Network vendors tout size, solutions

ORLANDO, Fla.-A quick evaluation of the comments and announcements streaming from the world’s largest infrastructure providers offers evidence that the market is getting wider and more complicated-and that the field may belong to only the largest contenders.
“This is exciting times,” said L.M. Ericsson CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg. “We are bringing tremendous value to people’s lives.”
Indeed, network announcements at the CTIA Wireless 2007 show spanned the gamut: Nortel announced plans to combine satellite and WiMAX services for Mobile Satellite Ventures; Ericsson announced it will host a prepaid wireless service for Dobson Cellular Systems; and Qualcomm Inc. announced products for the Ultra Mobile Broadband standard. The biggest network news at the show was that Verizon Wireless awarded Alcatel-Lucent a $6 billion buildout contract.
That there is so much infrastructure activity in conjunction with the CTIA Wireless 2007 show is notable. Attendees at past shows often bemoaned the United States’ seeming second-place technological status among advanced nations. However, the world’s first W-CDMA network launch at then-Cingular Wireless in 2004-and the subsequent buildouts of CDMA2000 1x EV-DO Revision A technology at Sprint Nextel Corp. and Verizon Wireless-pushed the United States comfortably alongside the rest of the world in terms of network innovation. Further, WiMAX buildouts in the United States by Clearwire Corp., Sprint Nextel and others have moved Americans toward the cutting edge of wireless technology.
“North Americans, more than anyone in the world, are hungry for mobile broadband,” said Ericsson’s Svanberg.
Thus, the U.S. market stands as an important battleground for the world’s network vendors. And battling they are: Next week the market will see a new contender emerge from the mash-up of two major players.
Nokia Siemens Networks is counting the days until its official debut as a merged entity, set for this week. The new company will start with revenues the size of Coca-Cola, commented Mark Louison, who has led Nokia’s networks business in North America, but is set to become president of Nokia Inc., the world’s largest handset vendor.
“Scale matters a lot, a lot, in this business now,” noted Simon Beresford-Wylie, designated CEO of the new company. But even as the market consolidates, regional differences exist, he said. For instance, convergence is at the epicenter of the North American market, while India focuses on 2G voice-centric, low-cost solutions. In Europe, operators are concentrating on the migration to W-CDMA technology. “We thought, we prayed, that all of the technology would come together at some point, but it appears that isn’t going to happen,” Beresford-Wylie said.
Nokia Siemens Networks will go up against another recently combined entity: Alcatel-Lucent. Indeed, the company’s virility was reaffirmed with the announcement of its three-year, $6 billion contract with Verizon Wireless, a contract one industry watcher described in awed, hushed tones as the size of most companies’ annual revenues.
But the world’s infrastructure battle not only revolves around contracts and buildouts, but in planning for the future.
And Qualcomm, looking toward the future, announced plans for an “end-to-end solution for Ultra Mobile Broadband.” Qualcomm said its newest chips would support the network technology.