Welcome to the 169th edition of this newsletter. Back in 2009, there was the Hudson River plane incident in New York, popularly referred to as the “Miracle on the Hudson”. US Airways Flight 1549 suffered a dual engine failure following a bird strike, yet remarkably, everyone survived.
When the film Sully was released in 2016, I did not see the point of watching it. I had already seen countless news clips of the event and assumed there was little more the film could add. Even when I did finally watch it, I was unsure what to expect after the first few minutes. What followed, however, was a well written film with some surprisingly thoughtful twists.
One of the central themes is the investigation that follows the incident. The authorities initially argue that the aircraft could have reached a nearby airport, as the data logs indicated the engines were still running. The pilots, on the other hand, challenge this conclusion. In the absence of definitive data that captures human reaction time and real-world conditions, they are forced to rely on basic principles, reasoning, and experience to make their case.
That is why the story resonates so strongly with me. Captain Sully ultimately defends his actions not through complex analysis, but by falling back on fundamentals. And that lesson applies well beyond aviation. No matter how advanced a technology becomes, understanding the basics remains essential.
As a field test engineer in the earlier days of mobile networks, I often found myself in situations where a single drive test was the only opportunity to capture what was going wrong. All possible logs had to be collected in one go so the development teams could piece together the problem later. It sounds straightforward, but when a cell site is the only source of coverage and it goes down, there is no opportunity to debug the issue live. You have to anticipate failure scenarios and gather information in the hope that nothing critical is missed.
As we move steadily towards an AI-driven world, this kind of old-fashioned troubleshooting can seem less relevant. Yet the basics remain invaluable, not only for solving problems when things break, but also for designing new systems that do not repeat the mistakes of the past.
For those who may be new here, I am a technologist with over 25 years of experience in mobile and wireless technology, currently working as an independent advisor, analyst, consultant, and trainer. This newsletter brings together my recent posts and other news and developments that have caught my attention since the last edition.
⦿ 6G
Free 6G Training: Designing 6G - Enabling Scalable Mobile Connectivity for an AI-Driven Future (link)
⦿ 5G
Mohamed Abbas on LinkedIn: Have you ever seen “5G-A” or “5.5G” on your phone? (link)
⦿ 4G/LTE
Chris Cockings on LinkedIn: "Field Testing: Timing Advance - Why Two UEs on the Same Cell Don’t Match. Here are two CAT-1 UEs on the same EARFCN, same PCI, same location…" (link)
⦿ Open & Disaggregated Networks (including Open RAN, vRAN, etc.)
Rakuten Mobile to Deploy 1Finity Open RAN Massive MIMO Radios at Scale (PR)
⦿ Spectrum
Business Standard, India: DoT de-licenses lower 6 GHz band to boost next-generation Wi-Fi services (link)
⦿ Private Networks
Private Networks Technology Blog: 5G-Advanced and Multi-Robot Collaboration in Private Networks (link)
Light Reading: Boingo expands private 5G with Globalstar, adds Globalstar's XCOM RAN Supercell platform to its cellular and Wi-Fi private network solutions (link)
Fierce Network: Brazil is largest national market for private networks says analyst firm (link)
Recording of the Joint APAC and Europe Community Webinar – Industrial AI Unlocked: The Mobile Network Advantage (link)
Private Networks Technology Blog: Decoding the Reality of China’s 5G Private Network Leadership (link)
Fierce Network: Berg Insight says private network market reached 6,500 deployments in 2025 (link)
⦿ Telecoms Infrastructure, Small Cells, Antennas & others
⦿ IoT / M2M / Smart Homes
3GPP: Release 19 Ambient IoT (link)
⦿ Virtualization, Cloud & Edge
Fierce Network: AT&T launches 'massive' cloud migration, with fiber and satellite deal (link)
⦿ Security & Privacy
Denis Laskov on LinkedIn: A practical guide to Android Reverse Engineering, step by step, from beginner to researcher (link)
Kiteworks - Moltbook Alert: AI Agents Risk Enterprise Data Security (link)
Denis Laskov on LinkedIn: Starlink Power Architecture: From hardware analysis to proprietary PoE (and why they need it) (link)
TrendMicro: What is SIM Swapping? (link)
Laura Sear on LinkedIn: "An interesting article in the FT yesterday. Since 2023, Russian satellites, called Luch‑1 and Luch‑2, have repeatedly moved very close to European commercial and government satellites in GEO orbit…" (link)
⦿ Smartphones, Devices, Wearables & Gadgets
Mohamed Abbas on LinkedIn: The Hardware Reality of 5G-Advanced (link)
⦿ Satellites, HAPS, Drones, UAVs & Space
Dean Bubley on LinkedIn: No, space datacenters will not replace terrestrial hyperscale DCs (link)
Lluc Palerm Serra on LinkedIn: "SpaceX ambition to launch a 1-million satellite constellation to create an orbiting data center seems more aspirational than an actual immediate plan, similar to their mission to Mars goal…" (link)
⦿ AI, ML & Automation
The 3G4G Blog: Seven AI Concepts Shaping Network Intelligence (link)
⦿ Wi-Fi
Mohamed Abbas on LinkedIn: India has finally unlocked 6 GHz for Wi-Fi — and it’s a more significant strategic move than it appears (link)
⦿ Sustainability
Laura Sear on LinkedIn: "The European Commission published a Code of Conduct for the sustainability of telcos yesterday. Telco's subscribing to the code must report on their energy consumption, emissions, renewables, and e-waste across their infrastructure and publish auditable data on it from 2027 onwards…" (link)
⦿ Other News and Technology Stuff
Gizmodo: This Robot Hand Pops Off and Crawls. I Hate It So Much (link)
Connectivity Technology Blog: Underwater Communications and the Challenge of Ocean Connectivity (link)
Developing Telecoms: Saudi’s Neom megaproject review may focus on data centres (link)
Eric Priezkalns on LinkedIn: 6 Reasons NEC’s Acquisition Is a Compelling Event for CSG Clients (link)
IEEE Spectrum: Material’s Printed Batteries Put Power in Every Nook and Cranny (link)
⦿ Picture of the week: This image highlights the evolution of Starlink satellites from V1.5 through V2 to the much larger V3 design, and the difference is hard to miss. Compared to V1.5, V3 represents a clear shift in scale, with far larger solar arrays, higher power budgets, and significantly greater payload capacity, underlining how progress in satellite connectivity is still driven by fundamentals such as power, aperture, and physics. While Starlink has already demonstrated Direct to Cell (D2C/D2D) capabilities using earlier satellite generations, it is not yet clear whether V3 will support Direct to Cell services in its initial form or whether the focus will remain on high-capacity broadband and backhaul, at least in the near term.
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.
