An Ignoble Experiment

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In discussing Cloud RAN and Centralized RAN (C-RAN) distributed base station architectures, the related topic of shifting services away from the network core often pops up.

According to Guang Yang, ABI Research senior analyst, carriers want to push the content cache and service node to the network edge, i.e., to base stations. "It can help operators to lower the traffic on mobile backhaul and to support more innovative location-based applications," he said.

Nokia's (NYSE:NOK) Liquid Applications is one example of this. So I asked Lauri Oksanen, vice president of research and technology for Nokia's networks business, how Liquid Applications fits with the C-RAN concept.

He explained that integrating the Liquid Applications server at the base station brings the service cloud to the RAN and provides an API to the RAN, opening it up to a broader ecosystem.

"This is how we see the cloud coming to the RAN. It's not a big, centralized cloud but rather a distributed cloud computing platform at the base station sites that can help accelerate content delivery or open up more information about the RAN that can be used by the operator or third parties for management purposes. That's the first wave of Cloud RAN as we see it," Oksanen said.

Not surprisingly, C-RAN pioneer SK Telecom, no stranger to the network edge, was also one of the first carriers to test Nokia's Liquid Applications. Though C-RANs remain limited to fiber-rich Asian markets such as South Korea, the architecture offers lots to carriers elsewhere. For a deeper dive into C-RAN, check out this FierceWirelessTech feature.--Tammy

Read more about: cloud RAN, Nokia, SK Telecom
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Today's Top News

1. Verizon committed to VoLTE with HD Voice in 2014

By Tammy Parker

Comment |

2. Nokia's new CEO Suri eyes use of new cash pile for future acquisitions

Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Wireless confirmed that it expects to introduce VoLTE this year and will simultaneously roll out mobile high-definition (HD) voice using the W-AMR speech compression algorithm.

Verizon Communications CFO Fran Shammo said at an investment conference in August 2013 that the company would introduce VoLTE in the first half of 2014. However, in an April 28, 2014, research note, Joseph Mastrogiovanni, research analyst at Credit Suisse, said Verizon expects to launch VoLTE in the second half of this year.

"We expect the company to manage the launch carefully and make customers fully aware of the tech difference, but believe VoLTE could hurt the perception of the network at a sensitive time for competition, as it is not likely to be as robust as CDMA voice," Mastrogiovanni wrote.

Verizon spokeswoman Debi Lewis told FierceWirelessTech that the official corporate stance is that VoLTE will roll out sometime in 2014. She declined to confirm or deny the second-half timing cited by Credit Suisse. But she acknowledged that Verizon is focused on making sure VoLTE technology is fully ready before commercially activating it.

"This is complicated technology. We like to test, make sure everything's good before we do any kind of rollout. And 2014 is what we're focused on," Lewis said.

She noted that the flavor of HD Voice Verizon intends to introduce alongside VoLTE service will be based upon the Adaptive Multi Rate Wideband (W-AMR) speech compression algorithm. W-AMR was standardized in 3GPP Release 5, and the first service launch using the technology occurred in 2009.

W-AMR will be more widely deployed than another flavor of HD Voice, which was designed for CDMA2000 network operators that deploy, at a minimum, Service Option 73 Enhanced Variable Rate Codec-Narrowband/Wideband (EVRC-NW), which was standardized by 3GPP2 in 2010.

Sprint (NYSE: S) introduced EVRC-NW HD Voice about two years ago on the HTC Evo 4G LTE smartphone. Earlier this week at its Spotify event in New York, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse announced that HD Voice is now available over its CDMA network in 100 Sprint markets and will expand nationwide in mid-summer. The operator intends to have some 20 million HD Voice-capable devices in use by its customer base by the end of 2014.

T-Mobile US (NYSE:TMUS) turned up W-AMR HD Voice on HSPA in January 2013. AT&T Mobility (NYSE: T) is expected to roll out HD Voice alongside VoLTE, but has delayed its VoLTE rollout from an end-2013 target date. AT&T has not provided a new VoLTE target date, but it is working to seed the market with VoLTE-capable devices, such as the PadFone X from Asus.

In a recent conference call to discuss Verizon's first-quarter 2014 earnings with investment analysts, Shammo noted that some 73 percent of the wireless unit's total data traffic is being carried over its LTE network.

"Our focus is on deploying capital to add density to our network and deliver new services such as VoLTE and multicasting to enrich our customers' wireless experience," he noted, according to a SeekingAlpha transcript of the call.

Verizon in 2010 said the carrier would launch VoLTE by late 2012 or early 2013, but subsequently delayed that launch.

