Google is bringing fibre to Kansas

Google has confirmed that it is ready to start building its Google Fibre network in Kansas City (Kansas) and Kansas City (Missouri).

The company states that it has now developed a comprehensive set of detailed engineering plans for the project, after sending out engineers to measure utility poles, study maps and survey neighbourhoods.

The first phase of construction will involve building the fibre backbone for the city (divided along the state line by a river), with subsequent phases to see the eventual connection of homes to the network.

The new network is expected to offer speeds of up to 1 Gbps, but it won’t come cheap: some estimates place the network’s cost at between $ 3,000 and $ 8,000 per connection.

U.S. Cellular will be the fourth US network to launch LTE, after Metro PCS, Verizon and AT&T

The North American carrier U.S. Cellular has announced that it will launch its LTE network in March, along with accompanying LTE ready devices. The network which will be launched in conjunction with its build partner King Street Wireless, was originally meant to come online by the end of 2011, but no specific reason has been given for the delay.

U.S. Cellular said that the 700MHz network, which it will brand as 4G LTE, will initially cover 25 per cent of its customers and includes cities in Iowa, Wisconsin, Maine, North Carolina, Texas and Oklahoma. It will be the first carrier to bring LTE to some of these areas. Details of further expansion were not provided, but in a statement the carrier said there would be a, “next wave of market launches… announced later this month.”

The devices customers will be able to choose from are the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 4G LTE tablet, and the Samsung Galaxy Aviator 4G LTE smartphone, both Google Android powered.

Mary N. Dillon, president and CEO of U.S. Cellular talked up the customer service benefits of the network over rivals in a statement, saying that, “This 4G LTE network builds upon our industry-leading network satisfaction and is the only one that comes with a valuable rewards program and other unique benefits like Overage Protection and Battery Swap that make our customers the happiest in wireless.”

U.S. Cellular is one of the smaller tier operators in the US, with just 1.77 per cent of the market according to Informa WCIS statistics. While its customers are able to use their smartphones outside of their home territories thanks to roaming agreements with the larger carriers, LTE roaming is not possible at present due to device incompatibilities between the bands used by each of the carriers, an issue that is currently being debated by the US regulator, the FCC.

The LTE Middle East and North Africa conference will take place on the 29th-30th April, Westin Mina Seyali, Dubai, UAE. Go to the website to register your interest.

New legislation regarding tracking software is being proposed in US congress

A US congressman has proposed legislation that would force operators disclose to whether the handsets they sell contain tracking software to consumers upon purchase.

Under the proposals from Congressman Edward J. Markey, operators would also have to notify consumers of whether monitoring software might be installed at a later date by the carrier, manufacturer or OS provider.

Markey, co-chair of the Bi-Partisan Congressional Privacy Caucus, proposed the legislation after it emerged late last year that mobile software provider Carrier IQ was found to be logging information in its software, such as location data, without notifying users or allowing them to opt-out. The information tracked included detailed keystroke logs, which potentially violates US federal law.

“Consumers have the right to know and to say no to the presence of software on their mobile devices that can collect and transmit their personal and sensitive information,” said Markey.

“While consumers rely on their phones, their phones relay all sorts of information about them, often without their knowledge or consent. I am concerned about the threat to consumers’ privacy posed by electronic monitoring software on mobile phones, such as the software developed by Carrier IQ.”

He added that the draft legislation aims to provide greater transparency into the transmission of consumers’ personal information and empower consumers to opt-out of such transmission.

The “Mobile Device Privacy Act” would protect consumers by requiring:

- Disclosure of mobile telephone monitoring software, when a consumer buys a new handset, if the carrier, manufacturer, or operating system later installs monitoring software; or if a consumer downloads an app and that app contains monitoring software.

- Disclosure to include the fact that the monitoring software has been installed on the phone, the types of information that are collected, the identity of the third party to which the information is transmitted, and how such information will be used.

- Consumer consent is obtained before monitoring software begins collecting and transmitting information.

- The third parties that receive the personal information must have policies in place to secure the information.

- Agreements on transmission to third parties must be filed at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

- Outline an enforcement regime for the FTC and FCC, along with State Attorney General enforcement and a private right of action.

