First Use of O3b for Energy Company in West Africa

Hermes Datacomms has partnered with O3b Networks to deliver communications to a global oil company.

Hermes will deliver critical communications for the company’s operations in West Africa and a connection back to their regional headquarters in Europe.

The deal is the first to use O3b for oil and gas segment communications in West Africa, Hermes said.

Hermes Datacomms also works with O3b to deliver service in the Pacific and Southeast Asia regions.

Bouygues Rejects Altice Acquisition Offer

Bouygues Telecom has rejected a 10 billion euro ($11.3 billion) acquisition bid by Altice, ending, for the moment, both a major consolidation of the French mobile market, a reshuffling of market share leadership, and a decision by regulatory officials to approve or deny the market-reshaping deal.

The latest refusal is the third rebuff of an acquisition big by Bouygues over the last 12 months.

Altice, owner of mobile operator Numericable-SFR, has bought four companies in the past 18 months.

The 10 billion euro price tag valued the telecom business unit as much as the entire Bouygues group before the offer was made public.

Also, Bouygues was offered just 5.5 billion by Orange and Iliad, and eight billion euros by Altice itself.

PLDT Faces Same Structural Issues as Mobile Operators in Europe, North America

Just a few years ago, only service providers in some developed regions were confronting flat to negative revenue growth as high-margin legacy services dwindled. Today, the problem is spreading to a wider range of countries. Consider the situation faced by Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company in the Philippines.

The company operates in a wireless and fixed line segment, and had flat revenue  in the first quarter of 2015, with mobile service (Smart and Sun Cellular) revenues down four percent, while fixed network revenues climbed about one percent.

The good news is that “next generation” services grew. In the fixed network business, broadband revenues already account for 47 percent of total fixed line data revenues.

Fixed network broadband revenues grew by 10 percent during the quarter. Enterprise and other network services, which represent 45 percent of total fixed line data revenues, rose by seven percent.

Data center revenues were up by 23 percent in the quarter.

Also, even legacy fixed line voice revenues grew two percent.

On the other hand, mobile international voice shriveled 22 percent, largely because consumers switched to using services such as Skype. Text messaging revenues also dropped about five percent.

Mobile internet revenue grew 19 percent, quarter over quarter.

So PLDT is in a race, as are service providers in many developed nations. PLDT and other service providers have to grow new revenue sources at least as fast as legacy revenue decay. PLDT does have one advantage, though. It can rely on mobile data revenue, as smartphone adoption in the Philippines is low, only about 15 percent to 20 percent of the population owning a smartphone. In 2014, some 80 percent of Malaysian mobile users and 49 percent of Thai mobile users had smartphones.

Source: PLDT

Will IMT-2020 Support 20 Gbps, Under Some Conditions?

Will the new International Telecommunications Union IMT-2020 standard, likely to be known by consumers as 5G, will be extensible to 20 Gbps?

Maybe, eventually, as a top end capability, not a minimum requirement.

"As of now, I understand the peak data rate of IMT-2020 for enhanced Mobile Broadband is expected to reach 10 Gbps,” said ITU spokesman Sanjay Acharya. “However, under certain conditions and scenarios, IMT-2020 would support up to 20 Gbps peak data rate.”

ITU-R Study Group 5 will meet on July 21, 2015 to approve a recommendation, which will then become available during the Radiocommunication Assembly in October.”

Verizon Completes AOL Buy

Verizon Communications and AOL have successfully concluded the acquisition by Verizon of AOL, making AOL a wholly owned subsidiary of Verizon.

In an expanded role, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong continues to lead AOL operations after the closing, and Bob Toohey, president of Verizon Digital Media Services, will report to Armstrong.

Verizon Digital Media Services uses world-class technology to help companies prepare, deliver and display digital media content including video, web pages, applications, mobile ads and live events on any screen.

Armstrong in turn will report to Marni Walden, Verizon executive vice president and president of Product Innovation and New Businesses.

Regardless of how Verizon handles all of the new assets (some thing assets dispositions could be coming), Verizon has made no secret of its own view that, to the extent a large ISP wants to be in the video entertainment business, it is through streaming, not linear TV.

In that view, AOL is valued for its digital commerce and advertising potential, not the present value of its content-producing assets.

In principle, Verizon could use AOL in several different ways. Verizon might seek to retain and exploit unique content. Others might suggest it is the value of the advertising platform Verizon most sought. Yet others might suggest AOL could play a role in building an eventual Verizon streaming video service.  

