A Journey to the Levant
Following the recent LTE press releases, I decided to revisit Google Trends and see how WiMAX is doing.
WiMAX search term is still leading over LTE. I don’t find it surprising that Pakistan and Malaysia are the leading regions for WiMAX searches as there are real deployments there, while in South Korea LTE is gaining some ground (but still only about half of “WiMAX”).
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”.
Israeli 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:
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.
UQ 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.
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.
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:
Previously reported on Alvarion WiMAX Twitter account, which now appears to be inactive.
Last tweet was in April 9th:
@telesemana just posted our interview from #CTIA watch it here: http://cli.gs/qh6Bm2 #wimax
That’s it. No goodbye, no “Stay Tuned”.
Alvarion released today their results for Q1, 09.
I don’t want to repeat the press release , but comment:
“We achieved results within the range of our guidance. This was attributable to a combination of revenue recognition related to earlier shipments and decisive steps to reduce operating expenses since shipments and order intake were below our expectations”
Everyone knows the trick of shipping equipment at the end of the quarter to get them recognized as revenues, but I am not sure what are the decisive steps that reduced operating expenses. Do you mean the lay-offs?
“However, we expect revenues in Q2 to be sequentially lower because we will have less revenue to recognize from shipments made during previous quarters compared to Q1”.
OK, saw that coming from the previous quote.
” we have an overall backlog of orders plus unrecognized revenue from prior shipments totaling over $100 million”
Nortel?
“we are well positioned to take market share from weak competitors”
Airspan?
Overall, quite good, isn’t it?
UQ Communications will open a “Personal Experience Booth” in Akihabara during the Golden Week vacation.
The booth will be available from May 1st to May 3rd. Visitors will be able to experience UQ WiMAX download speeds, try it themselves in a designated “Try Corner”. “Original Goods” (giveaways) will be given to visitors particpating in a survey.
Via Itmedia (JP)
Israeli Start-up Altair Semiconductors has just released that Altair’s chipsets are used in Japanese Willcom Core XGP 4G network.
Asiajin has more details on Willcom plans for deployment, which signals Willcom major move into the 4G network and data services.
As previously reported, Altair has previously announced their plans to support Willcom, which results in a $22 Millions series C funding.