite Communication Benchmarking with Terrestrial 5G Networks (link)

• SoftBank Corp. Develops High-capacity 6-cell Capable HAPS Payload, Delivers 5G Connectivity from the Sky in Field Trial (PR)

• Iridium Begins Integration of Iridium NTN Direct with Deutsche Telekom (PR) 

⦿ Metaverse & Extended Reality (XR)

• Reuters: Amazon developing consumer AR glasses to rival Meta, The Information reports (link)

• The Guardian: Meta announces first Ray-Ban smart glasses with in-built augmented reality display (link)

⦿ Other News and Technology Stuff

• 30 Years of Mobile History in UK: 1985 – 2015 (link)

• Checkout Mpirical's first EVER edition of The Signal Drop Magazine! (link)

• Analysys Mason: Operators are relying on connectivity for steady revenue growth, but this may not be enough in the long term (link) – Podcast (link)

• Capgemini: Machine precision, human intuition: A new era in human-machine understanding (link)

• Telecom TV: Mobile usage gap remains stubbornly wide as 5G advances (link)

• RTHK: Three die as telco 'lets Australians down' in outage (link)

⦿ Picture of the week: Denpa893 has shared some pictures on X of what appear to be 5G small cells (microcells) with omnidirectional antennas installed on NTT Docomo’s public phone boxes in Japan. BT in the UK has been doing this for some time, which I have written about here, and I also covered Deutsche Telekom (DT) doing something similar in Germany here.

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.