Searching Weekly Analysis
Searching Weekly Analysis
// M&A, Strategies, Alliances // STMicro has acquired Draupner Graphics, a GUI specialist that STMicro will use to extend its TouchGFX technologies, as it tries to boost the “HMI of Things” market. Aptiv is acquiring Winchester Connect from its Snow Phipps Group owners, for $650m. A maker of cable connecting designs, Aptiv plans to use it to expand its automotive range. Intel is acquiring eASIC, a company that specializes in structured ASIC chip designs, which are chips that sit somewhere between FPGAs and ASICs. TUS International has acquired Telit’s automotive chip business for $105m, with Telit now in the process of separating the auto wing from its core industrial portfolio. Nice has acquired Fibaro, a Polish smart home device developer…
A statement put out this week by Liberty Global, saying it has shifted 10m of its DOCSIS 3.0 Connect Box devices, is somewhat perplexing. It’s a bit like saying you have just painted the George Washington Bridge – which means only that it is time to begin back at the other end and paint it again. Most advanced cablecos are moving on from DOCSIS 3.0 to 3.1, so Liberty seems to be boasting about a defunct device – and yet it is actually prolonging the life of these routers with some clever WiFi. Liberty Global has about 15m broadband customers – more if you count its majority stake in Ziggo in the Netherlands – and this is tantamount to saying…
Backstabbing and U-turns have been common within the satellite community, especially when it comes to the sensitive subject of C-band spectrum, and how this could be shared with cellular operators. Last week, the World Broadcasting Unions (WBU) described the scenario which will ensue from the sale of spectrum to cellular players as “chaos”. The US regulator, the FCC, is currently in the process of digesting plans to reallocate C-band frequencies, in the 3.7 GHz to 4.2 GHz range, where hundreds of thousands of fixed satellite service (FSS) downlink sites operate. Some satellite fleet operators are preparing to cash in, with the spectrum proposed for 5G valued in the billions of dollars, but there is still concern that MNOs will eat…
Baidu has picked the Responsibility Sensitive Safety (RSS) model from Intel subsidiary Mobileye for its open source Apollo platform, which the Chinese web giant is pushing as a standard approach for autonomous cars. Baidu is also going to use Mobileye for its self-driving system, which it plans to sell to Chinese OEMs, for use in the country. This looks like a good early win for Intel, but Apollo itself still hasn’t caught on like wildfire. Baidu claims that there are 116 global partners in the Apollo program, and these do include many of the major auto makers. But we’ve yet to see one of these car companies announce that they are going to use Apollo as the basis of at…
One of the key drivers for many operators to virtualize their networks is to break out of vendor lock-ins and assemble an open supplier ecosystem. However, supporting virtual network functions (VNFs) from multiple vendors can be as challenging as it was in the physical network, even if the point of lock-in has moved from the equipment itself to the APIs and orchestrators that will enable VNFs to work together. However, a few operators are really driving progress in this area, and the latest is Deutsche Telekom. The German operator has worked with HPE to deploy the first proof of concept (PoC) of a network data layer (NDL), which can integrate VNFs from different vendors on the same cloud infrastructure. This…
There was a brief moment of hope that a deal between US mobile operators and the city of San Jose, regarding access to sites for small cells, would provide a template for the whole nation. That would have helped turn the FCC’s dream of a uniform national process for densification into workable reality, and suggested a pragmatic solution to the main barrier to large-scale deployment of outdoor small cells – affordable access to sites and backhaul. But days after Verizon and AT&T celebrated the San Jose agreement, and just ahead of new legislation being presented to Congress, the battles have broken out again, threatening to derail an essential element of the USA’s progress to 5G. Outdoor small cells have been…
Large industries want to take an active role in shaping 5G platforms and even building and running networks, to ensure 5G meets their requirements, not just those of mobile operators. This is providing new opportunities for equipment vendors to look beyond their core customer bases, and China is perhaps the most fertile ground. Nokia has grasped the chance, offering bold platforms and partnerships which have enabled it to secure a highly strategic 5G partnership, focused on vertical markets, with Chinese web giant Tencent. Coupled with new, more conventional contracts with China Mobile, the Finnish firm is showing how a flexible platform and an innovative approach to partnerships can help it overcome the home advantage of Huawei. A new approach to…
Eutelsat has joined in with Intelsat and SES agreeing terms under which they would allow C-band spectrum to be used in the US. The proposal establishes a commercial and technical framework to enable MNOs to access spectrum in the 3,700 to 4,200 MHz bands for 5G. A consortium is to be set up to oversee the governance of the initiative and to define and implement a methodology for spectrum clearance. The FCC is preparing a rulemaking statement later this month. With these three onboard, it is now likely to go ahead. Tribune Broadcasting has announced a partnership over programmatic and addressable advertising with WideOrbit and its Open Marketplace to allow advertisers to review and order spots on Tribune’s 42 TV…
Early usage data from Com Hem shows customers of its new TV Hub, based on Android TV operator tier, are engaging with the extra features and additional content – showing strong initial interest from both its core Com Hem base and Boxer DTT subsidiary. Sweden’s Com Hem has meticulously built up a reputation as a connoisseur of cable – delivering broadband and TV experiences other European operators aren’t even close to matching. On the surface, TV Hub doesn’t seem like anything particularly special, so does Com Hem have a secret to success or is this simply the Android TV effect? TV Hub is also another representation of the demise of TiVo’s hardware business, but that’s a story for another day.…
