Searching Weekly Analysis
Searching Weekly Analysis
Pressure continues to build on the FCC to drop the “3 streams” based approach to its unlock the box rulemaking. The America Cable Association has this week come up with hard costs for different sized US cable firms to comply with the order, and filed them as an ex parte objection to the plan. Small rural MVPDs with around 15,500 customers were cited as having to spend $8.1 million to upgrade its systems to all IP in order to comply with the FCC proposed rules and take on other costs, and it offered calculations for other sizes of MVPD cable firms, all at about the same, highly unprofitable level. The upshot is that the ACA has called on the FCC…
Years after Alphabet’s Google first entered the augmented reality space with Google Glass, the company is predictably prepping a new mobile-based platform release for VR that it hopes will become as prominent in the VR space as Android has become in the mobile space. Google has been investing in research and development in the nascent VR space for over a year now. It launched a low cost cardboard headset to bring VR and 360-degree video the masses last year. YouTube already supports 360-degree video uploads, and has amassed a large library of user-generated and premium 360-degree video that anyone can watch using a Google Cardboard headset. Google’s latest project is something of a mobile VR operating system called Daydream that…
The US operators’ spectrum grab continues, but the ongoing 600 MHz incentive auction is not the whole story – indeed, as LTE roll-outs shift towards capacity bands and three of the top carriers plan tests in millimeter wave spectrum, the obsession with sub-1 GHz spectrum is certainly easing off. Indeed, the rounds of bidding conducted so far in the 600 MHz auction have resulted in bids worth just $19.89bn, far short of the targeted total of $86.4bn, which means the total process may take some time to complete. At the end of Friday, 21 rounds had been completed with two rounds held per day. From Tuesday, this will be increased to three per day (at one time, it had been…
The European Commission could approve a €21.8bn merger between two Italian mobile operators as early as this week, even though it would reduce the number of MNOs in the country from four to three – recently a fatal sticking point for a similar proposal in the UK, where CK Hutchison failed in its bid to acquire Telefonica O2 and merge O2 with its Three UK operation. CK Hutchison is also one of the players in the proposed Italian merger, with Vimpelcom’s Wind subsidiary. Competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager is said to be set to announce a green light for the deal ahead of the deadline of September 8. According to regulator Agcom, a merged 3 Italia/Wind would serve 33.7% of the…
Investors in networking equipment firm Brocade are pinning their hopes on its plans to launch a high end router next month, hoping this will improve its performance with carriers and drive new life into its financial performance. Announcing its third quarter results last week, Brocade said it would announce a new router in mid-September, targeted at dense 100Gbps deployments for service providers and large enterprises, sectors where it has been struggling against Cisco. The firm’s carrier router sales have been flat for the past three quarters, a trend which it blamed first on a major customer slowing its network spending, and then on many clients choosing to wait until the new router arrives. It will therefore be important that the…
A collection of uneasy bedfellows has formed the latest wireless industry group, the CBRS Alliance, which aims to promote and accelerate uptake of LTE services in the US’s newly opened 3.5 GHz band (now labelled the Citizens Broadband Radio Services band). New spectrum was once of interest only to the traditional mobile players, and indeed, Nokia and Qualcomm are among the founders of the new alliance. But the innovative tiered system of access to the 3.5 GHz band makes it of potential value to newer mobile players, so we see Alphabet Access Technologies and Federated Wireless – both would-be disruptors of the old wireless order – and also, from the enterprise side, Intel and Brocade’s Ruckus Wireless. These companies may…
This year, Samsung has turned the tables on Apple by regaining market share after a disastrous 2015 which saw the Korean giant shifting resources away from handsets. That has paid off – the areas on which it focused attention during the dark days included memory chips, processors, displays and key applications like payments, all of which are now helping to power a smartphone revival on the back of desirable, feature-packed flagships like the Galaxy S7 Edge and the forthcoming Note 7. The pressure is now on Apple to come up with similarly alluring new features for the next iPhone, to claw back attention from Samsung and fend off other rivals like Huawei. The upshot is that both smartphone giants are…
