Searching Weekly Analysis
Searching Weekly Analysis
Here’s bad news for the wireline broadband and home network industries: Americans are moving rapidly away from wireline broadband to wireless mobile broadband services, according to the US Census Bureau’s Computer and Internet Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS), which includes data collected in July 2015 from nearly 53,000 households for NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration) – part of the US Commerce Department. The report said mobile broadband services are competing more directly with wireline broadband services. The NTIA said “the findings suggest that technological changes are driving a profound shift in how Americans use the internet, which may be opening a new digital divide based on the use of particular types of devices and Internet services.”…
There wasn’t exactly an explosion of acquisition announcements or major contract wins at this week’s TV Connect tradeshow, left somewhat overshadowed in the wake of NAB, but one company that made a whopping two announcements at the show was UI and OTT app developer Wiztivi. The French firm unveiled the launch of a new app with satellite fleet operator Eutelsat, and also formed a partnership with CMS/CRM company Alpha Networks. Wiztivi works with telcos to build full UIs for VoD portals, EPGs, replay functionalities, personalized TV channels, app stores, and advertising solutions – based on its HbbTV (Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV) and HTML5 framework. It claims to have developed 300 applications for 60 services, which cumulatively rack up 30 million…
Since the start of 2015 the buzzword in the video industry has been OTT – we may have discovered a new word, at present whispered rather than shouted, which will drive the industry for the next two years and that’s VR. Old hacks like us go back to multiple Virtual Reality hype curves of the 1980s and 90s, and we may be far more skeptical of the term VR, but there is some evidence, seen at NAB and TV Connect demonstrations and associated thinking, which suggests that the new Oculus Rift driven hype curve for VR is being taken seriously enough for it to form the basis of the next generation access networks designs. One presentation we saw at TV…
One of the main motivations for Qualcomm to come to a settlement with Chinese antitrust authorities last year was to restart the flow of patent licensing revenues from the country’s manufacturers. Many companies had withheld payments until the new terms were negotiated, and even when the truce was agreed, Qualcomm warned that it still might take a long time to get the royalties flowing again. It seems to have opened the floodgates now though, judging by the recent string of announcements of new deals, and analysts estimate that over 90% of Chinese companies are now in compliance with Qualcomm’s terms – reduced as those may have been by the 2015 settlement. Just ahead of its quarterly results announcement, Qualcomm said…
Google has significantly increased the footprint of its Android Auto in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) system this week by expanding the platform into 18 additional countries, as part of its update to version 1.6. Android Auto launched back in June 2014, when it was originally available in 11 countries, and the latest release brings its total presence to 29 countries. This expansion is largely in South America, but also includes a handful of European countries and, most notably, the booming car industries of India, Brazil, and Russia. The majority of cars manufactured in these markets won’t initially be Android Auto compatible, but this is likely to increase over the next several years with the growth in production of cars featuring IVI systems,…
Huawei has set out a three-step process which it claims operators must go through, to become fully cloud-enabled. Of course, this triple jump is supported at each stage by elements of the Chinese firm’s All Cloud framework, which it unveiled at its analyst summit last week, pitching itself at operators embarking on digital transformation and the new network architectures required to enable that. Huawei’s three stages are: Virtualization, which includes NFV and more flexible network resource allocation to improve efficiency and performance. Cloudification, which includes adds full orchestration and automation of network functions to basic virtualization, allowing operators to provision and manage services in real time, which will enable many new business models, especially in the IoT. Cloud Native, which…
Every vendor and operator seeking to play in the new world of virtualization and software -defined networking (SDN) must claim to be ‘open’. One of the driving motives for carriers to move towards a software-dominated environment is to escape the old proprietary platforms and lock-ins. However, how different groups achieve ‘openness’ varies widely, and threatens the same kind of fragmentation and dead ends that afflicted deployers of proprietary hardware-focused networks. There is often confusion between openness – as in interoperability between different vendors’ solutions, enabled by standard interfaces and APIs – and open source. But increasingly, carriers see the two as inter-dependent, and the way to accelerate progress towards commercial SDN and NFV (Network Functions Virtualization) solutions. In a recent…
