The 6G Podcast - NASA's Laser Links, Family Plan Fight, Starlink’s Spectrum Hunt, AI's Network Future, In-Depth on 3GPP's 6G Vision, and Space Fab Ventures

About this episode

The episode discusses NASA's Artemis mission connectivity, 6G standards updates, and the latest in telecom bundles and AI technology.

Artemis Optical Links, 3GPP Release 21 Timeline, Bundled Fiber+Wireless Plans, and the Satellite D2D Spectrum Scramble Anshel Sag and Mike Dano discuss Artemis mission connectivity and imagery, including NASA’s Orion optical laser link (O2O) enabling 4K streams, iPhone selfies, and radiation damage to sensors, alongside brand visibility like Omega watches. They then review outcomes from a recent 3GPP meeting in Japan: 6G will begin with Release 21, with a Stage 1 freeze targeted for March 2027, and 5G standalone selected as the architectural baseline, with continued work on non-terrestrial networks. The hosts cover new U.S. convergence bundles, including AT&T’s One Connect (fiber plus wireless with BYOD and deprioritization caveats) and T-Mobile’s Mint-branded 5G Home Internet bundle. They debate AI RAN and base-station GPUs, citing skepticism from AT&T leadership and Nvidia’s push into inference, then note Tesla/SpaceX’s announced chip-fab partnership with Intel. Finally, they examine Grain Management’s plan to potentially lease 800 MHz spectrum for direct-to-device satellite services and question the true scale of the D2D consumer market. 00:00 Podcast Welcome and…

People in this episode

Hosts: Anshel Sag, Mike Dano

Topics covered

• NASA's Artemis mission
• 6G standards
• AI in networking
• satellite communications
• telecom bundles
• optical laser links

Keywords

• 6G
• NASA
• 3GPP
• telecom bundles
• AI RAN
• satellite D2D
• optical laser link
• Artemis mission
• Nvidia
• AT&T

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: NASA, 3GPP, AT&T, T-Mobile, Nvidia, Tesla, SpaceX, Intel, Grain Management

Products: iPhone, Omega, One Connect, Mint-branded 5G Home Internet

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