Although this is primarily a blog that covers topics from and for the UK market, there’s a lot going on in the world beyond. So I thought I’d occasionally publish something from the wider Ericsson world, such as …..
The Financial Times website picked up a story from our Nordic and Baltics region this week. It’s about Ericsson’s first broadcast TV deal. TV4 Group has chosen Ericsson to run the day-to-day transmission of its TV channels for delivery to service providers. The 10-year contract will allow TV4 to improve efficiency and enable it to focus on its core business.
Mikael Bäckström, Head of Market Unit Nordic and Baltics, is quoted in the piece and explains the importance of the deal in this video clip.
This links you to the original story from Ericsson.
If you like a good TLA (that’s a three-letter accronym) then working in a technology field will provide lots of TLAs for you to enjoy. Working in marketing in a technology field provides lots more, including the now commonplace ‘C-suite’ collection of CEO, COO, CFO, CIO, CTO, CMO and so on.
But have you come across the CBO before? Well if you read this story, you will have.
Over the past year Ericsson has been developing a new brand strategy; to help us leverage opportunities and meet the challenges to come over the next few years. So we’ve recently appointed a Chief Brand Officer (CBO) to drive that brand transformation.
I’d be interested to know how your organisation handles brand issues and particularly, whether you have a CBO. (Click Read more and then use the Comment box to send a reply).
The spider computer - a look into the future
According to Wikipedia, Joe 90 was a 1968 television series about the adventures of nine year-old Joe McClaine. It was set in the future (2013) and was made by Gerry Anderson in ‘Supermarionation’ - remember that?
The important thing though is that Joe had a gadget - pair of special spectacles - that gave him expert abilities (through brain impulse transfer obviously) when he put them on. I was a nine year-old myself at the time and I really, really, really wanted a pair of those specs.
Getting to the point though; Ericsson has a vision for the future (say 2020) and for the sort of life we’ll be living and the sorts of devices we’ll all be using by then. There’s a Life in 2020 microsite that explains all about it.
This was picked up recently by a site I’d not been to before, Reg Hardware, who featured the site and some of the devices.
One of those devices is the Spider Computer, which is a “highly mobile yet ultra powerful computer and mobile phone”. I think Joe 90 would have really, really, really liked one.
Charles Kao winning the 1979 Ericsson Prize for Telecommunications
Yes yes, I do know this story is over a month old now - but I’ve only just worked my way around to posting it.
One of 2009’s Nobel laureates in Physics is Charles K. Kao, whose discovery of how to transmit light through fibre optics revolutionised the work of telecoms companies such as Ericsson.
Fibre optics is at the heart of Ericsson’s business and is a cornerstone of today’s information society of course.
I know I’m in danger of ‘teaching my granny to suck eggs’ now, as the saying goes, but it was Kao’s 1966 breakthrough – discovering how to transmit light signals over long distances through glass fibres as thin as a human hair – that led to the creation of modern fibre-optic communication networks. (Lesson over).
You can read more on Kao and his achievement from the Nobel Prize site itself or from the news coverage that the award picked up, on CNET News for example.
But, one thing you may not know, is that Ericsson beat the Nobel awarding committee to it by thirty years. Kao was recognized by Ericsson for his fibre optics research in 1979, when he and the American industrial physicist Robert D. Maurer were awarded the LM Ericsson International Prize for Telecommunication. So there!
For the second month, here’s a selection of what’s been happening in the wider Ericsson world. It’s all available through the main Ericsson website, but it might help to have it together in one place. If I publish another selection next month will that be long enough to count as a tradition?
- Ericsson’s third quarter results announced during the month
- ‘Film’ discussed in Telecom Report – including articles and, appropriately, a video
- World’s largest open university goes mobile
- Produced with WWF, a five-step plan published for low-carbon, urban development (read the pdf document)
- Ericsson and Samsung co-operate for world’s first LTE interoperability
- The latest Technology Update within the Ericsson Review series
The ITU in Dresden has just announced the candidates submitted as potential IMT-Advanced technologies.
Back in 1998, similar technology proposals were submitted for IMT-2000. IMT2000 is essentially the family of 3G standards (originally five technologies), the most common of which is WCDMA (the 3G technology used across most continents). It also includes the chinese standard, TD-SCDMA, and the evolution of CDMA to Ev-Do. Additionally, about a year ago, WiMAX was accepted into the IMT-2000 family, and hence became an official 3G technology.