One emerging element of the new-look web operating system is the beacon, and Google’s Eddystone project is a good example of a technology which, though open source, it controls, and which handles an important element of user behavior behind the scenes, regardless of the individual OS. The Eddystone beacons currently run with Android and iOS but could be adapted for any platform, and more importantly, they can broadcast messages to smartphones through the Chrome browser without the need for a specific app. Support for Eddystone is built into the ‘Nearby’ API, available to developers from Google Play Services, or from GitHub under the Apache 2.0 licence. The latest addition to Eddystone is ephemeral ID (EID) frames, which will allow developers…
The EU has filed formal antitrust charges against Google and its parent company Alphabet, arising from the bundling of Google apps that are a core part of the Android OS experience. With potential fines of up to $7bn, 10% of Google’s yearly revenue, the stakes are high. This is a charge sheet that has been 12 months in the making. It states that Google has “abused its dominant position by imposing restrictions on Android device manufacturers and mobile network operators”. This is the latest in a number of EU initiatives against Google, including those regarding the right to be forgotten, the prioritization of its own services within search engine results, and smaller investigations into its advertising business, mapping, airline travel…
Smart lighting company Sensity Systems has announced two deals this week, expanding the capabilities of its WiFi-based NetSense smart city platform. With Panasonic North America, Sensity has established an alliance with Panasonic’s Enterprise Solutions division, to work on Panasonic’s CityNow Safe and Smart Streets platform. The goal is to launch the platform in the US, with the first deployment being at the Peña rail station in Denver, Colorado. The second deal sees the company pair up with Genetec, a video security company, to provide an advanced IoT public safety and security system. Kansas City, Missouri, is the first confirmed customer, which will be deploying 250 of Sensity’s NetSense cameras, connecting to Genetec’s Omnicast Video Management System, to monitor the condition…
The Latest OTT Video News, deals, launches and products from Faultline. Potential Yahoo bidders are now coming out of the woodwork. This week Yahoo is believed to have narrowed down its bidders to a handful, which still includes Verizon; but other names associated with a deal have included private equity firms Apax, TPG, Bain, Apollo Global Management and Warburg Pincus; AT&T’s Yellow Pages; Japan’s Rakuten with even Comcast’s name being mentioned. No other shortlist names have leaked so far, and the UK’s Daily Mail is no longer still being discussed, an offer we described as a long shot last week. M7 Group will use video service quality management tools from Agama Technologies, for all of its video services across Europe…
Weird product of the week must come from Arris at NAB in the US. Arris seems to us, on the back of the FCC open set top saga, a highly threatened business, in part because it has such a weak retail brand, and the US set top future may become retail. Here it unveiled a retail product called SURFboard home networking, using RipCurrent (read G.hn) technology. Arris may be keen to throw out as many retail products as it can, to begin building that retail brand. What this amounts to is an off the shelf family of products which uses something like IEEE 1905.1 translation technology so that WiFi and G.hn powerline can speak to one another easily. If this…
Amazon has made several moves this week in a bid to strike at the heart of Netflix, but remains adamant that its focus is on its retail business rather than in competing with the SVoD king. First off, Amazon has cut the tie between its video service and its full Prime delivery service, by launching a standalone subscription service in the US. To add insult to injury, Amazon has decided to put a price tag of $8.99 per month on this service, which undercuts Netflix’s monthly subscription fee of $9.99. Amazon VP of Digital Video Michael Paull pointed out that this move is not intended to target Netflix, but one to enhance the value of its retail premise, despite the…
