A Journey to the Levant
The Japanese Kanji Proficiency Society selects the Kanji every year on December 12th.
This year’s Kanji is 変 – Change – to capture these year’s events of a new Prime minister, Obama == Change, and the changes in climate and economic turmoil.
The same Kanji can be also used as an adjective, but then it’s meaning changes to “Strange”.
This trend is catching up. Mobile Phone manufacturers do not want to rely on Chip vendors and develop their own chipsets.
Another good example is Samsung with their WiMAX chipsets. They have worked with more than one vendor (maybe as an interim solution), but finally launched their own chipset.
Link to Ars Technica, which is much better than this one, since I’d rather see beautiful women holding chips than some guys (which look very smart and talented).
I love the phone. Never had a blackberry, so I can’t compare, but the Nokia E71 rocks.
OSNews have finally reviewed the Nokia E71.
Quote from the Conclusion (who bothers reading the entire review?):
Nokia’s E71 is a great phone, but not for the users it was originally aimed at. As a business phone, the less-than-stellar Exchange support, as well as the missing BlackBerry support, will limit the phone’s use. However, as a normal phone “for the rest of us”, the excellent keyboard, sturdy design, and easy-to-use interface enables it to be a fine mobile phone.
Do you hate touch screens, like I do? Do you hate one person controlling what you can and can’t do with your phone, like I do? Would you still like a smartphone? The E71 is a decent choice.
It is reported (in Hebrew) that a tractor tore several optical fibers, causing communication problems in Jerusalem.
ALL Cellular services as well as Internet access are still affected.
These kind of “accidents” have a higher probability in Israel than US or Europe, but still make me think that wireless backhaul is a MUST, at least for redundancy purposes.
This is an example of why I believe in WiMAX, and would like to promote it: Internet connectivity for emerging and 3rd world markets.
Intel and Safaricom will join hands in this effort.
A few excerpts:
“The program’s launch in Kenya is the result of an agreement that Intel signed earlier with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Cisco, Microsoft and Kenya’s Ministry of Education (MoE).”
The Kenya ICT Board will deploy the content in more than 300 Pasha Centres throughout Kenya. The Pasha centres provide a suite of services to the public via computers connected to the internet.
““Localized content in terms of maths and geography that makes sense to the Kenyan youth is also crucial in fully tapping in the IT explosion that will hit this country once the fibre optic cable is in place,” Mr Barrett said.”
Good Luck Intel!
It was announced that Purewave networks has completed a $12 million Series B Funding round .
The driving force behind Purewave networks is obviously the CEO, which previously founded “Go Networks”.
Purewave networks website does not have a lot of information, nor datasheets of the Base Station and CPE.
Let’s follow this company and see how they plan to differentiate themselves from the already crowded market
A report in RCR Wireless, speculates on the plans of Alcatel Lucent. According to the report Alcatel-Lucent will announce a new plan next week that will “turn around the fortunes” of Alcatel-Lucent.
ALU CEO claims they plan to stay in the mobile telecom business, and will continue to invest in R&D.
I fully support the following excerpt:
“Not doing innovation is like shooting yourself in the head,” he said. “We are not going to cut our lifeline to the future.” Verwaayen refused to be drawn on the outlook for the fourth quarter or 2009 saying “that is for Dec. 12.””
My speculation is “Bye Bye to Mobile WiMAX”, although ALU has many deployments around the world, the Mobile WiMAX market has shrunk significantly and I am not sure there is a room for so many “Vendors”: Samsung, Motorola, ALU and the smaller ones.
Fujitsu LTE website shows two LTE webstation, called the BBU and RRU, but does not describe the difference between them. I did not attend CEATEC Japan, but the page shows two photos taken at the event.
If seems like the key differentiator for Fujitsu is the 4×4 MIMO!
It will be interesting to see how Fujitsu will compete with Ericsson, the lead LTE vendor, for the Docomo deployment.
See press releases from both vendors:
A press release from this morning details KDDI plan to use Nortel and Hitachi’s joint collaboration for their LTE deployment.
Very interesting news as:
1) KDDI plans to roll-out LTE
2) Nortel and Hitachi join hands in this effort
As you may well know UQ Communications, a KDDI company, will deploy Mobile WiMAX in 2009 using a 2.5GHz spectrum. This report from Unstrung addresses the biggest problem, lack of Spectrum:
“Spectrum holds back Japan’s LTE
But Japanese operators do not yet have the spectrum they need to deploy LTE.
The KDDI spokesman explains that the operator cannot use its existing 3G spectrum in the 2 GHz frequency band for LTE because there is not enough of it. There is spectrum available for LTE at 1.5 GHz, but KDDI, along with DoCoMo and Softbank, is waiting for the Japanese regulator to decide who can use how much of this spectrum, according to the spokesman.
Another LTE spectrum option in the country will be in the 800 MHz band, which will be made available by 2010 as cable operators switch from analog to digital TV transmission.”
A CNN report on JAL CEO, who slashed his pay significantly in this economic downturn. Insists that “he should feel the pain” of the workers that had to retire early.
I always admired the Japanese work and Business ethics, and here is another example why:
A link to youtube – Japan Airline’s CEO slashes his pay, other CEO should learn from Him.
(My wordpress is still a “bit” broken”)