Post by jeffolie on Mar 3, 2013 7:18:44 GMT -6
big change: voice over LTE, VoLTE
" ... All that VoLTE stuff is rather opaque, ... a big change coming to wireless networks in the next 12 months, called "voice over LTE," or VoLTE. It involves taking wireless phone calls and making them just another stream of Internet data. As a cellular customer, you're not supposed to even know it's there, if all goes well. But it promises to save money for carriers, or to bring them enormous headaches if they get it wrong. ... The fascinating part is that phone companies don't entirely know what will happen when they flip the switch and throw their voice traffic onto the same networks as e-mail and Facebook traffic. And so a number of networking companies here talked up how they'll help.
my jeffolie view: smartphones and the underlying tech are killing PCs along with tablets morphing into 'phlets, etc' or bigger screened phones, etc ... profits will jump with the transition about to happen in the underlying tech ... just as phone landlines are expensive but voip phones are comparatively inexpensive, this new underlying tech change jumping profits comes from the same approach that is killing PCs
=================================
The Talk of Mobile World: VoLTE Wireless
MARCH 2, 2013 By TIERNAN RAY in Barron's
Technology promises to transform how mobile-phone traffic is handled. Cisco scores a coup, and Samsung keeps up the pressure.
Last week, as ordinary humans throughout Barcelona were riveted by the soccer face-off between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, geeks and suits packed an exhibition space on the outskirts of this coastal town for four days, traipsing the aisles of the world's biggest annual wireless show, Mobile World Congress.
There's a big change coming to wireless networks in the next 12 months, called "voice over LTE," or VoLTE. It involves taking wireless phone calls and making them just another stream of Internet data. As a cellular customer, you're not supposed to even know it's there, if all goes well. But it promises to save money for carriers, or to bring them enormous headaches if they get it wrong.
The fascinating part is that phone companies don't entirely know what will happen when they flip the switch and throw their voice traffic onto the same networks as e-mail and Facebook traffic. And so a number of networking companies here talked up how they'll help.
Cisco Systems (ticker: CSCO), for example, "had a very good show" in Barcelona, analyst Daryl Schoolar of research firm Ovum told me at the congress. The company last week closed the acquisition of an Israeli start-up called IntuCell, whose software can switch phone users from one tower to another at a moment's notice, if a given tower gets crowded.
"Buying IntuCell means Cisco doesn't need to sell base stations" like Ericsson (ERIC) and Nokia (NOK) do, says Schoolar. Instead, Cisco can act as the brains of the network, no matter whose gear is installed.
Cisco, at a recent share price of $20.85, near its 52-week high of $21.67, should appreciate from here, given the enthusiasm for this prominent role in VoLTE.
Another firm helping out is start-up Newfield Wireless, which is funded by its CEO and founder, Marc Bensadoun, formerly an astrophysics researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. In the Newfield booth, a map with a mass of dots on it, like a cluster of constellations, showed dozens of customers in a Florida neighborhood as they connected to the network with their smartphones. Every time one of them hit a Website, Newfield could tell the phone company, in real time, how good the signal was, how much data was downloaded, and which phone had the best or worst performance.
Through predictive mechanisms, says Bensadoun, they're trying to tell companies what it will be like when a storm of phone calls is lumped in with e-mail and Web traffic. Newfield already has sold its wares to one of the two dominant U.S. phone giants, and hopes to close the second.
All that VoLTE stuff is rather opaque, so the buzz here focused on handset makers showing off more and more gigantic devices.
Toppling Samsung Electronics (005930.Korea) seems the main prize. That won't be easy, as the Korean colossus, No. 1 in global smartphone sales, is moving with the ease of a ballerina to sweep the market with new models of its Galaxy brand. The enormous Samsung booth was mobbed with visitors pawing the recently announced Galaxy Note 8.0, an eight-inch tablet that comes with a special stylus for drawing and note-taking.
Right across from Samsung were the less enormous booths of Chinese upstarts ZTE (000063.China) and Huawei (002502.China), which faced the massively armed Samsung like gunslingers meeting at a crossroads. Huawei's booth was pitching the "Ascend Mate," which, with a six-inch screen, the company calls "the world's largest-screen smartphone," besting Samsung's 5.5-inch Galaxy Note II
ZTE showed off the Grand S, with a five-inch screen and a 13-megapixel camera. But while the Grand S was judged as best in show by some Wall Street types who examined it, both Huawei and ZTE have a ways to go.
