Iridium Communications Inc has selected Hughes Network Systems, LLC to develop an Access Network Controller (ANC) in its gateway ground radio control network. The ANC is part of a multi-year plan for Iridium to upgrade and evolve its gateway network in preparation for Iridium’s next-generation satellite constellation, Iridium NEXT. Under the development contract, Hughes will design and supply a fully tested, turnkey ANC system, which will be integrated with Iridium’s existing system, together with training and maintenance. Iridium expects the ANC to be complete and operational by the fourth quarter of 2011.
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The Office of Fair Trading is calling for the proposed merger of Orange and T-Mobile to be investigated by the regulatory authorities in Britain rather than merely subjected to scrutiny in Brussels. There are fears the merger, which will create the UK’s largest mobile phone network, could hamper competition and force up prices for consumers. It is a blow for Orange and T-Mobile, currently the third and fourth placed networks in Britain, as it means a further delay to a deal originally announced in September. They had hoped scrutiny of the merger would be confined to regulators in Brussels, with clearance possibly granted as early as mid-February. Orange and T-Mobile have been lobbying the OFT, the telecoms watchdog, Ofcom, and Brussels regulators in recent weeks to try to assuage competition concerns.
International Business Machines Corp is testing cloud computing for the U.S. Air Force, aiming to quell concerns that the technology poses security risks. IBM will create a cloud that holds and automates the agency’s network, Robert Ames, deputy chief technology officer of IBM’s federal division, said in an interview yesterday. The so-called cloud model lets clients store and access data on an external server to avoid the cost of maintaining their own. President Barack Obama’s latest budget, which includes $80 billion for federal technology spending, calls for use of cloud computing to help curb costs. IBM has 10 months to create and test the model, Ames said. He declined to disclose terms of the deal, saying there is no guarantee the Air Force will keep IBM’s cloud after testing.
Globalstar is preparing to take delivery of its first batch of second-generation satellites as it seeks to become the first satphone operator to reach the market with a global high-speed voice/data service. Company officials told a press gathering here Jan. 27 that the first batch of spacecraft in the 1.39 billion euro ($1.95 billion) system will be launched this summer and the first 24 spacecraft will be in place by the second half of 2011, along with a good deal of the planned ground system improvements. The spacecraft will replace the older units of the 48-unit constellation, which has been in operation for more than 11 years. Unlike the first-generation network, which deliver circuit-switched voice and data communications, the second-generation system will supply Internet-based voice, messaging, mobile video and other services requiring much higher data rates.
London-based Inmarsat is apparently readying itself for what would be a major switch as Ka-band satellites with many times the throughput of today’s spacecraft prepare to enter the market. Industry officials said Inmarsat is unlikely to make a near-term commitment of the necessary resources — ultimately, $2 billion or so — to build a fleet of three or four satellites with a mixed Ka-band and L-band payload. Inmarsat is spending around $400 million on a large satellite called Alphasat 1-XL, to provide backup for the Inmarsat-4 fleet. Alphasat, which will also carry experimental telecommunications payloads for European governments that have helped finance the program, is scheduled for launch in 2012.
Will Apple’s new iPad tablet create network mayhem? Two Federal Communications Commission officials have some concerns, and are likening the possible logjam to traffic issues that confronted AOL in the 1990s. The increased use of smartphones, 3G netbooks, and in the coming months, the iPad “demonstrate that wireless broadband will be a hugely important part of the broadband ecosystem as we move ahead,” they wrote. AOL solved its problem by upgrading modems and servers, and wireless providers can do the same, but only if they have adequate spectrum, Bellaria and Leibovitz wrote. The national broadband plan currently in the works at the FCC “will suggest ways of moving more spectrum into high value uses, such as broadband access, to help ensure that we don’t get stuck in 1997 dialup-style congestion,” they said.
Back in 2007, Nemertes Research predicted a “broadband access” gap that would begin affecting Internet connectivity by the year 2012. Specifically, we noted that although core routing, switching and transmission capacity in the Internet were growing exponentially, access capacity (including both wired and wireless) was growing merely linearly — meaning that the edges weren’t keeping up with the core. More importantly, Internet traffic was also growing exponentially — meaning that bottlenecks would soon begin to occur at the edges. Turns out our predictions were spot-on — just a little too conservative.
In a sign that Amazon wants to upgrade its Kindle e-reader to compete head-on with the Apple iPad, Amazon has acquired Touchco, a start-up based in New York that specializes in touch-screen technology, a person briefed on the deal said. Amazon will merge Touchco’s technology and staff members into its Kindle hardware division, this person said. Touchco, which began as a project at the Media Research Lab at New York University, had roughly six employees and had not yet turned its technology into a commercial product. The terms of the deal were not known.
