Searching Weekly Analysis
Searching Weekly Analysis
The Japanese government has announced a $110 million fund that will support two hydrogen research projects aimed at fuel cell propulsion system development that can advance hydrogen aviation. Rethink has already identified Japan as one of the most promising markets for low-carbon aviation due to the country’s size and number of domestic flights, and in this article we will quantify this potential against the present day fleets and routes. Japan also has an active, broader program worth $33 billion aimed at the wider low-carbon aviation sector. One of the two new research projects targets the development of a 4 MW propulsion system fueled by liquid hydrogen for regional aviation by 2029 (led by conglomerate IHI with support from Toray Industries…
M&A, IP, Patents Malaysian operator Axiata is selling its Myanmar operations, an 87.5% share in Edotco Investments Singapore, for MYR 713 million ($150 million). Ooredoo and Telenor have also left Myanmar, which is in a civil war. PTCL has landed $400 million in funds from the World Bank’s investment arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), to buy Telenor’s local unit, Telenor Pakistan. ETSI has released the final set of the Phase 3 specifications of its multi-access edge computing specifications, and started Phase 4. “This work is critical for supporting the requirements from GSMA OPG (Operator Platform Group) to enable inter-MEC system communication and allow 5G operators to collaborate among themselves, with service cloud providers and with other stakeholders,” ETSI said.…
The breathless pace of hardware-related AI developments at the top level continues amid a slew of collaborative announcements among nations and big tech companies. The unifying theme is a determination or desperation to be at the forefront of what is seen as the major frontier in ICT over the next decade, and also recognition that this requires heavy investment in semiconductor design and fabrication. All the principal nations or blocs, notably the USA, Japan, EU, China, India and South Korea, have unveiled major commitments or investments recently around semiconductor development increasingly slanted towards AI, mostly involving collaboration with big tech companies. This is happening against a background of onshoring semiconductor design and especially foundry capability, accelerated by the supply chain…
Smartphone batteries could last up to 50% longer if MNOs built more towers, claims a new report from. The second claim is that this densification would also improve the energy use of the network by 66%. A team of researchers from the University of California, modeled what would happen if larger base stations were replaced with multiple smaller ones – to counter the wasted signals that are lost to absorption, reflection, and scattering. Academic studies are often leapt upon by those in the industry, and roundly criticized for not being grounded in commercial reality. The findings from this report suggest that accelerating densification via small cells should be an environmental priority, but those who are responsible for siting such new…
It is the Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance’s (NGMN) raison d’être to encourage the development of sustainable, open, disaggregated, and virtualized networks. The latest report in the Green Future Networks sequence addresses energy efficiency in virtualized networks and how to measure it. Future networks, at the heart of the NGMN, will enable features beyond high speeds and reliable coverage. They will support numerous systems including public safety, automotive, drones, factories of the future, and the IoT. Radio access networks will be the center of these varied systems, and their performance, capacity, and energy efficiency will be paramount. In addition, the drive for companies to report their Scope 3 emissions (those indirect ‘value chain’ emissions created by their suppliers and customers)…
Qualcomm set out to elevate WiFi in the pantheon of IoT, at the Embedded World trade show in Germany earlier this month, with a pitch for both low and mid-tier applications. This was in stark contrast to Embedded World 2023 where Qualcomm made a splash with its claimed first integrated 5G IoT processors to support four major platforms – Android, Linux, Ubuntu (specifically), and Microsoft Windows IoT Enterprise. This time the biggest splash was made at the opposite end of the IoT pool with its so-called micro-power QCC730 WiFi System-on-Chip (SoC) for battery-powered IoT devices. The key benefit of the QCC730 is a claimed 88% reduction in power consumption compared with previous generations of Qualcomm WiFi chips, according to the…
