How AT&T Found Its Focus
Since John Stankey became AT&T CEO in 2020, the company has streamlined its focus around connectivity and concentrated on developing fiber broadband and 5G wireless networks. On Bloomberg Chief Future Office, Stankey and CFO Pascal Desroches tell Lisa Abramowicz why they're confident that AT&T is positioned to turn this technological foundation into profitable growth. (Source: Bloomberg)
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Motor 1
20 minutes ago
- Motor 1
We Tested Apple CarPlay Ultra. It's Great—But There's a Catch
"Does it have CarPlay?" It's one of the first questions anyone—driver, passenger, or buyer—asks about a new car. The frustrating menus, clunky user interfaces, and overall poor experience surrounding modern car infotainment systems have driven the majority of people to Apple CarPlay (or Android Auto, Google's native equivalent), which effectively mirrors your phone on the infotainment display. Since CarPlay's introduction in 2014, it's been almost exclusively for the center display. Now, though, with the arrival of CarPlay Ultra, the entire gauge cluster and dashboard turn into an Apple-mimicking iPhone projection. But of course, it's not without a bit of controversy. Photo by: Chris Rosales / Motor1 Fourteen automakers originally signed on for CarPlay Ultra when Apple announced it back in 2022. But some, like Audi, Ford, and Mercedes-Benz, have since backed away from the deal , while General Motors continues its assault on CarPlay entirely. Genesis, Hyundai, Kia, Porsche, and Aston Martin, though, still welcome the new technology. On the surface, it's a debate between the popularity of CarPlay and the automaker's ability to tightly control its user experience. Beneath the many consumer layers, automakers are worried about handing over user data to Apple—data that the automakers find extremely valuable. If they aren't selling your data to insurance companies, they're selling it to advertisers or aggregators looking for valuable details on consumer habits. Cluing Apple into that data isn't something automakers will do readily. In the case of Aston Martin, it recognized the popularity of CarPlay and made the decision "for [its] customers." As a small-volume luxury carmaker, Aston stands to lose if it doesn't get with the times. For much larger brands, this isn't as much of an issue. Nonetheless, I got to sample and stress-test CarPlay Ultra for a few hours in a 2025 DBX and lightly grill Aston about how Ultra integrates into existing systems. First and most importantly, CarPlay Ultra only works with an iPhone 12 or newer running iOS 18.5. Upon first connection, the phone uploads 50 MB of data to the car, basically a folder full of graphical assets specific to each vehicle. Ultra runs alongside the automaker's infotainment system as a sort of plug-in program, interfacing with the onboard systems for advanced driver assistance, air conditioning, radio, and drive modes so that most functions can be controlled through CarPlay. CarPlay Ultra does not deeply interface with the vehicle network. Instead, the onboard systems offer the relevant information to CarPlay and nothing more, at least according to Aston Martin. In nerd speak, CarPlay doesn't even communicate on the controller area network bus (CAN bus) of the DBX. Effectively, it's Apple graphics and UI over Aston's systems. It does run as a small operating system within the DBX, but it's not an entirely new infotainment system, and it still operates as a phone projection. Photo by: Chris Rosales / Motor1 Effectively, it's Apple graphics and UI over Aston's systems. Curiously, Aston did not have to pay a licensing fee either. All the automaker had to do was foot the development costs on integration, and Apple simply provided support. As Aston tells it, integration was relatively painless, with Apple listening to feedback from Aston and vice versa. But customers beware: As the old saying goes, 'If the product is free, you are the product.' Still, the user interface is classic Apple: Easy and intuitive. All major functions were easy to find under the new "Vehicle" menu, with specific push notifications while using physical controls. For example, clicking the ADAS off button on the center console prompted a CarPlay notification confirming the system's deactivation. Even drive mode selections were displayed when switching from Sport to Sport+, and specific drive mode settings were available deeper within CarPlay, allowing adjustments to things like the dampers, steering, and engine tuning, among others. The controversial piece, the gauge cluster, was also a highlight. It ran faster and looked slicker than Aston's native stuff, though that's more of an Aston issue than a CarPlay improvement. Photo by: Chris Rosales / Motor1 Photo by: Chris Rosales / Motor1 The ability to customize colors and backgrounds on a variety of layouts was lovely, and Aston's collaborative gauge cluster was crisp, with the Apple-specific stuff existing between the speedometer and tachometer. A full-screen Apple Maps projection also exists in the gauge cluster with turn-by-turn navigation. It's all undeniably Apple, but extremely nice to look at and use. There were a few caveats, though. Ultra is wireless only, which is difficult enough for standard CarPlay at times. Using Aston's provided iPhone 15, it ran smoothly for the two hours I tested it. Yet, using it with my personal iPhone 13 Pro Max running iOS 18.5 was excruciatingly laggy and slow. I attempted to use it for 15 minutes, but it never smoothed out, so I reverted back to the iPhone 15. That said, it's still in the early stages, so there are probably some bugs that need ironing out, and there's a new switching menu to smoothly choose between paired phones. At any rate, CarPlay