Searching Weekly Analysis
Searching Weekly Analysis
T-Mobile has gone live with the first phase of its 5G NR Standalone (SA) network, which relies on a full 5G core. This is the first in the USA and one of the first in the world, though Telstra, China Mobile and others have also switched on some commercial SA elements. By deploying SA in its 600 MHz spectrum, TMO has expanded its 5G reach by 30% and its footprint now covers nearly 250m people in more than 7,500 markets across 1.3m square miles, according to the operator. Verizon has remained focused, so far, on fixed wireless and on a targeted build-out in millimeter wave. It will implement dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS) from later this year, which will enable it…
Rumors that the USA’s graphics processing unit (GPU) giant Nvidia might buy ARM from Softbank appear to be more than idle gossip during the silly season. According to Bloomberg sources, Nvidia has entered “advanced talks” to buy ARM, which dominates mobile processor IP and is building strength in cloud infrastructure and IoT controllers. That would appear, at first, to be a major step forward for the USA’s national goal of reinvigorating its homegrown hi-tech ecosystem, especially in 5G. Japan is another country which is trying to create a Japan-first 5G industry, and to take advantage of suspicion in some markets about Chinese equipment – so the loss of ARM would be seen as a negative there. However, after a disastrous…
Dish Network remains something of an enigma in the US 5G landscape. The pay-TV company has the potential to be a very disruptive force, taking share from the big three MNOs and, perhaps, supporting B2B services in a neutral host way. In particular, since its greenfield status is allowing it to build a cloud-native network from day one, it could leapfrog the incumbents both in deploying 5G NR Standalone and a 5G core, and in supporting large numbers of enterprises and private networks via slicing. All that could broaden the choice of services for many users in the USA, and help Dish to rebuild its revenues despite the threatened collapse of its core satellite TV business. That is the positive…
The debates and disputes over the USA’s CBRS band, in the 3550-3700 MHz range, have raged for so long that it seemed the dreams of unlocking this attractive piece of midband spectrum for a wide range of services providers would wither through sheer weariness. But the three-tiered system that the FCC finally agreed with a huge number of stakeholders is genuinely innovative, if over-complicated, and is being closely studied by regulators and industries round the world. If it is a success in the USA, we are sure to see governments elsewhere emboldened to try something similar. To demonstrate the appetite for midband 5G spectrum, the auction of the licensed elements of CBRS, the priority access licences (PALs), reached bids of…
There has been a very clear opportunity for operators to expand their triple and quad play offerings by implementing a smart home service, for quite a few years now. Despite this, Amazon and Google waded in and created a consumer duopoly, chiefly because interoperability was a problem they could solve in their gigantic cloud environments. For the service providers, with their legacy CPE decisions, multivendor deployments, and general poor track record on technological overhauls, the smart home has appeared daunting. They don’t have a voice processing platform than can solve user experience problems, and can’t subsidize that cost via retail or advertising revenues, in the same way that Amazon and Google can. So, the providers have collectively stayed out of…
Worth Noting: Round-up of highlights from the week’s news Vodafone to build UK 5G private network for gas utility Vodafone has won a contract to deploy a private 5G network for a gas plant in the UK run by utility Centrica. The network will support near real-time monitoring of processes within the plant, allowing for automation of many critical maintenance operations. It will also help improve safety for staff, who will be connected to the network and instantly alerted to any equipment failures, as well as potentially harmful gas leaks. This follows the June 2020 announcement that Vodafone Business was installing a 5G private mobile network for carmaker Ford to accelerate production of electric vehicle batteries. Huawei set to increase…
Startup Verkor has announced it is planning to establish a $1.9 billion, 16 GWh battery-cell factory in France. It is now seeking funding and a suitable 200-hectare site, but plans to have the factory running by 2023. Later, the factory could be scaled up to 50 GWh in accordance with market forces. Verkor’s partners are Schneider Electric, EIT InnoEnergy, and the Groupe IDEC. Schneider deals in energy management and automation, EIT InnoEnergy uses its investment to support both startups and research, while Groupe IDEC is a turnkey developer of logistical projects. EIT InnoEnergy is also a supporter of Northvolt’s factories. Europe’s current demand is not met by its production, let alone future demand: Chinese, Japanese and South Korean imports dominate.…
