Searching Weekly Analysis
Searching Weekly Analysis
The EU struck a late deal to ban Russian oil imports, aiming to cut off a huge source of financing for the country’s invasion of Ukraine. It includes an immediate ban on the imports of sea-bourn oil, which accounts for two-thirds of Russian oil flowing into Europe. Following objection from Hungary, there will be a temporary exemption for oil delivered by pipeline, allowing Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, extra time to wean themselves off Russian crude supplies. In addition to the pledges from Germany and Poland to stop oil imports via the northern part of the Druzhba pipeline, the ban will cover 90% of Russian imports by the end of the year. Russia currently provides 27% of the EU’s…
AT&T launches 5G in Mexico City AT&T Mexico has launched its 5G network in Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey, aiming to reach 25 more cities across the country by the end of 2022. Users will be able to access the 5G service through AT&T Ármalo, which allows customers to build their own 5G plan, while enterprises can access 5G through AT&T Business. The carrier first launched 5G services in Mexico in December 2021 using spectrum in the 2.5 GHz band, confined to Cuauhtémoc and the Napoles districts in Mexico City. AT&T Mexico has also opened a 5G Innovation Laboratory in the country, to test and validate 5G use cases with collaborators and customers. Telefónica’s Mexican operator Movistar…
The saga of Malaysia’s attempt to build a 5G single wholesale network (SWN) continues, with the government rejecting proposals by the country’s four MNOs. Those proposals would have reconciled the operators to a shared 5G network plan that they have resisted since it was mooted in 2019, since they would have taken a majority stake, collectively, in the vehicle set up to run the network, Digital Nasional Berhad (DNB). But the government only wants to give away a minority stake to the MNOs, to encourage other investors and wholesale customers. The aim of setting up a public/private entity to run a single 5G network was to accelerate roll-out to support Malaysian socio-economic goals and to reduce costs for…
Amdocs has acquired a far smaller company in the OSS space, UK-based service assurance specialist MycomOSI, which was a pioneer of deploying telecoms software in the public cloud. In expanding its software beyond the telco cloud into public or hybrid platforms, it boosted the software-as-a-service model for its assurance software, which is used by Three UK as part of its new cloud-based core network, among other customers. Amdocs is paying $188m in cash, or about five times MycomOSI’s revenues, for the firm, which was taken private in 2018 by Inflexion Capital. The deal will only add about 1% to the new parent’s revenues after year one, but the attractions clearly lie in a Tier 1 customer base and…
Broadcom is still best known as a chip developer with very strong positions in transport networks, WiFi, broadband access and other parts of the telco platform. However, its attempts to expand further into cellular networks and devices have been thwarted, and since 2018 it has been broadening its business in a different way, by acquiring enterprise software firms. It snapped up Computer Associates (CA) and security provider Symantec, and now it has offered $61bn for cloud technology leader VMware. If that deal is approved, it will turn Broadcom into a real software company, with almost half of its revenues being generated from a division that will be rebranded with the VMware name. This is potentially a more significant change…
The US operators are divided in their level of enthusiasm for Open RAN and cloud-based networks, and that difference of approach extends to another of the 5G era’s hottest trends, private cellular. This time, however, it is AT&T that is on the side of caution, while T-Mobile, the skeptic about new architectures, is aggressively trying to build an enterprise business around its extensive 5G Standalone (SA) build-out. For its part, Verizon has the most mature private and enterprise cellular business, and for several years has been steadily building partnerships and channels in key sectors such as automotive, logistics and Industrial IoT. Massimo Peselli, SVP of Global Enterprise within Verizon Business, says it has been important to take a consistent…
US Cellular, the fourth MNO in the US market, is rolling out fixed wireless access spanning almost half of the 48 contiguous states. It is not joining the push to introduce new vendors to its RAN supply chain, having struck equipment deals with both Ericsson and Nokia to extend its services to C-band spectrum around 3.45 GHz, although these will not be ready for deployment until the end of 2023. Samsung has won contracts with both AT&T and Verizon, which were initially driven by its expertise in FWA and millimeter wave, though they have now expanded to mobile and C-band. But it was not included in US Cellular’s FWA deals, let alone any of the US-based challenger RAN vendors…
