Mobile & Wireless Roundup No. 166

Welcome to the 166th edition of this newsletter. Wishing all my readers a happy new year. The last few weeks were very busy as I wrapped up a couple of projects. As is often the case, challenges never really stop, which means there is always work to be done.

While I expected the holiday period to be relatively quiet, there were quite a few news items and announcements. Let’s get into them without delay, and I will catch up on the rest during the week.

For those of you who don’t know me, I am a technologist with over 25 years’ experience in mobile and wireless technology, currently working as an independent advisor, analyst, consultant, and trainer. This newsletter is a summary of my own posts and other news that caught my attention since the last edition.

 ⦿ 6G

• Fierce Network: 2026 is the year of 6G slop (link)

• Dean Bubley on LinkedIn: "About a week ago, the White House issued a memorandum about "Winning the 6G Race". I'll write about its policy on #spectrum for #6G another time, but I just want to highlight a confusing comment in the first paragraph…" (link)

• Free 6G Training: Top 10 Posts for 2025 (link)

• Dean Bubley on LinkedIn: "I've written a short article listing the key myths, misconceptions and fallacies I'm increasingly seeing about #6G…" (link)

• Frank Rayal on LinkedIn: "Have you noticed that all the rising hype around the 6G race is coming from vendors and think tanks, not operators, just as it was with 5G? That’s why the 6G race narrative, just like the 5G race, is a sham…" (link)

• Free 6G Training: CEATEC 2025 and the Road Ahead for 5G and 6G in Japan (link)

⦿ 5G

• Light Reading: No one in the real world cares about 5G standalone (link)

• Emil Björnson on LinkedIn: "Beamforming for multi-user and single-user MIMO is relatively simple if one has perfect channel knowledge, but channel acquisition is very challenging in practice! We have written a new tutorial on beamforming codebooks and the related signaling in 3GPP systems…" (link)

• TIM and FASTWEB + Vodafone: RAN Sharing Agreement To Accelerate The Development of 5G in Italy (PR)

• Emil Björnson on LinkedIn: We’re told we’re using 5G—but are we really? (link)

• 3GPP Release 18 Description and Summary of Work Items (link)

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

• SDxCentral: Open RAN openness remains an open-ended question (link)

⦿ Spectrum

• Developing Telecoms: India’s frequency allocation plan disappoints operators (link)

• JMAS: Govt Sets Base Prices for Multi-Band 5G Spectrum Auction in Pakistan (link)

• Fierce Network: AT&T on the hunt for more 3.45 GHz spectrum (link)

• Chosun Biz: Government cuts LTE reassignment fee to 3.1 trillion won, ties further discounts to 5G indoor base station buildout (link)

• Dean Bubley on LinkedIn: "I’ve done a full deep-dive review of the GSMA Vision 2040 about future spectrum requirements for 5G/6G…" (link)

⦿ Private Networks

• Arcus’ European Infrastructure Fund acquires Wifinity (PR) - Wifinity designs, builds, and manages mission-critical connectivity infrastructure network solutions for complex, multi-site, and multi-tenant environments.

• Private Networks Technology Blog: Samsung’s Private 5G Networks Supporting Digital Transformation Across Industries (link)

⦿ Telecoms Infrastructure, Small Cells, Antennas & others

• IEEE ComSoc Technology Blog: NEC exits 4G/5G base station market underscoring Japan’s weak mobile infrastructure ecosystem (link)

• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Top 10 Posts for 2025 (link)

• RCR Tech: Inside Saudi Arabia’s 480MW Hexagon data center (link)

• Peter Clarke on LinkedIn: "The Virgin Media O2 Revolution: from expansive Gigabit+ 5G to SpaceX Starlink Direct to Device connectivity, Multi Band 5G Massive MIMO to new Multi-beam capacity, the 2025 transformation delivered excellence…" (link)

• Fierce Network: AWS wants more hollow core fiber than it can get (link)

⦿ IoT / M2M / Smart Homes

• MWL: Sony bakes eRedCap into Altair IoT silicon (link)

⦿ Security & Privacy

• Denis Laskov on LinkedIn - Building a hacker’s lab for satellite analysis: not cheap, but practical and super fun! (link)

• Dmitry Kurbatov on LinkedIn: GEO Backhaul Breaks Telecom’s Trust (link)

• Hackaday: The Rise Of Fake Casio Scientific Calculators (link)

• Denis Laskov on LinkedIn - Three (!!) dangerous vulnerabilities in Bluetooth headphones: many major brands are affected. (link)

• Dmitry Kurbatov on LinkedIn - Telecom Security in 2026: Critical Issues to Resolve (link)

• Denis Laskov on LinkedIn - U.S. Navy ships are floating cities with complex cybersecurity challenges: insights from the field (link)

⦿ Connected And Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs)

• Inside EVs: Waymo Ditched Drivers, But It’s Paying People To Close Robotaxi Doors (link)

• Denis Laskov on LinkedIn - What attackers & defenders must know about V2X: including a $5 attack on connected car infrastructure! (link)

⦿ Smartphones, Devices, Wearables & Gadgets

• TelecomTV: Humanoid robots take centre stage at CES 2026 (link)

• MWL: Meta delays latest international AI glasses launch (link)

• Simon’s Substack: The Pink RAZR (link)

⦿ AI, ML & Automation

• RCR Tech - CES: Following the AI silicon — and the monorail (link)

• The Power of AI in NTT Docomo’s 5G Journey (link)

• Futurenet Insights: Innovation is making telecoms one of the world’s most exciting industries (link)

⦿ Wi-Fi

• Connectivity Technology Blog: Wi-Fi HaLow - A Long Range, Low Power Wi-Fi Standard Designed for IoT (link)

• RCR Wireless: FCC votes to unlock high-power 6 GHz for Wi‑Fi and IoT devices (link) – Analyst Dean Bubley’s analysis on LinkedIn here.

⦿ Other News and Technology Stuff

• The 3G4G Blog: Top 10 Posts for 2025 (link)

• Connectivity Technology Blog: Top 5 Posts for 2025 (link)

• Light Reading - Looking ahead: Indian telecom in 2026 (link)

• Operator Watch Blog: Top 5 Posts for 2025 (link)

• Yahoo Finance: UPS Leans Into $9 Billion Automation Strategy with Robotics Rollout (link)

• Operator Watch Blog: Cuba’s Mobile Connectivity in 2026 (link)

⦿ Picture of the week: This week’s picture is VMO2’s 22.5 metres tall SWANN tower, shared by Nathan Todd on LinkedIn 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.