Spectrum policy dominated the week’s news. The FCC set a date to vote on rules for its upper C-band auction, Japan concluded its first millimetre-wave auction, and regulators in Portugal, Australia and New Zealand each moved on significant spectrum decisions. Elsewhere, Samsung and KDDI published hard evidence of what AI can do for network performance, British sporting venues became a showcase for permanent 5G infrastructure, and the US defence establishment placed a notable bet on an alternative waveform technology. It was also a strong week for private 5G, with new permits, trials and dedicated spectrum proposals across three continents.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced that the Commission will vote on 22 July on proposed rules to auction 160MHz of upper C-band spectrum (3.98GHz to 4.14GHz), covering 3,248 flexible-use licences across the contiguous United States. The rules are designed to harmonise the entire C-band into a single 440MHz “super-band” spanning 3.70GHz to 4.14GHz, combining the lower C-band auctioned in 2021 with the newly released spectrum. The auction itself is scheduled for 2027, with winning bidders expected to begin deployment in the top 75 markets by December 2030. The announcement follows sustained pressure from CTIA, whose president Ajit Pai had urged the Commission to finalise rules before the end of August. Notably, the draft rules defer on SpaceX’s request for spectrum to support advanced satellite operations, a decision that will not have gone unnoticed among the growing cohort of non-terrestrial players.
In related US news, the FCC approved a spectrum swap that will see T-Mobile transfer its 800MHz licences to Grain Management in exchange for $2.9 billion and a package of 600MHz licences. Meanwhile, EchoStar-owned Dish DBS filed for prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, a move tied to delays in closing the parent company’s $23 billion spectrum sale to AT&T. T-Mobile also confirmed it will finally switch off its 2G GSM network this summer, having kept it alive for legacy, roaming and IoT customers, and began migrating customers on older tariffs to newer plans.
Japan’s ministry of internal affairs and communications concluded its national 26GHz auction, with NTT Docomo securing the nationwide licence for 400MHz of millimetre-wave spectrum in the 25.8GHz to 26.2GHz band, while JTower and High Tech Inter won regional licences. In Portugal, regulator Anacom approved a draft decision to renew spectrum rights for Meo, Nos and Vodafone in a package valued at around €550 million, with consultation open until 27 August. Australia’s ACMA launched a consultation on a congestion-based pricing model for apparatus licences across the 520MHz to 5GHz range, aiming to make heavily contested spectrum more expensive and encourage efficient use. And Türkiye reported that its telecom investment jumped 1,300% year on year to a record $5.6 billion in the first quarter, driven largely by 5G auction fees and infrastructure spending.
Samsung and KDDI published results from a months-long trial of Samsung’s AI-powered RAN optimisation technology on KDDI’s standalone 5G network in Tokyo. Real-time AI tuning delivered an average 31% increase in downlink throughput during peak times network-wide, with gains of up to 52% in the live trial. It is some of the most concrete public evidence yet that AI can materially improve radio network performance rather than simply reduce operating costs.
The commercial context came from Dell’Oro Group, which forecast that cumulative AI-RAN revenue will reach $35 billion over the five years to 2030, while cautioning that AI-RAN is unlikely to expand the overall RAN market; it will instead reshape how existing budgets are spent. In the UK, VodafoneThree began deploying intelligent agents from Vyntelligence to give field engineers a helping hand with administrative work on its 5G standalone rollout, a modest but practical illustration of where operator AI adoption is actually landing.
Light Reading carried two revealing pieces on the vendor landscape this week. Jenny Lindqvist, head of Ericsson’s cloud software and services group, made clear that Ericsson will not follow Nokia in exiting cloud infrastructure, pointing to more than 50 live deployments of its CNIS platform alongside over 15 deployments on third-party clouds. The stance matters because operators such as Deutsche Telekom are building multivendor platforms, with the German operator aiming to phase out its Ericsson non-standalone core by 2028 in favour of a Mavenir standalone core on its own cloud.
Separately, Verizon CTO Yago Tenorio revealed that the carrier now has roughly 60,000 virtualised RAN sites in service, close to half its network, all supplied by Samsung. His message to Ericsson was pointed: open, virtualised RAN on general-purpose hardware is a non-negotiable foundation for 6G, and Verizon hopes its other big supplier “will be ready soon”.
British sport provided two high-profile 5G showcases. At Silverstone, neutral host Boldyn Networks installed a permanent distributed antenna system spanning 570 acres ahead of the British Grand Prix, with O2 the first operator to use it, replacing the temporary masts the venue has relied on for years. Virgin Media O2 also reported its highest ever mobile traffic during England’s World Cup match against DR Congo, more than 20% above its previous peak. At Wimbledon, Vodafone unveiled a 5G+ Serve Experience that lets fans face serves recreated by a robotic arm, powered by a dedicated network slice on its standalone 5G network. In Seoul, KT ran a similar exercise with more operational intent, using 5G standalone network slicing to provide dedicated communications for event staff during a World Cup public viewing event in the crowded Gwanghwamun district.