GPS issues mean that LightSquared's satellite and ground-station based network may never get of the ground

LightSquared, the aspiring US LTE carrier, has received a hammer blow to its hopes of shaking up the US market with a wholesale LTE network from a damning report released last week by the executive committee for Space-based Positioning Navigation & Timing (PNT).

The report, sent to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) stated that according to the latest round of tests, “there appear to be no practical solutions or mitigations that would permit the LightSquared broadband service, as proposed, to operate in the next few months or years without significantly interfering with GPS.”

This is despite repeated protests from LightSquared that there are several measures that can be taken to mitigate or remove the interference between its licensed ‘L band’ 1600MHz spectrum and that of the GPS devices, such as reducing its transmission power and the creation of LightSquared compatible receivers by Javad GNSS.

LightSquared has placed the blame for the interference squarely on the shoulders of the GPS industry, stating that it is GPS devices that are leaking into LightSquared’s frequencies due to poor filter design. However, LightSquared’s arguments have not swayed the PNT and the report said that, “as a result, no additional testing is warranted at this time.”

The report would suggest that it is unlikely that the US regulator, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), would approve the launch of the LightSquared network.

LightSquared has responded strongly to the report, claiming that the PNT tests were ‘rigged’, due to the tests being conducted on obsolete devices, using power level 32-times that at which LightSquared would be operating its network, and with an unrealistic margin for failure of 1dB. It also claimed that members of the PNT advisory board, “have professional connections to companies that are members of the Coalition to Save Our GPS.” LightSquared said it would seek an explanation for the apparent conflict of interest.

Despite the highly published and ongoing GPS related issues, LightSquared has continued to make deals for its wholesale network, signing up a 37^th customer, Hometown Telecom just yesterday. However, its major network partner Sprint, said that its construction plans were on hold while the GPS issues remained unresolved and said that extended delays could cause it to call off the deal completely, which could threaten the viability of LightSquared’s plans.

The two operators plan to establish 4G mobile broadband labs in the US and China

The world’s biggest carrier in terms of subscribers, China Mobile, is testing interoperability specifications for the time division flavour of LTE (TD-LTE) with US operator Clearwire.

The two operators, along with other members of the Global TD-LTE Initiative (GTI), plan to establish 4G mobile broadband labs in the US and China, featuring a joint test platform and IOT environment for TD-LTE devices to establish common test specifications and joint interoperability testing (IOT) for the global band configurations, including 2.3GHz to 2.7GHz.

The expected availability of the Quad-Band LTE 2.3-2.7 GHz spectrum range, in addition to certain other bands like 1.9GHz, as well as FDD and TD-LTE mobility interactions, makes it an ideal global configuration for mass 4G marketing worldwide, the duo claim. The labs will allow for the evaluation and qualification of commercial TD-LTE devices simultaneously in the US, China, and other promising markets, using common testing methodology, equipment, and infrastructure.

“The unmatched spectrum portfolio underlying Clearwire’s planned LTE network has the potential to deliver faster speeds and with greater capacity than any current or proposed 4G network in the United States,” said John Saw, chief technology officer of Clearwire. “Close collaboration with global wireless leader China Mobile accelerates the development of multi-mode multi-band TD-LTE and LTE FDD devices and provides the common test specifications OEMs, ODMs, chipset vendors and other critical component manufacturers need to rapidly develop and commercialize products to serve this massive global marketplace.”

In related news, Chinese manufacturer Huawei, said Tuesday it has won a contract to provide Nigerian operator Zoda Fones with a commercial TD-LTE network for the capital and its surrounding areas. The deal marks Nigeria, and Huawei’s, first TD-LTE network deployment.

The LTE World Summit takes place May 23-24 in Barcelona

European operators accounted for only seven per cent of cloud spend in 2011

European telecom operators risk being sidelined in the global cloud computing market by aggressive North American and Asian operators spending billions on an international presence.

Research from Informa’s Telecom Cloud Monitor reveals that European operators accounted for only seven per cent of the $13.5bn that services providers spent on cloud assets in 2011. North American and Asian operators accounted for 90 per cent, or $12bn of the total.

Camille Mendler, principal analyst at Informa, believes uncertainty around European security and privacy laws, coupled with continuing economic weakness, are responsible for stalling investment. However, the European Commission aims to define a common legal framework for cloud computing in 2012. And European operators are supporting local innovation, with half the cloud services launched in 2011 relying on European cloud technology vendors.

