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Alcatel will cut WiMAX investment

As I have previously speculated here and only two hours ago, Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) will cut WiMAX investment.

As I could easily guess, the WiMAX market has shrunk enough for ALU to get out of the business, thus focusing in their core business and future LTE.

Alcatel-Lucent will reduce spending on WiMAX by “partnering, co-sourcing and participating in the consolidation of the industry,” it said. Other areas that will meet the same fate include customer premise equipment, some legacy applications, and the company’s portfolio of fixed-line telecommunications products not based on the IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) core.

To me it is clear that ALU will partnet with Alvarion for Mobile WiMAX, as they have done in the past with the “Fixed” WiMAX. These are great news for Alvarion as another big player is getting out of the Market; Nortel has announced the same a few months ago and partnered with Alvarion, though I don’t think we have seen the result in Alvarion’s balance sheet.

What Next?

Other two big players are Motorola and Samsung:

  • Samsung – I don’t expect Samsung giving up on WiMAX, as it is their beachhead into the Mobile World outside Korea
  • Motorola – More difficult to predict, but if I have to, my guess is MOTO will also get out of the WiMAX business.
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Alvarion overtakes ALU, MOTO in Mobile WiMAX

From infonetics Research: Alvarion overtakes ALU, MOTO.

The report is pessimistic on the prospects of Mobile WiMAX for next 12 month:

With less cash available for network rollout — and possibly less spectrum being auctioned until the current financial crisis passes — WiMAX deployment will be inhibited for the next 12 months. Infonetics expects revenue growth to return to the overall WiMAX market in 2010, with growth being driven by mobile WiMAX, as a growing number of WiMAX networks are being rolled out based on 802.16e, even if initial services will be fixed CPE-based broadband. Market leader Alvarion’s migration of its customer base from fixed to mobile WiMAX is a prime example of the preference service providers are showing for mobile WiMAX,” said Richard Webb, wireless analyst for Infonetics Research.

I still believe ALU will announce today they are going out of the Mobile WiMAX Business, as I also believe many Tier 1 will wait for LTE.

These are also good news for Alvarion, as in the long run they will benefit from this slow down, as the Big players will go out of the market, leaving the Emerging Markets to Alvarion, Airspan, Redline,…

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LG develop LTE chip

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).

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Nokia E71 review from Osnews

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.

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Pros of Wireless Backhaul

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.

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Intel to develop WiMAX in Kenya

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!

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Alcatel-Lucent CEO: We will remain in wireless, will have LTE products

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.

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Fujitsu LTE

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:

1) Docomo Ericsson LTE

2) NSN, Fujitsu Team for Docomo LTE