|
Written by Dave Burstein
|
|
Thursday, 22 July 2010 18:56 |
Lemko wowed the broadband planners with a demonstration of a cellular base  station that could fit in an SUV and be very rapidly deployed to cover an emergency. Huawei supplied some of the gear to Lemko and also worked closely with Lemko on some products.
Some of the Lemko folks were employed at Moto. They say the work they did for Lemko was on their spare time; Moto says it belongs to Moto. Moto is now suing both. (91 page complaint)
Huawei is far ahead of Moto in LTE, which everyone agrees is the right standard for the public safety network. They are deploying LTE around the world. Huawei has many more wireless engineers than MOTO and certainly doesn't need to steal designs from anyone.
Something like a million square miles of the U.S. - much unpopulated - is not reached by the current network of cell towers. While the plan has proposals to cover some of that territory, everyone recognizes huge areas will not be covered in the foreseeable future. The Lemko or a similar unit could rapidly drive to a forest fire, prisoner search, or other emergency in remote areas and support all the fire or police radios. One model for the U.S. public safety network would station one of more SUV COWs in every state ready to deploy when needed.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Written by Dave Burstein
|
|
Saturday, 12 June 2010 18:08 |
AT&T President John Stankey is a big fat liar, nearly all the reporters and talking heads seem to believe. “Everyone” is saying AT&T needed the 2 gig cap because of congestion – except AT&T. Stankey personally promised thousands of investors on the quarterly call AT&T's congestion problems will be solved within months. He's restored the capex cuts and they are upgrading their network. Two of the best engineers I know expect him to succeed.
I believe Stankey is right and there's absolutely no operational reason for a cap at a low 2 gigabytes – about 90 minutes of quality TV each week. 2 gigabytes would be even more ridiculous for Verizon's soon-to-launch LTE network running at 5-12 megabits. Even at the low end, you'd run past 2 gigabytes in less than an hour a month. LTE is 2-4 times as efficient as 3G, which is enormously profitable with an implicit 5 gigabyte cap, so the natural cap in the LTE generation is 10-25 gigabytes for basic service.
Wall Street thinks the low cap is about higher prices and price discrimination. “These new wireless bundles from ATT seem demonically brilliant! See the cap rates? ATT is going to be flowing in extra money and quickly,” one of the best wrote.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Written by Dave Burstein
|
|
Tuesday, 13 April 2010 22:48 |
 "We are seeing RFPs from operators interested in using DPI to generate revenue, not save costs," Jonathan Gordon of Allot tells Total Telecom. Mark Ellis-Jones of T-Mobile wants "to turn the information into commercial gain." Roy Rubenstein notes packet spying can be used to replace or add content, including ads.Packet spying is cheap and getting cheaper, literally pennies per line. The equipment will be deployed almost everywhere because it pays for itself by supplying the basic information to run the network. The technology for active intervention intervention is currently not working well, the primary reason we've had few practical violations of network neutrality. The manufacturers will solve that soon, with one of the majors briefing reporters next week on their progress. .
Rubenstein's article appeared in the first issue of Total Telecom Plus, a new monthly from Terrapin featuring excellent reporting. Best of luck to them. |
|
|
Written by Dave Burstein
|
|
Saturday, 17 July 2010 23:26 |
 John Doerr and Milo Medin visited the FCC 13 July with a crazy plan. They would provide 768K wireless free across 95% of the U.S.. Even with a good deal on the spectrum, it will require investing $5-7B before breakeven. Or maybe it's not so crazy. Doerr is a legend who was the money behind Google, Amazon, Compaq and a dozen others while Milo built most of the cable networks in the U.S. as CTO of @Home. The audience included the Chairman and six chiefs. Julius is taking this seriously, and Doerr is confident they have the cash needed. There's essentially no downside to Julius saying yes except the predictably violent opposition of the incumbents, but they are screwing him so many ways he might just go ahead. Doerr's partners include Al Gore as well as Republicans Colin Powell and Tom Perkins. The Senate is pressing Julius hard because he's not doing enough on affordability. This wouldn't have much impact until 2015 or so, but is a partial answer at the very low end.
They are looking for the 2155-2175 AWS-3 spectrum. That 20 MHz is as much as Verizon is devoting to a worldclass LTE network, although at the higher frequencies far more towers would be needed to match VZ. The business plan begins with selling at market rates the higher speeds and probably voice. Doerr is on the board of Google, so they've presumably have thought through the advertising. Google put $3.5B on the line for spectrum in the hope of breaking the wireless cartel and has advanced $billions to win ad contracts from AOL and others. With over $20B on Google's balance sheet, they are a natural source of financing.
