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The M&A whirl is not just happening Stateside. As we went to press, Vodafone confirmed that it is in preliminary talks about an exchange of assets with Liberty Global – but not a full merger. Vodafone shareholders have been positive about reports that the firm might seek to join forces with Liberty, in order to gain leadership scale in hard-pressed European heartlands. However, in a brief statement, the UK-based multinational insisted that it was “not in discussions with Liberty Global concerning a combination of the two companies” – perhaps because the regulatory hurdles, with the European Commission and several national regulators, would be very high, especially in markets such as Germany. There, Vodafone acquired lead cableco Kabel Deutschland from under…

Google’s I/O event churned out a lot of things we expected to see from the developer conference, but also a few surprises. Most interesting were the releases of Brillo, the anticipated lightweight OS for the internet of things (IoT), and the more surprising launch of Weave, an API framework which could set Google up against Qualcomm’s AllJoyn in the fight to control IoT device discovery and interconnection. The event also marked the release of the developer preview of Android M, even though that looks like a conservative distribution that adds a few enhancements, rather than a radical visual overhaul like Lollipop brought about last year. There were notable absences in the announcements, including any news of Glass, Project Loon, or…

Will the merger of Dish Network and Sprint, heavily on the cards a couple of years ago, prove to be one of the great missed opportunities of the US telecoms market? It now seems likely that T-Mobile USA will join forces with Dish, but if that merger takes place, it will have little of the disruptive potential that could have been there for a Dish/Sprint combination, especially outside the highly competitive, lower-end consumer markets where TMo and Dish are both concentrated. A merger will enable TMo to leapfrog the third largest MNO and achieve larger scale, multiplay services and content partnerships. These three capabilities are vital to survival as a major player in the modern US market, where all the…

M&A, Strategies, Alliances Alarm.com files for a $75m IPO, to fund its connected home plans, providing the software behind Vivint’s platform, and moving against its rival Icontrol, which powers ADT Pulse and Xfinity. The Open Interconnect Consortium has added 25 new members, including Honeywell, Marvell, and IMEC International. Dell’s Service division has joined the ThingWorx System Integrator Program, adding the IoT app-building and management platform to its portfolio of enterprise offerings. Evrythng has been picked by iHome to power its smart products Control Cloud platform. Harman continues its push into connected car audio, wrapping up its acquisition of Bang & Olufsen’s automotive audio business for $156m. Qualcomm and Google have announced a partnership to bring Google’s environmental mapping system Project…

Over the past year, the seemingly unrelenting launch of new standards bodies and working groups focused on the IoT has (thankfully) begun to slow down. While still too many to assuage the fear of a fractured industry of competing approaches and protocols, the larger groups show no sign of slowing their growth. This week, the Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC) has announced the addition of 25 new companies to its ranks. In addition, the group has established liaison agreements with both the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) and the UPnP (Universal Plug ‘n’ Play) Forum – “to maintain compatibility and ensure common usages are covered.” This is especially important, as the OIC’s main project is the creation of IoTivity, the firmware/software…

Google confirmed the leaked reports we looked at last week, by announcing its Brillo OS – a stripped down version of Android targeted at IoT devices, as well as an API framework called Weave. Also announced at the Google event was the new version of Android, or more specifically, the developer preview of Android M, which includes Android Pay integration. While the new fully-featured Android will appeal to developers of consumer electronics, for the IoT, Brillo is the more exciting proposition. Google says Brillo is essentially a package that keeps the lower-level components of Android, but does away with the higher level stuff that is not needed by the kinds of devices that Brillo is designed for – those with…

The cellular industry’s traditional, fiercely protected approach to licensing patents has been under attack in recent years from several quarters – the rise of new mobile giants with their own IPR, such as Apple; the increasing importance of standards from the IEEE or MPEG LA, which have different licensing approaches and are insisting on new rules; the impact of open source; weariness with patent litigation and trolls; antitrust investigations into standards-essential patent (SEP) practices by the European Commission and other agencies. The latest development which may force the giants of cellular patents to adjust their licensing models comes from South Korea and China. Both countries are in the process of adopting antitrust policies which would require vendors to license their…

The UK’s next spectrum auction, to be held later this year, may not be as high profile as Germany’s 700 MHz sale in August, but it will take place amid the scrutiny of two proposed acquisitions, which could completely reshape the mobile market. It has initiated a month of public consultation on how to sell two tranches of capacity-focused airwaves, in 2.3 GHz and 3.4 GHz. These may now be auctioned in two separate processes to help ensure that any merged companies do not gain an unfair advantage. Wireline incumbent BT is looking to buy the largest mobile operator, EE, while Hutchison Whampoa wants to acquire Telefonica O2 and merge it with its Three UK arm, to create the country’s…

