Το LTE στην Ελλάδα

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LTE RAN Infrastructure Market on Upswing

LTE Base Station Market to Reach $13 Billion in Sales by 2016

Maravedis Research :

MONTREAL, Canada, June 7, 2011

- As LTE contract awards, deployments and subscriber base growth accelerate, all RAN vendors are poised for growth in the 4G market according to the latest issue of the 4Ggear™ Quarterly Report from Maravedis. "Benefitting from a generally more positive environment in 2010 and 2011 than in 2009, our research found that all infrastructure vendors are getting a piece of the LTE pie," commented lead author Fernando Donoso, Senior Analyst. "However, Ericsson above all has gained a head start in real-world LTE deployment and operations expertise, thanks to their position in Verizon's and MetroPCS' LTE networks - the only truly commercial-scale networks worldwide" he continued.

Everything is not rosy for the Swedish vendor. Maravedis' in-depth analysis of Huawei and Nokia-Siemens networks showed that both have the potential to challenge the world number 1 wireless infrastructure vendor in LTE, thanks to their advanced base station architectures, increasingly sophisticated end-to-end solutions, and the impressive number of LTE contracts both companies have succeeded in accumulating. Additional Research Findings: Maravedis forecasts that the worldwide LTE market will rise from approximately $1.5 billion USD in 2011, to over $13 billion in 2016, including both FDD and TDD equipment. LTE shipments so far have consisted 100% of macro cell base stations. All major RAN vendors have introduced distributed macro base stations using centralized baseband processing - so-called baseband farms. Maravedis expects commercial small cell base station deployments to begin in 2012.

"We see distributed macro base stations and pico cells bringing the vision of heterogeneous networks into reality in 2012" added Adlane Fellah, Research Director. "But operators may allocate common budgets for all small cell deployments, regardless of technology, so the competition between pico cells, femto cells, and carrier Wi-Fi is likely to become fierce."

Huawei eyes move into Windows Phone handsets

By David Meyer ,ZDNet UK

Huawei is likely to follow its rival ZTE into the Windows Phone business, the company's chief marketing officer said on Friday.

The Chinese company has said it will 'probably' follow rival ZTE's move into producing Windows Phone handsets.

According to Victor Xu, Chinese infrastructure and handset giant Huawei is currently "just watching" the development of the Windows Phone 7 market, but has "had some discussions with Microsoft" and will "probably" release a device in 2012 using the smartphone platform.

ZTE revealed its own Windows Phone intentions on Tuesday, when Microsoft detailed the upcoming 'Mango' update to Windows Phone 7. ZTE and Huawei are strong rivals both within China and globally, where they dominate the markets for mobile broadband and for operator-branded low-end smartphones.
The entry of ZTE into the manufacturing of Windows Phones makes it more likely that the platform will become available on cheaper phones than at present.

Xu was in London to give details of Huawei's strategy to UK media, and he explained how the company intends to combine cloud-based services with its infrastructure and device lines. He said this combination will allow the company to offer operators enhanced management capabilities, while also bringing down the cost of low-end smartphones.

This "cloud-pipe-device" strategy would decrease the need for smartphones to have high-end processing power, as the processing could be done in the cloud, Xu said. He added that this strategy is contingent on the use of high-bandwidth '4G' LTE. "Hardware costs will be increasingly decreased" for Huawei with the adoption of the strategy, he noted.

The strategy will also let Huawei "help operators solve the problem of digital flooding", Xu continued, explaining that its portfolio of network infrastructure and terminals will help carriers manage their "smart pipe".
Xu said Huawei was in discussions with the likes of Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom and Telefonica to make it easier for those operators to offer tiered services. They would be able to prioritise or deprioritise some kinds of services — VoIP was an example, he agreed — over others. He said the use of such tiering was "business logic".

Huawei can even offer deep-packet inspection (DPI) to help operators tier their services, Xu said, although he conceded that such techniques could only be used in countries that give regulatory approval. EU countries, for example, do not allow DPI if it violates privacy and data protection laws.

In addition, Huawei is preparing to step up its own-brand efforts in the UK this year, according to Xu. The company generally sells its devices to operators that then resell them under operator branding. However, the marketing executive said Huawei will "expand to the open channel" and "co-operate with retailers and distributors this year".

Huawei Sues ZTE, So does Ericsson

Welp, the pie seems to be getting smaller so everyone’s on everyone else’s throats. Bon appetit

Huawei sues ZTE for patent infringement in Europe

April 29, 2011 — 12:22pm ET By Paul Rasmussen

In a surprise move Huawei sued its fellow Chinese vendor ZTE in the European courts for patent and trademark infringement. Specifically, Huawei accused ZTE of flouting patents it holds relating to data cards and LTE technology.
According to Huawei, the company has started legal action in Germany, France and Hungary with the aim of stopping ZTE from using Huawei patents and trademarks. ZTE is charged with branding some of its data cards with the Huawei brand.
Song Liuping, Huawei's chief legal officer, was reported by the Financial Times as wanting to resolve the dispute through negotiations. However, suggestions to decide the matter out of court using cross-licensing had not provoked a substantive response.
ZTE's reaction to this move was surprise and puzzlement, but it also made plain that it rejected the allegations and threatened to instigate legal action itself. ZTE on Friday sued Huawei in China fore infrnging on patents it holds for LTE.
In a statement carried by the Financial Times, ZTE said: "ZTE Corporation is astonished that Huawei Technologies has taken these legal actions. As a company listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange, ZTE respects and adheres to international intellectual property laws and regulations without reservation, and absolutely rejects that there has been any patent and trademark infringement."
It also noted: "ZTE is always willing to negotiate on issues in good faith, but will definitely take vigorous legal action in situations like this to protect its interests and those of its customers worldwide."
However, a report carried by AFP said that Huawei had recently made public images of a ZTE-branded data card using a Huawei-registered trademark and patented design.
Earlier this month, Ericsson started legal procedures against ZTE in the UK, Germany and Italy over alleged infringement of patents for 2G and 3G technologies. Ericsson said that it spent four years attempting to resolve the issue with ZTE with no results.