Patent Wars

Interesting manoeuvres between Microsoft and Motorola Mobility  (http://www.cio.co.uk/news/3348712/microsoft-abandons-european-distribution-hub-as-german-litigation-heats)

Mar/2012: Salient News Updates

RIM reports $125 million quarterly loss: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17557177 Success is a continuous endeavor. Even for the best of companies, the slide from peak to trough can be sudden and drastic. 

3G Vendor Updates in India

As 2010 ends, all of India’s cellular operators that won 3G spectrum have selected their 3G vendors and have either launched or are looking at launching 3G services. The exception is S-Tel, which has won spectrum in 3 circles, and has not yet announced its vendors.

The following table lists the operators, vendors, number of circles and salient circles awarded to each vendor.

Operators	3G Circles Won	Number of 3G Circles Awarded To
		Ericsson	NSN	Huawei	ZTE
Airtel	13	7	3	3
RComm	13			5	8
Vodafone Essar	9	3 (Mum, ND, Kol)	6 (TN, GJ, MH)	0
Aircel	13	6 (TN)	3 (Punjab, Kol)	3	1
TTSL	9		4	5
Idea	11	5	4	2
Total	68	21	20	18	9
Abbreviations: Mum=>Mumbai, ND=> New Delhi, Kol=>Kolkata, TN: TamilNadu, GJ=>Gujarat, MH=>Maharashtra

Observations:

1.       The 3G technology selected by all the operators is HSPA/HSPA+ with an upgrade path to 4G. So all the operators are looking to make their 3G investments 4G ready.

2.       The share of 3G circles have been split almost equally between Ericsson (21), NSN (20) and Huawei (18) with ZTE (9) lagging somewhat. Alcatel-Lucent has been completely left out; I wonder why. Most of the mature operators seem to have chosen Ericsson or NSN for their primary circles while giving out the relatively smaller circles to Huawei. However Huawei has definitely gained market share in the 3G market. If it can prove its case in these initial rollouts then it may well become the largest wireless infrastructure vendor in the future 3G and 4G upgrades in India.

3.       There are reports that the 3G contracts were won at very thin profit margins and that the European vendors (Ericsson/NSN) bid at a matching or lower price than the Chinese vendors (Huawei/ZTE). This marks a turning point in the nature of competition. Cost competiveness also points to the fact that the European vendors may look to support a major part of the 3G operation out of their captive centers in India.

4.       The price point of the bids is only one facet of a deal. Vendors seem to have also played a part in facilitating loans for the respective operators. For example RComm has received a loan of USD 1.3 billion from the China Development Bank of which it would spend USD 600 million for the 3G contracts to Huawei and ZTE. Facilitating loans on favorable terms for cash-strapped operators (especially in emerging economies) is becoming a significant differentiator for Huawei and ZTE.

5.       The 3G contracts have been completely outsourced with the operators delegating the network infrastructure, planning, optimization and maintenance to the selected vendors. This is a culmination of an outsourcing trend that has been observed in the Indian wireless industry. This is in contrast to the much tighter network control exercised by the Japanese (NTT-Docomo, KDDI) and US (Verizon, AT&T) operators.

LTE Base-Station Reference Design by TATA-Elxsi, CommAgility and Radiocomp

Tata Elxsi, CommAgility, and Radiocomp have announced a collaboration to produce an LTE Macro/Micro base-station reference design. This is a significant milestone for an Indian product company at being able to contribute to complex engineering solutions. It is also a compelling example of collaboration between companies that bring complementary skills and are geographically diverse [TATA Elxsi: Bangalore, India, CommAgility: Leicestershire, UK and Radiocomp: Hillerod(Copenhagen), Denmark]. TATA Elxsi probably provided the L2/L3 software stack, CommAgility provided the DSP baseband and physical layer implementation and Radiocomp provided the Radio Head.
The challenge is to convert engineering design wins to commercial success and it is not always a given. For example TATA Elxsi reported a 10% net-profit-to-sales margin in Q2, 2010 with a profit of Rs 15 crores while its larger cousin TCS, which is primarily into services, reported a 24% net profit margin with a quarterly profit of Rs 2169 crores. Notwithstanding these challenges, let us celebrate this milestone in wireless engineering out of India.

