Searching Weekly Analysis
Searching Weekly Analysis
When we covered the acquisition of Brocade by Broadcom, we made a slip of the pen, suggesting that Ruckus, which has just been acquired by Brocade, would remain with the new merged business – in fact it is quite the opposite, the question now remains, who will it sell the business to. Given the rapid converging of wired and wireless networks and the changing economics of operators, it seems to us that anyone from Nokia, which has wide ranging WiFi management interests inherited from Alcatel, and Arris, which has to deal with WiFi every time it installs a home gateway, could become rapidly interested in the property. The list could become quite extensive. Hewlett-Packard bought Aruba Networks last year, wishing…
There has been a lot of noise this week around Amazon Prime – named by the Wall Street Journal as preparing a global 200 country roll-out; cited chasing key sports rights and launching its original programming in the form of The Grand Tour, an upmarket remake of the massively popular Top Gear, the world’s most popular non-fiction video export. From the American market, it may seem obvious what it is doing and analysts there have said it plans to go up against content giants like ESPN, DirecTV and Netflix, and in a way it does, but our take is that this is all about what happens outside of the US. It would be madness to buy tons of US sports…
President-elect Donald Trump looks like he will appoint his own chairman to the FCC, and the front runners right now are Jeffrey Eisenach and Mark Jamison, both famous for their opinions on freeing markets from regulators and from red tape. US analysts who know the political scene no doubt better than us, are predicting an end to net neutrality, and to any subsidies for low-income families over broadband. They may also lay out a “hands off” approach that would make it open season on more consolidation in the telecom industry. It is probably this which is making most “predators” out there, hold fire on cutting deals right now. Why should an operator buy a major studio or broadcaster when rules…
Two of the world’s largest cable TV companies have begun the transition to include rival OTT services as part of their own offerings – steps towards embracing OTT which could be considered even braver than the recent plunge to carry Netflix. This week, Liberty Global’s UPC DTH has extended its deal with SPI International/Filmbox and Comcast has announced the launch of Sling TV on its X1 line of set tops. Liberty’s deal with global media firm SPI International will provide subscribers to the UPC Direct and freeSat offerings in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary with a new online service, Filmbox Live – allowing users to stream live and on-demand content on multiple devices. Liberty Global is dramatically changing its…
Independent licensing administrator HEVC Advance has announced its intention to make some significant changes to its royalty scheme for software only HEVC encoders and decoders – readying itself for the upcoming launch of software from rival Cisco-inspired body, the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia). HEVC Advance, backed by the likes of Dolby Labs and Warner Bros, states it will seek no royalties for certain versions of HEVC software on mobile devices and PCs after the first purchase is made. It aims to speed up widespread adoption of the HEVC digital video coding standard, also known as H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2, for fast online and mobile streaming in existing consumer devices – while at the same time restricting Apple and…
Why was it that Steve Jobs, and his successor Tim Cook, and all those nice engineers at Intel, not to mention software engineers at Microsoft, never managed to convince all of the TV networks to let them resell their networks, and yet AT&T in a heartbeat, has almost managed it in under a year. This certainly owes something to timing, in that most networks have had to witness their fall from linear TV grace and ratings over the past year, when in previous years the networks could shrug and had “no need to commit themselves.” While the Fox networks were already on DirecTV DTH and AT&T’s U-Verse as well as rival OTT services Sling TV and Sony Vue, the DirecTV…
There are several points to flag up concerning this week’s rumors that Eutelsat is poised to make a takeover bid for rival satellite fleet operator SES. These factors combined make the rumors seem far-fetched at present, but a deal in the future could prosper the two satellite powerhouses, amid declining video revenues. The most glaring issue is that the market cap for Luxembourg-based SES currently sits at more than double that of French firm Eutelsat, at $9.6 billion and $4 billion respectively. Furthermore, Eutelsat has racked up more debt with a net total of $4.25 billion, while SES has debt of $3.4 billion. We can therefore conclude straight from the off that SES is in a much safer position than…