“European operators are being outgunned in cloud infrastructure,” said Mendler, “Although they are working to stimulate local demand, their investment strategy remains cautious.”

“It’s urgent to defuse concerns about cloud computing in Europe to drive market development. European operators are major players in this endeavour with their trusted brands and sales outlets,” Mendler added.

Get the latest cloud content in the Cloud Zone

Informa’s research highlights fundamental differences among the 127 operators worldwide currently selling cloud services. European operators are focusing on launching services at home, while North American operators are acquiring client bases and assets at home and abroad and Asian operators are pursuing a blended strategy of infrastructure investment and service launch nationally and internationally. Meanwhile, Latin American, Middle Eastern and African operators are building up domestic infrastructure and competences.

In 2011, the top five telecom cloud investors were AT&T, Centurylink, NTT, Telstra, Verizon and Windstream. Leading European operators investing in the cloud were Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Portugal Telecom and Telefónica.

Boxee brings it all together

Informa has long believed that the winning video platform will be the one that most conveniently blends a mix of Live TV and OTT into one easy-to-use package for consumers. Conventional logic has always been that this would either come from one of four places: a Pay TV provider, one of the big CE OEMs, Apple or Google. These players are the ones with the clout required to both secure content deals, and to pull off the significant technical integration such a play would require. But at CES, the most compelling vision of this future came from a much more unlikely source: Boxee.

For the uninitiated, Boxee began as a piece of cross platform video software; that software is now integrated into two media streaming devices from D-Link and Iomega. What Boxee showed at CES was a live TV tuner. It’s incredibly simple: users buy  a $50 unit, which plugs in to the back of their TV; this simply takes whatever the user is watching and delivers it via the Boxee box and UI.

Crucially Boxee has done no content deals: the device simply takes whatever the user is watching on TV, no matter who a customer’s operator is. This means that your live TV simply sits as a menu option with all of your other OTT offerings. It also means no more having to flick between your Boxee box and your cable or satellite box.

This should be ringing alarm bells for operators. While it may seem counter intuitive to label a live TV device as a cord cutting device, it’s easy to see how some consumers might not want to take the additional sports (Boxee has deals with most of the big US sports leagues) and movie content, if they are to take all their OTT from the same platform.

Boxee may not be the answer for everyone. It is still a little more complex than what the mainstream needs and a few key OTT services – notably Hulu – are still missing. But for Informa’s money, this is the most compelling blend of live TV and OTT that we’ve seen to date. We’d be particularly excited if Boxee adds a DVR, which it says it is considering (although this would be a much harder feature than live to integrate without the support of the operators). And unfortunately for Informa, and anyone else outside North America, it’s unlikely we’ll be seeing this feature rolled out soon, due to the big differences between different Pay TV systems worldwide.

The Nokia Lumia 900 and Sony Xperia S

Device manufacturers Sony, Nokia and Huawei have each announced new handsets at CES in Las Vegas, as competition in the smartphone market hots up.

Sony dropped a bombshell, announcing that Sony-Ericsson will be renamed Sony Mobile Communications after its decision to part ways with Ericsson last year. The company also unveiled its first own-brand handset, the Xperia S, which will be launched globally in the first quarter of 2012. The handset will initially feature the Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system, but will be upgraded to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS during the second quarter.

The Xperia S has a 4.3-in HD display and a 12-megapixel camera. It runs on a 1.5GHz dual-core processor and has 32GB internal flash storage. It is also near field communications (NFC) enabled.

The handset gives a glimpse into Sony’s intentions in the smartphone market as it looks to offer an ecosystem of devices to consumers. The Xperia S is PlayStation-certified, which means that the smartphone offers a PlayStation-like gaming experience, as well as access to the PlayStation online store. In addition, it benefits from access to Sony’s music catalogue, Music Unlimited, which offers 12 million songs, and Video Unlimited, which offers the latest Hollywood blockbusters and TV shows from major studios.

According to Sony, the device also enables connectivity with multiple screens for consumers looking to share content on whichever screen they choose, whether it’s TV, smartphone, laptop or tablet.

Nick Dillon, analyst at Ovum, said that with the Sony-Ericsson buyout still pending regulatory approval, the launch is a bold move by Sony but one that the company needed to make.

