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Base Station Infrastructure vendor's 4G focus

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:59:37 EDT

There has been a lot of talk surrounding WiMAX and LTE lately. Especially around companies that have had network deployments and experience around WiMAX in the past years.

WiMAX vendors that have stuck through the whole thick of problems and issues that have been associated with commercially developing, deploying and expanding a 4G radio access network, are now able to leverage this experience. Infrastructure vendors have planned on supporting WiMAX and LTE. This way, they can keep their WiMAX customers and maintain this market and expand their LTE customers.

In essence, there is a lot of re-useable hardware in a WiMAX base station that can be used for manufacturing an LTE base stations. They are using the sa ...

Femtocells, Picocells, Small Cells or Compact Base Stations – Another round of taxonomy debates!

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 08:47:31 EDT

After our recent whitepaper on Compact base stations there have been a lot of questions on why we didn’t include femtocells within the coverage. The reason was because we see femtocells as low power access points, where the output power is typically 10mW-100mW for indoor residential grade femtocells, and 200-300mW for enterprise grade or metro femtocells. Rural femtocells (currently in development) are known to have output power between 200mW-1W. We would typically classify any femtocell between 200mW-1W as a super femtocell or greater femtocell. The self-configuring, self-provisioning characteristics of femtocells do cha ...

Amazon’s $1 Billion Mobile Commerce Figure: Not Apples to Oranges

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 11:51:35 EDT

Yesterday Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in their earnings call that “In the last 12 months customers around the world have ordered more than $1 billion of products from Amazon using a mobile device.”

This is not the breakthrough point you might think it is for mobile commerce.

There is no doubt that $1 billion in sales from a single company in mobile commerce is a significant number. eBay reported that in 2009, they had $660 million in sales attributed to mobile commerce, and they believe they will jump to $1.2 billion in 2010. These numbers reflect the sale of physical goods sold by eBay. But the Amazon n ...

Apple takes page from the Tiger Woods and Lindsay Lohan scandal playbook over iPhone 4 antenna woes

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 17:49:33 EDT

Some will look at Apple’s response today to well-publicized concerns over antenna design in the new iPhone 4G as tempering an overblown non-issue. Others will see it as a company with a relatively unblemished track record in product launches taking the “rock star” approach and pointing fingers at the rest of the mobile device industry. Is the company still an innovator or has it become relegated to merely part of the flock now?

Apple chief Steve Jobs is quoted today as saying, “0.55% of all iPhone customers have called AppleCare with an antenna issue,” and, “So this doesn't really jive ...

Huawei and ZTE may lose out on the India 4G Market

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 11:15:34 EDT

If this report is true and made official, then the Indian government will ban 25 Chinese firms and one Israeli firm from doing business in India. This includes Huawei and ZTE. This is happening just as the 4G market is about to explode in India, with service providers with new spectrum planning WiMAX, LTE, and potential transitions from WiMAX TDD to LTE TDD. Major mobile infrastructure companies such as Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Huawei, Motorola, NEC, Nokia Siemens Networks, Samsung, and ZTE are expected to fiercely compete for business in India, as are other very important smaller 4G companies such as Alvarion, Aviat, ...

Android Applications: If you can’t find the right one, now make it yourself

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 10:44:01 EDT

While the Android Market and its selection of apps has grown steadily and far outpaced the rest of the challenger’s to the iTunes App Store, it still trails the iPhone’s store’s app count by more than half. Starting this week, Google is taking steps to correct that mismatch in available apps with the launch of ‘App Inventor for Android’.

The App Inventor is a do it yourself application design suite, downloadable by anyone that allows those without any programming or development experience to create rich applications for the Android Platform and then download the same to their Android handsets. The tool gives users a drag and drop easy-t ...

iAd Launch Feels More Like a First Step – But Don’t be Fooled, New Platform Has Great Potential

Thu, 1 Jul 2010 01:40:43 EDT

So, here it is. Launch day for the iAd mobile ad platform from Apple. It’s going to be a big deal…just not today.

Some of the initial advertisers will not have campaigns ready for several months, according to AdAge. So this won’t be anything like the launch of a new iPhone model. It’s a first step. But with $60 million of inventory sold, iAd generates plenty of heat.