The open-source Mirai malware that shocked the technology sector a few weeks ago has been studied by Akamai in its latest State of the Internet report. It’s bad news for the world, as Akamai suggests that adapted versions of Mirai will embrace the more common reflective DDoS attack vectors to cripple web infrastructure. With the report, Akamai has put numbers on the problem. Somewhat shockingly, just 24,000 IP addresses were used in the monster attack that brought Mirai to the fore – mostly consisting of compromised DVR players and connected IP cameras. This direct DDoS traffic is dangerous enough, but adding the reflective traffic of other botnets would create huge outages. Akamai concludes that the Mirai DDoS set a new…
Sigfox has announced that it has closed a $160m Series E round of funding, with new investors including Salesforce and Total. It’s big news for the LPWAN specialist, as it continues its US network build-out and signing up Sigfox Network Partners to expand its global footprint. So what’s next for the company? Well in our many discussions with its staffers, the consensus has been that an eventual IPO makes sense – and seems more likely than an all-out acquisition, in fairness. Floating the company, either in France or the US, makes a lot of sense, but a complete acquisition is definitely not out of the question. While LoRa appears to currently be the non-GSMA LPWAN of choice for network operators,…
M&A, Strategies, Alliances GE and SAP have announced a strategic collaboration for the IoT, initially focused on customers in the oil and gas industry. Microsoft has joined the Linux Foundation, as a platinum member. Verizon has acquired LQD WiFi, for its WiFi kiosk and smart city portfolio. The Z-Wave Alliance has voted to enforce its new S2 security certification framework, for all Z-Wave devices, starting in April. GE has acquired Bit Stew and Wise.io for an undisclosed amount, to expand its Predix IoT platform, as well as paying $915m for ServiceMax. Sigfox has secured $159m in Series funding, with Salesforce and Total joining. Forecasts, Reports, and Blue Sky Thinking CoinDesk has published its State of Blockchain report, which is well…
The convergence of wired and wireless networks is becoming increasingly important to the economics of operators, from supporting multiplay services, to offering a more flexible approach to the cost:capacity ratio in the access and transport layers. This opens up opportunities for cablecos and telcos to secure new revenues from mobile operators, and is also driving mergers of fixed and wireless providers, and of their suppliers. Nokia’s acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent was driven by convergence. Nokia had made a strategic decision to concentrate only on mobile broadband infrastructure, but with integration of fixed and wireless links becoming critical to many customers, ALU brought a valuable portfolio in fixed IP equipment. In 5G, that convergence will have to be truly seamless, putting a…
Verizon has acquired the assets of New York-based WiFi kiosk supplier and smart city start-up LQD WiFi, and will insert LQD’s technology into the smart community infrastructure offerings of Sensity Systems, another recent addition to Verizon’s bulging IoT arsenal. The US operator hopes to deploy LQD’s Palo technology hubs on a wide scale. These act as multifaceted resource kiosks, with their key consumer appeal lying in the free WiFi networks provided by each kiosk, thereby potentially forming a municipal WiFi network – solving the backhaul problem that burdens network providers. Building a municipal WiFi network enables other IoT players to jump on board the network, which could provide a functional alternative to LPWAN usage in the build out of smart…
One of the core concepts which is emerging for the 5G network is that it should be user-centric, not cell-centric like all previous generations. Now Telefonica and Huawei are pushing this idea closer to reality with a proof of concept that gives every device a permanent identifier, placing the responsibility of delivering a good experience onto the RAN. This is based on the User Centric No Cell UCNC architecture, which these companies have been driving and which they hope will be an important part of future 3GPP standards and 5G RAN designs. Telefonica and Huawei’s PoC aims to deliver more reliable and efficient services to users, said the operator, compared to current mobility management techniques. In their lab trials, the…