Google is reported to be scaling back its fiber activities dramatically, which begs comparisons with the turn of the century, when IT giants like Microsoft invested disastrously in broadband infrastructure. A couple of weeks ago Google was reported to be switching from fiber to less expensive fixed wireless in some targeted US cities, following its acquisition of broadband wireless provider Webpass. Then last week, unconfirmed reports said Google Fiber’s CEO Craig Barratt had been instructed to lay off half his workforce, bringing its numbers down to 500, as parent Alphabet sought to cut costs. The story of a technology giant being brought low in the dangerous waters of network operations has echoes of 2002, when Microsoft invested $200m in Teligent…
Hardware CEVA and Rockchip have extended their existing partnerships to add CEVA’s machine vision DSPs to Rockship’s SoCs, giving Rockchip access to CEVA’s Deep Neural Network (CDNN2) software framework. Software myDevices has been certified Sigfox-compliant, bringing its Cayenne application development platform to potential new LPWAN customers looking for a project builder. Chronicled has open-sourced its namesake identity management platform, which can be used to register IoT encrypted chips using the Ethereum blockchain. Google has pushed v1.0 of its gRPC protocol, a rival to JSON for server-to-server communications that it hopes can gain adoption from current Java users. Networks and Protocols FreeWave has announced a partnership with Solis Energy, to provide connectivity to Solis’ range of remote solar and battery backup…
M&A, Strategies, Alliances Honeywell’s planned acquisition of JDA Software has been challenged by a counter offer from Blackstone group, which will see Blackstone invest $570m into JDA. Rumors are circulating that Lyft is trying to sell itself, but has failed to convince Apple, Amazon, Google, Uber, and GM (a $500m investor). Tele2 has acquired Kombridge, a specialist in security services, device management, and application management for IoT apps and services. No price was given. VMware has announced a string of IoT partnerships with Dell, PTC, Deloitte, Intwine, Bayshore, PTC and V5. Actility has joined Cisco’s Solution Partner Program, with its LoRa and LPWAN expertise. Also, Cisco is back to using the IoE term, much to our dismay. D-Link and Silicon…
Arris has announced new CEO Bruce McClelland from Sept 1. Bob Stanzione will step back to become the Arris executive chairman and Chairman of the Board. McClelland has been at Arris for 16 years. Stanzione will remain with Arris and focus on strategic planning and customer engagement. Eurofins Digital Testing, a quality assurance and testing lab has acquired Sweden’s Labatus, to accelerate deployments of multiplatform video testing. Financial terms were not disclosed. Labatus offers automated test, planning and strategy for TVs, set-top boxes, smartphones, tablets, and applications across iOS, Chromecast and Android platforms and Com Hem in Sweden is a customer. Eurofins also announced it has opened a new test facility in Gdansk, Poland. Rovi says it has signed a…
The G.fast technology is promising to be a game-changer for home broadband providers by providing a copper-based alternative to fiber, but it is also increasingly catching carriers’ eyes with its potential to improve the economics of deploying dense urban small cells or Cloud-RAN. This trend, in turn, is bringing G.fast vendors like Adtran into the operators’ inner circle, extending their market reach. Mobile operators are increasingly interested and involved in the development of high speed fixed-line technologies such as G.fast, which boosts the speeds of existing copper lines over short distances (100 meters). Once this interest was confined to relatively long range backhaul options, but with densification and virtualization on many RAN agendas, the attention is shifting. One of the…
Twitter is in talks with Apple to add its app to Apple TV and with it would come all of those live streaming deals Twitter has secured. The move would give Twitter a wider reach to more audiences and more importantly in terms of monetization, the platform will drive advertising revenue. The TV set has been a missing piece to Twitter’s live streaming content strategy, and putting “Twitter TV” on the Apple TV will help it further challenge its social video network rivals Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube. Twitter’s live video strategy really began when the company secured the streaming rights to 10 games of the NFL’s Thursday Night Football, coverage that will begin with this coming NFL season and since…
