Editor’s Note: RCR Wireless News goes all in for “Throwback Thursdays,” tapping into our archives to resuscitate the top headlines from the past. Fire up the time machine, put on those sepia-tinted shades, set the date for #TBT and enjoy the memories!
LoRa’s path on the IoT trail
Picking up the thread again, we hear that the cost-sensitive low-power end of the ‘massive’ IoT market has spent way too long scrimping on hardware costs just to get deals over the line. It is not enough for the system to scale, and scale is the only way for the system to work. The picture is of a frontier IoT community, struggling to make it all add up; like a ragtag of prospectors in the Old West. There has to be another way to strike gold, reflects Wienke Giezeman, co-founder of The Things Network (TTN), speaking with Enterprise IoT Insights last month at The Things Conference, a kind of campfire cook-out for anyone digging with LoRaWAN in them IoT hills. It does not make sense, he explains, to carry on slashing IoT hardware costs, and devaluing IoT solutions, when savings stretch out over longer periods in sometimes unknowable ways. His firm, with its volunteer patchwork of public LoRaWAN infrastructure, plus a pipe of private LoRaWAN solutions from The Things Industries (TTI), has lit a blaze for the whole IoT developer community; his event, with its “festival” appeal, affords a time to sit by the fire and tell about some tech-style promised land. So rug-up; Giezeman is stirring the pot. His story says the IoT market is missing a trick. … Read more
Verizon showcases MEC, 5G at the Super Bowl
Days before this year’s Super Bowl at Miami’s Raymond James Stadium, Verizon Vice President of Device Technology Brian Mecum told RCR Wireless News that fans will have access to a number of “off-the-charts-cool” featured thanks to 5G and Mobile Edge Computing (MEC). Now, Verizon and AWS have revealed more details about how exactly MEC was used during game day to deliver new experiences, most notably, a 5G and MEC-enabled mobile game called NFL Ultra Toss. The MEC platform moves AWS compute and storage services to the edge of Verizon’s 5G network, allowing innovators to develop applications with ultra-low latencies that will support next generation use cases ranging from self-driving cars to autonomous industrial equipment. “Gaming is all about community and so is the Super Bowl and together with AWS we were able to bring these two communities together to offer a first of its kind 5G and MEC-enabled gaming experience to fans at scale,” Nicki Palmer, chief product officer at Verizon, commented in a recent press release. “The super-fast speeds, massive bandwidth and low latency provided by 5G and MEC lets players have a console-quality multi-player gaming experience on the go and allows developers to rewrite the rules for creating eye-popping, graphics-rich multiplayer action. The future of gaming is happening right now.” … Read more
Open RAN in 2021
Open RAN is gaining traction in the U.K. with Vodafone trialing out disaggregated radio stacks in rural parts of its network and now, a government-back program is gearing up to focus on testing hardware/software interoperability and integration. The SmartRAN Open Network Interoperability Center (SONIC) is a joint effort of Digital Catapult, a government innovation testbed organization, and telecoms regulator Ofcom. In its effort to explore the readiness and functionality, SONIC has onboarded industry partners, including Accelleran, Phludio, Effnet, Benetel, Mavenir, Foxconn, NEC and Radisys. Accelleran, Phludio, Effnet and Mavenir provide various virtualized RAN software solutions; Foxconn works on the hardware side; NEC and Radisys specialize in system integration. Beginning in May, SONIC said the partners will start working both in lab and field settings, and to expect more partners to join on. Digital Catapult Chief Technology Officer Joe Butler said in a statement, “Providing a neutral environment for testing and demonstration with eight solution providers will surface the opportunities and challenges of interoperability. We will collectively learn what works and what does not in terms of integration, technology and processes.” … Read more
Indian operators buy more LTE spectrum
Indian telecommunications operators committed to pay INR778 billion ($10.6 billion) for additional spectrum to expand 4G across the country. India’s latest spectrum auction ended after two days of bidding, although the 5G-suitable 700 MHz band did not receive offers due to high reserve prices. Operators acquired this additional 4G spectrum as several 4G licenses were set to expire in the short term. Bharti Airtel said it committed a total of INR187 billion to acquire a total of 355.45 megahertz of low and mid-band spectrum. The company noted that the low-band spectrum would help it to improve deep indoor coverage in urban environments, while strengthening its mid-band holdings, helping it to deliver 5G in a future phase. Rival operator Vodafone Idea did not provide specific details of the acquired frequencies, but confirmed it had secured spectrum in five circles to help further accelerate 4G coverage and capacity in those regions. … Read more
Boingo Wireless to be acquired by equity firm
U.S. distributed antenna system (DAS) and Wi-Fi provider Boingo Wireless says it has agreed to be acquired by an affiliate of Digital Colony Management in a deal worth $854 million. The transaction will take Boingo from being a public company to being a privately held firm. Under the terms of the deal, which has been unanimously approved by Boingo’s board, Digital Colony will acquire all the outstanding shares of Boingo common stock for $14.00 per share in cash through a merger, in a transaction valued at about $854 million, including the assumption of $199 million of Boingo’s net debt obligations. Digital Colony is a digital infrastructure investment firm with over US$30 billion in assets under management. The firm has its headquarters in Boca Raton, with offices in New York, Los Angeles, London and Singapore. “We are pleased to have reached this agreement with Digital Colony, which will deliver significant and immediate value to Boingo’s stockholders and concludes a robust strategic review process undertaken by Boingo over the past year,” said Mike Finley, CEO of Boingo Wireless. “We believe Digital Colony’s expertise owning and operating digital infrastructure businesses, combined with its relationships, resources and access to long-term, private capital markets, will provide greater flexibility for Boingo to continue advancing its business strategy.” … Read more
Airspan Networks to go public via SPAC
Airspan Networks plans to go public in the third quarter of this year via a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company and use $166 million from the transaction to fuel its 5G ambitions in the midst of a global inflection point in 5G and Open RAN technology. Airspan will go public via combining with the New Beginnings SPAC. SPACs, also known as blank-check companies, are formed specifically to merge with and take it public; they don’t have underlying assets. New Beginnings was formed late last year in an oversubscribed IPO round with a plan to facilitate a merger or reorganization with another company, possibly one in a business segment which had been impacted by the pandemic such as travel, hospitality, leisure, financial technology, insurance technology or property technology sectors. Now it has settled on Airspan as its partner company. New Beginnings brings $116 million to the table and the two companies say that the combined value of the businesses will be nearly $822 million. The combined company will be renamed Airspan Network Holdings after closing; it will trade under the symbol MIMO (which hearkens back to Airspan’s acquisition of Mimosa Networks in 2018). Airspan’s existing stockholders will hold approximately 75% of the common stock in the combined company after closing, assuming that they do not sell their existing stakes. … Read more
Check out the RCR Wireless News Archives for more stories from the past.
