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- Mobile & Wireless Roundup No. 162
Mobile & Wireless Roundup No. 162
By Zahid Ghadialy
Zahid Ghadialy
November 23, 2025
Welcome to the 162nd edition of this newsletter. The year 2016 was a good one for me. In the first half I was working for techUK in a variety of roles. The one that stands out most was serving as the Satellite Applications and Services Programme Manager. For the first time I was able to step back and understand the bigger picture across satellites and space, from connectivity all the way through to earth observation.
One of my responsibilities was organising a conference on The Gigabit Train. Today no one would think twice about a train achieving a gigabit of total throughput, uplink and downlink, but back then it was highly ambitious. The 5G standards were not fully defined and the industry was firmly fixated on millimetre wave. During the seminar we explored many ideas, but it was simply too early for most to demonstrate a working solution or even a prototype. I made sure the satellite community had a voice at the conference, but everyone knew the scale of the task ahead.
I later found what felt like a dream job at a US start-up focused on Open RAN, virtualisation and rural connectivity. It gave me a completely different level of exposure, while allowing me to put everything I had learnt at techUK to good use, including spectrum, communications infrastructure, satellite approaches and virtualisation.
One of my early outings was to the 5G World Summit, which used to be a major event centred on mobile networks and connectivity. During an interview there, I made a passionate case for satellite to play a role in fixing coverage gaps and improving reliability. I was hoping we might see this become a reality by 2030.
As you will no doubt be aware, progress has been remarkable, with some services already live and others close behind. It was hard to imagine this happening so quickly in the broader scheme of things. Now the focus must shift to other promises on the horizon and the work needed to make them possible.
For those of you who don’t know me, I am a technologist with more than 25 years of experience in mobile wireless technology, and I now work as an independent advisor, analyst, consultant and trainer. This newsletter is a summary of my posts and other news that has caught my attention since the last edition.
⦿ 6G
NTT DOCOMO Achieves Successful Outdoor Trial of AI-Driven Wireless Interface Toward 6G (PR)
Light Reading: A look inside China's 6G development engine (link)
Telecom TV: 6G looms large in latest Ericsson report (link)
Free 6G Training: Samsung’s Research Vision for Energy Saving in 6G Networks (link)
⦿ 5G
⦿ 4G/LTE
Rudolf van der Berg on LinkedIn: "4G phones to be blocked in Sweden, because they don't support emergency calls over 4G! Phones that require the SIM to be removed to be able to make an emergency call need to be blocked by 1 December 2025…" (link)
Light Reading: TPG warns Samsung users: update phones now after Triple Zero death (link)
Chris Cockings on LinkedIn - Field Testing: UE Capability Information - Letting the Network Know (link)
⦿ Open & Disaggregated Networks (including Open RAN, vRAN, etc.)
⦿ Spectrum
PTS Sweden: The auction in the 1800 MHz band has ended (link in Swedish) - 25 MHz to Net4Mobility (Tele2/Telenor) and 10 MHz to Telia.
Richard Haas on LinkedIn: "Some major, unprecedented spectrum news today. Germany will have to repeat its 2019 5G auction after its appeal failed. In 2024 a court deemed the auction to be illegal, siding in favour of Freenet and EWE. Both companies are virtual mobile network operators (MVNOs) who alleged the 2019 auction rules left them at a disadvantage…" (link)
Broadband Breakfast - Dean Bubley: Key Lessons from Hong Kong’s 6 GHz Spectrum Auction (link)
Light Reading: FCC pushes ahead on upper C-band auction (link)
The morning, Sri Lanka: Govt. targets over Rs. 9 b from 5G spectrum auction (link)
Yves Blondeel on LinkedIn: "#upper6GHz EU: Radio Spectrum Group - #RSPG Opinion on Long-term vision for the upper 6 GHz band (RSPG25-031 FINAL)…" (link)
⦿ Private Networks
RCR Wireless: China Mobile targets cross-border scale for private 5G as industrial demand accelerates (link)
⦿ Telecoms Infrastructure, Small Cells, Antennas & others
⦿ IoT / M2M / Smart Homes
⦿ Satellites, HAPS, Drones, UAVs & Space
Dean Bubley on LinkedIn: "Unexpectedly detailed presentation from Amazon Leo (formerly #Kuiper) at WiFi NOW Congress in Dubai. Especially viewed against Starlink…" (link)
⦿ Security & Privacy
BSI, Germany: Study and risk analysis of PKI systems in 5G (PDF)
Dmitry Kurbatov on LinkedIn - AI-driven cyberattacks: hype or a real shift? (link)
Denis Laskov on LinkedIn - Hacking EV chargers by attacking Qualcomm modems: 41 out of 69 tested chargers are affected (link)
Eric Priezkalns on LinkedIn: Europol’s New Paper on Caller ID Spoofing Is Better than Anything Else You Will Read on This Subject (link)
Tom’s Hardware: Microsoft Azure Blocks Largest DDoS Attack in History — attack equivalent to streaming 3.5 million Netflix movies at once, 15.72 Terabits per Second from 500,000 IP addresses tied to IoT botnet (link)
Dmitry Kurbatov on LinkedIn - 2025: Three Korean Telcos Hit by Cyber Attacks (link)
Denis Laskov on LinkedIn - Looking for vulnerabilities in a Wi-Fi security camera: from hardware to fuzzing and back (link)
Eric Priezkalns on LinkedIn: "Global Telco Suspended from Anti-Fraud Consortium after CEO Accused of ‘Breathtaking’ $500mn Loan Fraud…" (link)
Cybersecurity Dive: FCC eliminates cybersecurity requirements for telecom companies (link)
⦿ Smartphones, Devices, Wearables & Gadgets
Richard Haas on LinkedIn: "For those of you that aren't gamers, you may have missed the recent announcement of the Steam Frame, a VR headset designed for gaming. There was an interesting spectrum aspect to this. The device will use a dedicated 6 GHz connection to enable streaming between the headset and your PC…" (link)
Outlook India: Samsung Faces Backlash Over Alleged Installation Of 'Unremovable' Israeli Spyware On Its Phones (link)
Emil Björnson on LinkedIn: "Have you tried the hidden field-test mode on your phone? …" (link)
⦿ AI, ML & Automation
Ruth Brown on LinkedIn: Trust, AI agents and chasing the autonomous network dream (link)
⦿ Wi-Fi
Mohamed Abbas on LinkedIn: "Today was an interesting #Wifi deep dive session at WiFi NOW World Congress event in Dubai…" (link)
⦿ Quantum Networks & Technology
James Crawshaw on LinkedIn: "Since we published our ‘ground-breaking’ (🙇) report on Quantum Key Distribution in August there has been a steady stream of related announcements in the telecom industry…" (link)
⦿ Other News and Technology Stuff
⦿ Picture of the week: You may have noticed me promoting TrainComms over the past few weeks. I attended the conference and was pleasantly surprised by how good it was. There were plenty of discussions, trial reports, real-world equipment in the exhibition area and much more. I was particularly impressed with the Starlink Tile, which can sit on top of a train and deliver strong speeds and low latency. They are also offering pricing that is lower than that of mobile networks. It will be interesting to see how many train operating companies decide to adopt it.
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.