Here’s what a couple of experienced mobile advertising people told me they expect from the new ad network:

There is fresh evidence that more online retailers are getting their mobile acts together. And while that’s a welcome trend for the future of mobile marketing, the vast majority of sites still need to get this sorted out.

The new evidence comes from digital marketing firm Acquity Group, which announced results of its second annual Mobile Commerce Audit. The audit examines Internet Retailer’s 500 list of companies. Key findings this year include:

WiMAX Femto Standard Published – does it help?

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 05:49:07 EDT
The WiMAX Forum today announced that it has published a standard for 802.16e femtocells. There is a certification drive planned for early 2011, something which we haven’t seen on WCDMA or CDMA femtocells.

While a standard is always good for the general adoption of a technology, WiMAX femtocells haven’t really taken off. There are very few vendors who are actually spending resources building WiMAX femtocells. Few of them like LG Nortel who showcased at last years Femto World Summit in London have seen some trials in Korea and in the US. Samsung did develop a WiMAX femtocell initially but it has since been focusing on the CDMA/LTE femto market ever since. On the operat ...

The Sprint HTC EVO 4G Smartphone - Everyday Battery Life

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 11:16:40 EDT
I've had my Sprint EVO for nearly a week and one thing that has been lurking in the back of my mind is how the EVO will do in terms of battery life. Some early reviewers have said that things are a bit thin in this regard but obviously I need to find out for myself.

First, let's set some ground rules. I am not a person who spends six hours a day streaming video over 4G. My typical daily usage includes about 20-30 minutes of phone calls, lots of checking of my Outlook email and Calendar plus sending an email or two, a bit of messaging and reading about 15 minutes of news. With all this I don't think that I am too untypical of many business users.

Under the above scenario I have found that my EVO will run all da ...

The Sprint HTC EVO 4G Smartphone - First Impressions and A Nice Surprise

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 12:41:59 EDT
I activated the phone by calling Sprint as their on-line tool seemed a bit balky with the EVO. All in all, it only took a few minutes.

I found the EVO large, by cellphone standards, but this should not be a surprise since it has such a large screen (4.3"). For me, it's a kind of blessing as I find most cellphones a bit awkward to talk on as they are relatively small. The EVO feels more like a normal phone. It's not really heavy but let's just say that it's substantial.

Setting the EVO up was fairly intuitive and I only had to refer to the manual once or twice. I had my EVO in 3G and Internet operation was good and trouble free. I watched a few of the obligatory YouTube videos to check things out. The display i ...

The future of 4G rests in the handset, not the network

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 03:49:55 EDT

If there is one lesson to be learnt from the growth in 3G and 3.5G services, it is that widespread service adoption is contingent on the availability of attractive ‘blockbuster’, ‘must have’, handsets. This was true of 3G services, which only really gained the massive data-hungry popularity they now enjoy thanks to the remarkable success of the iPhone and its clones. What this did, was provide services and applications that gave compelling reasons for users to adopt 3G data plans. For network operators looking to sell their 4G services to the public, they must look to selling the ‘experience’, not the speed.

In that context, Mobil ...

Russia's State RF Commision Might Push for LTE RAN Sharing

Tue, 8 Jun 2010 18:36:27 EDT
In Russia, Rostelecom is planning on deploying LTE in Sochi, where the 2014 Winter Olympic Games will be held. Launching cutting edge mobile networks in cities where Olympic Games will be held is becoming commonplace, as seen with Beijing and Vancouver. MegaFon ...

Signaling Crunch? Femtos to the rescue

Wed, 2 Jun 2010 10:08:26 EDT
The femtocell chipset vendor picoChip announced today that it has been able to provide an additional capability in its PC3x3 chipset series called smartSignaling. This includes the PC313 and PC323 chipsets which supports Rx Diversity. With this functionality picoChip claims to be able support 2x-3x more users at the same power level.

With smartSignaling enabled in their Rx Diversity chipsets, through a firmware upgrade they can support up to 400 ‘always on’ devices on a femtocell.These devices mainly include smart phones, which have their push email and other notification applications on constantly resulting in a signaling deluge. ABI Research’s latest smartphone estimates show that the 2009 saw a 25% ...

