Searching Weekly Analysis
Searching Weekly Analysis
Volvo has announced the death of its pure-gasoline vehicles, with 2019 being the last year that it sells a car which is not a pure electric vehicle or hybrid. An important moment in automotive history, Volvo is the first conventional automaker to take such a step – cementing the EV in the market, as the industry prepares to buy and sell a whole lot of batteries. The Swedish marque is the first conventional car maker to take such a step, marking a significant moment in the automotive industry in the shift away from pure combustion engine vehicles. Electric cars and hybrids represent a very small proportion of the total number of cars sold today, but they are swiftly gaining ground…
TomTom seems to be ramping up its plan to rival Here, the incumbent leader in the automotive mapping market, with a string of announcements this week. It comes as battle-lines continue to slowly be drawn in the industry, which is being rocked by major moves in the supply chain. TomTom has partnered with Baidu, added Western Europe to its HD Map coverage, and unveiled a PoC with Cisco that uses lasers and fiber optic cables to monitor cars traveling down a road. The emerging industry is still a little incestuous – with companies signing deals with multiple partners, ahead of clear battle-lines being drawn. But it is clear that TomTom and Here are headed for a drawn-out conflict, as they…
The LTE community’s low power wide area network (LPWAN) standard, NB-IoT, has been suffering the usual teething troubles recently – scaled-back deployments after a wave of hype; rumors of interoperability and roaming issues; mobile operators sticking to alternative solutions like LoRa despite the shiny new technology just waiting to be added to their LTE base stations. But at Mobile World Congress Shanghai last week, in the bosom of the cellular industry, there was nothing but positive vibes about the new standard, with operators round the world talking up their plans, from China to Germany to New Zealand. The GSMA, which runs the MWC series of events, claimed credit, saying these early moves indicated the success of its Mobile IoT Initiative,…
Telecom Italia (TIM) has been beaten up for its monopoly broadband practices this week by Italian market competition agency AGCM (L’Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato). While this is merely finger pointing until proven guilty, it is not exactly a secret that TIM has neglected its obligation to upgrade broadband, instead focusing on cheaper wireless investments. The investigation applies to the roll out of superfast broadband in rural areas, where the Italian operator is accused of abusing its dominant position by attempting to stall deployments, for example by juggling investment plans. In addition, the agency alleges that TIM has snapped up areas of opportunity for competing operators with the allure of preemptive, low-price broadband contracts. The Italian government itself…
When we first came across Conexant it was closing in on WiFi and broadband chips in around 2004, but it then came up against Broadcom WiFi pricing, which put it into a tailspin, and resulted in it going private under Golden Gate Capital in 2011. In 2013 the company entered Chapter XI and now it seems to have emerged so successfully on the back of mixed signal chips which offer voice control, especially to the highly popular smart speakers market, led by Alexa, that it has been acquired just a few weeks back for $300 million. This week that voice control leadership led it to the AI department at Baidu and opened up the colossal Chinese market for Conexant, which…
The America Invents Act which is barely 4 years old, will have yet another attempt at diluting its effects pushed for consideration by Congress to make it into legislation this session. It is being called the Stronger Patents Act, a name extension to the Strong patents act that failed to get passed during 2016, and brought by many of the same Senators. The details have barely changed, and the aim is the same, to make it harder to challenge a patent. Essentially it is pro-big business. The America Invents Act had two roles – firstly to align the US with the rest of the world on the idea that the person who files a patent first is the person considered…
In many countries, notably China (see separate item), the 3.5 GHz band is being identified as an important one for 5G. Traditionally allocated for fixed wireless, it is being opened up by regulators for mobile 4G and 5G, and possibly for shared access using emerging technologies like MulteFire. Last week, SK Telecom announced South Korea’s first trial of 5G systems in the band. Although many of the new developments in 3.5 GHz have been spearheaded in the US – where the FCC has introduced an innovative, if complicated, three-tier system of access – that early movement risks leaving the US out of the band plan mainstream again, if the rest of the world adopts a different approach and moves quickly…
