Searching Weekly Analysis
Searching Weekly Analysis
The future for Italian incumbent Telecom Italia (TIM) remains uncertain, at a crucial time when the new mobile entrant, Iliad, has succeeded in capturing 2.2% of the market in just one quarter of operation. The largest shareholder in TIM, Vivendi of France, had proposed spinning off the telco’s network operations into a separate subsidiary, but this was rejected by regulator AGCOM. This provoked an angry reaction from TIM’s activist investor and second biggest shareholder, Elliott. “The decisions taken by the previous Vivendi-dominated board…have resulted in a year of value destruction and time wasted at the expense of TIM, its shareholders and the entire country,” an Elliott spokesperson told TelecomTV. Early last year, Vivendi executive and then-TIM CEO, Amos Genish, suggested…
Pressures mount on Huawei as more western countries follow the USA’s lead and call for sanctions or bans. Some operators, most recently Vodafone Group, are also succumbing to government pressure or their own nerves and backing away from the Chinese giant, even though they have been vocal about the risks to their 5G business case if they have only three effective network suppliers to choose from (Nokia, Ericsson and Samsung, if both Huawei and ZTE are blacklisted). Until last week, Huawei senior executives were still taking an upbeat tone even as they repeatedly denied allegations ranging from spying to breaking trade sanctions to stealing industrial secrets. But now the company has warned of job cuts and possible exits from some…
The WiFi versus 3GPP topic is one that never goes away. Even when a cooperation between the two ecosystems is announced – like this week’s far-reaching joint white paper issued by the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) and Next Generation Mobile Network (NGMN) Alliance – it only serves to highlight the long line of wasted opportunities to bring the two main wireless platforms closer together. The debate has gained new life from the similar timings of the newest round of standards. Will WiFi 6 (based on the IEEE’s 802.11ax specifications) make 5G New Radio redundant? Or will 5G cover so many bases that it will squeeze WiFi into a small corner, especially when an unlicensed spectrum version appears? Of course, neither…
TomTom is offloading its telematics and fleet management division to Bridgestone, the world’s largest tire manufacturer, for just over $1bn (€910mn) The move comes as TomTom tries to shift its focus to digital maps, location services, and the high-definition maps needed for self-driving vehicles. This is to catch up to and counter the progress of Here, as well as Waymo. Based in Japan, Bridgestone says it plans to use the data generated by the 861,000 vehicles (49,000 customers, 200mn datapoints daily) monitored by the new purchase, to improve its product development and maintenance systems. The telematics wing accounted for 18% of TomTom’s 2017 revenue, employing 670 staff, and the company had floated the idea of selling Telematics a few months…
An influx of reports and statistics have half-filled the post-CES void this week, selling visions of splendor for 2019 by breaking down the various milestones achieved in video and network technologies last year. A couple of reports covering broadband connectivity piqued our interest, most notably one investigating the convergence of WiFi and 5G – tipped to be one of THE defining trends to come this year. Wireless industry bodies the NGMN (Next Generation Mobile Networks) and Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) have published a joint report identifying a number of potential use cases for a converged connected world. Their big claim is that convergence at the network level between 5G and WiFi, with each radio access network (RAN) bringing unique and…
“The kinship – like it or not – that streamers and broadcasters share is at the core of this year’s report,” was not an opening gambit we expected upon opening up another State of the Broadcast Industry report from OTT video technology vendor Ooyala, and the surprise was followed by some interesting insights from a firm which has had to undergo its fair share of shape shifting in recent times. Faultline Online Reporter doesn’t often see eye to eye with vendor-written reports, those often guilty of blatant propaganda and wince-inducing figure-twisting, so it was also a pleasant surprise to see Ooyala agree with a big statement we made in 2018 – debunking the myth of saturation in the streaming market.…
Something strange is brewing in India. You may have seen reports surfacing from Asia Pacific this week concerning a number of OTT video service providers coming together to sign a self-regulated content agreement – essentially a private censorship reform for which the group are now seeking government endorsement. Should a similar state of affairs occur in North America or Europe, there would be widespread outrage. Indeed, the US has the unraveling of net neutrality while Europe has the controversial censorship reform Article 13, but neither threaten to apply the firm hand of restriction so heavily at the content level. Specifically, the Indian initiative outlines “best practice” for providers of OTT-delivered content, pertaining to the censorship of any religious blasphemy, promotion…
It transpires there was far more to SK Telecom’s investment in local over-the-top service Pooq earlier this month, as the Korean mobile giant followed up the initial news with plans to merge its own streaming service, Oksusu, with the broadcaster-run Pooq. Even one of the most technologically advanced operators on the planet isn’t immune to the Netflix effect and has been forced to take drastic measures. The announcement has openly admitted that the project’s entire essence boils down to combatting Netflix, with its extensive investments in local programming now irking the country’s largest players to the point of consolidation. But the bigger news is that a merged and soon to be rebranded Oksusu-Pooq is due to launch overseas later this…