The next two years will see major decisions made at MNOs, regarding their interest in providing 5G-based broadcast services for TV. The 5G Broadcast option is essentially a non-MNO option, but the upcoming 5G Multicast-Broadcast Services (MBS), due to arrive in 3GPP Release 18, provide a disruptive opportunity – potentially displacing the currently-favored ATSC approach. One of the largest trade shows for the video industry is underway, in Las Vegas, and our sister service Faultline is in attendance. NAB Show will see a raft of news, on this front, but there were a few moves made in advance. Prior to Faultline’s scheduled whistlestop tour of the ATSC pavilion at NAB Show 2024, some stones need to be unturned, following a…
Visitors either to the recent Embedded World trade show in Germany, or MWC 2024 in Barcelona over a month earlier, might at first have been disappointed over the lack of 5G in healthcare on display. But there is plenty going on elsewhere, with 5G leading major advances on several medical fronts, especially robotic surgery, training, and diagnostics. Now, the remote-controlled surgery robot example has been much maligned, as evidence that the MNOs had no idea how 5G was actually going to be used – seizing on this shiny new capability as a realistic driver of new revenues. Expectations, thankfully, have been readjusted, in the years since. For tangible progress, however, there are ongoing programs, such as the Franco-German 5G-OR demonstration project,…
Rumors are swirling that the Chinese state is planning to pass legislation that will eventually block the use of AMD and Intel chips in the country’s mobile networks. Retaliatory trade embargos are hardly surprising, but if China is planning on using home-grown replacements, it will have to ensure there is sufficient time in that roadmap to play catch-up. It is inconsistent that Nvidia has not apparently been targeted, but this could be explained by a focus on x86 CPU offerings – rather than the GPUs that Nvidia specializes in. The country has a number of x86 options, but the reported 2027 deadline is somewhat optimistic. Zhaoxin, a Chinese CPU vendor, is generally thought to be capable of performance at least…
There is plenty of room in the market for vendors serving the demand for private cellular networks, particularly in the wake of Open RAN hype. CableFree is one of them, and has plans to now target the MNO opportunity. Founder and CEO Stephen Patrick said that the UK-based firm had been investing heavily in 4G and 5G over the past five years – now serving customers in 90 countries, while being privately owned and profitable. “We’re told we’re the provider of the most UK-made 5G radios, and the number-three provider of European radios,” said Patrick. “We’re a product-first company, but we do have some software and services too. We work with resellers and integrators for a global reach, and as…
Five years ago this week… Haivision stole the 2019 NAB Show with the launch of its media cloud routing service SRTHub, which enabled low latency live streaming and fast file transfer – using the Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) protocol running on Microsoft Azure – by routing media from IoT-connected video encoders to production facilities. Streamlined field contribution reduces complexity and shortens time-to-air for breaking news and live events – thereby bringing live video contribution, production and distribution workflows to broadcasters globally through a secure and reliable architecture. Faultline later stated that Haivision’s release of the product some two years after it was open-sourced by the SRT Alliance was a masterstroke of timing. Bitmovin has a big pre-NAB teaser announcement…
With everyone and their dog at NAB Show 2024 expected to be peddling some form of artificial intelligence product or integration, one pre-show announcement to catch our eye comes from a previously unknown source – a German interactive video platform called MuseMe which is launching its first product at the show. MuseMe is pitched as allowing the creation of fully interactive objects throughout any video – making use of AI object detection to identify, mask and label objects within videos, making them clickable for the viewer. This debut product is a free VoD platform designed to make any YouTube video interactive. A Vision Pro demonstration is expected at NAB, and MuseMe says it will soon launch a beta for its…
Recognizing elements within video files, creating associated metadata, and thus indexing, are all workloads that have been revolutionized by developments in artificial intelligence (AI), although the advent of AI in these fields is still relatively nascent. That is partly why vendors in this sector all allege, in one way or another in pre-NAB 2024 marketing, that automating such feats was impossible before the launch of this new breed of AI-powered products. From the chaos of the Faultline inbox, we count at least four offerings in video recognition and indexing from competing vendors that will be fighting over the same turf. First, French vendor Moments Lab, freshly rebranded from its original Newsbridge moniker, will be showcasing an upgrade to its multimodal…