For more:
- see this SeekingAlpha transcript
- see this LightReading article

Read more about: Dan Hesse, VRC-NW, Verizon Wireless
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By Tammy Parker

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3. Comcast planning 8 million Wi-Fi hotspots in 19 major cities by year-end

Nokia (NYSE:NOK) elevated soft-spoken yet intensely competitive Rajeev Suri to its president and CEO position, which was no surprise given his deft handling of the turnaround at the firm's network infrastructure unit, which he has led since 2009. Suri will assume the combined role on May 1.

Suri

Suri told The Wall Street Journal that Nokia's strong cash position, gained from the $7.5 billion (5.4 billion euros) deal to sell its struggling handset business to Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), positions it to acquire smaller firms to fill gaps in its product portfolio. The Microsoft deal closed on April 25.

Some analysts have suggested Nokia could try to acquire rival Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) or its mobile products assets. Suri told Reuters: "In terms of larger players, if there is something that makes sense, of course I will recommend that to the board. But ... it needs to be a wisely thought-out thing."

Michael Soper, networking and mobility analyst at Technology Business Research, observed that Nokia's "lack of IP routing technology is an area of weakness" when bidding against other major network equipment providers such as Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) and Alcatel-Lucent.

Therefore, Nokia could seek to acquire Juniper Networks, whose edge and core routers it resells, Soper said. He added the company might also pursue smaller firms focused on software-defined networking (SND) and network functions virtualization (NFV).

Suri noted Nokia's three remaining businesses--networks, its navigation business HERE and technologies, which is its patents business--all have opportunities for organic growth. Nokia Solutions and Networks, which Suri formerly headed, will be known as Nokia's networks division from now on.

"I have been with the company for almost 20 years, and the opportunities in front of us are as great as I have ever seen," Suri said in a conference call with investment analysts. He said Nokia is in a strong position to achieve leadership in new technology areas while maintaining its strong foundation.

"We start this new journey with an unparalleled IP licensing and creation engine that has new potential in a company without devices, a location and mapping business that is already an industry leader and that has strong growth opportunities, a networks business that is performing well and on a path to better top-line performance, and a deep innovation capability across all part of the company," he said.

Nokia also released first-quarter 2014 earnings that showed net profit from Nokia's continuing operations coming in at $152 million, up from a loss of $232.2 million a year ago. Discontinued operations, including the handset division, lost $468.6 million during 2014's first three months.

Nokia intends to distribute more than $4 billion to investors from proceeds of the handset unit's sale. The firm suspended its dividend last year due to a cash crunch.

Networks posted a 17 percent year-on-year sales decline during the first quarter, but Suri noted that slip would have only been 6 percent excluding items such as negative currency adjustments, divestments as well as the exiting of certain customer contracts and countries.

Mobile broadband sales were down 22 percent for the quarter, which Nokia said was largely attributable to a reduction in network implementation and maintenance activity, consistent with lower levels of large scale network deployments. The company also noted that mobile broadband net sales were adversely affected by shortages of certain components, which will impact the business at least through the end of the second quarter. Global services sales were up 44 percent.

Geographically, networks saw revenues rise year-on-year only in greater China, where net sales grew 25 percent compared to the first quarter of 2013 thanks to the rollout of TD-LTE networks.

Net sales in North America declined 38 percent primarily due to a cyclical slow-down in LTE rollouts; were down 30 percent in the Middle East and Africa due to the focus on a specific set of countries; fell in Latin America 28 percent due to constrained operator spending and the exit of certain projects; slipped in Europe 14 percent due to contract exits in line with Networks' strategy and constrained operator spending; and declined in Asia Pacific 12 percent due to a decline from the height of the LTE network rollouts in the first quarter of 2013 in Korea.

Risto Siilasmaa, Nokia's chairman, has served as interim CEO of Nokia since last September, when Stephen Elop left the position after news that the handset division would be sold. Elop is now executive vice president of Microsoft's devices group.

For more:
- see FierceWirelessEurope's take on this story
- see this Nokia CEO release and this earnings release
- see this Nokia networks release
- see this Wall Street Journal article
- see this Reuters article
- see this Bloomberg article
- see this GigaOM article

By Tammy Parker

Comment |

4. FirstNet names CTO, agrees to fund key activities

The Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) Wi-Fi network only encompasses 1 million hotspots right now, but that number will skyrocket to a whopping 8 million by year's end, with the cable MSO promising to operate hotspots in 19 of the country's 30 largest cities.

Jenckes

Cities targeted for new hotspot locations include Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Hartford, Houston, Indianapolis, Miami, Minneapolis, Nashville, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Portland, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C.

In a blog post, Marcien Jenckes, executive vice president of consumer services for Comcast Cable, said some 200 million out-of-home sessions have been initiated on the company's Xfinity Wi-Fi network so far in 2014, a 650 percent year-over-year increase.

