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Tag: wimax

  • Fring Launches Dynamic Video Quality Mobile Calling

    fring announced the rollout of its network-optimized DVQ mobile video calling technology. The company’s proprietary DVQ (dynamic video quality) technology adjusts video bit rate and frame rate according to the specific device to match current network bandwidth during a call, delivering the best possible video picture quality for available bandwidth between call peers.

    Where network capacity is constrained, fring’s DVQ technology dynamically adapts the video picture quality, rather than losing the video call while providing the best possible audio quality. In addition, with an integrated DVQ indicator, fring intelligently notifies users of changes in their network strength in real time.

    According to fring, mobile eco-system resources are "core" to the company’s product’s design and its use: DVQ technology adjusts to match bandwidth at every point of every call. This adaptive nature allows for changing call conditions and network availability which translates into more connected calls and fewer dropped calls. Importantly, users enjoy rich video calling according to network congestion and in step with operator’s bandwidth availability – at all traffic hours.

    “In the year since pioneering mobile video calls, we’ve seen that users network conditions change dramatically during and between video calls. That’s the nature of mobile experiences in heterogeneous networks,” said Alex Nerst, Co-Founder & CTO of fring.

    "DVQ lets users make the best use of the peer- to- peer network capacity available at any moment during a video call, regardless of if they’re stepping into an elevator, commuting on a train or simply walking away from their WiFi hub," he added.

    DVQ technology is compatible with all mobile data bearers: 3G, 4G, WIMax and WiFi and is currently available from the iPhone App Store and the Android market.

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  • Clearwire and Sprint to Launch 4G in NYC, LA and SF This Year

    Clearwire and Sprint today announced plans to launch their respective 4G mobile internet services in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco later this year. Each of the companies will offer 4G services under their own 4G brand.

    Clearwire, Sprint and Time Warner Cable will each launch commercial 4G service in New York City on November 1. The service in Los Angeles will be launch on December 1. In cooperation with Comcast, the companies will launch 4G service in the San Francisco Bay Area in late December.

    The 4G customer experience from Clearwire and Sprint is similar to Wi-Fi but without the short-range limitations. The network uses wireless 4G technology that differs from Wi-Fi because it provides service areas measured in miles, not feet. Outside the 4G service area, dual-mode 4G/3G modems keep users continually connected by leveraging Sprint’s 3G data network.

    According to the companies, customers in these three cities “will now be able to increase their mobility and productivity in many ways: from instantly downloading large files to get work done on the run, to browsing the web just like at home from across the city, or watching online videos and movies nearly anywhere around town.”

    Subscribers will also be able to purchase a wide range of 4G devices, including: compact USB modems, numerous Intel embedded WiMAX laptops and netbooks, portable Wi-Fi/4G hotspots, and other wireless devices, all aimed at making lives in 4G cities more mobile and efficient.

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    MWC 2010: Interview with Anton Porter of ClearWire

  • Silicon Labs and Beceem Partner on WiMAX VoIP Gateway Reference Design

    Silicon Laboratories announced that it has partnered with Beceem Communications, WiMAX solutions vendor, to deliver a VoIP broadband gateway reference design for 4G-WiMAX service providers.

    The WiMAX VoIP gateway reference design is based on Beceem’s recently introduced BCS5350 single-chip WiMAX customer premises equipment solution. It also incorporates Silicon Labs’ Si32176 ProSLIC devices to provide the interface that enables the use of traditional home telephones for VoIP services over WiMAX.

    “With its market-leading low power consumption and small footprint, Silicon Labs’ Si32176 ProSLIC is the perfect complement to our high-performance, single-chip WiMAX CPE solution,” said Aditya Agrawal, senior director of marketing at Beceem Communications.

    “The highly integrated reference design streamlines the development process, giving manufacturers greater flexibility and faster time to market in the increasingly competitive 4G marketplace,” he added.

    The reference design uses Silicon Labs’ Si32176 ProSLIC integrated SLIC/codec devices to add one or two telephone ports to a 4G-WiMAX broadband gateway. Beceem’s highly integrated BCS5350 device implements the entire PHY, MAC and RF functionality of a mobile WiMAX terminal on a single chip.

    The broadband gateway solution enables WiMAX service providers to deliver broadband and fixed-line telephony service wirelessly to subscribers as an alternative to wired broadband services such as ADSL or VDSL over telephone wires, data over cable service interface specification (DOCSIS) over coaxial cable and passive optical networks (PON) using optical fiber.

    According to Carlos Garcia, vice president of Silicon Labs, semiconductor solutions from Beceem and Silicon Labs will enable WiMAX gateway vendors to deliver products with the high performance, low cost, low power consumption and small size that their customers demand.