Athletes from the US and Great Britain aren’t the only ones leaving Rio with their heads held high. The 2016 Olympics marked the first games in which OTT streaming has become the standard viewing behavior ahead of linear TV, and the industry took up the challenge of embracing this technology – operators, broadcasters, pure play OTT services, and vendors all appreciated the importance of the technological transition. Most notably, Facebook, Snapchat, Google, Comcast, NBC and Globo all had to up the game of their online platforms for this year’s Olympics coverage. The real winners here were the social networks, which dished out some pretty devastating blows to companies used to hogging all the Olympics’ viewing glory. YouTube’s multiscreen coverage tapped…
Google’s latest operating system project, Fuchsia, may be largely a mystery, but it reinforces a truth that the platforms vendors are having, grudgingly, to acknowledge – one operating system does not fit all. For a company which has put so much effort into making Android an OS for all purposes, Google has a remarkable number of potentially conflicting platforms, now including Chrome OS, Brillo and Fuchsia. Even though it looks like an experimental OS for embedded devices, Fuchsia was described by its own Google team as being designed for “modern phones and modern personal computers”, which might be just how Android and Chrome OS would describe themselves too. So is Google hedging its bets, extending Android to cars, homes and…
We said back in June that something at Viacom would shortly give, and it has, with CEO Philippe Dauman accepting an irresistible offer to step down as CEO, opening the door to someone taking the top job at one of the most powerful content businesses in the world. An endorsement by Viacom to accept the rising tide of OTT content delivery would represent the final recalcitrant traditionalist being swept aside and set the tone for a new content world, going all guns blazing for OTT dominance. Most coverage of this news focused on just how much money Dauman had made by digging his heels in, and we would all love to be offered $72 million just to leave our jobs,…
The UK’s national smart meter project has suffered yet another setback, with the UK government announcing that the critical communications infrastructure that supports the roll out will miss tomorrow’s deadline – and won’t be ready for at least another couple of months. It adds to the recent spate of government projects under-performing – which include the social welfare revamp that is Universal Credit (already well over budget, and unpopular politically), and the latest attempt to bring the NHS fully into the digital age. When properly implemented, a national smart metering system opens the door to all manner of efficiency-boosting technologies, like demand-response and increased renewable penetration and storage, as well as allowing utilities to lower their purchasing costs from wholesalers.…
There was much excitement at the news that Intel had signed a licence for physical IP from arch-rival ARM, but this does not signal a return to designing ARM processors – something Intel abandoned when it sold its XScale business to Marvell in 2006. Instead, it is a sign that the company is serious about its foundry business, and about building on its acquisition of FPGA maker Altera. The company has never been as religious about x86 as sometimes portrayed. It did buy the StrongARM platform, complete with ARM architectural licence, from Digital Equipment, making it the basis of XScale and one of its first failed attempts to get into smartphone processors. And more recently, it has acquired ARM-based chip…
Samsung has unveiled a machine vision platform based on IBM’s TrueNorth processor, a chip designed to operate in the same fashion as the human brain, and to bring superior compute power to low power packages. This brings the Korean giant into an intense race to implement AI-driven user experiences in mobile and IoT devices, not just on supercomputers – a race in which TrueNorth is up against developments from Qualcomm and Intel. The Samsung system, called the Dynamic Vision Sensor, appears very impressive, based on the demonstration at the firm’s Advanced Institute of Technology. Samsung says that the chip allows its camera to see the world at 2,000 frames per second (fps), which requires a very high processing bandwidth. What’s…
The G.fast technology is promising to be a game-changer for home broadband providers by providing a copper-based alternative to fiber, but it is also increasingly catching carriers’ eyes with its potential to improve the economics of deploying dense urban small cells or Cloud-RAN. This trend, in turn, is bringing G.fast vendors like Adtran into the operators’ inner circle, extending their market reach. Mobile operators are increasingly interested and involved in the development of high speed fixed-line technologies such as G.fast, which boosts the speeds of existing copper lines over short distances (100 meters). Once this interest was confined to relatively long range backhaul options, but with densification and virtualization on many RAN agendas, the attention is shifting. One of the…