Telecom industry interesting news & developments

Verizon Wireless shed some light on recent issues impacting its LTE network in a move that looks to placate a growing online call that maybe the carrier is not quite the gold standard of network reliability it makes itself out to be. In a statement, Verizon Wireless acknowledged that its LTE service has had a few hiccups and that some of its efforts to restore data connectivity also affected the ability to access 3G services for some customers. “Problems customers experienced affected connectivity to the 4G LTE network and data service,” the carrier said. “Several times, we have proactively ‘moved’ 4G LTE customers onto our 3G network to ensure all would have a data connection. For brief periods, such as on Wednesday (12/28), 4G LTE customers could not connect to the 3G network as quickly as we would have liked.” In explaining the particulars of the outages, Verizon Wireless noted that each incident was “different from a technical standpoint,” and that each instanc...

Mozilla's Firefoxes are winning with the new Google deal Well,   Mozilla   certainly fooled us. Just when we were counting Firefox out as a major Web browser player   in the years ahead. Sure,   Mozilla signed a new deal with Google , but by itself though   many of us didn’t think the deal meant much . I assumed, along with many others, that Google could support Firefox with its pocket change while devoting all its real attention to its own Web browser:   Chrome . Boy, were we wrong! We now know that   Google will pay just under $300 million per year to be Firefox’s default search engine choice . That’s almost three-times as much as Mozilla made in its previous deal with Google. In 2010,   84% of Mozilla’s $123 million in revenue came from its Google search deal . This is great for Mozilla. As Jay Lyman, senior open-source analyst for   451 Research , said this is “certainly good news for Mozilla and Firefox and it buys them more...

Following the discovery of a lump of coal in its stocking earlier this week, AT&T ( T ) managed to get at least one present it was hoping for: Qualcomm’s 700 MHz spectrum. AT&T announced late last night that it had garnered regulatory approval to purchase 700 MHz licenses from Qualcomm ( QCOM ) that was originally announced one year ago . The approval follows the announcement earlier this week that AT&T was pulling out of its planned $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA due to regulatory objections. That deal’s demise will cost AT&T approximately $4 billion in assets . The Qualcomm deal calls for AT&T to pick up 6 megahertz of nationwide, 700 MHz unpaired spectrum (D-Block) and 6 megahertz of unpaired 700 MHz spectrum (E-Block) covering approximately 70 million potential customers for $1.925 billion. Qualcomm had originally spent $558 million for those licenses during the 700 MHz auction . It should be noted that the remainder of the E-Block licens...

The end of one-time mobile broadband provider Open Range Communications is at hand as the company’s assets are set to be auctioned off beginning Jan. 11. Colorado-based Open Range, which provided wireless Internet and phone services using WiMAX technology across portions of 17 states, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Oct. 6. According to auction services firm Heritage Global Partners, the auction will feature “large quantities of state-of-the-art networking, test equipment, IT equipment and office furnishings as well as more than 350 cell towers located throughout the United States.” “This auction is an opportunity for local or regional wireless telecom providers to purchase technologies and equipment to expand their services and better serve their customers,” said David Weiss, vice president of Heritage Global Partners. In 2008, Open Range garnered approval for $267 million in loans from the U.S. Agriculture Department’s Rural Development Utilities Program to deli...

everal major global telecom vendors — including Alcatel Lucent, Nokia Siemens Networks, Ericsson, Huawei Telecommunication and ZTE Telecom — are among the bidders for the mobile equipment tender of state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL). India’s junior minister for telecommunications, Milind Deora, told Parliament that the tender for procurement of 14.4 million Global System for Mobile (GSM) communication lines for expansion of 2G and 3G services has been floated by BSNL. “The equipment is required for all the telecom circles of BSNL except Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, which would get equipment under PSU quota reserved for ITI against the tender,” the minister said. The minister also gave information on the fresh tenders which are floated based on revised requirements. BSNL had previously scrapped a tender for 93 million GSM lines which it floated in 2008 for all the telecom circles. The company also scrapped another tender for 5.5 mill...

Consumerization, cloud computing, consumer and enterprise social networks, mobile application, the shifting of sources of supply from Asia to the Americas, big data and cybercrime are some of the trends among research and advisory firm Gartner’s top predictions for IT organizations and users for 2012 and beyond. Gartner (NYSE: IT) also cited trends such as chief information officers losing control of their IT expenditures, which will be managed outside the IT department’s budget. Trends include events that will change the nature of business today and in years to come. One big challenge is to deal and to understand the increase in the amount of information available to organizations. According to Gartner, given the shifts in control of systems that IT organizations are facing, the loss of ability to guarantee consistency and effectiveness of data will leave many struggling to prevent their organizations from missing key opportunities or from using questionable informati...