Samsung's vice president for product planning, Nick DiCarlo, explained to me the Samsung worldview. Its Galaxy phones, and tablets, and Notes neatly divide the market into different classes by size and shape, and then the stylus, called "S Pen," adds something extra. "Galaxy is a brand that is very clearly about premium features," said DiCarlo, not to mention a model for every preference.
Samsung will unveil the next version of the Galaxy S smartphone on March 14 in New York City.
It's hard not to feel sorry for ZTE and Huawei, which, despite their nifty wares, don't seem to have any kind of identity wrapped around their gadgets to match the Galaxy mark.
But as Neil Mawston, director of research for Strategy Analytics, told me, that may not matter. "They take a 10-year view," he said of ZTE and Huawei. Both look back on a time in the 1990s when Samsung and that other Korean stalwart, LG Electronics (066570.Korea), trailed Motorola and Nokia in the phone world, and when their products had relatively lackluster reputations. Both came from behind with a simple three-part formula: Build a better phone, develop a better brand, and then develop subbrands.
"They have read that playbook of Samsung and LG, clearly, and they are following it," Mawston says of ZTE and Huawei. Both are in the first phase, the build-a-better-phone moment, and, he adds, they're making progress.
THE BATTLE FOR SUPERPHONES is riveting, but the battle of the cheapie phones is perhaps more germane. With developed markets reaching smartphone saturation, the industry is concerned about selling cheap stuff to developing markets.
I wrote in November that Nokia could be a good trade for a while, as it has the goodwill of the market for a comeback. Last week showed that it also has very good prospects in cheap phones.
Amid all the developing-world talk in Barcelona last week, Nokia unveiled a handset costing just 15 euros ($19.50) wholesale. It can't be used to connect to Websites and has a tiny screen, but it has a flashlight and can pick up radio broadcasts. Nokia reps here told me it's perfect for markets such as Africa. The company sold 100 million of a predecessor model, and Mawston wouldn't be surprised to see higher sales this time around
Nokia has given up most of its gains made between publication of my November column and a high this year of $4.90, settling in at a recent price of $3.65. I'd say the enthusiasm for €15 phones bodes well for the shares. As for the payoff to Nokia's finances—well, that remains to be seen.
online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424052748704356104578326380219932030.html?mod=BOL_twm_col#articleTabs_article%3D1
" ... All that VoLTE stuff is rather opaque, ... a big change coming to wireless networks in the next 12 months, called "voice over LTE," or VoLTE. It involves taking wireless phone calls and making them just another stream of Internet data. As a cellular customer, you're not supposed to even know it's there, if all goes well. But it promises to save money for carriers, or to bring them enormous headaches if they get it wrong. ... The fascinating part is that phone companies don't entirely know what will happen when they flip the switch and throw their voice traffic onto the same networks as e-mail and Facebook traffic. And so a number of networking companies here talked up how they'll help.
my jeffolie view: smartphones and the underlying tech are killing PCs along with tablets morphing into 'phlets, etc' or bigger screened phones, etc ... profits will jump with the transition about to happen in the underlying tech ... just as phone landlines are expensive but voip phones are comparatively inexpensive, this new underlying tech change jumping profits comes from the same approach that is killing PCs
=================================
The Talk of Mobile World: VoLTE Wireless
MARCH 2, 2013 By TIERNAN RAY in Barron's
Technology promises to transform how mobile-phone traffic is handled. Cisco scores a coup, and Samsung keeps up the pressure.
Last week, as ordinary humans throughout Barcelona were riveted by the soccer face-off between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, geeks and suits packed an exhibition space on the outskirts of this coastal town for four days, traipsing the aisles of the world's biggest annual wireless show, Mobile World Congress.
There's a big change coming to wireless networks in the next 12 months, called "voice over LTE," or VoLTE. It involves taking wireless phone calls and making them just another stream of Internet data. As a cellular customer, you're not supposed to even know it's there, if all goes well. But it promises to save money for carriers, or to bring them enormous headaches if they get it wrong.
The fascinating part is that phone companies don't entirely know what will happen when they flip the switch and throw their voice traffic onto the same networks as e-mail and Facebook traffic. And so a number of networking companies here talked up how they'll help.
Cisco Systems (ticker: CSCO), for example, "had a very good show" in Barcelona, analyst Daryl Schoolar of research firm Ovum told me at the congress. The company last week closed the acquisition of an Israeli start-up called IntuCell, whose software can switch phone users from one tower to another at a moment's notice, if a given tower gets crowded.
