Analysis
The analysis series
Each series takes one subject and answers five to eight questions about it from the primary record. Every series can be read on the site or downloaded as an ebook.
Direct-to-Device Analysis Series
Seven questions about direct-to-device
Two satellite operators may transmit on American mobile spectrum, and both rent it. One spends fifteen times its revenue on capital and holds leases that all expire on one day in May 2028. The other has agreed to pay $19.6 billion to own its spectrum and, in October 2026, to buy the low band it lacked.
Read the seriesSeven parts · ebook
The 6G Technology Series
Eight questions about 6G
6G has a calendar with meeting numbers on it: specifications frozen in December 2028, the first American auction in April 2027 and the conference that settles the spectrum in late 2027. It does not yet have anything a carrier can sell, and the last cycle cost the three national carriers $333 billion before the C-band bill.
Read the seriesEight parts · ebook
Integrated Sensing and Communications
Five questions about integrated sensing
A mobile network that senses is a radar, and a weak one beside a purpose-built radar: a metre and a half of range resolution against the metre the standard asks for, and echoes that fade with the fourth power of distance. It remains the most discussed 6G feature, and it is paid for in airtime a carrier has already bought at auction.
Read the seriesFive parts · ebook
AI in Telecom Operations
Five questions about AI in telecom operations
AI is the lever every operator names in its cost programme, and no annual report puts a currency figure on what it has saved. The three American carriers spent $150.9 billion in 2025 running their networks and serving their customers, within one per cent of what they spent two years earlier.
Read the seriesFive parts · ebook
Non-Terrestrial Networks
Five questions about non-terrestrial networks
Altitude makes the first four design decisions before anyone at a satellite company makes one, so the stratosphere, low orbit, medium orbit and the geostationary arc are four different businesses. Only one of them is being built at scale, and it has become a volume business run by a single company.
Read the seriesFive parts · ebook
Private Networks & Neutral Host
Five questions about private networks and neutral host
The shared band at 3.5 GHz was sold as the home of the private network, and mobile and cable operators paid 86% of the money. Fewer than one radio in twenty is indoors, the one vendor that counts its customers has put the unit up for sale, and the FCC has had the rules open for two years without deciding.
Read the seriesFive parts · ebook
Start with a diagnosis
Tell us what you are trying to decide. We reply in writing within two working days, with how we would approach it, what it would take and what it would cost.