Leap Wireless ( LEAP ) threw its hat into the LTE ring, announcing the commercial launch of service in the Tucson, Ariz., market. The carrier said the initial service offering covers more than 90% of its current CDMA-based footprint in that market, with further expansion to Nogales planned for 2012. The LTE network in Tucson is using equipment from Alcatel-Lucent. Leap noted that initial testing has returned network speeds up to 10 times faster than its current 3G network, which itself returns network speeds of up to 1 megabit per second on the downlink, though rate plans indicate actual speeds will top out at 6 Mbps for the LTE service. Rate plans for the service begin at $50 per month for 5 gigabytes of data access at speeds up to 3 Mbps, with big spenders able to access the same 5 GB of data at speeds up to 6 Mbps for $60 per month. Leap’s current CDMA-based wireless modem plans allow for 2.5 GB of data transmission at speeds up to 1.4 Mbps for $45 per month; 5 GB...

One segment expected to benefit from AT&T’s ( T ) decision to drop its acquisition bid of T-Mobile USA is the tower market, which for the past several months has waited on news of how a combined AT&T Mobility/T-Mobile USA would impact their operations . Now, that the deal is off, most expect business to again hit a boom cycle for the tower industry. This boom is to be fueled by T-Mobile USA now needing to spend money on towers in support of its newly acquired spectrum and possible LTE strategy. “Some of our private contacts have already indicated that last week T-Mobile has begun re-engaging in a dialogue with wireless RF and tower operators to continue to focus on its HSPA+ rollout,” Wells Fargo Securities said in a research note. “It is our understanding that since the March 20, 2010 announcement of the merger, T-Mobile has been somewhat quiet on this front.” Also boding well for the tower market are the expected tower buildouts associated with Verizon Wirel...

With its planned acquisition of T-Mobile USA now dead , AT&T Mobility look set to end the year having to plan how to proceed. Details of the deal’s demise indicate that the companies have entered into a network-sharing arrangement, details of which are not yet known. What is known is that AT&T will be handing over $3 billion in cash; 1.7/2.1 GHz spectrum licenses covering 128 markets, including 12 of the nation’s top 20 markets; and a nationwide UMTS roaming agreement that will allow T-Mobile USA to expand coverage from its current 230 million potential customers covered to 280 million pops covered. That bounty will at least give Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile USA a jump on their plans. Those plans could be a fallback to what Deutsche Telekom had announced just prior to AT&T’s acquisition attempt when the company held a news conference touting the ways in which it was going to re-energize its U.S. operations. Deutsche Telekom said at that time that it want...

After nearly nine months, AT&T has said it will drop its $39 billion acquisition attempt of T-Mobile USA. The carrier cited recent acts by the Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission to block the deal in ending the acquisition attempt. In a statement, AT&T reiterated that it needed to acquire T-Mobile USA in order to gain access to spectrum resources to power wireless networks straining under increased consumer demand, and that without being able to gain access to those spectrum assets, “customers will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled.” AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson said in a statement that the carrier would continue to invest in its network, but that the government needed to allow the “free markets to work so that additional spectrum is available to meet the immediate needs of the U.S. wireless industry, including expeditiously approving our acquisition of unused Qualcomm spectrum currently pending before the FC...

The nation’s largest tower operator is making a major investment in distributed antenna systems. Crown Castle International ( NYSE: CCI ) says it will purchase NextG Networks Inc . for roughly $1 billion from a private equity group led by Madison Dearborn Partners . With more than 7,000 nodes on air, NextG is the largest provider of distributed antenna systems (DAS) in the United States. NextG also has 1,500 nodes under construction and owns the rights to acquire more than 4,600 miles of fiber. “Increasingly, we believe that small-cell architecture, such as DAS, will be an important complement to traditional macro tower installations,” said Ben Moreland, Crown Castle’s president and CEO. Crown Castle markets its DAS solutions to wireless operators that want to reach areas where traditional network build-outs are difficult because of zoning or cost constraints or lack of coverage by a macro network. The company says its acquisition of NextG will bring additional wireless ...

Freescale Semiconductor ( NYSE: FSL ) today became the latest semiconductor company to announce a restructuring. The Austin-based chipmaker says it will create two new strategic product groups, one focusing on networking and multimedia, which will include cellular products, and the other focusing on automotive and industrial solutions, which will include M2M products. Freescale’s networking and multimedia group will be headed up by Tom Deitrich. Lisa Su, the former head of networking and multimedia, is leaving Freescale and has accepted a position as senior vice president of global business units at AMD. Reza Kazerounian will lead Freescale’s new automotive and industrial solutions group. “We continue to listen to our customers and we are aligning our operations in a way that provides the best solutions to meet their needs,” said Rich Beyer, chairman and CEO. “The product groups, led by Tom and Reza, will provide the necessary level of integration and efficiency to mo...

