Searching Weekly Analysis
Searching Weekly Analysis
Over the course of two days, the talks and presentations at LPWA London led to a heap of interesting tidbits being disclosed, which we’ll now rattle through. However, we’re still waiting on the sort of scale that would irrevocably prove that the era of LPWAN has arrived. We’re still pre-hockey-stick, and again, are forced to say that it’s still around the corner – but slow and steady does win the race. That corner is at least closer than it has been in the past. Verizon is planning on launching NB-IoT by the end of the year, and pointed to its Skyward drone division as a promising endeavor – with a Sothern Californian electric utility using drones to replace the $900…
Verizon has scrapped plans to build a new live OTT video service, deciding instead to buddy up with a third-party OTT outfit, or perhaps even acquire one, as the US operator is focusing its efforts on 5G. “Our view is we should partner with those that are in the linear game. Let them be very good at what they do. We’ll add digital content to that mix and we’ll position ourselves for where we become more of an OTT video culture versus the linear model that we have today,” said Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam. Rumors have circulated that Verizon is looking to buy sports-centric streaming service fuboTV, which had an estimated 100,000 subscribers at the end of 2017, increasing monthly…
The ‘5G race’ between the USA’s biggest telcos is building up as both approach commercial launch of their fixed wireless access (FWA) services. There are some similarities in their tactics. Both are building advanced virtualized and software-defined platforms around their 5G radio plans, though AT&T’s has been more prominent in the industry at large. Both are starting with fixed services, which makes it easier to launch at a very early stage since there is no reliance on handset availability or the testing complexities of high mobility. Both are starting to densify their 4G networks to add capacity in non-5G areas. However, there are key differences. Verizon is first going with its semi-proprietary implementation and will migrate to full 3GPP 5G…
Not only do traditional pay TV operators face an uphill struggle to reduce churn and increase ARPU in suicidal synergy, but a report this week suggests investments to improve and modernize cable and satellite TV experiences are falling by the wayside. Slumping to an 11-year low, customer satisfaction for pay TV services has declined by 3.1% to an average score of 62 out of 100, according to the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) report. While satisfaction is a subjective business, it speaks volumes to compare an average score of 75 for video streaming services in 2018, which the ACSI has introduced for the first time in a tip of the hat to mobile-first video, and about time too. AT&T’s…
The Streaming Video Alliance (SVA) took its time to gain momentum since its foundation in November 2014, but has been boosted by Google’s recent joining and now numbers many big players among its members including AWS, Cisco, Comcast, Intel, Liberty Global, NBCUniversal, Nokia and Verizon. But it has still to land the other great tech players Apple, Netflix and Microsoft as well as Akamai and is currently courting some of them along with content firms CBS Interactive, Sony’s PlayStation Vue, Hulu and HBO among others. Given that many of these are central to its mission it cannot be said to be a fully representative body of the streaming industry until at least some of these others have joined up. It…
Swisscom has been shifting to a virtualized headend since late 2016 – as much to allay costs as it was to become more flexible and faster in adding to the channels and video assets. If a telco TV system should be measured by its results in the market, then in Europe you would have to look at the systems from either Telefonica or Swisscom, as they are still driving sales aggressively within their respective markets, but possibly the more innovative of the two is Swisscom and this week it put the finishing touches to its headend virtualization, announcing French encoding firm Ateme as the transcoding resource for this NFV based headend. The leg-work has been carried out by Hewlett-Packard Enterprise…
The UK government is ready to wave through Comcast’s $31 billion bid for Sky with no questions asked, according to Conservative politician Matt Hancock, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. The apparent display of apathy from regulatory officials is perhaps better visualized as a drive to stop all Sky’s media assets falling into the hands of Fox, and subsequently the reputationally-marred Murdoch family, by any means necessary. Essentially, the UK government is willing to usher Sky under Comcast’s wing in record time and skip a full investigation – which could mean overlooking important market implications. In a turn of events, Comcast has this week confirmed it is preparing to outbid Disney’s $52.4 billion offer for the bulk…
