Wireless Watch 606

Key Issues: USA operator landscape
They shoot horses don’t they? US telcos’ dance to the death continues 2

• Altice buys Cablevision, bringing France’s quad play economics to US 2
• Can Sprint resurrect its role as the friend of cable? 5
• Google breathes down Verizon’s neck in new RAN approaches 11

Comment:

• Microsoft and Amazon just can’t resist the siren call of devices 15
• Qualcomm’s health buy may prove bigger than record-breaking Snapdragon 18
• UK carriers race to VoLTE, with poor prospects of a business boost 21
• Yet more European 5G initiatives, but uncertainties cloud mmWave 24
• Apple and Verizon adopt different ways to hide their TV weaknesses 28
• Modem makers: No need to wait for LTE-M for the cellular IoT 31

M&A Watch:
Vodafone and Liberty fail to agree on a quad play asset deal 33
4G/5G Watch:
Mighty IoT stand-off looms in 3GPP this week 35
IoT Watch:
GE Digital puts industrial giant on collision course with IBM; Inmarsat pursues In-ternet of Everywhere 37
Spectrum Watch:
AT&T faces complications in two of its LTE bands 39
Operator Watch:
Telstra launches VoLTE and Cat-11 hotspot 40