TIM Brazil aims to provide LTE in cities where soccer tournaments will be played in 2013 and 2014

Brazilian operator TIM Brasil has called on network infrastructure vendor Nokia Siemens Networks to build its LTE network. NSN will deploy an LTE network layer on top of TIM Brasil’s existing 2G and 3G networks in the 2.6 GHz frequency band, the operator confirmed.

It said will be switching on its networks on a city-by-city basis as it looks to provide coverage in advance of the Confederations Cup 2013 and Football World Cup 2014 soccer tournaments in Brazil.

NSN will provide the LTE radio access network, which will use the firm’s Flexi Multiradio Base Stations. The base stations use common OSS for multiple technologies and NSN claims the technology will allow TIM Brasil to save time, space and power consumption.

NSN will also upgrade TIM Brasil’s network management system to all the operator to better monitor, manage and optimise its network, and it will also provide TIM Brasil with its Intelligent Self Organizing Networks (iSON) capability.

“Our long-term partnership with Nokia Siemens Networks has been excellent, and the 2G and 3G equipment installed by the company is performing so well that it was a natural decision to deploy an LTE network with the same vendor,” said Marco di Costanzo, head of mobile network at TIM Brasil.

The LTE Latin America conference is taking place on the 16^th-17^th April 2013 Windsor Barra Hotel, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Click here to find out more about the event.

One conclusion can be drawn from this accusation, valid or not: Things are getting desperate in the infrastructure supply sector. Falsifying performance data would be a drastic act, after all—but then so would slandering the opposition.

It used to be suggested fairly frequently that it was only a matter of time before either Huawei or ZTE snapped up one of their Western counterparts. It’s all but impossible to see this happening now, given the importance of the North American market and the US Government’s open suspicion of the Chinese vendors’ ties to the Chinese Government and military.

In our recent survey we asked respondents whether they felt Chinese vendors are being unfairly restricted outside of their domestic markets. A little over a quarter of respondents thought they were, and the rest either disagreed or claimed neutrality.

(What was not clear from those who answered ‘no’ was whether they felt there was no restriction or whether they felt that restrictions weren’t unfair. Perhaps a more confrontational question would have yielded a more controversial response.)

And yet there is still clearly consolidation to come, especially as the telecoms and IP infrastructure worlds converge.

Alcatel Lucent lost its CEO Ben Verwaayen last week when he stepped down on the back of a €1.37bn loss for 2012—essentially with the admission that he was out of ideas. NSN’s bottom line for 2012, despite a dramatically improved Q4, was a loss of €799. The shareholder agreement between Nokia and Siemens is due for renewal in April and we know Siemens wants out.

It was against this backdrop that suggestions of a tie up between Nokia Siemens Networks and Alcatel Lucent emerged recently. Given that the two firms’ entire lives as merged entities have been defined by the struggles inherent in large scale integration this seems unlikely.

It’s easier to envisage a Nortel-style breakup, although less so for NSN because it has so effectively slimmed itself down already (in the process fuelling speculation that it’s looking for a buyer).

But if there is going to be some more large scale M&A, might it not be in the form of a bridge between the telco network and IP worlds? NSN and Cisco already have a fairly deep strategic partnership in place covering monbile backhaul, IP backbone, mobile and EPC security and LTE transport security; so there is clearly scope for collaboration between the two sectors…

We are already seeing a new level of differentiation in the vendor community that will eventually lead to a tiered vendor landscape. Yesterday Ericsson announced a move towards managed services SLAs that are based on customer experience KPIs rather than traditional network performance measurements. There are 950 million subscribers on Ericsson-operated networks worldwide and now the firm has moved into handset certification for operators, too.

The Swedish vendor is effectively a network operator in many markets and it is on this side of the business that Huawei and ZTE, while more than capable of competing hard on price, do and will continue to struggle. Operators outside of China, and especially in the West, took a long time to come round to the idea of installing equipment from the Chinese players. Handing over the keys takes that cultural challenge to another level entirely.

But if this tiered market comes to pass, it’s conceivable that a vendor offering deep managed services might find itself being asked to specify purchases from competitor suppliers as part of a wider network upgrade contract.

Wolfgang Hackenberg

Alcatel Lucent’s vice president for the global Vodafone account has jumped ship to Nokia Siemens Networks, where he will perform the same function. In an internal memo to senior management seen by Telecoms.com, NSN’s head of European customer operations René Svendsen-Tune announced that Wolfgang Hackenberg had joined the firm to assume control of the Vodafone account, which has been under interim management since the middle of the year.

