Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile Could One Day Make Mobile Internet Free, Wireless Pioneer Says

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Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ ), AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T ) and T-Mobile US Inc. (NASDAQ: TMUS ) could one day make mobile internet free, wireless pioneer Ray Dolantold Benzinga in an exclusive interview.

Dolan believes cellphone towers could become a new source of income by detecting drones, tracking vehicles and monitoring the world around them.

Governments and businesses could pay for that information, and the resulting revenue could eventually be large enough for mobile operators to stop charging customers for internet access, he said.

"Connectivity itself can become the enabler whose cost is subsidized or given away," Dolan said.

How Cell Towers Could Make Internet Free

Dolan is CEO of privately held Cohere Technologiesand previously led Flarion, a company that helped pave the way for 4G.

Cohere is developing technology that could allow cellphone towers to work like radar, detecting objects by analyzing how radio signals bounce off them.

Two examples illustrate how this could work: An airport could pay a mobile operator to detect drones approaching its runways, or a logistics company could use the same technology to track vehicles and equipment.

"Revenue from intelligence services can eventually exceed today's connectivity ARPU," Dolan said, referring to the average revenue operators earn per user.

He compared the idea to what happened with phone calls.

"Voice became essentially free once it enabled mobile internet," Dolan said.

Carriers once charged customers by the minute. Today, unlimited calls are typically included in mobile plans, with customers primarily paying for data.

In July, AT&T and Ericsson demonstrated how existing 5G infrastructure could detect and track drones.

T-Mobile technology chief John Sawalso told analysts on the company's third-quarter earnings call that future 6G base stations could function as radars, creating new commercial opportunities.

The $19 Billion Question

Replacing subscription revenue would be an enormous undertaking.

T-Mobile alone generated $19.4 billion in third-quarter service revenue, including $16.3 billion from postpaid services, according to its latest earnings report .

Those figures include services beyond mobile internet, but illustrate the scale of the existing business.

Dolan offered no timetable for free internet or financial projections showing when the new revenue could overtake connectivity.

Dolan said privacy and surveillance concerns "must be addressed carefully," but argued that using existing cell towers could keep costs down.