    According to Infonetics Research, the WiMAX market is rebounding from the recession and showing positive signs of growth, with major rollouts underway in the US, Japan, Russia and India. “We forecast around 125 million WiMAX subscribers by 2014, with 20 to 25 percent of them using VoIP over their WiMAX connection,” said Richard Webb, principle WiMAX analyst at Infonetics Research. “WiMAX operators will need a broad range of VoIP-enabled devices to serve this growing need.”

  • Nortel Patent Auction Benefits LTE Market

    The decision by Nortel to sell its Long Term Evolution (LTE) patent portfolio could serve as a launch pad for companies planning to cash in on a market expected to undergo explosive growth in the coming years, according to iSuppli.

    iSuppli forecasts that LTE subscribers will reach 274.4 million by 2014, managing a whopping CAGR of 276.9 percent, up from just 1.4 million subscribers in 2010 and virtually no subscribers in 2009.

    “With Nortel’s decision to open its LTE patent portfolio to bidders, the market for LTE just became a lot more interesting. The acquisition of Nortel’s Intellectual Property (IP) could represent a coup for any company, as it could significantly reduce time to market, development costs and royalty exposure. It also potentially could yield a new serious competitor in the market, depending on who acquires the IP,” said Francis Sideco, iSuppli analyst.

    Currently, among the major suppliers in the chipset landscape for LTE, only Qualcomm and ST-Ericsson are known to have sampled LTE chipsets. Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics and LG are known to be working on solutions for their captive handset businesses.

    Who could benefit?

    “Proven experience with licensing and royalties in 3G shows that having a strong IP position is essential to any company wishing to compete effectively and profitably in the wireless wide area networking market. This is true regardless of whether a company is an equipment manufacturer, a chipset supplier or even a mobile network operator,” said Sideco.

    According to him, with Nortel holding more than 4,000 patents in its portfolio, including those that are essential to the LTE standard, acquiring this IP might be a launch pad for companies that could be planning to get into the LTE market, expanding their portfolio or reducing royalty exposure on future products.

    iSuppli believes a number of companies could benefit from acquiring Nortel’s IP—whether or not they are actually bidding on the holdings. Broadcom, Intel, Infineon Technologies, Huawei, LG and Samsung are just a few companies that might be interested in the technology.

    The research group also believes that Nortel at present is testing the waters to gauge if there is enough interest going around in the market for a buyer to snap up the company’s patents, or whether Nortel could achieve greater revenues by turning its portfolio into a licensing business.

    “The real question here is whether interest in the auction exists—and if Nortel will be able to get as much as, or even more than, it obtained in 2009 for its CDMA patents, which yielded $1.1 billion,” concluded Sideco.

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  • Nokia Siemens to Acquire Motorola’s Wireless Network Infrastructure

    Nokia Siemens and Motorola jointly announced that the companies have entered into an agreement under which Nokia Siemens will acquire the majority of Motorola’s wireless network infrastructure assets for US $1.2 billion in cash. The companies expect to complete closing activities by the end of 2010.

    According to Nokia Siemens, as part of the transaction, the company expects to gain incumbent relationships with more than 50 operators and to strengthen its position with China Mobile, Clearwire, KDDI, Sprint, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone.

    Nokia Siemens expects that based on revenue, with the addition of the Motorola wireless network infrastructure business, it will become the #3 wireless infrastructure vendor in the United States, the #1 foreign wireless vendor in Japan, and strengthen its current #2 position in the global infrastructure segment.

    Motorola’s networks infrastructure business provides products and services for wireless networks, including GSM, CDMA, WCDMA, WiMAX and LTE. This business is a market leader in WiMAX, with 41 contracts in 21 countries; has a strong global footprint in CDMA with 30 active networks in 22 countries; and a robust GSM installed base, with more than 80 active networks in 66 countries; and excellent traction with LTE early adopters.

    Approximately 7,500 employees are expected to transfer to Nokia Siemens Networks from Motorola’s wireless network infrastructure business when the transaction closes, including large research and development sites in the United States, China and India.

    Motorola retains the iDEN business, substantially all the patents related to its wireless network infrastructure business and other selected assets.

    The companies expect to complete closing activities by the end of 2010 and therefore do not expect the transaction to have any impact on Nokia Siemens Networks’ financial performance in 2010.

    Nokia Siemens and Motorola also are exploring a global relationship in the public safety arena. According to the companies, this relationship would combine Motorola’s leadership in providing solutions to public safety organizations with Nokia Siemens Networks’ commercial LTE solutions.