If the traditional wall between licensed and unlicensed spectrum is starting to crumble in the 4G era, it will come under impossible strain with the far broader demands of 5G. Preston Marshall, technical program manager for spectrum at Google Access, told the recent 5G North America conference: “We have to break the model of exclusive spectrum.” He believes the shared spectrum elements of the FCC’s new CBRS (Citizens’ Broadband Radio Service) in 3.5 GHz provide a good template for how 5G spectrum could be used more flexibly, and services deployed more quickly. This would avoid the perennial problem of expensive spectrum lying unused because carriers do not find the financing to build out the networks as well as purchase the…
New bands, previously considered unsuitable for radio, and unlicensed spectrum, are the two most obvious ways to address the shortage of airwaves for wireless services, but in both cases, the potential may be compromised by the power struggles going on in these bands. Various technologies which have emerged recently, under the auspices of Qualcomm and others, which allow LTE to run in unlicensed spectrum and coexist with other connections there, notably WiFi. LTE-Unlicensed is the closest to commercial reality but the most controversial because it does not require Listen Before Talk (LBT) mechanisms to avoid interference with WiFi. These are mandatory in many markets in the 5 GHz band, but not in the US, so LTE-U tests and plans have…
Verizon has acquired the assets of New York-based WiFi kiosk supplier and smart city start-up LQD WiFi, and will insert LQD’s technology into the smart community infrastructure offerings of Sensity Systems, another recent addition to Verizon’s bulging IoT arsenal. The US operator hopes to deploy LQD’s Palo technology hubs on a wide scale. These act as multifaceted resource kiosks, with their key consumer appeal lying in the free WiFi networks provided by each kiosk, thereby potentially forming a municipal WiFi network – solving the backhaul problem that burdens network providers. Building a municipal WiFi network enables other IoT players to jump on board the network, which could provide a functional alternative to LPWAN usage in the build out of smart…
Skeptics believe the FCC’s open set top initiative may be dead in the water the moment Donald Trump and his administration team take over the White House, following a message from House Republicans to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler asking him not to proceed with any “complex and controversial items that the new Congress and Administration will have an interest in viewing.” Optimists say that Trump is yet to express his opinion on set tops. Kaltura, a US OTT video software specialist, has integrated its OTT TV product with global commerce platform Stripe, an alternative payment method which gives businesses the ability to receive payments in over 130 currencies, either online or via mobile apps. The integration allows OTT video providers…
In order for an OTT video offering to be deemed viable, it must support a minimum of 12 devices, but if the service has any hope of being a truly competitive one then that figure must be upwards of 40, according to a recent report from Frost & Sullivan, in partnership with OTT security specialist Verimatrix. A broader range of device accessibility obviously opens the door to more subscribers and the potential to succeed, but the device fragmentation that this brings also opens the flood gates to content pirates. This brings with it the complex issues around multiple digital rights management (multi-DRM) content security – putting increasing pressure on in-house teams, as operators strive to roll out their OTT video…
When a company like Adobe comes in for an acquisition like the one it did last week for TubeMogul at $14 a share, while it is languishing at $7.31 a share, you’d think they would break out the champagne and celebrate. However, this week, as the intelligence behind the deal began to become apparent, at least two Stock market firms have opened investigations suggesting that TubeMogul should have sold for more. Back two years ago, just after its IPO, the stock went as high as $21 a share although the Adobe acquisition is close to its 52-week high. The secret is in the way the company is surging ahead, with Programmatic TV advertising growing around 270%, what TubeMogul does is…
Everyone who has tried to predict the effects of Donald Trump has so far fired wide of the mark, but for the Faultline readership there are only a handful of issues which we need to work out his position on – but they are all important, because in almost every case, a US decision might be echoed around the world. The most important of these is whether or not he will overrule the FCC on Title II and whether or not he will intervene on the AT&T Time Warner merger. A regular Republican wants as little government as possible and, as such, is seen as pro-Enterprise and not quite so pro consumer. Title II is one such area that the…