Cox Communications, having recently dismantled its wireless ambitions , said it plans to sell its 20 megahertz 1.7/2.1 GHz spectrum holdings to Verizon Wireless for $315 million. Cox noted that those spectrum assets cover 28 million potential customers and do not include its 12 megahertz of spectrum in the 700 MHz band or any of its current wireless customers. As part of the deal, Cox and Verizon Wireless also announced plans to resell each other’s residential and commercial products and services through their respective sales channels. Cox will also hold the option to sell Verizon Wireless’ services on a wholesale basis. The move follows Verizon Wireless’ announcement earlier this month that it would purchase 122 1.7/2.1 GHz spectrum licenses (also known as AWS spectrum) covering 259 million potential customers for $3.6 billion from a consortium of cable companies. Those cable companies include Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks. As part of that d...

In a move to help it provide fully integrated enterprise-class solutions, Verizon Communications (VZ) today announced the creation of a new global organization that will oversee all business, government and wholesale operations from across the company’s wireless and wireline businesses. John Stratton, previously executive vice president and chief operating officer of Verizon Wireless, has been named president of the new organization, to be called Verizon Enterprise Solutions, the company said. The new organization will oversee all of Verizon’s solutions for business and government customers, including its portfolio of enterprise mobility, cloud and IT, strategic networking and advanced communications offerings, as well as specialized solutions for key industries such as health care, travel and transportation, retail, utilities and financial services, and IT consulting services. Additionally, Verizon Enterprise Solutions will include the company’s global wholesale off...

Using a mobile phone while driving is already illegal in seven states, and now the federal government is pressuring more states to enact bans. The National Transportation Safety Board has voted to make mobile phone use behind the wheel illegal, but it will be up to each state to decide whether or not to follow through and pass a law. The Governors Highway Safety Association says smartphones can be linked to 1 in 4 U.S. traffic accidents. The eventual solution for many drivers may be to make their car their smart device while driving. Ford’s Sync software allows Ford and Lincoln drivers to connect their cars to their smartphones using Bluetooth. Drivers can use their voices to control several of their car’s features, and to send text messages using voice commands. RACO Wireless has created a voice-activated system for Audi’s smart cars that allows drivers to make calls and check messages without using their hands or their phone. The Audi also uses Bluetooth technology ...

AT&T’s ( T ) attempt to focus its legal efforts on fighting a single battle against the government as it tries to acquire T-Mobile USA seems to have hit a snag as the judge overseeing the case expressed concern as to whether the court should even hear the proceedings following AT&T’s successful removal of its application from the Federal Communications Commission. Late last week, U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle reportedly said she was concerned that AT&T had removed the deal from the FCC, noting that AT&T could then submit an altered proposal from what was currently in front of the courts. The court has a hearing on the matter scheduled for Dec. 15. Reports indicate that the Department of Justice, which originally expressed plans to fight the deal in late August, will ask that the case now be pushed off as the deal is basically dead without gaining FCC approval. “We have reason to believe lead DoJ antitrust attorney Joseph Wayland will next week r...

Less than 15 days after selling the former Motorola Solutions’ WiMAX business  to NewNet Communication Technologies, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN)  announced today that Adtran Inc. (Nasdaq: ADTN) plans to acquire its fixed-line broadband access business and associated professional services and network management solutions. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. The transaction is part of a restructuring strategy NSN announced last month , in which NSN will eliminate almost a quarter of its workforce in an effort to streamline operations and concentrate on the mobile network infrastructure and services market. The acquisition by Adtran, provides next-generation networking solutions, would include NSN’s broadband access intellectual properties, technologies and customer base, and affect about 400 employees, including workers in engineering, research and development, sales and professional services. The agreement also includes provisions tha...

But Samsung and Motorola’s courtroom victories may be cold comfort this holiday season, with fourth quarter sales of iPhones now projected to hit 30 million , and iPad sales projected to hit 12 million. Apple’s robust sales may have played a part in last week’s ruling by a California district judge denying Apple’s request for a preliminary injunction against Samsung in the United States. Judge Lucy Koh noted that while Apple is likely to ultimately prove Samsung infringed on Apple’s design patents, the company has not proven that Samsung is causing irreparable harm to Apple by selling the Galaxy tablets and smartphones. If Apple does win the patent infringement case, Samsung will probably have to pay damages on the Galaxy products it has sold. Samsung is Apple’s strongest competitor in the smartphone market, and outsold the Cupertino company by a wide margin in the third quarter, before the introduction of the iPhone 4S. The iPad and iPhone are looking much more succes...