The FCC’s 3.45 GHz auction could hit bids as high as $37 billion, or fail entirely if two of the three national carriers drop out, New Street’s Jonathan Chaplin told investors in a weekend report. Chaplin said providers are positioned to spend at least $34 billion, with AT&T likely getting 40 MHz of spectrum, T-Mobile 31 and Dish Network 19, while Verizon likely takes a pass, he said. “The number of bidders is the biggest variable” and if Verizon does make a play that would drive up totals, he said. Balance sheets are “stretched,” but AT&T has “built resources following the media divestiture and dividend cut” and other providers have also added to resources since the C-band auction, he said.

Deutsche Telekom agreed to a $7 billion share-swap with SoftBank Group, former owner of Sprint, which gives the German company a near controlling interest in T-Mobile U.S. DT also sold its Dutch unit to private equity houses Warburg Pincus and Apax for $6.1 billion, as it deepens its focus on the U.S. With the share swap, DT raises its stake in T-Mobile U.S. by 5.3% to 48.4%. SoftBank becomes a 4.5% shareholder in DT and retains a 3.3% stake in T-Mobile, which could increase to 6.9% through true-up shares, SoftBank said. The deal is a “win-win” for both companies, said Marcelo Claure, former Sprint CEO, now CEO of SoftBank Group International. “It allows the SoftBank portfolio companies access to a new market, to the European market,” he said on CNBC Tuesday: DT is “undervalued and has a lot of potential in the future.” SoftBank is now the largest shareholder in DT after the German government, he said. “We’re in for the long run,” he said. DT CEO Tim Hottges said earlier this year DT is committed to taking a majority stock interest in T-Mobile (see 2105200064).

China regards 5G as a “frontier technology” that will “profoundly change the way people work and live and usher in an era where all is interconnected,” said a Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Thursday after a government-sponsored World 5G Convention in Beijing. Since 5G came into commercial use in China, 993,000 5G base stations have been built and more than 392 million households “have been connected to 5G terminals,” he said. China is committed here to “openness and win-win results” with other global partners, said the spokesperson. “Businesses from all countries are welcome to take part in China's 5G rollout.” China hopes that “all sides will oppose acts that abuse the national security concept and disrupt and undermine global 5G cooperation,” said the spokesperson.

A quarter of all problems that new-vehicle buyers experience in their first 90 days of ownership involve the infotainment category, and six of the top 10 problems across the industry are infotainment-related, reported J.D. Power Tuesday. Voice recognition, for the first time in a decade, isn't the top problem among new-vehicle owners. Smartphone connectivity via Android Auto or Apple CarPlay is the top headache, and is worsening “significantly,” said the company: “This is a particular problem when these systems are operated wirelessly, which is increasingly common.”

The FCC needs to “diligently move forward” on RF exposure rules “specific” to wireless power transfer devices, or the U.S. risks “losing its leadership role in the WPT industry,” said an Energous filing posted Monday in docket 19-226. “Commission action is needed to enable U.S. companies and consumers to realize the substantial benefits that can be derived in the near term from the further deployment of WPT technologies.” Energous electronics manufacturer customers are “clamoring for access to its technology for deployment in the U.S. market” for enabling wireless charging of devices over distances of more than 1 meter (39 inches), it said. But until the FCC acts on the WPT issues raised in its 2019 RF NPRM, U.S. WPT developers such as Energous “will be unable to satisfy the needs of the U.S. electronics industry,” it said.

Global smartphone shipments rose in recent quarters though “the supply chain situation hasn't drastically improved,” reported IDC. It forecast 7.4% growth to 1.37 billion in 2021 and 3.4% growth in 2022. Those were slight downgrades from a May 26 forecast. Monday, IDC attributed this year’s anticipated increase to “healthy 13.8% growth from iOS devices combined with 6.2% growth from Android.” U.S importers sourced 89.23 million smartphones from all countries in 2021's first half, up 17% from the 2020 period and down 9.7% from 2019's first six months, per Census Bureau data we accessed through the International Trade Commission.

Semiconductor company Marvell Technology “nearly tripled” its revenue from wireless carriers the past two years by “growing our overall market share” in 5G infrastructure, said CEO Matt Murphy on an earnings call Thursday for fiscal Q2 ended July 31. “We expect a sustained period of strong revenue growth from this end market driven by an increase in 5G deployments, which are still in the early stage of worldwide adoption.” Growth from 5G is expected to “significantly accelerate” in calendar Q4, he said. Marvell has substantially reduced its “dependence” on the consumer market, “which tends to be more volatile with shorter product life cycles” than the enterprise sector, he said. Its consumer operations now generate only 15% of Marvell revenue through its “de-emphasis” on PC components and the December 2019 sale of its Wi-Fi connectivity business to NXP, he said. “We have significantly increased our exposure to the data center and carrier end markets, which are characterized by long product life cycles, sticky design wins and multi-generational engagements.”

A hacker used “brute force” to hack into T-Mobile’s system and steal customer data (see 2108180062), CEO Mike Sievert blogged Friday. T-Mobile is working with law enforcement and is constrained in what it can say, he noted. “What we can share is that, in simplest terms, the bad actor leveraged their knowledge of technical systems, along with specialized tools and capabilities, to gain access to our testing environments and then used brute force attacks and other methods to make their way into other IT servers that included customer data,” Sievert said: “In short, this individual’s intent was to break in and steal data, and they succeeded.” T-Mobile is acting to make its systems more secure, he said. The carrier is getting help from cybersecurity experts at Mandiant and consulting firm KPMG, he said. Mandiant has been part of the forensic investigation “and we are now expanding our relationship to draw on the expertise they’ve gained from the front lines of large-scale data breaches and use their scalable security solutions to become more resilient to future cyber threats,” he said: KPMG is reviewing “all T-Mobile security policies and performance measurement.”

Rakuten Group CEO Hiroshi Mikitani and top executives from Rakuten Mobile met with FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks on the role the company’s technology can play in “accelerating the deployment of secure, next-generation wireless networks” across the U.S. “American wireless carriers can deploy a cloud-native network running on the Rakuten Communications Platform at lower cost, higher security, and more quickly than traditional wireless appliances,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 21-63.

New America’s Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge see room for improvement on mobile broadband maps, representatives told Broadband Data Task Force Chair Jean Kiddoo and FCC Wireless Bureau staff. The LTE availability map released this month (see 2108060064) “was a strong step,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 19-195. “As that map still relies on the Form 477 data with which the Commission has long been saddled, the map has shortcomings that will need addressing,” they said: “Without added detail of signal strength and the throughput speeds experienced by consumers in local communities, consumers, schools and local governments will have little idea whether an area of the map deemed ‘served’ by 4G LTE would bring them wireless connectivity sufficient to access reliable broadband internet connectivity or merely to complete a voice call.”