A little over a year ago, the Zigbee Alliance joined with fellow IEEE 802.15.4 standards organization, The Thread Group in a demonstration of the former’s Dotdot application layer running on top of Thread’s networking stack. Now, the pair have announced the completion of Dotdot specification v1.0, and the new Dotdot over Thread certification program. It’s been both a fast and slow year in the smart home, so maybe now is the time that Dotdot and Thread carve out a slice of the marketplace. Apple joined Thread back in August, at the same time as the Zigbee Alliance was announcing it had passed the 500mn chips sold mark, and that it expected to account for 85% of 802.15.4 chip shipments – which…
Amazon AWS has taken a stake in an Israeli start-up, Wiliot, which makes wireless technology to track goods through the manufacturing process. Wiliot, which has bases in Israel, Germany and San Diego, USA, has closed a $30m Series B funding round, with other investors including Samsung Venture Investment and RFID maker Avery Dennison. The two-year-old company says its first product will be a battery-free Bluetooth sensor tag, which can be embedded into consumer goods or components during the production phase. These disposable tags will then allow real time tracking of the items throughout the manufacturing process, but other applications are envisaged, such as sticking disposable tags to clothes, enabling them to communicate with the washing machine and ensure the right…
Despite numerous complaints about Qualcomm’s patent licensing practices over the past decade, few have ever got to court, and the actual details of its famous, and closely guarded, business model remained shrouded in secrecy – until a string of antitrust probes in various countries, and the lawsuits filed by Apple, started to shine a light on its system. Nowhere has that been brighter than in an antitrust trial which got under way this month in Silicon Valley, close to Apple’s headquarters. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is hearing allegations about unfair business practices, which are exposing Qualcomm’s methods to the world. Among the alleged violations which the FTC is investigating are a “no licence, no chips” policy, refusal to…
Last year, there were hopes that the two major groups aiming to set the standard for management and orchestration (MANO) of virtualized networks would converge. However, this looks less likely as the company with the greatest power to drive a rapprochement, Telefónica, has gone very quiet on the subject, and is pushing ahead with testing solutions based on its preferred would-be standard, ETSI’s Open Source MANO (OSM). In the middle of 2018, the Spanish telco was dropping hints that it might also join the AT&T-initiated ONAP, hosted by the Linux Foundation, which would have been a big step towards the two groups defining ways to interoperate. Uncertainty over which route to take in the critical area of MANO, and fears…
News that AT&T and Nokia are working together on a key element of the emerging Open RAN (ORAN) platform is a sign that momentum is growing behind the move to break down the proprietary network architectures of the past – to the extent that one of the vendors which made its fortune from closed networks now feels compelled to support the open approach. The two companies are jointly developing a RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) for automatic optimization of the network. This will be open sourced within the broader ORAN platform and help to drive an interoperable ecosystem and a fully programmable mobile network. The deal follows only weeks after Nokia announced a similar collaboration with China Mobile. The telecoms network…
Japan’s IoT ecosystem is something of a kingdom unto itself, dominated by some pretty entrenched industrial corporations. However, there are quite a few companies supplying these giants with the skills and services needed to enter the IoT fray. Uhuru is one of these, and we spoke to Chief Strategy Officer Masamichi Tanaka, to get a rundown on how the application and development platform came into being. Founded twelve years ago, Uhuru began as a Salesforce implementation company, and grew to become one of the company’s main partners in Japan – specializing in CRM, marketing, and transformation projects. Around three years ago, a project with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries woke the company up to the potential for IoT application development services –…
Netflix’s VP of networks, Dave Temkin, poured cold water on the wave of edge computing enthusiasm when he said there was “no performance or cost benefit to be gained by a few milliseconds [of reduced latency]”. This would have come as a blow to many organizations which tout content delivery as the core use case for edge computing, especially when deployed by telcos. However, what such comments should really do is push all stakeholders to be more precise, and more realistic, in their claims. Video on demand does not need edge computing, especially when companies like Netflix have done a lot of work to mitigate the effects of latency on their user experience. Live streamed video, or content based on…
This horse has been beaten past death so much that it’s well on its way to ending up in a dodgy lasagne microwave dinner, but it is still disappointing to see that IoT security capabilities shows no real sign of improvement in the short-term. Two studies, from Gemalto and Trend Micro, illustrate the scale of the problem, and both come after CES highlighted just how many potentially vulnerable IoT gizmos are on their way to market. Gemalto’s State of IoT Security report found that companies do, thankfully, have an increased focus on IoT security. The headline figures are that spending on this has increased from 11% of the IoT budget in 2017 to 13% in 2018, with 90% of interviewed…