Mobile Impact of MasterCard API Move: Covering The Bases

Fri, 28 May 2010 11:54:52 EDT

This week, MasterCard announced they will open APIs to third party software developers around the world to “create a new wave of e-commerce and mobile payment applications.”

Setting aside the broadest impact of the announcement and focusing strictly on the mobile perspective, the announcement caused some speculation as to what specifically MasterCard had in mind. Is there some area within mobile Mastercard is keen on? Some possibilities:

·With the GSM Association’s Mobile Money Summit wrapping up today in Rio, there has been plenty of media attention focused on developing world mobile P2P initiatives by Zain, Vodafone (MPESA) and MTN http://www.mobilemoneysummit.com/press/show_daily.shtml , and on the challenge of striking working arrangements between MNOs and banks.

Leaving the bank/MNO feud aside for a moment, what most people have not understood about mobile money transfer initiatives to date is that by and large, none of the current services o ...

Google Wins Approval to Acquire AdMob - Bigger Battle with Apple Looms

Fri, 21 May 2010 16:48:52 EDT
Google can now move ahead in its bid to strengthen its foothold in mobile advertising. It just won FTC approval to acquire leading mobile ad network AdMob.

This is a big deal, and it gives further validation of the emerging importance of mobile marketing. It also means we will see more intense competition between Google and Apple as the latter rolls out its forthcoming iAd platform.

In its 5-0 decision, the FTC commissioners said the Google-AdMob deal did raise some serious antitrust issues, but that Apple's purchase of Quattro Wireless earlier this year and other competitors in the space were enough to give Google the green l ...

WiMAX Ecosystem Will Lose Yota as a Service Provider in Russia

Fri, 21 May 2010 14:50:39 EDT
Having been one of the key service providers pushing WiMAX early since 2008, Scartel's Yota was steadily growing its subscriber base of WiMAX customers. In a very short time, they ramped up to what they last reported was 375,000 subscribers. The company had mentioned that they were expecting to get to 500,000 subscribers fairly quickly. This article is citing 500,000 subscribers. They reached 25 million people in Moscow and St. Petersburg, giving Yota about a 2 percent penetration rate against people covered by its network. Yota had also quickly turned profitable.

The 15 cities it had planned to expand its WiMAX ne ...

Cisco to Acquire Moto? No, not that Moto.

Thu, 20 May 2010 19:16:36 EDT

My first thought when I saw the headline in my email was that Cisco was trying to pick up the STB business from Motorola. I was relieved when I saw that the Moto the article was referring to was Moto Development, the company that helped design the Flip video camera. In this case, I think acquiring Moto is a great move for Cisco in its continued strategy pursuing consumer devices.

The Flip video camera is a standout product, and having used one I believe the design and user experience is excellent. I have owned video cameras in the past, and my current cell phone also shoots video, but the Flip is my go-to device fo ...

ABI Research - Blogs Feed

Base Station Infrastructure vendor's 4G focus

Femtocells, Picocells, Small Cells or Compact Base Stations – Another round of taxonomy debates!

Amazon’s $1 Billion Mobile Commerce Figure: Not Apples to Oranges

Apple takes page from the Tiger Woods and Lindsay Lohan scandal playbook over iPhone 4 antenna woes

Huawei and ZTE may lose out on the India 4G Market

Android Applications: If you can’t find the right one, now make it yourself

iAd Launch Feels More Like a First Step – But Don’t be Fooled, New Platform Has Great Potential

WiMAX Femto Standard Published – does it help?

The Sprint HTC EVO 4G Smartphone - Everyday Battery Life

The Sprint HTC EVO 4G Smartphone - First Impressions and A Nice Surprise

The future of 4G rests in the handset, not the network

Russia's State RF Commision Might Push for LTE RAN Sharing

Signaling Crunch? Femtos to the rescue

Mobile Impact of MasterCard API Move: Covering The Bases

Google Wins Approval to Acquire AdMob - Bigger Battle with Apple Looms

WiMAX Ecosystem Will Lose Yota as a Service Provider in Russia

Cisco to Acquire Moto? No, not that Moto.