So what is IMT-Advanced? Well, this is essentially the future 4G standard which will become reality the middle of next decade.
The candidate technologies submitted can be split into two camps. There are three submissions (from Japan, China and 3GPP) based upon LTE-Advanced in the one camp. The other camp also has three submissions (from Japan, Korea and IEEE) and these are based upon WiMAX-Advanced. LTE-Advanced being LTE Release 10 and beyond, and WiMAX-Advanced being 802.16m.
The six proposals will be assessed against ITU-R requirements using a defined evaluation process over the next year. This is supported by the work of 14 independent, external evaluation groups that have been established around the world. It will take place under the direction of ITU-R WP5D. The tricky issue onwards is to get the proponents to agree on synergies and concessions in order to whittle down the six so that there are only two technologies in the end.
So the contenders have been identified, and the race is on….
Just thought I’d bring this article to your attention. It’s on mobile broadband, from the BBC Technology site. The piece is relevant to this blog and I like the diagram at the bottom! It’s one of those that’s always useful to have in your slides back catalogue - you never know when you might need it.
Until recently if you were out of the coverage area of you mobile operator and you needed to make a 999 call, then (despite other networks providing coverage) your phone would have been incapable of putting a call through. Obviously in the interest of public safety this was not the most ideal of situations, and also put the UK behind our fellow EU neighbours.
Back in May this year Ofcom announced plans to get the UK mobile operators together to trial emergency national roaming, and as of mid October it is now a reality.
With every mobile operator having different coverage maps (especially when looking at indoor environments), this ability will make a big difference across the whole of the UK, and not just in the highlands of Scotland and in Wales.
A small change here with no substantial cost may result in reduction in loss of life or serious injury and also help the economy.
Following on though, what else could be done? With the superset of all the mobile operators coverage (indoor and outdoor) providing better coverage than the UK Public Safety TETRA network operated by Airwaves, could we see this roaming principle extended to support critical national infrastructure, or support first and second line responders?
The 22-year old EU GSM Directive has finally been overhauled in the EU’s Official Journal. The update to the journal effectively becoming EU law.
But what are the changes and what does this mean?
Well basically EU member states now have six months to allow the GSM frequencies (i.e. 900MHz and 1800MHz) to be used for IMT technologies (i.e. UMTS/HSPA or LTE). Or, in EU-speak, “national administrations have now six months to transpose the Directive and to implement the Decision so that the GSM spectrum bands are effectively made available for 3G”. In some EU countries this has already taken place, and in others proposals have been made.
Recently (16 October in fact) the UK Government via Stephen Timms (Minister for Digital Britain) announced a wide range of measures focusing on the future of Mobile Spectrum in the UK, amongst them was a proposal for GSM Refarming.
Of course, the proposed “A Consultaiton on a Direction to OFCOM to Implement the Wireless Radio Spectrum Modernisation Programme” (couldn’t they think of a snappier title!) still has to go through consultation and details may change. But the essence of the message is clear, the UK must align with the new EU GSM Directive and refarming will be possible (in one way or another) here in the UK by mid 2010.
The question is… just because it is allowed by mid 2010… will we see it in that timeframe?
Will Vodafone and O2 be able to defragment their 900MHz spectrum, and then release some spare frequencies (in multiples of 2*5MHz) not required to carry the existing GSM voice and data traffic - in time in order to deploy new technologies by mid 2010? And if they could, which technology do they deploy? HSPA900 which already has support in 10% of all HSPA terminals on the market? Or LTE900 which will be a commercial reality by this date and, over time as the complete 900MHz spectrum is refarmed, will prove a more spectrally efficient solution than HSPA900?
Similarly with 1800MHz. With the majority of this spectrum being held by Orange and T-Mobile, but with the same said operators in the middle of merger conversations and looking for an approval of the merger by the competition authorities in the same timescale…will there be a chance for either operator to develop a concrete plan for GSM Refarming in 2010 and actually execute upon it?
Certainly in the long term, GSM Refarming is good for the UK, but will it make a difference in the short term….?
I’d love to hear your opinions on this.
Sorry if you’ve been trying to leave a comment recently, as you won’t have been able to!
We had a problem with Word Press, the platform that sits underneath this blog. But it’s fixed now and you can leave comments as normal. Just click ‘Read more’ to see the full version of the post and then leave your comment in the box at the bottom of the page. “Simples”, as they say.