Since its huge US IPO, Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba has been building up its armory to take on its western counterpart, Amazon, in cloud and mobile services. Its latest move is reported to be a plan to acquire ZTE’s software division, ZTEsoft, for about $440m. Bloomberg sources claim that negotiations have been going on for months and are close to fruition. The deal would help Alibaba extend its cloud activities outside China to step up the challenge to Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, taking advantage of ZTE’s established relationships with European and African telcos. That could accelerate Alibaba Cloud’s moves to add further operators to its roster, having already signed up Vodafone as a customer. ZTEsoft was spun off…
The LTE community’s low power wide area network (LPWAN) standard, NB-IoT, has been suffering the usual teething troubles recently – scaled-back deployments after a wave of hype; rumors of interoperability and roaming issues; mobile operators sticking to alternative solutions like LoRa despite the shiny new technology just waiting to be added to their LTE base stations. But at Mobile World Congress Shanghai last week, in the bosom of the cellular industry, there was nothing but positive vibes about the new standard, with operators round the world talking up their plans, from China to Germany to New Zealand. The GSMA, which runs the MWC series of events, claimed credit, saying these early moves indicated the success of its Mobile IoT Initiative,…
AT&T has become far more than an advanced deployer of new network technologies – increasingly it is defining standards for the whole industry in a way that used to be the preserve of vendors or a few Asian operators. In recent weeks, it has made several announcements which may prove significant for the wider industry, not just AT&T. Its expanded alliance with China Telecom could have a significant impact on flexible business services; its Vyatta acquisition will bolster its network operating system and white box routers; and it is about to embark on its first tests with Cloud-RAN, a technology it has acknowledged will be the most challenging element of the network to virtualize. The operator has already contributed its…
Ericsson and Nokia are on divergent paths when it comes to restoring sustainable growth to their hard-pressed infrastructure businesses. Nokia set out a plan last year to pursue “adjacencies” to its core telco customer base, pushing equipment, software and services to enterprises and industrial sectors to support private networks and the Internet of Things. But Ericsson, which had also been diversifying into new platforms and vertical markets – targeting 25% of revenues from non-telcos by 2020 – has been retrenching since its new CEO Borje Ekholm took over earlier this year, and pulling back to its telco heartland. Ulf Ewaldsson, in his new role as head of digital services, confirmed that strategy in an interview with Reuters last week. “We…
Last week’s Mobile World Congress Shanghai was a powerful showcase, given its location, for the progress Chinese operators and vendors are making towards 5G. Indeed, it was hard for other players to get a look-in, but that did not take away from some genuinely interesting demonstrations by the local giants. There were the inevitable events centered on the 5G New Radio in various spectrum bands, but some of the more significant demoes were focused on the surrounding architecture which will be, arguably, more important than the radio itself in delivering the promises of 5G convergence and diversity. For instance, China Mobile and Huawei showcased the world’s first 5G core network prototype using the early 3GPP specs for a 5G service-based…
At last week’s Mobile World Congress Shanghai event, Qualcomm pushed aside its legal troubles with Apple and others, and sought to back up its claim to be the “de facto R&D arm of the industry” with a swathe of new chips geared to targeted expansion markets such as automotive and wearables. That self-description, used by the company’s general counsel Don Rosenberg in response to Apple’s most recent allegations, is less hyperbolic than it would be in most organizations’ mouths. Qualcomm does harness its huge engineering resource to be at the cutting edge of new developments in wireless chips, but it will inevitably be harder to retain that position when it has to compete in many different sectors, rather than relying…