    "This is an exciting acquisition that I believe has significant benefits for customers, employees and our shareholders," said Rajeev Suri, Chief Executive Officer of Nokia Siemens Networks. "Motorola’s current customers will continue to get world-class support for their installed base and a clear path for transitioning to next generation technologies while employees will join an industry leader with global scale and reach. Nokia Siemens Networks will see the benefits of a deal that is expected to enhance profitability and cash-flow and to have significant upside potential."

    Greg Brown, Co-CEO of Motorola, said: "Motorola is very proud of the operational and financial performance of our Networks business and its employees, who will now become a valuable addition to Nokia Siemens Networks. We are excited to have reached this agreement to combine our Networks team with such an industry leader."

    "This is great news for our customers, our investors and our people and will allow us to sharpen our strategic focus on providing mission and business critical solutions for our government, public safety, and enterprise customers," he added.

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  • ABI Research: 2012 Will Be a “Bellwether” Year for 4G

    ABI Research has been tracking cities and population coverage for 4G for the past year. The research group reports that at the end of 2009 there were more than 170 802.16e carriers across 65 countries, covering 480 million people. That number is projected to cross the 1 billion mark by 4Q-2012.

    According to ABI, USB dongles have been an excellent vehicle to prime the market along with CPE and laptops, but mobile handsets will be essential to the success of WiMAX.

    Yota, Sprint, and Clearwire have already started beefing up their lineups with models from HTC and Samsung. Meanwhile, mobile operators are seeking out LTE licenses. ABI predicts that twenty carriers will launch by 4Q-2010. Population coverage lags WiMAX but will catch up, reaching 600 million people by 4Q-2012. LTE coverage will start in urban hotspots but carriers indicate they will push coverage rapidly in order to handle the increasing mobile data wave.

    Analysts also think that the 4G market could well have 150 million subscriptions by 4Q-2014. They claim that the split between WiMAX and LTE will depend on WiMAX carrier commitments to upgrade to 802.16m. “WiMAX vendors such as Motorola and Huawei are gearing up to offer “802.16e+” which will bring features of 802.16m to the current market. Many companies in the ecosystem are already working on interoperability testing for 802.16m,” says the report.

    According to Jake Saunders, VP for forecasting at ABI Research, TD-LTE is the “wildcard.” “It was originally primed as an evolutionary technology for TD-SCDMA carrier China Mobile, but has been gaining interest from some WiMAX carriers. Both camps will be frantically trying to ramp up IC wafer manufacturing, product portfolios and population coverage. There will be considerable scrutiny over the next few years,” he said.

    Practice director Philip Solis added, “Some WiMAX service providers may switch from WiMAX to TD-LTE, but others are doing this partly as insurance and partly to assure investors of an alternate path so they may go forward with WiMAX. This is something for smaller greenfield service providers to consider. Large mobile operators will move forward with LTE whether it be on FDD or TDD spectrum. Clearwire can do both WiMAX and LTE if it wants to since it has the spectrum to do so.”

    Related articles
    America’s First 4G Phone, HTC EVO, Debuts on June 4
    In-Stat: 4G LTE Gated by 3G Success, not WiMAX
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  • America's First 4G Phone, HTC EVO, Debuts on June 4

    Sprint announced that it will start selling its highly anticipated HTC EVO 4G on June 4. The company will price the device at $199.99 with a two-year service agreement with a new line activation or eligible upgrade.

    HTC EVO 4G will use Sprint’s Everything Data or Business Advantage Messaging and Data plans. Everything Data plans start at $69.99 per month. Mandatory $10 per month Premium Data add-on will allow costumers to use WiMAX when they’re in a Sprint 4G market.

    Additionally, an optional pricing add-on will turn HTC EVO 4G into a mobile hotspot connecting up to eight Wi-Fi enabled devices (laptops, gaming devices and digital cameras) simultaneously at 4G speeds where available and at 3G speeds anywhere on the Sprint 3G network for $29.99 per month.

    Sprint launched first U.S. 4G in Baltimore in September 2008. According to the company, today, Sprint 4G covers 41 million people and expects to have up to 120 million people covered by the end of 2010.

    "HTC EVO 4G is a fantastic 3G device, but when you use it in our growing 4G coverage area, it becomes a multimedia powerhouse," said Dan Hesse, Sprint CEO.

    HTC EVO 4G features Android 2.1, the newest version of the HTC Sense, simultaneous voice and data capability in 4G and Wi-Fi coverage areas, 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 4.3 inch display, two cameras – an 8.0 megapixel auto-focus camera with HD-capable video camcorder and a forward-facing 1.3 megapixel camera, built-in mobile hotspot functionality allowing up to eight Wi-Fi enabled devices to share the 3G or 4G and integrated HD video capture.

    "The EVO 4G experience is much like going from TV to HDTV. But EVO has more than just an impressive list of features – it is also fun to use with remarkable gaming, video and web-browsing capabilities," Hesse added.