“The launch of the own-branded smartphones marks the start of a new era for Sony, as it positions itself to battle with other multiscreen players in the increasingly competitive and interlinked consumer electronics markets,” he said.

“As we enter 2012, Ovum believes that it will become increasingly important for top-tier consumer electronics vendors to offer a complete portfolio, not only of devices, but also the services which run on them. Despite having many of these components in place, Sony now faces the challenge of knitting them together to create a compelling integrated offering – an area in which it has yet to excel.”

The company also revealed a Bravia engine-powered smartphone, the Sony-Ericsson Xperia Ion, which is also LTE-enabled and will be available exclusively on US carrier AT&T in Spring.

Meanwhile, Nokia has launched its first Windows Phone handset to support LTE, the Lumia 900. It has a 4.3in screen with an AMOLED ClearBlack Display, which is Nokia’s largest smartphone screen to date, and runs on a 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor.

The device comes preloaded with Nokia Drive; Nokia’s GPS navigation software, as well as the ESPN sports hub, which provides sports news, videos and scores and the CNN App for Windows Phones, which provides the latest news and video from CNN and will be free to Nokia users for 90 days. The Lumia 900 will be exclusive to AT&T and will be launched in “the coming months”, according to Nokia.

Meanwhile, Chinese vendor Huawei also unveiled what it claims is the world’s slimmest smartphone. The Huawei Ascend P1 S is 6.68mm thin and runs on the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system.

The device has a dual-core 1.5GHz processor and features a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen with Corning Gorilla Glass.

The Chinese firm also unveiled another smartphone, the Ascend P1 which is part of the same smartphone series and boasts the same functionality, but is not quite as slim, measuring 7.69mm.

Both handsets come with an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, and will be available in Europe, Asia-Pacific, North America, Australia, Middle East, and China from April 2012.

With AT&T clinching exclusive deals with Nokia and Sony for new handsets, the US operator has made a clear statement that it is serious about LTE. As well as Sony and Nokia, the firm has announced new LTE devices from Samsung, HTC and Pantech. According to Jan Dawson, analyst at Ovum, as LTE continues to gain momentum, the battle between the top US carriers will make for compelling viewing.

“Impressively, AT&T has launched a wider range in terms of price points, operating systems and form factors than Verizon, which launched much earlier. Verizon will have some work to do to catch up, especially at the low end,” he said.

“However, all these devices are only able to use LTE in the few markets where AT&T has launched, and in that respect AT&T is still well behind Verizon. Although it is rolling out rapidly, it has yet to provide an update on its LTE strategy since its merger plans with T-Mobile fell apart, and the last available plans suggest it will continue to trail Verizon’s LTE coverage.”

LTE World Summit 2012 is taking place on the 23-24th May 2012, at the CCIB, Barcelona, Spain.

Current RIM co-CEOs and chairmen Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie

RIM could soon split the roles of CEO and chairman in a bid to reverse its fortunes. Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie are currently co-CEOs and co-chairmen at the embattled Canadian handset manufacturer, but that could change following an internal review of its board structure.

The two could be ousted from their co-chairmen roles by Barbara Stymiest, an independent director who joined RIM’s board in 2007. She is reported to be the leading candidate to replace Balsillie and Lazaridis according to Canadian newspaper Financial Post, which cited “sources familiar with events”.

The Blackberry maker had agreed to the internal review last year in order to avoid a shareholder revolt, after a troublesome 2011, in which the firm saw its net income sink by almost three quarters to just $265m in the third quarter of 2011. The firm was also forced to announce that its BlackBerry 10 devices will be delayed until the latter part of 2012, rather than the first quarter of the year, as was originally planned, and a high profile outage in October saw millions of BlackBerry users around the world experience a service disruption, preventing them from using the browser or BBM messaging platform.

RIM also announced that it will lay off 2,000 staff as part of the cost-cutting programme and one shareholder, Jaguar Financial, a Canadian merchant bank that holds shares in the firm, twice called on the firm to undergo a shake-up, even suggesting that it should be acquired by another company.

The year was so forgettable that co-CEOs Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie announced that they will pay themselves salaries of just $1 each, seemingly in an admission of a poor performance throughout the year.

Nick Dillon, analyst at Ovum, believes that regardless of the outcome of the internal review, the Blackberry maker will need to make major changes in 2012 in order to keep pace with competitors.