Prior to Faultline’s scheduled whistlestop tour of the ATSC pavilion at NAB Show 2024, some stones need to be unturned, following a slate of product updates around ATSC 3.0 – the crestfallen hybrid NextGen TV ecosystem which could finally be coming of age. At this year’s flagship industry event, ATSC’s strapline for visitors is that there are now 8 countries actively deploying, planning launches, or experimenting with ATSC 3.0 broadcast technologies – representing over a billion viewers. This statement is a little misleading, given that the situation with ATSC 3.0 in India is a mess, while Canada and Mexico are both at isolated incubation stages of testing ATSC 3.0. Brazil’s forthcoming TV 3.0 DTT project has indeed selected elements of…
A suitable primer ahead of NAB Show 2024 is news that the Via LA video codec patent pool is extending its HEVC Program to include the VVC (H.266) standard – making it easier for licensees to adopt both HEVC and VVC in a single license. This sees Via LA (formerly MPEG LA) take a leaf from the book of Avanci Video, the breakaway patent pool launched in Q4 2023 with a multi-codec license structure which received plaudits. Faultline said at the time how content providers will increasingly adopt multiple video codecs to increase reach and improve efficiency, aided by the simplicity and conveniency of one-stop shop codec licenses. This is particularly pertinent for pure play streaming companies, which until recently…
With days until the doors open on NAB Show 2024, Harmonic has confirmed that its video business will not be sold to lowball offers from private equity firms, following a drawn-out strategic review process that began in October 2023. Preempting much speculation in Las Vegas next week, Harmonic is all business-as-usual, marketing its video products and striking partnership announcements as if this were just another tradeshow. This comes after the US video and broadband technology vendor gave a predictable statement about its commitment to driving future profitability for the struggling video business unit, focused on streamlining operations and optimizing cost structure. This is of course code for cuts aplenty, but those associated with the Harmonic video segment may find solace…
China’s Aluminum Corp (Chalco) – the country’s greatest producer and consumer of aluminum – has announced that its decision to source a majority of its bauxite feedstock from Guinea has opened it up to significant supply risk from the country as it continues to suffer from strikes affecting the mining industry. 2023 saw China import 70% of its bauxite ore from the country, followed distantly by Australia at 24%, while the remaining 6% came from other countries. Aluminum demand is set to continue to increase year-over-year (YoY) due to the energy transition, as technologies like electric vehicles and wind turbines use significant amounts of aluminum due to the need to lighten vehicle bodies to account for heavy batteries. Aluminum is…
The US Department of Energy has allocated $1.52 billion to support the reopening of the 805 MW Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan. This would be something of a first – a ‘completely’ shuttered nuclear plant being reopened. But it’s easier than it would normally be in this case because the owner, Holtec Decommissioning International, always had the idea to reopen the plant in mind, and therefore never stopped certain categories of maintenance. Even a ‘recommissioning’ will involve starting almost from scratch in many ways – hiring or rehiring hundreds of professionals, and replacing and renovating extensive amounts of equipment – so it’s just as well they have a $1.5 billion federal fund to work with, not to mention $300 million…
M&A, IP, Patents Keysight Technologies hasoutbid Viavi Solutions to buy Spirent Communications for about £1.16 billion pounds ($1.46 billion), after an earlier agreement was reached between Viavi and Spirent. The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has opened an in-depth investigationinto the proposed merger of Vodafone Group and Three Mobile. The deadline is September 18. NJJ Holding, controlled by billionaire Xavier Niel, is close to securing authorization to acquire Datagroup-Volia and Lifecell, the number one and three MNOs in Ukraine. NJJ plans to merge them together. No price has been given. Financials Ericsson will cut 1,200 jobs in Sweden, following a huge loss of 9,000 jobs in 2023. The latest downsizing equates to 9% of Ericsson’s workforce in Sweden. Airspan has filed for…
Sweden’s Telia has boosted its efforts to tackle the most significant sustainability goal – Scope 3 emissions – and other European telcos have opened up about the extent of their supply chain emissions. This is all welcome news, given the vague sustainability commitments from many mobile network operators. The project of meeting net zero goals for any large corporation could be likened to climbing Mount Everest – you start the project with some enjoyable hiking and hill-training, but eventually you will have to put on an oxygen mask and attempt the great unknown. The first stages of the exercise are manageable, that is reducing emissions within the Scope 1 and 2 range, but by far the greatest portion of the…