Huawei's 3Tier Plan to Address Security Concerns in the US Telecom Market

It is well known that Huawei has been trying to expand its foothold on the US telecom market. It has existing business with Clearwire (http://www.cellular-news.com/story/39065.php), Alltel, Leap Wireless, Cox Communications, MetroPCS and some others. But it hasn't been able to secure wireless infrastructure deals with the Tier1 US operators. A part of this block has been attributed to security concerns in the US market in sourcing equipment from a Chinese vendor. Whether this is a valid concern or not it open to interpretation; but such curbs abound today where foreign participation is limited in certain industries. This means that not only Huawei but all the telecom infrastructure players that target a global footprint, have to develop country specific plans to allay the security concerns. The following is Huawei's published plan for the US/Western-European market:

• The establishment of a national security committee in the U.S., the U.K. and France. In the U.S., the committee will be headed by Matt Bross, Huawei's CTO, who lives in the United States.
• The opening up of certain software source codes in Huawei equipment so that they are accessible to third parties. This includes the hiring of third parties, such as accredited test lab EWA, to conduct auditing and testing.
• The trusted delivery of all products. Because the company's electronics supply chain is global, Huawei will offer trusted delivery in every market. For example, in the U.S. market delivery will be conducted and staffed by only U.S. citizens.

Would this work? This FierceWireless editorial seems to think it might (http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/will-huaweis-new-security-plan-calm-u-s-carriers-concerns/2010-09-16?).

2010 Smartphone Sale Stats From Gartner

Global Smartphone Sales
Company	2010 second quarter	2009 second quarter	Growth rate
Symbian (Nokia)	25.4m (41%)	20.9m (51%)	22%
Research in Motion (Blackberry)	11.2m (18%)	7.8m (19%)	44%
Android (Google)	10.6m (17%)	0.8m (2%)	1300%
iOS (Apple)	8.7m (14%)	5.3m (13%)	64%
Microsoft	3.1m (5%)	3.8m (9%)	-19%
Linux	1.5m (2%)	1.9m (5%)	-21%
Other	1.1m (2%)	0.5m (1%)	118%
Total market	61.6m (100%)	41.0m (100%)	50%

LTE Operator Commitments as of 2010

The following is a data of current operator commitments in LTE, across all regions. The chart is presented from fiercebroadbandwireless. Do read the corresponding article in ( http://www.fiercebroadbandwireless.com/special-reports/mapping-it-out-operator-commitments-lte-2010?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal#ixzz0vkOv2AHV)

	Primary vendors
North America
AT&T	Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson	Deployment scheduled for 2011
LightSquared	Nokia Siemens Networks	Deployment scheduled for second half 2011
MetroPCS	Ericsson	Major metro markets planned for year-end 2010
Shaw Communications	Nokia Siemens Networks	Deployment scheduled for late 2011 in Canada
Verizon Wireless	Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson	25-30 markets commercially launched by year-end 2010
Europe	-	-
Cosmote (Greece)	N/A	Pilot network launched this year
Net4Mobility	Huawei	100 cities in Sweden by year-end 2011
TDC (Denmark)	N/A	Commercial plans for 2010
Telekom Austria	Huawei	Running LTE pilot network
Telenor Denmark	Nokia Siemens Networks	N/A
TeliaSonera	Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks, Huawei	Offering commercial services in Oslo, Norway; Stockholm, Sweden. Expanding coverage to 29 markets in Norway and Sweden
VivaCell-MTS	N/A	Commercial service planned in Armenia in 2010
Vodafone Germany	Ericsson, Huawei	Deployments targeted at rural areas by 2011
Wind (Italy)	Huawei	N/A
Euroasia	-	-
MegaFon (Russia)	N/A	LTE tests beginning this year
Rostelecom (Russia)	N/A	Commercial availability in existing licenses by mid-2011
Yota (Russia)	N/A	Five networks going live by year-end 2010
Asia	-	-
China Mobile	N/A	Completed testing of TD-LTE with plans for trials networks in three cities
Chunghwa Telecom	Ericsson	Completed Taiwan's first field trials
CSL Hong Kong	ZTE	N/A
KDDI	Motorola, NEC	Commercial network in 2012
NTT DoCoMo	Nokia Siemens Networks, Fujitsu, Panasonic	Commercial launch scheduled for year-end 2010
SingTel	NEC	Trials slated for Indonesia, Australia and the Philippines
SK Telecom	N/A	Commercial deployment in Seoul by 2011
Telstra	Huawei	Conducting live trials in Australia
Middle East	-	-
Etisalat	Huawei	Completed field and lab testing
Omantel	N/A	Contract for TD-LTE
Zain Bahrain	Nokia Siemens Networks	N/A
Zain Saudi Arabia	Motorola	N/A
Africa	-	-
Vodacom	N/A	Africa's first live LTE trial
Latin America	-	-
Entel PCS	N/A	Engaged in trials with Rubberduck Media Lab in Chile for high speed mobile TV over LTE tests.
Vivo (Brazil)	N/A	Pilot test planned for 2010