    With the launch of HTC EVO 4G, Sprint is also launching new video chat service: Qik. The two-way voice and video capability will be available as an upgrade to the preloaded Qik app on HTC EVO 4G to enable conversational, interactive, real-time sharing between mobile devices or from mobile-to-desktop.

    Related articles
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    MWC 2010: Interview with Ashis Sharma, VP of Marketing at Alvarion

  • MWC 2010: Interview with Ashis Sharma, VP of Marketing at Alvarion

    At the Mobile World Congress we talked to Ashis Sharma, VP of Marketing at Alvarion, the world’s leading provider of 4G WiMAX solutions that has more than 3.5 million wireless devices deployed around the globe

    Alvarion has showcased a broad range of 4G WiMAX end user devices (embedded WiMAX laptops, netbooks, a variety of USB dongles, MIDs, UMPCs and Mobile Hot Spots), end-to-end network solutions and innovative wireless applications, highlighting the collaboration with open network of partners.

    Through its OPEN WiMAX strategy, superior IP and OFDMA know-how, and ability to deploy full turnkey WiMAX projects, the company is shaping the new wireless broadband experience.


  • In-Stat: 4G LTE Gated by 3G Success, not WiMAX

    LTE, the next-generation mobile broadband standard, is the clear choice for the next leap in wireless technology, reports In-Stat. The analysts claim that while WiMax appeared to be a competitor for 4G early on, that battle is now largely resolved.

    In-Stat predicts that LTE’s deployment will primarily be impeded by the success of 3G networks and HSPA and HSPA+ networks as mobile operators seek to leverage their installed infrastructure.

    LTE still has several glaring issues. These include lack of spectrum, signal-to-noise ratio, and non-established patent and royalty pool. “It’s clear that the shift toward 4G LTE will be gradual and protracted,” says In-Stat.

    While LTE will ultimately become the 4G standard of choice, Mobile Wi-Max is much more mature in deployment and has a distinct niche. According to the research group, even by 2013, Mobile Wi-Max will have more than 5 times as many global subscribers as LTE.

    LTE deployments will effectively begin in 2010. North America and Asia/Pacific will be the first regions to deploy.

    In-Stat also believes that external clients, such as dongles, network cards, and USB dongles will be the first LTE subscriber devices sold. LTE mobile handsets will not start shipping in major volumes until 2H12.

    “WiMAX deployments have given chipset manufacturers, device manufacturers, and infrastructure suppliers real-world experience,” state the analysts.

    Related articles
    ABI Research: 4G Mobile Consumer Service Revenue Will Exceed $70 Billion in 2014
    TeliaSonera Launches World’s First LTE Network
    Almost Two Million Mobile WiMAX Subscribers Expected by End of 2009
    AIRCOM Reveals the Economic Reality of LTE Migration

  • ABI Research: 4G Mobile Consumer Service Revenue Will Exceed $70 Billion in 2014

    As 4G network deployments gather momentum, a substantial 22% of device subscription revenues will come from suites of operator-branded premium services.

    Total 4G mobile consumer service revenue – including mobile internet services – will grow rapidly to exceed $70 billion worldwide in 2014, says ABI Research.

    According to ABI Research practice director Philip Solis, “Operators of 4G networks will refuse to be marginalized as ‘dumb data pipe’ service providers. Instead, they will offer suites of ‘smart services’ – some internally developed, others via partnerships with third party suppliers – that will be provided over ‘smart networks’ enabled with all-IP technologies, IMS infrastructure and cloud-based storage.”

    The analysts think these 4G services will be optimized to enable a proliferation of mobile devices, such as smartphones, netbooks and PNDs, and many operators will be offering pooled device subscriptions: one user subscription, many activated devices.

    Internet access service will be the “killer 4G service” – no surprise considering 4G networks are data-only.

    However, a suite of premium services will collectively drive significant consumer adoption, revenues and profits, including location services (such as turn-by-turn directions and POIs), multimedia services (as VoD and P2P video sharing), media broadcast services (pay-per-view TV and digital radio) and gaming services (such as multi-player and augmented reality games).

    ABI Research predicts that these “Web 3.0” services will be integrated with popular Web 2.0 features, such as personalization, community, interactivity, presence, and localization, and will be delivered simultaneously, seamlessly and transparently to ‘three screens’ – PCs, TVs and mobile devices – over the internet, over cable networks, and over wireless networks.

    “Operators will take advantage of this market opportunity by breaking down their walls and building open ecosystems,” says Solis.

    “They will partner with third-party service providers from whom they can license and re-brand services; they’ll work with network and handset OEMs to influence infrastructure and device specs; and they’ll join ecosystem development organizations, such as Alcatel-Lucent’s ng Connect program.”