Sprint to Sign Network Sharing Deals with LightSquared, Clearwire: Analyst - International Business Times

Sprint soon will sign network sharing agreements with LightSquared and Clearwire that will have Clearwire and Lightsquared paying Sprint $2400 per base station, per month, to provide local radio facilities.

"We have assumed the same basic deal terms for both LightSquared and Clearwire in the analysis that follows: We assume partners pay Sprint $2,400 per base station per month," says Jonathan Chaplin, Credit Suisse analyst.

LightSquared and Clearwire are expected to pay 50 percent in cash and 50 percent in capacity. "We assume $700 per site per month per partner in incremental operating expenditure," said Chaplin.

Chaplin assumes Sprint incurs additional upfront capital expenditure of $2.2 billion in total ($1.4 billion for LightSquared; $0.8 billion for Clearwire), with the bulk of the spend occurring in 2012 and 2013.

In some ways, the deal represents a bit of a turn around for Sprint and Clearwire. Up to this point, Sprint has been relying on Clearwire to build out the fourth generation network for Sprint. Now Sprint will be helping Clearwire, at least in some instances. The network sharing deal with LightSquared is a bit more straightforward capacity deal for LightSquared, which needs to rapidly construct a national network.

"We assume LightSquared leases access to all 45,000 Sprint base stations, giving them a nationwide network," says Chaplin. "We assume they lease base stations at the pace that Sprint installs them, with lease payments starting at the beginning of 2012 and covering all 45,000 base stations by the end of 2013," said Chaplin.

"We assume Clearwire leases 28,000 base stations to expand coverage to another 70 million potential customers and replaces some of their existing base stations," said Chaplin.

Sprint to Sign Network Sharing Deals with LightSquared, Clearwire: Analyst - International Business Times:

Data Helps U.K. Carriers Maintain Revenue Amidst Voice Decline

Data revenues clearly have become the antidote to declining mobile voice revenues, in the United Kingdom and elsewhere.

Mobile data will compensate for the declines in the voice business during the next five years.Vodafone achieved growth of 30 percent during the fourth quarter of  2010.

Telefónica O2 achieved a similar result, reporting growth of 32 percent in its non-P2P SMS revenue year-on-year to December 2010. This refers to data excluding revenue from person-to-person SMS messages, in other words, mobile data revenue other than from text messaging.

Still, average revenue per user continues to dip slightly, and the mobile data replacement of voice can only go so far. At some point, mobile operators will have to find other avenues for revenue growth.

Prime Time for iPad is Different from PC

An analysis suggests that iPads get used differently than PCs and notebooks or netbooks. Tweets from the iPad app peak in the morning (around the 7:00 and 8:00 am) and again in the evening (around 8:00, 9:00, and 10:00 pm).

The non-iPad app tweets follow a very different pattern: They match up with the work day, highest from 9-to-5 and peaking just before and after lunch. read more here

24% of IT Buyers Use Social Media

When asked, only 12 percent of people buying information technology said they use social media to inform their choices. But respondents are dramatically understating the extent to which social media is used.

“At least double this number are heavy users of social media and make use of it in ways which support their IT decisions,” said Net Media Europe research director Camelia Nita. “It is possible that the very transparency and ease of use of social media has masked the extent to which people use them.”

One in eight IT decision makers consciously use social media for purchasing, though about and one in four actually does. Also, about 25 percent use social media for support.

IT Buyers Use Social Media Without Realising It | eWEEK Europe UK

Will Cisco Sell Scientific-Atlanta, Linksys Assets?

Cisco looks set to reduce its areas of key focus from over 40 to just five, plus three or four more experimental units with high growth potential.

The big five will be maintaining leadership in core routing, switching and services; collaboration; data center virtualization and cloud; architectures; and video.

Many observers suggest that the retrenchment could see a spin-off or sale of some consumer units, including the set-top box and home networking businesses based on the acquisitions of Scientific Atlanta and Linksys.

Cisco could dump devices and refocus on core strengths - Rethink Wireless

Can Netflix Pull Off the Next Great Transformation?

Netflix has been viewed as "toast" so many times it might be easy to argue that Netflix now will run into trouble as it starts to spend serious money on original or at least high-quality new content deals.

The argument is that Netflix simply cannot afford to do so. Deals such as the recent agreement allowing Netflix to stream "Mad Men" are the sort of thing that will add "billions of dollars" to the company cost structure.

"Simply put, Netflix is in over its head," some will argue. If it does not collect impressive content with frequency, its brand -- its image -- takes a serious hit. But, as it attempts to keep up the pace required to retain its top spot in the hearts and minds of streamers, it spends itself into a future it cannot afford.

Perhaps Netflix has run into a wall it cannot climb. But that has been said, repeatedly, about Netflix in the past. To be sure, content owners recently have concluded that Netflix has grown "too powerful," so it won't be easy for Netflix to keep getting access to content at lower rates.

Some would argue that if Netflix owned the infrastructure or technology that makes streaming possible it would have something. "But, it doesn't." Of course, some service providers that do own lots of technology and infrastructure, such as Dish Network and Echostar, disagree. Dish Network CEO Charlie Ergen recently has mused that, if he were starting today, he might choose the Netflix model for distribution, instead of building, launching and owning fleets of satellites.

Netflix faces challenges, of course. But so do all video distributors. Netflix has faced concern in the past, and successfully defied all the naysayers. That is no guarantee it can continue to do so. But the company has beaten the odds for quite some time. And some might argue that Netflix or YouTube could emerge as the next generation of video distributors, ultimately.

Netflix Is Spending Itself Into a Future It Can't Afford - Seeking Alpha

Mobile's Evolution

The evolution of mobility, as seen by Vodafone.