The US is looking well beyond traditional cellular frequency bands and backhaul options in its hunt for new mobile broadband spectrum. As it prepares to open up the 3.5 GHz band and, next year, auction the 600 MHz broadcast spectrum, the FCC is also engaged in projects ranging from satellite bands to drones. Google, of course, has been testing drones – as well as tethered balloons and other mechanisms – to support broader wireless broadband delivery. This month, it has supported an FCC proposal to authorize the study of high-altitude platform stations (HAPS) to deliver broadband. These stations are 20-50 kilometers above ground – high enough to cover large areas, but low enough to support dense coverage and low latency.…

Most operators have started their moves towards virtualization and/or SDN (software defined networking) in the network by focusing on one or two fairly discrete elements, such as the packet core or even the CPE, often harnessing experience initially gained in the data center. However, major SDN proponents like AT&T, Telefonica and Verizon believe the maximum benefits will be derived if, eventually, SDN is applied to every layer of the network, enabling access, last mile backhaul, optical transport and data center platforms to be managed as one end-to-end system. The past week has seen two important steps towards this goal. First, Alcatel-Lucent, whose advanced SDN activities will certainly be seen as key assets by its acquirer Nokia, claims to have implemented…

With the near-duopoly of Android and iOS well-established in the handset world, it is easy to forget the viciousness of the mobile operating system wars in the early days of smartphones. The traditional cellphone vendors huddled together for warmth around the Symbian platform, but the politics of that effort, and Nokia’s dominance, destroyed it. BlackBerry, Palm and of course Microsoft battled for air. It was not inevitable that the two new entrants would win out, but it was inevitable that the mobile world would only support one or two platforms at massive scale. The lower the costs of the devices and services, the less the sector could survive fragmentation, so as in the IT and PC worlds before it, the…

M&A, Strategies, Alliances Welltok acquires Predilytics for an undisclosed sum, boosting its CafeWell Health Optimization Platform (an app that conveys health information to consumers) with Predilytics’ machine-learning tech to more accurately segment consumers. Continental has bought Elektrobit Automotive for $680m, for its automotive software and tools. ON Semiconductor joins the Thread Group, Google’s IPv6 mesh networking protocol initiative. Kore has partnered with Active Telematics in Malaysia, with future Asian expansion in the pipeline. Fujitsu picks Apigee Edge to support its IT platforms as they shift to address the IoT and big data. Audi, DHL and Amazon have confirmed their joint-trial to deliver packages to car boots via drone. Qualcomm and Daimler have partnered to develop connected car solutions, including a…

No single company currently provides a complete smart home and lifestyle offering. Instead, each element of that desirable consumer experience (which is still a luxury at this point in time, but one that gets more affordable each day), is usually provided by a company that has to play nice with the other businesses in the game, in order to provide the cohesive and seamless experience that customers are looking. To that end, two companies have announced new integrations this week, with vehicular plugin-adapter Automatic launching an app store and development platform to integrate its connected car into wider smart home ecosystems; and ADT bringing Nest into its Pulse offering, and promising a refresh for the summer on the back of…

While Huawei has launched its own IoT OS this week, called LiteOS (see separate piece), the rumor mills have been swirling with the news that Google might be developing an IoT operating system, and Apple introducing a Home app for its upcoming iOS 9 – and the potential launch of the new service next month. Ahead of its I/O conference, The Information is reporting that Google is planning to launch Brillo – an operating system for IoT devices – and is “likely to release the software under the Android brand, as the group developing the software is linked to the company’s Android unit.” With any luck, this means that the project codenamed Brillo will be pretty accessible to those developers…

Hutchison Whampoa has been on a turbulent journey with Three, its ambitious attempt to play a major role in Europe’s mobile broadband market. Since it was founded amid the bursting of Europe’s 3G bubble in 2002, it is moving quickly on to 4G, and seeking mergers to bring it the scale it has never achieved through organic growth alone, despite a string of disruptive tactics which have certainly helped boost competition, and squeeze prices, in the region. The Hong Kong parent company has already achieved mergers with former rivals in Ireland (Telefonica O2) and Austria (Orange), and a network sharing joint venture with Telenor in Sweden, called Hi3G. It is now looking to join forces with O2 (again) in the…

Telefonica has been among the most willing of the old-style telcos to adapt to the world of digital content, over-the-top services and the internet of things. However, the pressures of its debt mountain and recession-hit home country have meant that it has not delivered on all its promises. For instance, the highly creative and autonomous Telefonica Digital unit was axed as a separate unit last year, its activities supposedly redistributed around the company – an economical move, perhaps, but defeating the original objective of allowing the division to think freely about new opportunities, unencumbered by the traditional business. One area of digital activity which has continued to prosper has been investment in start-ups. The Spanish operator is now bringing together…