Monday, August 10, 2026
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Opinion

Telecom Tweets of the Week: Bitcoin miner disrupts T-Mo’s network

by Kelly Hill
written by Kelly Hill Share
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Bitcoin is apparently not just disruptive to the financial status quo — Bitcoin mining was the culprit in disrupting T-Mobile US’ network in New York, according to an enforcement letter from the Federal Communications Commission.

According to the letter, T-Mobile US was having problems with interference at 700 MHz in Brooklyn and reported it to the FCC, which in late November pinpointed a residence where the occupant was operating an Antminer s5 Bitcoin Miner– and once it was turned off, the interference stopped. The FCC letter sent this week was a follow-up to get more information from the resident about the device (which the FCC was quick to add may not be representative of all Antminer s5s in terms of producing interference) and make sure it was no longer causing problems.

FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel made note of the incident on Twitter, calling it “very 2018”:

https://twitter.com/JRosenworcel/status/964262514912579586

You can read the full letter here (pdf).

Elsewhere on Twitter this week, I think this might be my favorite 5G article ever:

A glimpse at some of Sprint’s fancy new antennas, courtesy of CTO John Saw:

Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure says he is feeling confident about Sprint’s 5G prospects after meetings in Korea. (I’ll believe it when I see it.)

Meanwhile, Ericsson touts new “Super Towers” that look a lot like mini-blimps, to be used for connecting rural areas with wireless broadband. Didn’t Google already do this with Project Loon balloons?

You know, when I saw pictures of a passenger drone from CES, I didn’t realize that these things were to the point of test-flights with actual people in China. The future is now, I guess.

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Kelly Hill reports on network test and measurement, AI infrastructure and regulatory issues, including spectrum, for RCR Wireless News. She began covering the wireless industry in 2005, focusing on carriers and MVNOs, then took a few years’ hiatus and returned to RCR Wireless News to write about heterogeneous networks (remember those?) and network infrastructure. Kelly is an Ohio native with a masters degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley, where she focused on science writing and multimedia. She has written for the San Francisco Chronicle, The Oregonian and The Canton Repository. She lives in northern Virginia, not far from Data Center Alley.

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