French quad play provider Iliad seems to have taken a leaf out of the Intel playbook, best illustrated by the famous comment of founder Andy Grove that “only the paranoid survive”. As the incredible journey of its mobile unit, Free – which has been annexing a huge percentage of new cellular customers over the past five years – begins to run out of steam, it has put in new management and new strategies to renew its efforts and retain its competitive edge. Today the growth in its mobile subscriptions has hit a wall. From a standing start in 2012, it has achieved 19% penetration of the French market or 13.7m subscribers, but last quarter it had net additions of only…
It seems counterintuitive, but Google’s new and somewhat uncanny Duplex system is all about helping consumers use Google less. The new assistant, which was demonstrated making calls to book a haircut, is designed to connect the Google and Android digital world with the analog world – calling fleshy humans on its user’s behalf, for that frictionless experience. The end goal here is to create better customer experiences inside Android and the wider Google ecosystem. It’s an extension of Assistant, intended to work behind the scenes once a user asks ‘Hey Google, book me a table at a nice restaurant tonight’. In theory, this would be seamless, and involve a single voice command – rather than the manual process of searches,…
The ‘5G race’ between the USA’s biggest telcos is building up as both approach commercial launch of their fixed wireless access (FWA) services. There are some similarities in their tactics. Both are building advanced virtualized and software-defined platforms around their 5G radio plans, though AT&T’s has been more prominent in the industry at large. Both are starting with fixed services, which makes it easier to launch at a very early stage since there is no reliance on handset availability or the testing complexities of high mobility. Both are starting to densify their 4G networks to add capacity in non-5G areas. However, there are key differences. Verizon is first going with its semi-proprietary implementation and will migrate to full 3GPP 5G…
It was symbolic that the final round of meetings to finalize the next wave of 5G New Radio standards took place in the offices of Samsung Electronics (see separate item). Not only has Samsung extended its lead over Intel as the largest semiconductor company in the world by sales, but it has its sights set on leadership in the mobile space too – one that its arch-rival has largely failed to conquer, except through its Infineon Wireless acquisition; and where Qualcomm has reigned supreme. Qualcomm is still well ahead in mobile device modem, processor and system-on-chip (SoC) products, and its 5G NR chipset for small cells (see separate item) may prefigure an expanded move back into infrastructure. But the company…
If anyone needed a sign that the 5G era will not be dominated by the traditional vendors alone, they received it this week when Qualcomm said it would support Facebook’s Terragraph open source project with two of its chipset families. Qualcomm has been tightly bound up with the traditional cellular and WiFi vendors, and looked like the last chip provider which would support a movement designed to undermine their power and their prices (and therefore, potentially, Qualcomm’s own). Indeed, once upon a time, the phrase ‘open source’ would never have been coupled with the name ‘Qualcomm’. Then, some years ago, the king of proprietary technology licensing started to contribute certain software developments to open source, usually to assert its influence…
// M&A, Strategies, Alliances // Internet of Things Inc is acquiring Weather Telematics, a data science specialist that uses AI-based analytics to predict road and weather conditions – for $2.53m. Weather Analytics has acquired Athenium, and will now merge with the company to create Athenium Analytics. A $25m investment is planned to boost AI, ML, and CV. Vodafone says its IoT revenue grew 7.2% in the past year, rising to €747m from €697m. IoT SIM connections were up 31.2% – with 68m now active, inc. 14.4m cars. Microsoft has acquired Semantic Machines, a startup focused on conversational AI systems that is based in Berkeley, CA – where Microsoft will now build a CoE. // Forecasts, Surveys. Reports, & Blue-Sky Thinking…