“Whether RIM decides to change its management team or not, what is clear is that the company needs to accelerate its pace of change, both in bringing its new BlackBerry 10 platform to market, but also in increasing the attractiveness of its offering through new services such as BBM Music,” he said. ”If the company is unable to speed up its technology and product development it risks being left further behind by its rivals.” 

The internal review is due to be completed by the end of January 2012, and a decision will be announced by the end of February.

AT&T and T-Mobile have dropped their proposed $39bn merger

US carrier AT&T has ended its bid to acquire rival T-Mobile USA, after a nine-month pursuit. The firm announced that it has agreed with T-Mobile’s parent company Deutsche Telekom AG to terminate the bid, which involves AT&T paying DT $4bn in break-up fees.

AT&T condemned the efforts of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Department of Justice (DoJ) for the parts they played in blocking the proposed $39bn merger.

The DoJ filed a civil antitrust lawsuit in a bid to block the deal, claiming that the deal would “substantially lessen competition” in the US wireless sector, while the FCC said that AT&T would have to face an extra administrative hearing next year, before the merger could go ahead. FCC chairman Julius Genachowski had said that letting the two operators merge would “not be in the public interest” and that if approved, “thousands of jobs will be lost in the aftermath”.

Competitor Sprint Nextel also attempted to block the acquisition by bringing a lawsuit against AT&T, claiming the deal would be a violation of Section 7 of the US Clayton Act, which covers competition issues in the US.

These moves resulted in AT&T and T-Mobile USA withdrawing their filings relating to the merger from the FCC last month. At the time, the firms said they would continue to pursue the merger “as soon as is practical”, despite opposition from the DoJ, but they have now backed out entirely.

“The actions by the FCC and DoJ to block this transaction do not change the realities of the US wireless industry – it is one of the most fiercely competitive industries in the world, with a mounting need for more spectrum that has not diminished and must be addressed immediately,” AT&T said in a statement.

It continued that the abandoned merger would have offered an interim solution to the US spectrum shortage, and claimed that now customers will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled.

Randall Stephenson, AT&T chairman and CEO, said:  “Over the past four years we have invested more in our networks than any other US company. As a result, today we deliver best-in-class mobile broadband speeds – connecting smartphones, tablets and emerging devices at a record pace – and we are well under way with our nationwide 4G LTE deployment. To meet the needs of our customers, we will continue to invest.”

He added, however, that adding capacity to meet these needs will require policymakers to do two things.

“First, in the near term, they should allow the free markets to work so that additional spectrum is available to meet the immediate needs of the US wireless industry, including expeditiously approving our acquisition of unused Qualcomm spectrum currently pending before the FCC.  Second, policymakers should enact legislation to meet our nation’s longer-term spectrum needs.”

As a result of the merger breaking down, AT&T will pay out a pretax accounting charge of $4 billion in the 4th quarter of 2011 to Deutsche Telekom. In addition, the two operators will enter a mutually beneficial roaming agreement.

Thomas Wehmeier, principal analyst for telco strategy at Informa Telecoms & Media said that, despite receiving a huge break-up fee, Deutsche Telekom will be disappointed with the outcome of the proposed merger.

“There are very few occasions when you are forced to walk away from the table with $4bn in your pocket and still feel like you’ve just been short-changed – that’s what the collapse of the sale of T-Mobile USA will feel like to Deutsche Telekom,” he said.

“Having frequently – and very publicly – reiterated the absence of a Plan B, the break-up fee will be small consolation as it is forced to carve out a third path, or Plan C.”

Wehmeier said that, in the short term, Deutsche Telekom’s management will have to focus on how to shore up its faltering US business, but a longer-term strategy needs to be carved out quickly. The US arm of T-Mobile contributes a sizeable percentage of group revenue and EBITDA, but has been in limbo for nearly a year now, and Wehmeier believes investors will be seeking swift clarification of its revised strategy and evidence that it can meet its 2012 targets.

He added that the news also has wider implications for the sector – and sets the tone for future consolidation in the industry.

“Much has been made of the need for in-market consolidation within the intensely competitive mobile industry, but having to potentially navigate around seemingly insurmountable regulatory hurdles is likely to shake the confidence of would-be consolidators to the core.”