The Ministry of Ecological Transition in Spain has opened a consultation period for its hydrogen roadmap, with suggestions to plough €8.9 billion into the development of green hydrogen and a heavy focus on transport. The plan, entitled Hoja de Ruta del Hidrogeno: una apuesta por el hidrogeno renovable outlines 57 measures to be implemented by 2030 across four primary areas of activity, including regulatory measures and guarantees of origin. Consultation regarding these measures will last from now until September 11. With the objective of reducing around 2% of Spain’s CO2 emissions between 2020 and 2030 to the tune of 4.6 Megatons, the plan sets out a goal to have 4 GW of electrolyzers in place by the end of the…
BP’s transformation has started. After months of hearsay, the company’s disastrous financial quarter has acted as a catalyst in producing its new strategy, which finally sets out targets which will see a material transition away from the oil major model that it coined 110 years ago. Financial losses for Q2 2020 came to the tune of $16.8 billion, incorporating some $9.2 billion in post-tax impairments following the company’s revaluation of its oil and gas assets back in June. While this write-down figure is lower than the $13 to $17.5 billion range that the company expected, this is overshadowed by the comparison to the same quarter last year, when BP posted a net profit of $1.8 billion. As discussed last week,…
In response to 2020’s on-demand streaming surge, MediaKind has expanded its Aquila product line with the addition of Aquila On-Demand, doing exactly what it says on the tin – handling encoding, processing, packaging and delivery of file-based video over any network to any device. MediaKind mentions multi-codec support, and the inclusion of its Constant Video Quality (QVC) technology, allowing operators to ensure broadcast quality content with minimal bandwidth disruptions. This all sounds a little old hat to us, adding capabilities which should be par for the course when purchasing the services of a company of MediaKind’s stature. Discovery reported a dismal second quarter, with revenues tumbling 12% to $2.54 billion and net income falling 71% to $271 million. The 2020…
There has been a very clear opportunity for CSPs to expand their triple and quad play offerings by implementing a smart home service, for quite a few years now. Despite this, Amazon and Google waddled in and created a consumer duopoly, chiefly because interoperability was a problem they could solve in their gigantic cloud environments. For the CSPs, with their legacy CPE decisions, multi-vendor deployments, and general poor track record on technological overhauls, the smart home has appeared daunting. They don’t have a voice-processing platform than can solve user-experience problems, and can’t subsidize that cost via retail or advertising revenues, in the same way that Amazon and Google can. So, the CSPs have collectively stayed out of this game, and…
Like telecoms equipment vendors, the webscalers face a double challenge – identifying growth regions as their core markets get more saturated and replicating their model effectively; while seeing some opportunities being constricted by geopolitic and recession. Of the famed BRIC (Brazil Russia India and China) economies, which were meant to deliver huge growth for ICT in the first quarter of the twenty-first century, China is increasingly closed to US providers, and Brazil and Russia are hit by economic meltdown and isolationist politics. That leaves India – certainly badly affected by the pandemic, and with its own brand of populist government, but still open for business and keen to stimulate its economy and its hi-tech ecosystem with help and money from…
We see a lot of boneless press releases turn up in our inboxes at Faultline, most of which are instantly swept off to the trash can. Yet sometimes we are faced with something so bizarre that it’s worth a rant. This week’s monstrosity was a curious non-announcement from Washington-based dynamic digital ad insertion (DDAI) and proprietary cable processing software firm, Adaptive Ad Systems (AAS). In a most unflattering pitch, the company is trying its best to deny the realities of cord cutting with trivial statistics on a surge in cable news ratings. As a vendor for local cable in the US, AAS is certainly harboring a vested interest or two. The whole tone of the press release tries to insinuate…