Will Altice Be Able to Jump Two Hurdles?

The big by Altice to buy Bouygues Telecom faces two big hurdles. It isn’t clear the Bouygues board will accept the  10 billion euro ($11.3 billion) bid by Altice.

Bouygues already has rejected at least two earlier offers over the last 12 months.

On the other hand, as one magnate once said, at the right price, everything is for sale.

A 10 billion euro price tag would value the telecom business unit as much as the entire Bouygues group before the offer was made public.

Also, Bouygues was offered just 5.5 billion by Orange and Iliad, and eight billion euros by Altice itself.

The other issue is whether French regulators will approve the deal, and there are signs some in the government are opposed to the deal.

Emmanuel Macron, French economy minister, said he could prevent Altice’s Numericable-SFR, the country’s second-biggest mobile operator, from buying Bouygues, the country’s third largest.

But Macron did not definitively say he would block the deal. “We will see,” he said. Earier governments had made clear their support for a consolidation in the French mobile business.

If successful, the deal would create France’s largest mobile operator, and reduce the number of competitors from four to three — a consolidation that could end a three-year price war.

Is Consumer Interest in "Home Automation" Waning Already?

Consumer interest in “home automation”  is “quickly losing steam,” Argus Insights reports. “In fact, year over year slowdown in growth is clear indication that the home automation market is stalling and may be contracting.”

In May 2015 consumer demand for connected home devices such as thermostats, light bulbs, locks, sensors and cameras experienced its first drop in interest, year over year, a sign that consumer interest is stagnating, Argus Insights says.

In May 2015, consumer interest in home automation fell 15 percent, compared to the year ago May readings.

While interest in security cameras consistently generate the most interest, they are also suffering a significant drop in demand compared to 2014.

The Argus Insights’ analysis of over 12,000 consumer reviews of security cameras from February to May 2015 discloses major negative issues such as persistent problems with reliability as well as trouble with connectivity.

In addition, set up was said to be “frustrating and time-consuming.”

“Until things become easier and consumers don’t have to cobble together a total solution, I believe we will continue to see this stagnation continuing for the rest of 2015 unless a new offering addresses these issues and revitalizes the market,” said John Feland, Argus CEO

Consumers are unsure what products they want or need while first adopters have already made their purchases, Feland said.

The Google investments in Nest and Dropcam and Samsung acquisitions in home automation are not growing at the rate expected from such acquisitions, while the  overall connected home device market is shrinking, he argues.

To be sure, it would not be unusual for any important new product category to take as long as a decade or more to establish itself clearly. In fact, adoption cycles can be rather lengthy, from the standpoint of any small company.

In the United States, it took 25 years for the fixed network telephone to reach 10 percent adoption. Electricity required 30 years to reach 10 percent adoption in the United States.

Broadcast television took more than 11 years to reach 10 percent adoption, about the same for the mobile phone.

Perhaps more important, it took 39 more years for telephone service to grow beyond 10-percent adoption and reach 40 percent of U.S. households, 15 additional years for electricity to grow from 10 percent to 40 percent usel.

The personal computer took about 14 years to reach a similar 40 percent penetration.

Similar trends  can be noted for use of bank automated teller machines, for example.

Consider smartphones, which many rightly consider to be among the faster-growing devices of all time. But it took time for even that market to develop.

The IBM Simon, with its rudimentary touch screen, was launched in 1993. It didn’t catch on.

About 2002, personal digital assistants started to have the ability to make and receive phone calls. They aren’t used anymore.

RIM shipped its first BlackBerry about 2002 as well, and RIM has largely failed.

In late 2006 only 715,000 smartphones were sold, though, representing just six percent of U.S. mobile phone sales. Up to that point, the smartphone was spreading not much faster than personal computers had done, according to Technology Review.

The point is  that It took landline telephones about 45 years to get from five percent to 50 percent penetration among U.S. households, and mobile phones took around seven years to reach a similar proportion of consumers.

Smartphones grew from five percent to 40 percent in about four years.

But it likewise took about 11 years for use of mobile phones to reach 10 percent penetration, so it took about 18 years for use of mobile phones to reach about half of people in the United States.

Since it took about eight years for smartphone penetration to reach 10 percent of people, and then another seven years to reach half of users, it took about 13 years for smart phones to reach half of U.S. consumers.

The point: even highly-significant consumer products can take a decade to reach 50 percent adoption. Early sluggishness is not unusual at all.

source: Technology Liberation Front

source: Argus Insights

source: Argus Insights