Ultra is here—and it's very good. While the DBX does lose a little bit of Aston Martin charm, it still has a reasonable amount of brand identity beneath the Apple onslaught. But even Aston's new infotainment system, for as good as it is, benefits from legibility improvements and additional ease of use. That makes CarPlay Ultra an easy win. But what happens once Ultra goes up against Hyundai and Porsche's excellent systems? With automakers dropping out of Ultra and dragging their feet on integration, we will have to wait and see. More On Apple CarPlay Chevy's Infotainment System Is Excellent—Especially With CarPlay: Review GM Swears Ditching Apple CarPlay Was Still the Right Move Stop Trying to Reinvent the Infotainment System Apple CarPlay iOS 18: All the Updates You Should Care About Share this Story Facebook X LinkedIn Flipboard Reddit WhatsApp E-Mail Got a tip for us? Email: tips@ Join the conversation ( )
Yahoo
21 minutes ago
- Yahoo
China Mobile monetises one of the world's most advanced 5G networks
As one of the first telcos in the world to deploy 5G-Advanced networks, China Mobile Shanghai is blazing a trail in deciding where to upgrade and how to operate its new network to serve its VIP users and value-added service tiers. Verdict has previously laid out how China Mobile Shanghai designed its services to encourage multiple tiers of upgraded users. The story of how China Mobile rolled out its new network while monetising their network as well, is equally as useful to other telcos starting to plan for their own 5G-Advanced networks. Since 5G nomenclature can be confusing, a brief review: the majority of 5G networks today are 5G-Non-standalone (5G-NSA), which means that they run 5G New Radio base stations, but are controlled by a 4G/LTE core network. The non-standalone standard was designed to get the higher-capacity 5G radio network into the world quickly, but does not support 5G network slicing. 5G-NSA is therefore a kind of '4G 2.0' and has led to some of the popular dissatisfaction with 5G networks as 'more of the same' since it does not support any dramatically new services. 5G-Standalone (5G-SA) marries 5G New Radio with a 5G core network and can therefore support more finely differentiated quality of experience. Via network slicing, it can allocate network resources on a deterministic basis (meaning that the performance is guaranteed), not just best-effort. Roughly a third of global communications service providers (CSPs) are operating 5G-SA networks, but this 'mature 5G' level is already widely deployed in China. 5G-Advanced (5G-A) is a new mid-cycle upgrade analogous to 4G's LTE-Advanced. It introduces features that improve connection quality, reliability, and ease of management. It can support higher levels of service performance, but the big improvement is in the reliability of that performance. 5G-A is for power users that are willing to pay for guaranteed, tailored network experience: not only premium consumers, but IoT customers, emergency services, and so on. China Mobile selected the Shanghai region to work out 5G-A service design and marketing, but also to iron out technical issues regarding coverage and operations. China Mobile has established multiple tiers of 5G-A service plans: not only the top, 'platinum' tier, but a gold tier that receives network performance that is not as outstanding as the platinum group, but still better than subscribers to ordinary 5G plans. 5G-A's ability to provide precisely guaranteed network performance with not only a lower limit (faster than x) but an upper limit (no faster than y) allows for multiple such service tiers. Another benefit of this deterministic experience is that network resources can be released for others to use when not required by the premium tiers. Making the 5G-network a success requires two types of non-operational analytics: identifying users who are ready to upgrade to a better service tier, and prioritising new regions to upgrade to 5G-A by tracking the movements of existing 5G-A users and by finding new clusters of users who would be likely to upgrade. Shanghai is a dense urban area with many offices, but also many educational and scientific institutions. It is therefore rich in potential power users as well as consumers that can afford to pay more for better performance. China Mobile has already completed its 5G-A rollout to Shanghai's outer ring road, encompassing over 5000 sites. Now that it has covered the core business areas of the city, the company is expanding its 5G-A network by analysing user behaviour and demographics to determine the best areas for upgrades. The granular analysis looks for areas where high-ARPU users congregate as well as where network demand is heavy, for example central business districts and universities. It also tracks travel patterns for its existing 5G-A subscribers, which has led to it upgrading to 5G-A coverage along heavily trafficked roads and metro lines. China Mobile also tracks handset penetration in these areas. Newer 5G handsets are capable of a technology called Component Carrier Aggregation, which is abbreviated as '3CC' because it allows the handset to connect to three different carrier frequencies simultaneously. Once 3CC is enabled, users can achieve very high network speeds as well as the extra layer of reliability provided by simultaneous connections to multiple wireless cells. Handset penetration is therefore an important aspect of site selection for 5G-A upgrades. Operationally, it is a challenge to ensure that the network fulfills all of its service promises all of the time. This requires continuous real-time tracking and optimisation to ensure that users get the experience that they pay for; China Mobile's analytics platform tracks user experience on a per-application basis