Cohere Technologies won a $28 million contract from the FutureG Office within the US Department of War to develop a multi-waveform radio access network prototype capable of turning ordinary commercial cellular infrastructure into a sensing system for detecting drones and other aerial threats. Cohere is the pioneer of the OTFS waveform, long discussed as a candidate technology for 6G, and the contract represents significant government backing for an approach that rivals the OFDM technology underpinning equipment from Ericsson and Nokia.
New Zealand’s Radio Spectrum Management proposed reserving dedicated spectrum for private mobile networks in the 3340MHz to 3460MHz band. In the Netherlands, regulator RDI issued three more private 5G permits in the reserved 3.5GHz band, taking the national total to 59, while Poland’s regulator confirmed rules for private networks in the 3.8GHz to 4.2GHz band. In Latvia, operator LMT and Latvian Railways began testing private 5G for rail infrastructure management, the first such trial in the Baltics and a step towards the FRMCS standard that will eventually replace GSM-R across European railways. Telecom Review’s analysis of the industrial IoT market underlined the direction of travel, noting initiatives such as Aramco’s national industrial IoT network as evidence that enterprises are moving from public networks towards enterprise-controlled connectivity.
Huawei and China Telecom deployed a 5G-Advanced network using three-component carrier aggregation at Datang Everbright City, a busy tourist attraction in Xi’an, pairing high-capacity connectivity with AI services for visitors. In Indonesia, Indosat outlined its AI Grid vision, combining centralised AI factories with distributed computing closer to users, with nationwide low-band 5G and expanded mid-band coverage as the foundation. In Malaysia, wholesale network DNB activated an additional 100MHz of spectrum in the 3.3GHz to 3.4GHz band, doubling network capacity, as U Mobile completed the migration of its customers onto its own independent 5G network and formally exited the DNB arrangement.
O2 Slovakia said it will launch its standalone 5G network by the end of the year, matching its existing 5G coverage of 99.77% of the population. In France, Bouygues Telecom concentrated its June deployment on 2.1GHz frequencies, adding 405 sites in the band to reach 18,609. Spain’s MasOrange completed its rural 5G rollout under the state-backed UNICO programme, connecting 1,461 small municipalities including 162 locations that previously had no operator coverage at all. And in Ukraine, Kyivstar tripled its 5G testing area in Kharkiv, where more than 121,000 customers have used 5G services since the pilot began in February.
Mozambique’s regulator INCM granted 5G spectrum licences to all three of the country’s mobile operators, Tmcel, Vodacom Mozambique and Movitel, clearing the way for commercial rollout. Morocco’s regulator ANRT reported 3.22 million 5G connections at the end of the first quarter, with the technology in service across 8,400 cell sites and accounting for 8.4% of the country’s mobile internet connections.
RCR Wireless published a useful analysis of the 3GPP June plenary decisions, which set Release 21 milestones and air interface baselines that will shape early 6G device development. A guest piece on Telecoms.com struck a more cautionary note, arguing that the industry is already repeating the over-promising that damaged 5G’s reputation, a theme that echoes last week’s coverage of 5G’s unfulfilled IoT ambitions. Both are worth reading together: one describes how 6G is being built, the other asks how it should be sold.
Samsung, KDDI reveal AI-RAN 5G gains
Rare hard numbers on what AI-driven RAN optimisation actually delivers: an average 31% peak-time throughput uplift on a live standalone network.
https://www.mobileworldlive.com/5g/samsung-kddi-reveal-ai-ran-5g-gains/
FCC sets vote on rules to auction 160MHz of upper C-band spectrum
The defining US spectrum story of the year: how the 440MHz super-band would work and the timeline to deployment by 2030.
https://www.lightreading.com/5g/fcc-sets-vote-on-rules-to-auction-160mhz-of-upper-c-band-spectrum
Ericsson cloud boss still resists a Nokia move in the 5G core
A candid look at why Ericsson is staying in cloud infrastructure while its customers build multivendor platforms around it.
https://www.lightreading.com/mobile-core/ericsson-cloud-boss-still-resists-a-nokia-move-in-the-5g-core
Building the 6G standard: What 3GPP’s June 2026 plenary decisions mean for device makers
A clear guide to the Release 21 milestones and air interface choices that will define 6G’s early performance gains.
https://www.rcrwireless.com/20260701/6g/6g-standard-qualcomm
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