Earlier this year NSN poached Alcatel Lucent’s president of End to End networks to lead its Americas business. Ken Wirth was instrumental in developing Alcatel Lucent’s LTE proposition, and was recruited to strengthen NSNs offering in the 4G technology.

Earlier this week research house Infonetics reported that NSN had increased its market share in LTE infrastructure from13 per cent to 21.5 per cent during the third quarter of this year. The firm said that the three largest deployments during the quarter in revenue terms were in North America, Japan and South Korea. NSN said that its performance reflected “the company’s strong position in every major account in Japan (NTT DoCoMo, KDDI and Softbank Mobile) and South Korea (KT, SK telecom and LGU+) as well as the T-Mobile rollout in the US.”

#4 – Managed Services is dead, long live Managed Services

On a macro level, we still see overall revenue growth in managed services at a rate of 17 per cent each year. On a micro level, we see two out of four major managed service vendors retreating. Alcatel-Lucent announced it would review, and possibly exit, 25 per cent of its current 68 managed services contracts. Similarly, current financial pressure seems to impact NSN’s willingness to bring in new Managed Services deals. Ericsson and Huawei provide little visibility of their managed service profitability; as their profit margin figures are embedded in their compound reports of professional services. Clearly, the industry is in a phase of intense competition in the managed service space. Northstream believes that a three player market, with sustainable margins, will emerge. These vendors will also try to position themselves higher up in the value chain of managed services.

At the early stage of telecom outsourcing; any unwanted operational cost structures that vendors were forced to inherit in order to secure a deal could be swallowed by an expanding professional services organisation. This is because they knew there were additional managed service deals around the corner where surplus resources would surely come in hand. However, for several of the deals made in recent years, it has been more challenging for vendors to achieve synergies than the scope suggested. This has meant that synergies have taken longer to come into effect and has negatively impacted vendors’ enthusiasm.

Northstream predicts that, in order to maintain profitability within managed services, vendors will become less willing to risk being squeezed in-between operators’ OPEX reduction requirements and the pursuit of increased flexibility. This, in turn, will lead to sterner terms and negotiations for operators nearing renewals of their managed service contracts.

Similarly, operators realise that to remain competitive in the mobile broadband and LTE deployment era; they must secure control of their most important asset – their networks. This means that OPEX reduction cannot sustain its position as the single most important criteria when defining the future of outsourcing. More likely is that aspects like network quality focus, capacity flexibility and CAPEX investment manageability will have more prominent roles when defining outsourcing business models 2.0.

This will involve less of a ‘blueprint’ on how to establish managed service models going forward; and instead an increasing amount of operator-specific responsibility sharing models. It is likely, a model will emerge where the core services with greatest synergy potential (e.g. global NOCs) will be combined with a more tailored, and local, solution for each operator. Especially for tier one and tier two operators, where a ‘blueprint’ simply does not fit. To succeed, operators and vendors must define business models and operational processes that promote the vendor to actively address the operator’s network OPEX as a whole, including legacy cost structure and maintaining (or improving) network quality and customer experience.

Airtel chooses Ericsson or Rwanda project

Bharti Airtel has launched its operation in Rwanda, opting to partner with Ericsson for the deployment, rather than Nokia Siemens, with which it announced a multi-market African partnership in October last year.

Ericsson will manage Airtel’s Rwandan network from end-to-end, including providing OSS/BSS solutions and managed services.Last year the Indian-headquartered carrier struck a partnership with NSN to expand, plan and operate its mobile networks in  Madagascar, Malawi, Congo Brazzaville, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

Airtel said that it took just 83 days to build its new network from scratch, claiming it represents the fastest Greenfield launch in history of Sub-Saharan Africa. The Indian operator has also pledged to invest $100m over the next three years, taking its reach in Africa to 17 markets.

Rwandan Prime Minister Dr Pierre Damien Habumuremyi said that the government is looking to partner with the private sector to provide “good quality, accessible and affordable telecommunications services”.

“We are especially excited about the prospect of connecting Rwanda with the rest of the East African region and, indeed, with the rest of Africa. As Rwandans begin engaging in business ventures and looking for regional partners, telecommunications companies – like Airtel – that are able to provide access to a pan-African wireless network, become a crucial part of expansion,” he said.

Manoj Kohli, CEO at Bharti Airtel added that Rwanda represents “an extremely promising market” for the carrier.

According to Informa’s WCIS, mobile penetration in the country was at 41.49 per cent at the end of 2011. According to the World Bank, each 10 per cent of broadband penetration results in a 1.3 per per cent increase in per capita GDP growth in developing countries.

Airtel was awarded the license by the Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agency (RURA) last year to operate 2G and 3G GSM mobile services.