One snippet from last week’s Worth Noting section about the UK following the US lead into opening 6GHz unlicensed spectrum for WiFi brought one name to mind, and one name only – Verizon. As a vocal thorn in the side of WiFi operating in 6GHz, we pondered how the wireless giant might inspire copycat acts of opposition elsewhere as countries follow suit, but dismissed this notion on the basis that the telco’s complaints appeared dead and buried months after the FCC approved the major WiFi expansion effort. It was only fitting then that days later, Verizon’s baseless case reappeared in our inbox in the form of a petition for the FCC to reconsider its opposition to 6GHz WiFi, in a…
Avanci launches 5G automotive licensing program Avanci, billed as a one stop shop for licensing critical patents needed for deployment of cellular services around the IoT, has launched a program dedicated to the automotive sector. As part of Avanci’s new 5G IoT platform, this will enable patent owners to share 5G standard essential wireless patents in a single license with relevant companies in the automotive value chain. The 5G platform builds on the existing Avanci marketplace, which licenses the majority of essential cellular 2G, 3G, and 4G patents under a single licensing agreement at fixed rates. Avanci now claims to be the go-to global licensing platform for connected vehicles and other IoT devices, spanning 38 patent owners and with 14 automotive brands as…
A dozen contenders are lined up to bid for a 40% stake in Ethiopia’s state-owned monopoly, Ethio Telecom, or for two new mobile licences. The opening up of the mobile market, along with the award of new DTH (direct to home) TV operating licences, is urgently needed in this country. It is a heavily mobile-first market, yet one with low mobile broadband penetration. The arrival of Orange, or any one of the rumored parties bidding for a stake in Ethio Telecom, could bring transformative change to the entire country. The de-privatization of Ethio and subsequent expansion of network infrastructure will encourage innovation that has long been stifled in the country by monopolistic practices. This will be more important in the…
As we have argued before, timing is all, and it’s a frustrating issue both for large MNOs and for the open RAN community. The escalation of the US-China tensions and the consequent sanctions against Huawei have turned the operators’ perennial grumbles about vendor lock-in into a matter of urgency. Yet while an open, disaggregated, multivendor architecture would clearly help to make lock-in and expensive rip-and-replace processes things of the past, the platforms that are being developed remain too immature to be deployed in primary macro networks, as a replacement for Huawei or anyone else, in the short term. Greenfield networks, and secondary build-outs indoors or at the edge, are a different matter, and there, many of the emerging open technologies…
Reliance Jio of India and Japan’s Rakuten are often bracketed together, because they are both highly disruptive mobile new entrants; they are both looking to develop their own 5G platforms, or at least assemble them from many partners’ components; they even have the common link of Tareq Amin, who headed technology strategy at Jio before moving to Rakuten. But while both are having a heavy influence on vendors and fellow operators – especially other new mobile players like Dish in the USA and Germany’s Drillisch – their similarities are otherwise superficial. Rakuten is an Internet services giant looking to have better control of the platforms and connectivity that will enhance the reach of its core business and drive uptake of…
The physical SIM has been a long time dying as instead it has shrunk in size from standard to micro and then the nanoSIM, widely employed on smartphones today. The next step is now coming as smartphone makers embed the device permanently on their circuit boards as embedded SIM (eSIM), but the ultimate move will be integration into the SoC (system-on-chip), where it will share residency with the device operating system and apps. The slow progress reflects inertia across the value chain and reluctance by operators to abandon a model that enforces a certain degree of lock-in, given the need to obtain a porting authorization code (PAC) code from the existing provider when changing to a new one. With the…
One of the flies in the ointment for Google, in terms of its plans for mobile world domination via Android, has been the fragmentation of the user experience. It has repeatedly tried to unify this, to improve quality control, to provide predictability for users and developers, and to insist on a platform that is optimal for its services and the way it believes people should use the mobile Internet. But while it has imposed some uniformities, at least on any partner which wants to enable the core Google services on the open source operating system, the largest Android device makers have still gone their own way in terms of the user experience. Huawei, which (despite its challenges) overtook Samsung as…