Is another European OTT video platform about to crash out of the market in a blaze of premature glory? France’s Molotov has repeatedly tried and failed to cobble enough cash together to keep the ship afloat – now it might be on the cusp of a rescue mission headed up by Orange. After officially launching in 2016 and quickly securing a €4 million investment from UK operator Sky, followed by French TV technology vendor TDF purchasing an undisclosed minority stake, Molotov was tipped to be a disruptor in the French video space. Despite reaching a respectable 5 million active users, profitability remains out of reach for Molotov, which is valuing itself at €100 million – a figure deemed much too…
It is common practice for streaming services to reduce bit rate at points and times of congestion to avoid buffering, but this can defeat the object of improving the overall viewing experience, according to CDN provider Akamai. Service providers tend to regard lowering the bit rate temporarily to sacrifice some picture resolution as a lesser evil than buffering, which turns viewers off quickly and is a major cause of churn in OTT. But excessive use of bit rate reduction means that viewers expecting say HD quality are often having to make do with SD or even worse for a significant proportion of the running time. This too can provoke churn even if it is more of a slow burn, especially…
The new name and working brand for the Ericsson Media Solutions division which got spun out back in February is MediaKind. We will try ourselves to be kind, but it’s tough after years of mismanagement, failure to complete, and playing second fiddle to its mobile business – there is little good that we can say. We have requested an interview, but since we were specifically not invited to the launch, it is unlikely we will receive one. The nicest thing we can say is that many of the new management team are new to us, which may mean that lots of old-timers have stayed with Ericsson or retired and a new batch of in-house managers have come through. They cannot…
Smart metering challenger CyanConnode has launched its new Omnimesh offering, part of its Omni IoT Platform, hoping to use its narrowband 6LoWPAN mesh protocol to win deals with utilities looking to deploy smart meters – tempting them away from the likes of LoRa, cellular (LTE Cat-M1, Cat-M2, Cat-NB1, and Cat-NB2), and even fellow utility specialist Wi-SUN. There is still a huge amount of business up for grabs, and the market is certainly not entrenched yet. While Wi-SUN is the most obvious standard for this industry (Weightless is a long-shot to re-emerge), the licensed cellular vendors will be looking to win large deals. RF technologies, like CyanConnode’s and Sensus’ are other options, as are the unlicensed LPWAN options from Sigfox, LoRa,…
As artificial intelligence (AI) moves towards the mainstream for telecoms network optimization, one of ETSI’s activities in this area has defined some detailed use cases across the network lifecycle from planning to optimization to predictive analytics. The Industry Specification Group (ISG) was set up in October 2017 under the label ‘Experiential Networked Intelligence’ (ENI). It defines ‘experiential’ as a method to “observe and learn from the experience an operator has in managing the network, to improve its understanding of the operator experience, over time.” In other words, AI and machine learning will help the network to learn what impacts on user experience, positively or negatively, and feed that understanding into decisions, to make them more automated and better aligned to…
Chinese web titan Baidu has picked Intel to provide the Mobileye Responsibility Sensitive Safety (RSS) model for Baidu’s open source Apollo platform, which Baidu is pushing as a standard approach for autonomous cars. Baidu is also going to use Mobileye for its self-driving system, which it plans to sell to Chinese OEMs, for use in China. This looks like a good early win for Intel, but Apollo itself still hasn’t caught on like wildfire. Baidu claims that there are 116 global partners in the Apollo program, and sure, there are a lot of the major automakers. But we’ve yet to see one of these car companies announce that they are going to use Apollo as the basis of their next…
Backstabbing and U-turning have been common themes among the satellite community, encapsulating the state of disarray which has engulfed companies once so powerful. This week, the World Broadcasting Unions (WBU) touched on the sensitive C-band subject – describing the scenario which will ensue from the sale of spectrum to cellular players as “chaos”. As we know, the FCC is currently in the process of digesting plans to reallocate C-band frequencies, in the 3.7 GHz to 4.2 GHz range, where hundreds of thousands of C-band fixed satellite services (FSS) downlink sites operate – as satellite fleet operators prepare to cash in. The impending reality for satellite firms outside the US is that, eventually, copycat situations will arise, while in the US,…
The first half of 2018 was a period in which European broadcasters decided to fight back. Here at Faultline Online Reporter, we have been openly critical concerning the various anti-Netflix initiatives announced across the continent’s major economies in recent months, now ZDF has decided to approach the situation in a rather efficient German manner – by asking the Federal Cartel Office if conditions for a joint OTT platform have somehow changed. ZDF’s call for clarity implies a zero-tolerance strategy in terms of potential stumbling blocks in executing a successful OTT project – and the broadcaster certainly doesn’t plan on allowing regulators to get in its way as the Federal Office has historically. It was ZDF’s General Director Dr Thomas Bellut,…
One of the interesting facets of the 5G era is the way major mobile operators are seeking to wrest control back from the incumbent vendors. It is reminiscent of an earlier age of telecoms, when operators like AT&T and the European and Japanese incumbents designed their own technology, right down to telephones. As the industry developed, most MNOs discarded significant homegrown development of networks and devices (with a few exceptions like NTT Docomo). Some still invested heavily in R&D in order to help shape the future of their services – the UK’s BT is a good example – but at the commercial stage, they turned to their vendors to deliver the equipment. As the vendors have consolidated, operators have increasingly…