to make sure that the network is serving the different needs of gamers, streamers, TV watchers, and so on. China Mobile is currently using a Quality-of-Service flow control mechanism to provide this experience, but is planning to replace that mechanism with one using the NWDAF (the main analytics function of the 5G core network) and the AM-PCF (access and mobility management tied to the policy control function). It says that the NWDAF will support more granular customisation by user and/or application. Today, it uses all of 5G-A's network resources to optimise service delivery: 3CC aggregation, device-network synergy, differentiated resource scheduling, and pre-allocation of wireless network resources through network slicing. On a non-real-time basis, China Mobile also analyses the per-application experience of premium 5G-A users versus regular 5G users to make sure that the former retain a performance advantage. Similar analysis supports the marketing side by identifying users to target for upselling to a higher service tier or add-on package. China Mobile Shanghai's success in monetising 5G-A shows that proper network planning is essential, but that tracking and managing the experience of all groups of premium users is the real key to monetising the new network technology. "China Mobile monetises one of the world's most advanced 5G networks" was originally created and published by Verdict, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Forbes
23 minutes ago
- Forbes
NATO Launches Global Arms Race As Defense Spending Set To Explode
Unidentified NATO soldiers Readers of a certain age will recall President Ronald Reagan launching one of the most ambitious military buildups in American history. In a bid to overwhelm the Soviet Union, Reagan doubled the U.S. military's budget from under $150 billion in 1980 to over $300 billion by 1985. The government invested heavily in B-1 bombers, MX missiles and an expanded Navy fleet. The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), dubbed 'Star Wars' by critics, aimed to create a space-based missile defense system. The 40th president believed that peace could only be achieved through strength, and history proved him right. The Americans outspent and out-innovated the Soviets… and ultimately outlasted them. NATO Agrees to Increase Defense Spending Today, we're seeing Regan's strategy play out on the international stage. At the NATO summit in The Hague last week, the 32-member alliance agreed to boost defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2035, with a floor of 3.5% earmarked for 'core military needs.' That's more than double the previous 2% target set back in 2014. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte credited President Donald Trump with pushing allies to commit to a higher spending level. 'This would not have happened' without Trump, Rutte said. Trump echoed Reagan's 'peace through strength' energy in his own remarks: 'It's vital that this additional money be spent on very serious military hardware... and hopefully that hardware is going to be made in America because we have the best hardware in the world.' Growing Number of Conflicts Across the Globe It's not difficult to see why this spending spree is happening now. The world is getting more dangerous. According to the 2025 Global Peace Index, there are 59 active state-based conflicts globally, the highest number since World War II. Number of state-based conflicts is now higher than at any point since WWII Ranked as this year's least peaceful country, Russia remains an active military threat, with its war in Ukraine extending into a third year and showing few signs of resolution. China is executing a 'massive' military expansion, according to NATO, including advanced missile systems and naval expansion in the South China Sea. And as you know, Iran recently retaliated against U.S. airstrikes with missile attacks on Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, raising tensions in the Middle East. NATO Allies Moving Fast Some NATO countries aren't waiting until 2035 to act. Poland is already spending over 4% of its GDP on defense, the highest rate among all other and bottom five military spenders in NATO Germany has pledged to reach 3.5% by 2029, even changing its constitutional debt rules to make it possible. The UK just ordered a dozen nuclear-capable F-35A fighter jets, marking its biggest nuclear deterrent upgrade since the Cold War. Here in the U.S., President Trump has proposed an $893 billion defense budget for 2026 that favors drones and smart missiles, while reducing some legacy investments such as warships and fighter jets. He appears to be focused on high-tech, cost-effective equipment, modeled in part after Ukraine's recent successes with drones on the battlefield. Defense a 'Dynamic Growth Industry'? Defense has long been considered a 'value sector'—slow and steady, backed by government contracts. That narrative could be changing. According to analysts at Stifel, we're entering a new cycle where defense is a 'dynamic growth industry.' We're now in an arms race driven not just by tanks and jets, but also AI, cyber, space and next-gen missiles. Consider that U.S. defense budgets remain near record highs. Defense spending in Europe rose 17% year-over-year to $693 billion in 2024, before the new 5% NATO target became a reality. Despite this, Europe is still overly reliant on American hardware and production capacity, according to findings by the Kiel Institute. That, too, could spell opportunity. American defense companies—especially those focused on drones, missile systems, cybersecurity and space-based tech—stand to benefit the most from this multi-decade rearmament cycle. For investors, I believe this marks the beginning of a long-term secular shift.