President Barack Obama reiterated his support for net neutrality this week during an interview on YouTube. “I’m a big believer in net neutrality,” he said, responding to a viewer’s question about the issue. “My FCC Chairman, Julius Genachowski, has indicated that he shares the view that we’ve got to keep the Internet open, that we don’t want to create a bunch of gateways that prevent somebody who doesn’t have a lot of money, but has a good idea, from being able to start their next YouTube or their next Google on the Internet.” Obama’s remarks aren’t surprising, given that he has consistently touted the importance of improving broadband access and insuring neutrality. But whether the FCC will be able to enact neutrality regulations remains to be seen.
General Electric Co is looking to acquire smart-grid products and will fund more research in that area as utilities seek to manage electricity more efficiently.
The acquisitions “could be small ones that give us critical technologies or more substantial ones that really give us a lot of presence,” Bob Gilligan, who leads GE Energy’s transmission and distribution unit, said in an interview Monday. “It’s a wide range.” Gilligan’s division, with more than $2 billion in annual sales, will more than double investments in research and development as utilities and consumers seek more control over electrical use, he said.
Leap Wireless, the seventh largest mobile carrier in the US, is intending to sell the company or merge with its rivals. The cellular provider, which operates under the Cricket brand in the US, has appointed Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to advise on the sale. Leap has also formed a committee — including board members John Chapple, Ronald Kramer and William Roper — to assess strategic options. MetroPCS Communications, AT&T and Verizon Wireless are considered potential buyers for the company. América Móvil and Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile USA may also be interested.
Juniper’s LTE report predicts that there will be multiple millions of LTE subscribers as early as 2011, and embedded LTE chipsets will become the second most popular means of access behind SIM cards by 2014. The excitement led by the myriad of Android devices and interest surge in augmented reality smartphones has created an emphatic shift of network investment toward mobile. The other market segment in the telecom arena that is touted to take off this year is SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) Trunking, an open industry multi-media signaling standard for voice over IP (VoIP) connects private branch exchange (PBX) to the Internet.
Prospective clients need to experience the value of telematics. Hard data can help prove the viability of a solution to those with vision; but many customers lack vision. Imagine the reaction a client will have when an attractive usable interface is placed in their hands. They can click, navigate and discover first-hand how telematics can improve their life. But unintuitive and unattractive user interface limits the effectiveness of this sales strategy.
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For all of 2009, vendors shipped 174 million smartphones, up 15% from the 151 million in 2008. All told, smartphones accounted for 15% of all mobile phones shipped in 2009, up from 12.7% in 2008, IDC said. IDC expects that increased demand for smartphones will lead to new shipment records in 2010, especially with Symbian and Windows Mobile operating systems upgrades expected.
AT&T announced that it has been awarded the Frost & Sullivan 2009 North American Portfolio Leadership of the Year Award in Mobile Resource Management (MRM). The award recognizes AT&T’s portfolio of MRM solutions for its broad array of features and functionality, high quality, innovation, brand awareness and customer scalability.
NASA has awarded a two-year, $600,000 deal to Parabon Computation as part of the agency’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. Parabon is being tasked to deliver a platform that lets NASA scientists and engineers develop and run modeling and simulation applications as a service via a standard Web browser. The initial target application will be climate modeling, but since the solution is general-purpose, any application that can benefit from distributed computation, scientific or otherwise, is fair game.
The concept of mobile TV has been positioned as The Next Big Thing in the telco space for some time, but it has yet to take off. However, Qualcomm and Sony are both positioning themselves to try to change that this year.
Expert review of architecture and design during the early development phase of a telematics device can save a company substantial time and money while maximizing market potential. The former CTO of Quake Global and lead architect of their market dominating satellite modem — Mark Jones — has formed Sancomm Inc. to provide precisely this service.
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The auction itself is a series of “clock rounds”. In each round, the bidders can bid for as many circles as desired. The initial price will be the reserve price set by the government. At the end of each round the system will rank the top bidders and determine the reserve price for the next round depending on the “excess demand”. This ensures that prices keep going up as long as there is interest from bidders.
We’ve compiled a list of 100 people who are influencing this market on a daily basis, be it through innovating, regulating, evangelizing, planning, deploying, benchmarking, architecting, standardizing, investing, developing, etc. Are these folks in your Rolodex? If not, they should be.
The world satellite transponders market stands enthused by the growing popularity of digital broadcast entertainment services, and digital video broadcast services. Backed by the growing popularity of ethnic programs, strong demand for satellite transponders in broadcasting applications is expected in the coming years. In addition to cable and TV broadcasting, consumer broadband internet services, wireless telephone, data services, and direct radio are also expected to help keep demand sufficiently kindled.