"Buying IntuCell means Cisco doesn't need to sell base stations" like Ericsson (ERIC) and Nokia (NOK) do, says Schoolar. Instead, Cisco can act as the brains of the network, no matter whose gear is installed.
Cisco, at a recent share price of $20.85, near its 52-week high of $21.67, should appreciate from here, given the enthusiasm for this prominent role in VoLTE.
Another firm helping out is start-up Newfield Wireless, which is funded by its CEO and founder, Marc Bensadoun, formerly an astrophysics researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. In the Newfield booth, a map with a mass of dots on it, like a cluster of constellations, showed dozens of customers in a Florida neighborhood as they connected to the network with their smartphones. Every time one of them hit a Website, Newfield could tell the phone company, in real time, how good the signal was, how much data was downloaded, and which phone had the best or worst performance.
Through predictive mechanisms, says Bensadoun, they're trying to tell companies what it will be like when a storm of phone calls is lumped in with e-mail and Web traffic. Newfield already has sold its wares to one of the two dominant U.S. phone giants, and hopes to close the second.
All that VoLTE stuff is rather opaque, so the buzz here focused on handset makers showing off more and more gigantic devices.
Toppling Samsung Electronics (005930.Korea) seems the main prize. That won't be easy, as the Korean colossus, No. 1 in global smartphone sales, is moving with the ease of a ballerina to sweep the market with new models of its Galaxy brand. The enormous Samsung booth was mobbed with visitors pawing the recently announced Galaxy Note 8.0, an eight-inch tablet that comes with a special stylus for drawing and note-taking.
Right across from Samsung were the less enormous booths of Chinese upstarts ZTE (000063.China) and Huawei (002502.China), which faced the massively armed Samsung like gunslingers meeting at a crossroads. Huawei's booth was pitching the "Ascend Mate," which, with a six-inch screen, the company calls "the world's largest-screen smartphone," besting Samsung's 5.5-inch Galaxy Note II
ZTE showed off the Grand S, with a five-inch screen and a 13-megapixel camera. But while the Grand S was judged as best in show by some Wall Street types who examined it, both Huawei and ZTE have a ways to go.
Samsung's vice president for product planning, Nick DiCarlo, explained to me the Samsung worldview. Its Galaxy phones, and tablets, and Notes neatly divide the market into different classes by size and shape, and then the stylus, called "S Pen," adds something extra. "Galaxy is a brand that is very clearly about premium features," said DiCarlo, not to mention a model for every preference.
Samsung will unveil the next version of the Galaxy S smartphone on March 14 in New York City.
It's hard not to feel sorry for ZTE and Huawei, which, despite their nifty wares, don't seem to have any kind of identity wrapped around their gadgets to match the Galaxy mark.
But as Neil Mawston, director of research for Strategy Analytics, told me, that may not matter. "They take a 10-year view," he said of ZTE and Huawei. Both look back on a time in the 1990s when Samsung and that other Korean stalwart, LG Electronics (066570.Korea), trailed Motorola and Nokia in the phone world, and when their products had relatively lackluster reputations. Both came from behind with a simple three-part formula: Build a better phone, develop a better brand, and then develop subbrands.
"They have read that playbook of Samsung and LG, clearly, and they are following it," Mawston says of ZTE and Huawei. Both are in the first phase, the build-a-better-phone moment, and, he adds, they're making progress.
THE BATTLE FOR SUPERPHONES is riveting, but the battle of the cheapie phones is perhaps more germane. With developed markets reaching smartphone saturation, the industry is concerned about selling cheap stuff to developing markets.
I wrote in November that Nokia could be a good trade for a while, as it has the goodwill of the market for a comeback. Last week showed that it also has very good prospects in cheap phones.
Amid all the developing-world talk in Barcelona last week, Nokia unveiled a handset costing just 15 euros ($19.50) wholesale. It can't be used to connect to Websites and has a tiny screen, but it has a flashlight and can pick up radio broadcasts. Nokia reps here told me it's perfect for markets such as Africa. The company sold 100 million of a predecessor model, and Mawston wouldn't be surprised to see higher sales this time around
Nokia has given up most of its gains made between publication of my November column and a high this year of $4.90, settling in at a recent price of $3.65. I'd say the enthusiasm for €15 phones bodes well for the shares. As for the payoff to Nokia's finances—well, that remains to be seen.
online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424052748704356104578326380219932030.html?mod=BOL_twm_col#articleTabs_article%3D1