NSN announced 17,000 job cuts in November last year

Infrastructure and services provider Nokia Siemens Networks has announced that it is to outsource a portion of its own activities to Finnish managed services player Tieto. Meanwhile the conclusion of one of the vendor’s own outsourcing deals, with Brazilian mobile operator Oi, has allowed it to cut another 3,500 workers from its roster.

NSN said that 240 employees from its OSS and Subscriber Data Management divisions based in Tampere and Espoo will transfer to Tieto, which it described as a long-term partner. Pekka Soini, head of NSN’s Finnish operations, said that the move was in line with the firm’s aim to refocus on a smaller number of core operational areas. The transfer is expected to be completed in April this year.

NSN’s exit from the managed services deal it struck with Brazilian carrier Oi in 2009 will see a further 3,500 employees leave the company. NSN announced plans to cut 17,000 workers in November 2011.

NSN

How does this article affect your perception of Nokia Siemens Networks? What is this?

NSN is 13.8% negative

Total votes: 86

11 37 86 eead5ca1a0 0

NSN is now looking to sell off its fixed line VoIP, carrier Ethernet, narrowband, business support systems and communications and entertainment solutions units, but will maintain the units if a suitable buyer doesn’t come along.

The Adtran deal will see 400 of NSN’s staff transfer to the US firm, and is expected to close by the end of April 2012. The staff reduction is in addition to the 300 staff that will move to NewNet and the 360 employees transferring to DragonWave, all of which are in addition to the 17,000 staff reduction announced in November, taking the total number of staff reductions announced so far past 18,000.

Such upheaval might be expected to cause concern among NSN’s customer base, but a spokesperson told Telecoms.com that the firm’s customers have been buoyed by the news. She said they have acknowledged that the move will make the firm a more attractive proposition as a supplier, as it aims to focus on improving the quality of the mobile broadband and customer experience solutions it offers, rather than simply looking out for its own financial motives.

“We want to focus on improving quality. With this new strategy, there will be more focus on quality and on customers, so that we can provide solutions to customers that they need and are so good, right from the beginning, that there are never any issues with them,” she said.

“When we’ve briefed our customers about this, their reaction has been very positive to us taking this kind of focus and of course we are working closely with them to make sure we do provide the sort of solutions that they need. They’ve been positive about this change because maybe they understand that in order to provide the best quality and the solutions for them, we are working closely together with them rather than focusing on money or resources.”

Airtel plans to expand in Africa

Indian operator Bharti Airtel will rely on Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) to expand, plan and operate its mobile networks in seven African countries as part of a deal struck between the two companies.

The operator, which provides services in 19 countries across Asia and Africa, has contracted NSN to expand its 2G (GSM/EDGE) networks and deploy 3G networks in the countries. NSN will manage end-to-end network operations, including planning, designing and implementing the 2G and 3G networks for Airtel.

The company will provide its energy-efficient Flexi Multiradio Base Stations to expand network coverage to under-served areas, including smaller towns and villages in  Madagascar, Malawi, Congo Brazzaville, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

“This partnership will further enable us to rapidly expand our network coverage and provide high-speed wireless internet connectivity to our customers,” said Manoj Kohli, CEO and joint managing director at Bharti Airtel.

NSN will use its FlexiHybrid microwave radio to address growing data traffic and provide the platform for a cost-effective transition to 3G, and potentially 4G networks in the future.

It will also provide its NetAct network management system for to enable network monitoring and management.

Financial details were not disclosed.

This year's awards will again take place during a river cruise through Paris on the Bateau Diamant

For this latest instalment in our series of previews of the upcoming Broadband InfoVision Awards, to be held in Paris next month, we examine the nominees in Category 3 – Broadband Access Network Technologies and Services (Wireless).

Alcatel-Lucent has made the shortlist for its lightRadio portfolio of solutions, which is designed to enable mobile operators to meet customer demand for increased mobile data whilst reducing energy consumption and cutting operating costs.

The portfolio is comprised of a number of solutions, including the lightRadio cube, which performs a number of roles including serving as amplifier, radio and antenna; a compression algorithm that compresses data by up to three times, a system-on-a-chip that integrates many components at the board level into the chip for a lower-power, higher-performing and space-saving device; and a software feature which up to doubles the capacity of the cell.

The lightRadio Cube offers operators a single, scalable and optimised platform for 2G, 3G and 4G, and for any frequency, and can be modified remotely via software. The lightRadio portfolio also supports a cloud-like architecture, enabling energy consumption to be cut by 50% while doubling network capacity and providing savings in operating expenses of up to 60%.

Huawei has been shortlisted for its HetNet solution, which has been designed to enhance mobile broadband networks, accommodate exponential increases in traffic, manage flow and capacity, ensure end-user satisfaction, and contain and ultimately decrease the cost per bit.