The IoT application platform market is perhaps one of the most crowded parts of the Internet of Things. For a couple of years, it was very vocal – but now, it has collectively got quite quiet, perhaps due to the looming presence of the cloud giants. However, among the pile, Ayla Networks has emerged as a success story – and one with big expansion plans. Ayla’s main product is the Agile IoT Platform (PaaS), but it also offers the Insights business intelligence and analytics service, the Agile Mobile Application Platform (AMAP) app creation tool, the Mobile SDK, and its Phone as a Gateway (PaaG) service. In terms of customers, there are heaps – ranging from Hisense and TCL in the…
It seems counterintuitive, but Google’s new and somewhat uncanny Duplex system is all about helping consumers use Google less. The new assistant, which was demonstrated making calls to book a haircut, is designed to connect the Google and Android digital world with the analog world – calling fleshy humans on its user’s behalf, for that oh-so frictionless experience. The end-goal here is to create better customer experiences inside Android and the wider Google ecosystem. It’s an extension of Assistant, intended to work behind the scenes once a user asks ‘Hey Google, book me a table at a nice restaurant tonight.’ In theory, this would be seamless, and involve a single voice command – rather than the manual process of searches,…
Itron’s $838m acquisition of Silver Spring Networks (SSN) back in September raised a few eyebrows, but the impact has been immediate. SSN apparently brought $1.4bn in backorders to Itron, a company looking to capitalize on the smart grid trend and which has just reported quarterly revenue up 27%. Itron reports that without SSN’s contribution, Q1 2018 revenue would only have been up 9%. Now part of a ‘Networks’ segment that generated $86m in the quarter, SSN also appears to have added some 13m endpoints to Itron’s portfolio – which now numbers 29m. Total revenue grew to $607m in Q1, up that 27% from Q1 2017’s $478m, and Itron reeled off a list of notable wins in the past year. The…
By waving the obscure Congressional Review Act, the US Senate has made an improbable step towards reversing the FCC’s net neutrality repeal, following a 52-47 vote this week in which three Republicans voted against the Trump administration’s highly controversial policy. It represents a tactical battle between the two parties to push Republicans out in the run up to the midterms later this year, setting the stage for a situation where the Republican party decides to reassess its net neutrality regulations in order to maintain a majority. To pass the House, the net neutrality CRA requires a two thirds majority in a Republican-dominated environment, before eventually obtaining President Trump’s signature – in what would be an unprecedented state of affairs. Upon…
Some 13,000 middle management and back office roles are being stripped out by BT over the next three years, at the same time drafting in 6,000 new employees to support network infrastructure and customer service improvements. The incumbent UK telecoms operator looks to be finally sorting out its priorities, with a heavily dented reputation following an Italian accounting scandal and a deepening pension deficit pit – albeit with a not-so-friendly prod from regulator Ofcom. As well as these two well publicized frailties at BT, the slimming down of payroll is part of a wider plan to deemphasize lower margin product areas, such as in enterprise businesses, plus a program to vacate the company’s London headquarters. For all BT’s future promises,…
Google slipped in as a member of the Streaming Video Alliance ahead of Netflix at the end of last week, a significant move as Google represents the first pure play OTT video service provider to sign up – another signal from the search engine giant that promoting an open TV ecosystem is high on its agenda. Amazon’s cloud technology arm AWS joining the Alliance back in November was a huge boost for promoting technical collaboration in OTT video, but the owner of the world’s largest video sharing site in YouTube is arguably the biggest signature to date. Major members such as Comcast, Verizon, Sky and Liberty Global all offer streaming services of sorts to complement their traditional businesses, but YouTube…
Iliad in France seems to have taken a leaf out of the Intel playbook, best illustrated by the famous comment of founder Andy Grove that “only the paranoid survive.” So as its incredible journey at its French operator Free, to virtually annex all fresh cellular customers in France for the past 5 years, begins to run out of steam – it has put in new management and new strategies to renew its efforts and retain its competitive edge. Today the growth in mobile subscriptions has hit a wall – it managed 19% penetration of the French market or 13.7 million subscribers from a standing start in 2012 – last quarter this was just an additional 130,000. And it managed this…