"Comcast customers now transmit nearly 2 million gigabytes (or half a million DVDs worth) of data through Comcast's Wi-Fi hotspots each month," Jenckes added.

Comcast's hotspots are located at a mix of outdoor locations, businesses and residences.

One of the company's more controversial efforts has been the creation of "neighborhood hotspots" via the inclusion of a second "xfinitywifi" signal (or SSID) in its residential customers' home wireless gateways. The second signal provides visiting Xfinity Internet customers with Wi-Fi access without the need to use the homeowner's private network password. Comcast said 54 percent of Xfinity neighborhood Wi-Fi usage already travels over the second SSID.

"Wi-Fi is part of our broader plan to deliver the fastest in-home and out-of-home Internet experience and power our customers' growing number of devices and growing Internet use," Jenckes said.

Though Comcast has indicated an interest in possibly launching a wireless service that would rely on a combination of Wi-Fi and back-up leased capacity on a cellular network, it and other U.S. cable MSOs are currently using Wi-Fi primarily to extend wireless connectivity to their nomadic broadband customers.

The cable industry's need for Wi-Fi was stressed by other industry execs at this week's 2014 Cable Show in Los Angeles, according to an article in FierceCable. "There's so much we can do with Wi-Fi that it's becoming very important in our new service offerings. It just gives our customers more flexibility," said Yvette Kanouff, executive vice president of corporate engineering and technology for Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) Systems.

For more:
- see this Comcast release and blog post
- see this FierceCable article
- see this Multichannel News article

Read more about: Hotspots, Cablevision
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By Tammy Parker

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5. Cable execs say Wi-Fi is complementary to cellular ... for now

The First Responders Network Authority (FirstNet) announced the hiring of its first CTO. Named to the position is Ali Afrashteh, who has been working as a consultant but previously held executive positions with Clearwire, Sprint (NYSE: S), Nextel Communications and PCS PrimeCo.

Ali Afrashteh is FirstNet's first CTO.

"Ali will manage FirstNet's planning and deployment of technology programs and initiatives and provide expertise on strategic wireless technology and network operational planning," according to a FirstNet blog entry. "Ali will also ensure that technical systems, policies, and processes are fully supportive of FirstNet's mission to design and deploy a nationwide public safety broadband network," the blog added.

FierceMobileGovernment noted that the FirstNet organizational structure revealed in March meeting documents shows that there are seven officers who report to the FirstNet general manager. Afrashteh becomes number five on the staff. In addition to remaining vacancies in the COO and chief of staff positions, FirstNet is now missing a general manager to oversee the organization.

Bill D'Agostino resigned the GM position in April 2014, not quite a year after he was officially named to the position. He resigned "for personal and family reasons," according to FirstNet.

A source told FierceWirelessTech that one apparent sticking point was a decision to base the FirstNet GM at the authority's new corporate headquarters in Reston, Va. D'Agostino lives in Southern California.

Board member TJ Kennedy is currently FirstNet's acting GM.

Takai

Meanwhile, FirstNet board member Teri Takai reportedly has resigned her CIO position at the U.S. Department of Defense, effective May 3, but will stay on at FirstNet. She is an original FirstNet board member, having been appointed to a one-year term in August 2012. She was subsequently reappointed to a three-year term, which ends in August 2016.

"Teri Takai remains an active board member, assisting FirstNet in the implementation of our strategic roadmap," FirstNet spokesman Corey Ray told IWCE's Urgent Communications.

In other news, FirstNet board's finance committee recently approved fiscal year 2014 guidelines. The committee agreed to fund key activities, such as including business strategy development, network development, outreach and consultation and operating infrastructure.

FirstNet management may commit up to $6.9 million on business strategy development activities in the fiscal year, including initiating a public notice and comment process; $33 million on network development, including the requirements and procurement process plans for requests for proposals (RFPs) for comprehensive network solutions and for equipment and services; $16.1 million on outreach and state consultation, including consultation with 56 states and territories; and $16.1 million to further develop FirstNet's operating infrastructure, including facilities and support and contract staff.

The fiscal 2015 budget request for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration includes $2.3 billion in total budget authority for FirstNet, a $305 million increase from the current year budget.

FirstNet, which is charged with building a 700 MHz, LTE-based network for use by public safety, recently increased its online presence by launching the FirstNet.gov website and establishing a Twitter account, @FirstNetGov.

For more:
- see this FirstNet blog entry and release
- see this FierceMobileGovernment article
- see this IWCE's Urgent Communications article
- see this InformationWeek article
- see this MissionCritical Communications article

Read more about: Ali Afrashteh, funding
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By Sue Marek

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