Fixed Mobile Convergence

All bets on wireless – for now

Doug Mohney — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 16:51:55 -0400

If you are have some spare change to invest, or you're building a name in Washington D.C. for future career options, wireless is the place to be at this moment.

Since the dot.bomb bubble, venture capitalists have been acting more like they should when it comes to investing in telecommunications firms. VC now look for a longer term play of five to seven years once they invest, steady growth with revenues and profits, solid management and an understandable business model - no more of this crap of raising $20 million with a PowerPoint presentation and a smile.

In tight times, VCs circle the wagons, figure out which children can stay in the lifeboat, cut off funding to those who can't, and invest in those companies that have a good to excellent shot at profitability once the storm clears. Better still if they can find profitability during the storm.

FMC/femtocell play Kineto Wireless took in $15.5 million in funding last week, including a "strategic investment" from Motorola. You know Moto has to have serious belief in Kineto to give them money after all their tribulations this past year. Expect FMC/mobile UC players to continue to build business; everyone has their own personal cell phone, everyone uses it for work, everyone wants to keep personal and business calls seperate.

WiMAX is another area attracting funding. Sure, everyone has heard about the in-progress $3.5 billion capitalization of Clearwire once the Sprint/Clearwire merger passes through the FCC, but Altair Semiconductor closed $22 million in Series C round funding in late September. Fabless Altair is using the money to expand its global operations, as well as to continue development on WiMAX and LTE chipsets. There are a couple of other VC announcements in the pipeline, regardless of where Wall Street goes in the next two weeks.

And I suppose a number of people will owe thanks to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin if two different proposals to free up spectrum for public use go forward. This week, Martin came out bullish on using "white spaces" - the open spectrum between TV channels - in an open and unlicensed fashion. The FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology (Uber-radio-geeks) put five prototype/proof-of-concept "white spaces" devices through their paces to see if gizmos could be built to conduct spectrum sensing (i.e. what TV channels are in use, which aren't, use the ones that aren't being used), and the results have been satisfactory.

Round two comes with last week's FCC report on AWS-3 spectrum; basically, it's a band that sits next to T-Mobile's network. The FCC would like to auction AWS-3 with the stipulation that the winner would dedicate resources for free national wireless broadband access. It's an interesting idea and main cheerleader M2Z Networks says it would provide the national treasury with a dedicated yearly revenue stream in exchange for use of the spectrum to sell a higher-end (faster speed, no porn filters) for-pay service.

Of course, neither white spaces nor AWS-3 usage are sure things. The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) is determined to crush any perceived threat to the use of "its" spectrum, while T-Mobile is likely to fight AWS-3 for the potential for it to interfere with its services.

- Doug

T-Mobile goes wide with home phone service

Dan O'Shea — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 09:09:16 -0400

The T-Mobile @Home VoIP service that the U.S. wireless carrier had been testing on a limited basis will be made generally available, the company is announcing today. The service, a stab at fixed-mobile convergence that could impact landline carriers, VoIP players and fellow wireless service providers, will cost $10 per month, definitely undercutting most other types of voice services.

The @Home service uses a Cisco Systems WiFi router that costs $50 from T-Mobile, but the router cost is subsidized with a two-year contract. Service providers of all kinds continue to test new FMC concepts, and the industry will be watching closely to see if @Home catches on.

For more:
- read this story at BusinessWeek

Related articles:
T-Mobile announced a trial of the service earlier this year T-Mobile report
Vodafone Italia has pursued a similar service Vodafone Italia report

IntelliNet acquires Azaire Networks assets

Dan O'Shea — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 23:47:24 -0400

IP and IMS technology firm IntelliNet Technologies announced the acquisition of the assets of mostly defunct Azaire Networks. Azaire was a product of the fixed-mobile convergence buzz and the widespread belief a few years back that IP Multimedia Subsystem deployment was about to change the telecom industry in striking and obvious ways. But, FMC has taken many different turns on its way to market and a single standard for supporting FMC services remains elusive. Meanwhile, IMS has begun to affect networks in ways more subtle than striking, and its role in FMC remains mostly a long-term prospect.

Azaire always batted around provocative notions about FMC, at one point pushing the Interworking WLAN standard as an FMC solution. The company developed FMC gateway and security technology that is in use by some carriers today. When FMC more recently became the domain of femtocell technology, Azaire also found time to join the Femto Forum.

For more:
- check out this coverage at Telecommunications

Related articles:
Fixed mobile convergence and IMS FMC report
Vodafone Italia recently launched a residential FMC solution FMC report

Vodafone Italia FMC solution hits home

Dan O'Shea — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:59:40 -0400

Vodafone Italia has released a new broadband switch/router for the home that could be a key enabler of future fixed-mobile convergence. The carrier's Station box, developed with Huawei Technologies, is for use with ADSL2+ broadband connection and extends WiFi or Ethernet coverage throughout the home, but most notably, it can deliver 3G connectivity to Vodafone's wireless network via a USB connection. The switch/router supports seamless switching between wireline broadband and wireless, so Vodafone's 3G coverage could piggyback its way into customer homes. T-Mobile USA offered a somewhat similar take on FMC with a low-key rollout of VoIP and wireless over broadband in Dallas and Seattle earlier this year.

One of the differences with Vodafone is that if Vodafone expands availability of the station to other markets, it could do so in areas where it increasingly is becoming a wireline broadband provider through acquisition, meaning it can own both the coverage within the home and the broadband pathway into it. The recent wireline acquisition strategy and this pursuit of FMC could very well be remembered as hallmarks of the Arun Sarin era now ending its run at Vodafone.

On another note, could such strategies, if they catch on with carriers, be dangerous to the health of vendors who have bet on femtocell technology? I am not sure, but I am hoping to ask a few industry experts their opinions on the matter when I moderate a femtocell panel on Wednesday, June 18 at NXTcomm in Las Vegas. Hope to see you there. (How's that for a shameless plug?)

For more:
- read this post at GigaOM
- and more coverage at Telecoms: Italy

Related articles:
Orange to enable FMC picocell service. Orange report
T-mobile tries out femtocells; will U.S. follow? Femtocell report