In the early days of 5G, AT&T seemed like a disruptive force in its own industry. It established its Domain 2.0 initiative in advance of 5G, to shake up its supply chain in support of software-defined networking and future 5G virtualized networks. Admittedly some of its more interesting vendor selections, such as Tail-f, were promptly acquired by incumbent suppliers (that acquisition got Cisco a place in Domain 2.0), but AT&T continued to work with innovators, such as Barefoot Networks (now part of Intel), to push forward its SDN agenda. Meanwhile, it was contributing heavily to open and open source activities under the auspices of the Linux Foundation, Open Compute Project and Open Networking Foundation, and even setting up…
The telecoms landscape in the USA is certainly changing in the 5G era, but this is not always being led by the operators, as it would have been in the past. Dish Network’s 5G build-out is a US example of a modern approach to architecture and services, but is live in only one market and as yet commercially unproven. AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile are far more capable of transforming the mobile platform and value chain in the short term, but they are behaving very conservatively, leaving US-led disruption to other stakeholders. The language of US policy makers and politicians would suggest the country would take the lead in defining and implementing the key trends that are shaping the second…
The leap in performance of 5G has led to gamers and users of more demanding applications increasingly opting for cellular rather than WiFi connectivity, reversing the normal pattern in the 4G era. While hard data about this trend is still elusive, the latest survey from London-based mobile analytics firm Opensignal indicates that users are now becoming well aware that 5G, where available, is now often significantly better than public WiFi for both throughput and latency, the two critical parameters for gaming in particular. While earlier surveys had already confirmed that 5G running in millimeter wave spectrum was well ahead of WiFi data rates, even when the latter’s latest 6E version was deployed, the new Opensignal data is notable in finding…
Sports is still the main driver of pay TV, but some snippets of data gleaned from an IBC webinar have highlighted what might just be a properly existential question for sports. The main concern appears to be that younger viewers prefer to watch sports with new data-driven overlay features, and if this is transferable to other content types or viewing in general, could make for significant upheaval in the content production world. One had to join a few dots to reach this conclusion, but the webinar titled ‘Then Enhanced TV Sports Experience,’ had all the components needed. Tobias Fröhlich, founder of TV app developer TeraVolt, kicked off by demonstrating the TeraVolt smartphone app, which allowed for picture-in-picture viewing of multiple…
It might seem hypocritical for a company like Akamai to preach about green CDNs while accusing others of greenwashing when Akamai itself is one of the media technology industry’s most significant power-guzzlers, but we can’t fault the CDN heavyweight for trying to educate the world to improve on its own fundamental flaws. Akamai had several representatives at Streaming Media East this week, including a post that is sounding more and more familiar – Director of Corporate Sustainability. If your organization doesn’t already have a dedicated sustainability position, then people will soon start to ask questions, and rightly so. Encoding vendors are under the cosh of Akamai, somewhat paradoxically, as the company takes issue with marketing departments making wild claims about…
Faultline’s sister service, Rethink TV, has delved into the low latency market, after pondering the uptake of LL-HLS and LL-DASH, as well as foundational technology CMAF. During its investigation, it tackled newcomer HESP, but found that the market is in a very awkward position. Put simply, Rethink TV’s interviews led to the conclusion that it will be very difficult to monetize the low latency distribution (LLD) protocols, due to their only real niche being live sports. Due to the expected adoption cycle, there will be a short window in which vendors can charge a premium for them, but this will close swiftly as the OVPs finalize adding them to their lineup. To this end, Rethink TV estimates that around 63%…