Battery storage specialist Moixa has successfully raised $3.25m in new funding, as the startup hopes to prove the value of virtual power plants (VPPs) to smart-grid focused utilities. Moixa has been adding new features to its GridShare software platform, ahead of the new round, which saw investments from the Japanese utility TEPCO, and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. The cash-injection comes after several new project announcements, in a productive 12-months for the company. The investment will in part go towards opening a regional sales and delivery center in the city of Manchester, which Moixa expects to eventually staff with 60 new employees. The fund raise is all part of Moixa’s broader aim to grow the number of home batteries it…
It’s been a tricky week for Qualcomm, after losing its motion to dismiss complaints leveled at it by the FTC in the US, regarding its patent licensing case. Judge Lucy Koh, who frequently oversaw the Apple-Samsung disputes, has ruled that the case must go to trial – noting that “the court finds that the FTC has adequately alleged that, under the circumstances presented here, Qualcomm violated a duty to deal in refusing to license its FRAND-encumbered SEPs to its modem chip competitors.” There are also allegations that Qualcomm offered lower licensing costs in exchange for an exclusive supply deal, and notably, the fallout has occurred after Apple began using Intel baseband chips in some of its iPhones. Qualcomm has fired…
We have long favored Facebook as the natural outlet for online movies, launched at the same time as theater openings. Movies go to the market during a particular week or weekend, different people can arrange to a watch a new movie socially – in other words with their friends – at a time which suits them and still be part of the social buzz around that movie. But increasingly Facebook has been looking at bringing Live content to its portal, and that means sport and this week it has cut a deal with US broadcaster Fox Sports to stream live matches from the UEFA Champions League in the US. This is very much what we call the “Discovery” way into…
Nokia Shanghai Bell, a joint venture formed last month with network firm China Huaxin, has announced plans to a launch a dedicated unit for supporting major Chinese webscale companies to expand overseas – focusing on fields including data centers, cloud, IP routing, transport and services. Nokia says it aims to expand its own business beyond its core communication service provider market through the venture, and will lend its hand in technologies such as cloud, AI and machine learning. The Finnish firm and its French predecessor Alcatel, have both been active in supporting Chinese companies for decades. Filipino telco PLDT has launched the first Roku-powered TV offering in Asia called TVolution, developed by Swedish app store specialist Accedo. TVolution combines access…
Building on its recent success of powering the 2017 French Open in virtual reality, encoding specialist Ateme has won a deployment this week at sports-focused Russian broadcast equipment provider TV Start. It was five years ago when the door into Russia was first guided opened for Ateme, via a partnership with SVN Group, a local company providing management systems for controlling the processes of reception, storage, compression, processing and transmission for digital video content. The two kicked off by deploying a project for SNG (Satellite News Gathering) firm Sercom, and SVN Group also seems to have gifted Ateme its latest deal at TV Start. Today, Ateme highlights Russia as one of its strongholds, although it currently only has two public…
Apple has been promising to revolutionize TV for years but hasn’t yet found the time to do so. This week, Apple announced two new and likely expensive hires, former Sony Pictures Television presidents, Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg – who are known for Breaking Bad, The Blacklist and other golden TV shows – to help it transform television. But to succeed in a market landscape which has been redrawn by Amazon and others, it needs to focus more on streaming and on multi-device, mobile-oriented services, rather than original content. Apple said Erlicht and Van Amburg will take on “newly created positions overseeing all aspects of video programming,” and will report to Apple VP Eddy Cue. The duo have been…
There may be regional rivalry between government-backed 5G projects (see separate item), with national pride and commercial interests at stake. But there are also many cross-regional partnerships, which will help to drive 5G to reality more rapidly, for everyone. The latest such alliance was announced last week by KT of Korea, which will work with AT&T on 5G and SDN/NFV developments. Executives from the two operators met at KT’s R&D Center and the companies aim to tap into one another’s key areas of R&D prowess – AT&T’s in SDN, and KT’s in 5G radio. Lee Dong-myeon, director of KT’s Technology Convergence Center, said the deal would “create synergies to solve challenges of the telecom industry in the future”. It will…