NTSB proposes call/text ban for drivers

This is strictly a rant…All right, I understand people get into accidents and some people die… but talking on the phone while driving is a lifeline and cutting me off would severely impact my ability to conduct business. I agree on the text ban but talking?? Seriously???? Get a bluetooth headset and remain hands free but don take away my ability to talk and drive. That’s like telling someone to not talk to the passengers while they are in their car and drive at the same time. It just isn’t going to happen.

DragonWave Purchases NSN Microwave PTP Radio Product Line

More consolidation in the PTP market today as DragonWave announced it was purchasing the microwave radio product line of Nokia Siemens Networks for an initial amount of EUR 10 million in cash and EUR 5 million stock. There is another EUR 10 million in employee liabilities including transfer of 360 employees in Milan, Italy and Shanghai, China and a EUR 5 million in capital asset lease arrangement. So the initial value of the transaction is EUR 30 million. There is an additional earn out of EUR 80 million over the next 18 months to four years that could put the total transaction value at EUR 110 million.

We believe that this is a major shakeup in the PTP industry and clearly puts DragonWave into a leading position going forward. The company had been a key supplier to enterprise/WIMAX operators but not to mobile operators. NSN has been struggling and the recent decision to re-capitalize the company via parents Nokia and Siemens has allowed the company to complete its recent acquisition of Motorola Networks. The PTP radio group within NSN has struggled over the past several years. We think that NSN believes it is a strategic but non-core group within its overall wireless infrastructure product line.

NSN will continue to sell PTP radio products through its sales channels but DragonWave will perform R&D, manufacturing and be the strategic supplier of microwave PTP products to NSN. So it’s not like NSN will quit selling radios, They are just reducing their ongoing liabilities by out sourcing.

The closing date for the transaction is Q1 2012.

BSNL GSM Tender – It Just Wont Die

The massive GSM tender for state run BSNL that was on and then off and then on and then off again for the past 5 years is again in the news. Originally, this was a 93 million line $10B deal that was eventually pared down to 15 million lines and $1B. Given how much money BSNL is losing, it is hard to imagine where they will come up with the money to pay the vendors. I think it is worth noting that the mobile subscriber base in India is potential overstated by as much as 30% if you only look at active SIM cards. BSNL is doing an online e-tender reverse auction. One other issue is that the tender has split India up into different zones so the award is not pan-India. BSNL claims the process is on track while the rumors are that it will yet again be scrapped because no one wants to participate and lose money, not even the Chinese.

Day 1 at CommunicAsia Singapore – Commscope+Argus

I am over here in Singapore this week attending the CommunicAsia show at the Sands Convention Center. Many of the usual suspects are here. Nokia has shown up for the first time in several years in force while Powerwave was absent. Both Chinese OEMs Huawei and ZTE are here as well as Ericsson but NSN and Alcatel-Lucent are also absent. The major news within the infrastructure sector is the acquisition of Argus Technologies (Australia) by Commscope. We think that Commscope wanted to shore up its position in Australia with Telstra but not sure what else they are getting. Potentially a broader product line but there is a fair amount of overlap as well. We expect that Commscope will keep the Argus brand, just the like Andrew brand was kept.

Sumitomo Electric Announces RRU lineup using GaN and Envelope Tracking

Japanese industrial giant Sumitomo Electric announced on June 16, 2011 a 2.1GHz LTE RRU that has an RF output power of 80W. Sumitomo has developed RRU for FD-LTE, TD-LTE and WiMAX now and intends to offer them directly to operators. The two things that are interesting about the RRU lineup is that they use GaN devices and not LDMOS and also use envelope tracking to boost the efficiency.

LightSquared 4G Networks Jams GPS Receivers – Outlook negative

Initial independent testing from the FCC regarding the interference of LIghtSquared’s terrestrial LTE towers indicate that severe jamming and loss of location fix for GPS receivers occurred as far away as 1/8 of a mile from the tower. The testing was done an an air force base in New Mexico involving first responders (police, fire, ambulance) using standard GPS equipment.

This isn’t a good result on a business plan that is already suspicious at best in a frequency band that is an anomaly for wireless. Looking forward to the marketing spin from LightSquared executives.

AT&T Announces first 5 Markets for LTE Launch, NOT the ones you expect

and they are…Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, Texas. OK we can understand Atlanta, Chicago and Dallas because not only on they metro areas, they are also major airline hub points. But Houston and San Antonio are kinda off the main track. There will be 15 more markets launching by the end of 2011 that we expect will cover San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, and Boston.

Cox Wireless Abandons Own Network, will MVNO from Sprint

Cox finally threw in the towel on building its owns 3G network and will be an MVNO using Sprint’s EVDO Rev. A network. The key point of this announcement is the spectrum that Cox spent $500 million purchasing cover the AWS and 700MHz bands. We believe that they will ultimately sell this off to AT&T or Verizon Wireless.

Verizon Wireless using WiFi to offload data traffic for 3G/4G networks

The first shot for the “small cell” battle seemed to have been fired by Verizon Wireless. The operator stated that it would strategically deploy free WiFi hotspots in high traffic areas such as college campuses, hotels, and stadiums. AT&T Wireless and T-Mobile are already using WiFI hot spots to allow subscribers to download data instead of using the 3G network. What may end of up being part of the overall network topology is indoor hotspots that are within outdoor hotzones. The hotzones may require microcells to cove a broad area within a sector of a macro cell coverage site. We believe that WiFI and 3G/4G microcells will co-exist within the network however the management of all of these technologies ro provide a consistent QoS to the mobile subscriber remains a challenge.

Ericsson wins 7 year managed networks deal with Clearwire

In yet another major win for Ericsson in the US, the company has won a 7 year deal to managed networks deal for Clearwire. This is the second major deal after the 7 year Sprint announcement a few years ago. It will assure Ericsson of having a better chance of participating on the equipment side when Clearwire transitions away from WiMAX to TD-LTE. This is another example of Ericsson’s dominance in North American telecom.