The modular Synamedia Go product suite has been buffed up this week, following the acquisition of Utelly’s recommendation prowess. No price has been given for the ten-person team, but the UK firm was apparently such a good fit for the new SaaS approach that the deal was signed. Faultline talked to Scott Kewley, Synamedia’s VP Commercial Product Management, to learn more. Utelly provides customers with a ‘content discovery platform,’ which handles metadata aggregation, search and recommendations, and content promotion. Scanning multiple metadata sources, including Gracenote, TiVo, IMDb, and Netflix, and using some AI-based tools, Utelly claims the system boosts ARPU, improves net promoter scores, and increases customer retention. Faultline did wonder why a firm as well renowned and capable as…
UK energy regulator Ofgem has announced plans to increase the energy price cap for consumer bills by 42%. The cap currently sits at £1,971 per month, and will rise to around £2,800 from October, marking the largest increase since the cap’s outset in 2014. Ofgem also announced that it hopes to review the cap once every three months, rather than the six month frequency that is currently followed. Siemens Energy has launched its long-awaited bid of $4.3 billion to take full control of its wind turbine venture Siemens Gamesa, building on its current 67% stake. Like its competitors, Siemens Gamesa has struggled to turn a profit over recent quarters, struggling with sharp increases in the cost of steel and other…
LG Energy Solution revealed this week that it has pivoted away from its existing lithium ion technology towards LFP (lithium iron phosphate) chemistry, which is rapidly gaining popularity because it is cheaper and less volatile than other Lithium chemistries such as NCM (Nickel Manganese Cobalt Oxide). Just a couple of years ago LG was continually attacking LFP in brochures and in blogs on its website on the basis that the NCM cathode was simply more effective. Most lithium ion players are seeing the argument shift to one of thermal runaway and safety versus higher energy density, especially where grid batteries are concerned and where the highest energy density is not needed. Tesla has said it will use the highest energy…
Rethink Energy was curious as to why we had not heard of Urban Electric Power (UEP) when we wrote up last week that it had secured a Memorandum of Understanding to supply Pine Gate Renewables with 4.5 GWh of rechargeable zinc alkaline batteries over the next five years. We asked Ann Marie Augustus VP of operations if she had been operating in Stealth mode and she more or less agreed. “We’ve had no public relations functions until now, and are built around some research out of the CUNY Energy Institute (CUNY stand for City University of New York) which took place back in 2008.” “We were still working at the University in Manhattan until 2014 and it all came into…
Ericsson and Intel already work closely together on virtualized RAN architectures, even though the Swedish firm has increasingly talked up the need for proprietary and specialized silicon to support near-real time functions in the RAN’s Layer 1. However, for the centralized unit (CU) of the disaggregated vRAN architecture, which supports functions at higher layers, an x86-based platform is the heart of Ericsson’s Cloud RAN offering. Now, the two firms have set up the Ericsson-Intel Tech Hub to identify and prioritize enhancements and use cases for Cloud RAN, and to build an R&D roadmap for future commercial software releases. The hub is located in Ericsson’s Silicon Valley facility in Santa Clara, California and will focus on creating a roadmap to support…
The saga regarding Malaysia’s government-driven project to deploy a single 5G national network continues to twist and turn. The four main MNOs in the country – Celcom Axiata, Digi, Maxis and U-Mobile – have thrown various objections at the scheme since it was mooted in 2018 as a way to accelerate 5G roll-out by creating one wholesale-only network on which all the operators could launch services. Earlier this year they insisted on being allowed to take a stake in the company set up to run the network, Digital Nasional Berhad (DNB). But then they balked at the government’s plan to sell 70% of that entity – but to allow five other companies to purchase stakes as well as the MNOs,…
Joe Kochan has been appointed as the new executive director of the USA’s National Spectrum Consortium (NSC), and has put Open RAN and spectrum sharing – both considered key to future US 5G competitiveness – at the heart of his agenda. The NSC’s chair, Salvador D’Itri – who is also VP of federal affairs at Federated Wireless – said in a statement that he was “confident Joe will help us accelerate the development of next-generation technologies to support critical federal missions and ensure US competitiveness”. The NSC works with the government to provide access to more than 400 members of US industry and academia with activities related to spectrum and wireless networks. Kochan most recently worked as CEO of US…