The HetNet solution consists of a series of base stations, including variable combinations of Macro, Micro, Pico and Femto units, with advanced analysis and auto-management control systems. Targeted in particular at urban scenarios where traffic hotspots occur, the solution enables a more precise and layered network to be cost-effectively deployed based on actual traffic distribution, delivering seamless coverage at both hot and blind spots.

Nokia Siemens Networks has been nominated for its Flexi Multiradio 10 Base Station, which has the ability to provide extremely large mobile broadband capacity and also enable the baseband processing to be performed at geographically dispersed sites thanks to its ability to dynamically share baseband.

The Flexi Multiradio 10 Base Station is touted as being the world’s smallest high-capacity, software-defined, multi-standard base station, whose multi-technology and multi-band capability smoothes the evolution to future radio technologies and frequency bands. The base station can support GSM, 3G, LTE (TDD & FDD)/LTE-Advanced using a single System Module.

Telecom Italia has been shortlisted for its Internet On Board High-Speed Trains initiative, which is being implemented on the high-speed train lines that connect the main Italian cities of Turin, Milan, Venice, Bologna, Florence, Rome and Naples. The telco was instructed in 2009 to design an innovative solution to deliver Internet services and locally-stored multimedia content on the entire route from Turin to Naples, covering about 850 km, including about 185 km in tunnels.

The project was started by Telecom Italia in February 2010 and completed last December, delivering both 3G and Wi-Fi coverage on board the Frecciarossa high-speed trains, with two access points and one mobile router installed in each carriage. A ruggedised server was also installed to store multimedia and infotainment content. At present, an average of 2,000 travellers per day use the system’s Wi-Fi services, with an average throughput per user of 1.6 Mbps.

And finally, ZTE Corporation has made the cut for its Smart RAN solution – a wireless access network architecture based on centralised processing, collaborative radio and real-time cloud infrastructure. The solution is designed to reduce the number of base stations required by deploying centralised baseband processing, cutting CapEx by a claimed 19% and OpEx by a claimed 72% whilst boosting performance.

The Broadband InfoVision Awards will be held in Paris on September 27th during a Gala Dinner Presentation aboard a river cruise on the Seine, travelling through the heart of the French capital. For more information and to register, please click here

Sprint and Lightsquared have inked out their tie-up to create an nationwide US LTE network

US wholesale player Lightsquared has confirmed that it has entered into a partnership with Sprint Nextel that will see Sprint deploy an LTE network on Lightsquared’s behalf. The deal has put a serious dent in the US ambitions of Nokia Siemens Networks, which was named as Lightsquared’s network deployment partner last year.

As expected, the new deal means will see Lightsquared pay Sprint up to US$11bn in cash over an 11-year period to deploy and operate a nationwide LTE network using L-band spectrum. As a wholesale only player, Lightsquared will then be able to sell back capacity to other operators, including Sprint.

In 2010 NSN made much of its US$7bn deal to deploy and run an LTE network for Lightsquared. Following that annoucement, Martin  Harriman, EVP at Lightsquared told Telecoms.com that: “It’s an extraordinarily complex deal as we try and capture an eight-year partnership that pretty much does everything. We’ll get there, but it’s a big, big deal, both for us and for NSN.”

Not any more. NSN confirmed to Telecoms.com on Thursday that it would no longer be involved in the running of Lightsquared’s radio access network, with that now in the hands of Sprint Nextel, which will use its own vendors.

However, an NSN spokesperson assured Telecoms.com that it was still involved with Lightsquared and that it has signed a new deal for the design, installation, testing and systems integration of the core network. “This means we will play a central role in LightSquared’s rollout of 4G-LTE,” the spokesperson said. However, in contrast to last year’s headline grabbing figure, the value of this latest contract has not been publicised.

As the only major US WIMAX player, Sprint has found itself out on a limb in the telecoms industry. Indeed, following the announcement of the Lightsquared deal today, Sprint announced losses of US$847m in the second quarter of 2011, reflecting how customers have either been drawn to the Apple iPhone on AT&T and Verizon, or to Android devices on the latter’s faster LTE network.

What’s more, while the tie-up with Lightsquared is crucial for Sprint, it is still dependant on Lightsquared successfully navigating its complex issues with the FCC, which it has to assure that its network will not interfere with terrestrial GPS signals.

In response to this, Steve Elfman, president of network operations and wholesale for Sprint said in a statement that, “We believe LightSquared, in cooperation with the FCC and adjacent spectrum users, is taking proactive steps to address and resolve these issues in a timely manner.”