Month: June 2009

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Redline receives a lifeline

redline_logo

Redline Communications, a Canadian manufacturer of Fixed and Mobile WiMAX equipment announced that it received $10 Millions (Canadian) financing loan from the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development.

“This government loan will help Redline remain at the forefront of the broadband wireless industry worldwide, and allow it to further grow its design and development capability for ‘Fourth Generation’ (4G) commercial, military and government broadband wireless networks,” said Mihnea Moldoveanu, Redline’s Founder and Chief Strategy Officer.

Forefront?

I think it should be  “Keeping our heads above water”.

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Google Wave

I am lucky enough to be included in the Google wave “Sandbox” program, which means I have two Google wave account I can play/develop with.
Assuming that there are enough Google Wave related buzz and blogs, I don’t bother reporting my experience.
Nevertheless, if you are interested in my views, show your interest by writing a comment to this post.

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Altair Semiconductors announce LTE baseband

altair_logo

Israeli Startup Altair Semiconductors announced today the availability of their LTE baseband processor. Named FourGee-3100, this is the first in a series of LTE portfolio.

This is Altair’s 3rd chip following the FourGee-2150 for Mobile wiMAX and FourGee-4150 for XGP. I don’t believe the FourGee-2150 is widely deployed nor gained siginificant design wins, but as reported earlier, the FourGee-4150 XGP powers Japanese Willcom new XGP network .

Altair announced their plans for:

  • FourGee(TM)-6150 – a MIMO RF transceiver that supports LTE-TDD. This product will be available in August 2009
  • FourGee(TM)-6200 – a multi-band LTE-FDD MIMO transceiver that supports the most popular LTE bands in North America, Japan and Europe. The chip will be available in Q210

LTE-FDD will arrive in Q2, 2010, long after trials are expected to start in Japan. Will Altair gain enough market share with the LTE-TDD? We shall soon find out.

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Israeli Gilat may acquire Airspan Networks

gilat_logoairspan_logoIsraeli online business news Calcalist reports (Hebrew) that Gilat is in negotiations to acquire Airspan Networks.

The acquisition sum is rumored to be around  “few tens of Millions of Dollars” while Airspan is currently traded in the Pink Sheets after voluntarily delisting from Nasdaq and traded for about $4 Millions.

The article mentions a few problems in this rumored acquistion:

  1. Airspan’s commitments to Oak Investment Partners after their investment in 2006, which drives the price higher than the book value.
  2. Airspan HQ are in Boca Raton, Florida with development offices in England and Israel, Sales offices around the world. It is not that easy to absorb such an international company.
  3. In 2008 Airspan had revenues of $70 Millions which resulted in an operational loss of $50 Millions. Alvarion had similar revenues for Q1, 2009 alone.

Gilat is reported to be sitting on a pile of cash, but from a short analysis of the infromation above, I would recommend Gilat to negotiate harder.

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UQ Communications TV commercials

UQ WiMAX LogoUQ Communications (which is also branded as UQ WiMAX) will launch their commercial Mobile WiMAX on July 1st.

Besides signing many MVNOs, UQ has started with TV camapaigns, Train video commercials and obviously web campaigns. UQ’s TV commercials try to demonstrate how fast their network is. I think they are quite bad, without a clear message of “why should I choose UQ over Emobile or other solutions”.

As launch date approaches I can just assume it will be accompanied with campaigns at Camera, Yamada Denki and other Big electronic shops.

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Intel Capital invests additional $43 Millions in UQ Communications

UQ WiMAX Logo

From Intel’s PR:

“Intel Capital, Intel Corporation’s global investment organization, invested $43 million (JP ¥4.15 billion) in Japan-based UQ Communications, a provider of WiMAX mobile services. UQ Communications will utilize the funding to continue the nationwide expansion of UQ WiMAX service in Japan, with the commitment to provide WiMAX coverage to 90 percent of the country by 2012”

UQ’s Official launch is planned for July 1st; coverage maps become more appealing to business customers, though still limiting.

While I am an avid supporter of WiMAX Technology and follow UQ Wimax rollout, I use an Emobile HSDPA USB. The price is almost the same, around ¥5000 (~$50), while Emobile has more customers, better coverage and experience. Would love to switch to WiMAX in the future, but can’t afford no-connectivity.

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Marketing Proof Reading

It surprises how sometimes Marketing Material with spelling or in this case proof reading mistakes reach my Inbox.

I’d recommend every Marketing executive to send/publish the information internally before pressing the button that will send the email to investors, analysts … etc.

In our Case, Alvarion invented a new Technology called WiMAXT:

wimaxt