They promise to reach 50% of the country by 2016 and 95% by 2021. The technology will presumably be LTE, for which inexpensive gear should be widely available in 2013-2015.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Written by Dave Burstein
|
|
Thursday, 10 June 2010 16:46 |
"We expect to see some level of regulatory involvement benefitting new entrants in upcoming auction policy," Goldman's top analyst Jason Armstrong writes about the coming 700MHz/2.5GHz auctions in Canada. While that notion horrifies incumbents, France, Mexico, India and the U.S. in earlier days effectively used spectrum to reduce market power.
Two new companies, Wind and Public Mobile, are offering service in major cities and soon going nationwide, while cable company Videotron is preparing a strong campaign."New companies are driving prices down" (Globe and Mail). Industry Minister Tony Clement noted that "new entrants lead to more competition and better results for consumers," (Total Telecom). Canadians have been furious for years their wireless rates have been much higher than the U.S., which I ascribe to cartel-like pricing by the three carriers. The high prices have resulted in Canada's having one of the lowest penetration rates among developed nations (70%).
Especially since George Cope took over at Bell, I've watched obvious signalling between Bell and the cablecos and increased broadband prices. Canada for years was a third cheaper than the U.S. in broadband and far ahead in take rates; they've lost the edge since the Bell and the cablecos reached (implicit) agreements. Armstrong notes that incumbent EBITDA margins in Canada Q1 were a high 47% and suggests the regulator will encourage competition to bring rates further down.
|
|
Written by Dave Burstein
|
|
Sunday, 11 April 2010 11:17 |
|
Ivan Seidenberg shocked D.C.saying "I don't think we'll have a spectrum shortage," when tens of millions of dollars of Verizon lobbyists have been screaming for a year "the Commission must act to identify and allocate additional spectrum for wireless services." From Verizon's point of view, Ivan is right. They don't need more spectrum for most of a decade and probably longer. For the next 5-7 years, they couldn't even use the spectrum in any major way. The limit on what they will build is technology (LTE is not quite ready) and capital spending (which they are cutting.)
Ivan has a damn good reason to be dubious about more spectrum: it might go to competitors. No incumbent likes that. As it is, Verizon and AT&T are becoming more and more dominant in wireless. More spectrum for others might change that, or force Verizon to cut prices to prevent losing customers.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Written by Dave Burstein
|
|
Sunday, 13 June 2010 13:51 |
|
 Craig Moffett (a friend) is a great "big picture" guy, a top tier Wall Street analyst always interesting to read. His job is to help investors find companies with improving profits, not the public and consumer interest. Like most of us, he's concluded that if Verizon follows, the caps will substantially increase profits in the long run by making consumers pay more for net connections.
"[Investments over the next few years,] including the provision of 4G networks, will drive down the cost of wireless data dramatically," Moffett reports, citing estimates of capacity growing from 2.9 to 20 times with a capex level that will be declining after the current catch-up.
He thinks AT&T raising profits is great, even beyond the 300 basis point margin increase AT&T recorded last year. I think consumer prices going up is terrible, and Julius Genachowski just testified to Congress making broadband affordable is his top priority. With enough competition, supply and demand usually reach a fair compromise.
There's no room under such a low cap for video.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Written by Dave Burstein
|
|
Thursday, 10 June 2010 08:22 |
Takeaway: D.C. insiders tell me Verizon is willing to sabotage the public safety network to prevent D block spectrum being auctioned. Julius fears V+T will become even more dominant so might put Harbinger-like "no V+T" on the D Block. Ugly move, and disastrous for the broadband plan, which hopes competition enabled by more spectrum will bring down prices. People died on 9/11 because they couldn't get information over the radio and the cops and firemen couldn't talk to each other. It's a scandal the problem still hasn't been solved. Carlos Kirchner and Stagg Newman focused the Broadband Plan on this and the plan proposed a single national network. See Emergency network to save thousands of lives.
Also copied below.
To bring down the cost, public safety would piggyback on one of the LTE networks being built by Verizon or AT&T and use public safety radios that are compatible with the LTE networks. This would reduce costs by 50-80% by most accounts and would be particularly important in the gravest of emergencies.
The radios could work over the regular LTE networks when needed, and the plan included a provision that public safety could use as much bandwidth as they needed on request. That probably never will be needed. The existing public safety spectrum can carry all the voice likely needed and plenty of video as well.
The current "public safety" operators, led by the cops in New York, hit the roof. They insisted on maintaining control of the network and spectrum. It felt like a turf war, especially when the "public safety" folks started circulating claims about what their plan could do. Two engineers I respect have looked closely at the claims and don't believe them. One said the throughput claimed would require building twice as many towers as they propose at a correspondingly higher cost.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
