WCA November 2017

From the Americas

San Francisco and metro San Jose in seven industries that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has identified as constituting “tech”. Here are key findings from data downloaded from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages:  The two California metro areas had around 365,000 jobs in those seven sectors as of late last year, vs 280,000 for metro New York. The Californians were well ahead in computer manufacturing and software publishing, more than offsetting the New Yorkers’ edge in computer systems design and related services and scientific R&D services. (“And that’s in spite of New York having a much bigger population,” noted Bloomberg .)  In the second quarter of 2017, San Francisco venture-backed companies raised $4.1 billion and Silicon Valley companies raised $3.6 billion in a combined 342 deals, while New York venture-backed companies raised $2.8 billion in 153 deals, according to the MoneyTree Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and New York-based CB Insights, a tech data analytics company.  A big deficit for New York is the lack of a hugely successful homegrown company that has gone public, minting millionaires and billionaires who use their wealth to develop more tech startups. New York’s successful startups are on the scale of Etsy, Trello and Tumblr. “The PayPal, Google, Facebook mafias of the Valley — there is not a similar thing here,” says Anand Sanwal, chief executive officer and co-founder of New York-based CB Insights. Boston – Seattle – New York Referencing a diagram in a recent issue of their own Bloomberg Businessweek , the reporters reviewed some 300 pertinent California metro areas in terms of positives (plenty of tech-company headquarters and a technically trained workforce) and negatives (high home prices and long commutes). Their conclusion: “New York is right up there with San Francisco on the negative traits but only good, not great, on the positive ones – roughly tied with Boston and Seattle.”  “That said, New York has come up,” according to Bloomberg Businessweek . Mr Sanwal of CB Insights says it is now a solid, if distant, No 2 in the amount of venture capital raised by local companies, surpassing longtime No 2, Boston. As tech permeates every corner of the economy, New York’s strengths in finance, media and medicine will make it a magnet for more sectoral tech investments. Some day it may justify the assertion of New York’s junior senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, that “No other city is poised to lead in the high-tech economy of the future like New York City.”  If New York’s time is not yet, it is measurably closer now that Cornell Tech is up and running on Roosevelt Island.

Telecom As 5G transitions from an industry vision to a next-generation technology, spectrum gains in importance What kind of spectrum is AT&T looking to as it plots its 5G strategies? The question was put to Hank Hultquist, AT&T’s vice president of federal regulatory, in the course of a round- table discussion on 13 th September at Mobile World Congress Americas. “All of it,” was the prompt answer. Reporting from the congress, which focused on airwaves and next-generation networks, Colin Gibbs of Fierce Wireless noted that AT&T is not alone in that view of the role spectrum will play as carriers roll out 5G services and technologies in the coming years. Indeed, Mr Gibbs wrote, this was that was the overriding theme of the event in San Francisco. According to Julie Knapp, chief of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Office of Engineering and Technology, 5G “is not a particular band; it’s more a weaving together.” Carriers will use a wide variety of wavelengths as they build next-generation networks, employing the most appropriate spectrum and antennas for specific areas. Charla Rath, vice president of wireless policy development for Verizon Wireless, the largest USA wireless carrier, concurred. In her view, 5G is “a whole different way” of looking at a network. Verizon is “excited”, Ms Rath said, about two specific chunks of airwaves: 28 (GHz) and 39 (GHz). “We think there’s a lot there,” she said. “It would be good to get it out. The idea is to get as much spectrum as possible.” (What Kind of Spectrum Do Carriers Want for 5G? ‘All of It’,” 14 th September) Mr Gibbs pointed out that definitions of low-, mid- and high-band spectrum vary, primarily because the ceiling continues to be raised when it comes to wavelengths. Due to technological advances, spectrum once regarded as too high is increasingly viewed as optimal for some uses.  The round-table participants agreed that, just as 5G will not be limited to a few specific spectrum bands, it also will not be limited to a handful of use cases. Next-generation networks will enable a huge variety of applications and services, from obscure Internet of Things (IoT) offerings to autonomous vehicles. A shared concern was the difficulty of explaining the value proposition of 5G to end users – whether consumers or businesses. “I think there’s a belief that [with 5G] we’ll see all kinds of new things,” said Mr Hultquist of AT&T. “But there’s also an under- standable not-quite ability to say what 5G will be.” Dorothy Fabian Features

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Wire & Cable ASIA – November/December 2017