Faultline has previously pointed out that probably the three best players in the video playback analytics space right now are IneoQuest Technologies, Conviva, and S3 Group. This week two of these have made announcements, with IneoQuest launching a new analytics platform, and Conviva entering the advertising analytics space for the first time, as well as a flurry of similar moves this week from players big and small. Network monitoring specialist IneoQuest, has launched its new FoQus platform, as an extension of its data and analytics solutions product line to enable OTT and IPTV video providers to gain an insight into playback quality and viewer behavior. IneoQuest recently made a brave move to the edge of the network to test ABR…
The fact that the European Commission has issued a statement of objections against Google over the use of Android on phones, means that it has already established abuse to its own satisfaction and now wants to talk about how to stop it. The not entirely unexpected news came out of the European Commission on Wednesday. The accusations are that Google Search comes pre-installed as the default search service on most Android devices sold in Europe, and that it has done the same with its Chrome browser, and that by offering cash incentives not to install others or not use any Android “forks,” Google is preventing competition. The conclusions were a “no brainer” given that Android is on 90% of European…
Google has released its ephemeral ID (EID) frames for its Eddystone Bluetooth beacons, which will now allow developers to create better protected applications that use the location technology. The open-source Eddystone project, which supports both Android and iOS, has received strong support from the industry since its launch last July – with the new features already being supported by Gimbal, Blesh, Sensoro and a Samsonite briefcase. As it stands, there isn’t going to be an Eddystone brand – meaning that each device that adopts the protocol is likely going to be bundled with a standalone application. It seems that the end-result will require an end-user to use a number of apps in order to interact with the different beacons –…
M&A, Strategies, Alliances Bosch might join Amazon and Microsoft in taking a minority holding in the Here mapping platform, which was recently acquired by a consortium of German automakers. Aeris has won a connectivity deal with TrackerSense, providing the cellular link and analytics platform for the company’s package tracking service. PTC has launched an IoT certification program for its ThingWorx platform, for assessing developer capability for building applications within the software environment. Arrow Electronics and Qlik have partnered to push self-service analytics to Arrow’s enterprise computing customers, using Qlik’s software. Hitachi has announced its intention to invest some $900m into its Services and Platforms business unit, to increase its IoT capabilities. Qorvo is acquiring GreenPeak for an undisclosed amount, adding…
Google has significantly increased the footprint of its Android Auto in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) system this week by expanding the platform into 18 additional countries, as part of its update to version 1.6. The updated version doesn’t strike us as being particularly groundbreaking, but the global expansion is the significant news here. Android Auto launched back in June 2014, when it was originally available in 11 countries, and the latest v1.6 now brings its total presence to 29 countries. This expansion is largely in South America, but also includes a handful in Europe and, most notably, the booming car industries of India, Brazil, and Russia. The majority of cars manufactured in these markets won’t initially be Android Auto compatible, but this…
Shortly after Qualcommm launched its first system-on-chip targeted at servers, there was high excitement over reports that Google was going to endorse the architecture. But this week the search giant said it has built software which allows it to switch easily between Intel and other platforms – and singled out an IBM OpenPower design rather than one from Qualcomm or other ARM-based players. That is not to say that Google is not testing the Qualcomm offering. No company which buys as many processors as Google (or Facebook or Microsoft) can afford to limit its supplier choices and the cloud giants take an interest in almost any second source to Intel, even investing in their own inhouse design projects. But the…
The combination of virtualized platforms and open APIs can revolutionize an operator’s enterprise and wholesale business. Virtualization and SDN allow capacity to be allocated, and charged-for, on a pay-as-you-go basis, and in future, to create ringfenced ‘slices’ of the network to be created for a company or service provider. Meanwhile, open APIs allow the customers to tap into the operator’s application programming interfaces to build new services and software which harness the capabilities of the network and drive new offerings. These twin trends are being employed by AT&T, Orange and other high profile operator projects to expand their enterprise and MVNO revenue streams, and now Verizon Partner Solutions (VPS) is also talking up its plans in these areas. At the…