Microsoft has sold its IPTV business to Ericsson for an undisclosed amount. The sale of Mediaroom, previously reported to have been discussed in private, will in theory allow Microsoft to pour more of its resources into providing consumer-side TV services through the soon-to-be announced next Xbox games console.
Microsoft is allegedly talking to Ericsson to sell its IPTV business. The sale, which would include the same MediaRoom unit that powers the U-Verse IPTV service from AT&T among others, could be announced by the companies in the next few weeks, and could be a way for Microsoft to streamline its Entertainment and Devices division.
In late 2012, Ericsson filed two complaints against Samsung, alleging patent violation by the Korean manufacturer. Late Monday afternoon, Samsung has responded to Ericsson's court filing with counterclaims of its own -- in addition to calling Ericsson a patent troll, Samsung is asserting eight patents in what is likely a defensive lawsuit.
Manufacturing partners Ericsson and STMicroelectronics will be shuttering ST-Ericsson, its poorly-performing mobile chip joint venture, and will divide parts of the business between the two companies. The venture had been suffering from a large drop in orders from its largest customer, Nokia, as market share of the companies handsets plummeted against competition from Apple and Samsung. ST-Ericsson had not turned a profit since it was formed in 2008, despite one in four smartphones sold in 2011 having some form of its technology integrated.
Samsung has filed a complaint with the International Trade Commission, seeking a ban in the US on the import and sale of Ericsson devices. The ban request comes less than a month after Ericsson requested the same ban on Samsung devices, with both ITC complaints stemming from the patent dispute between the two companies.
Potentially adding to Samsung's legal woes in the United States, Swedish telecommunication equipment manufacturer Ericsson has requested the US International Trade Commission (USITC) ban imports of products made by the Korean manufacturer. Ericsson claims that Samsung's products infringe on its patents, a claim it has also made in a lawsuit against Samsung filed last week in the District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
The world's largest telecom network equipment maker is suing the world's largest mobile phone maker over patent infringement. Ericsson filed suit against Samsung in the United States today, saying that Samsung has refused to sign a license to use technologies according to Ericsson's stated terms, terms Ericsson describes as fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory. Representatives for Ericsson say that the company decided to file suit after two years of negotiations failed to produce a licensing agreement.
The world's largest network infrastructure supplier Ericsson is the primary suitor to purchase the business support systems (BSS) unit of struggling competitor Nokia Siemens Networks. Sources familiar with the matter report that the BSS unit was among the assets Nokia was looking at selling, but a deal could not be confirmed.
After what seems like nothing but job cuts and execs leaving, Canadian smartphone maker Research In Motion (RIM) on Tuesday announced it is naming two new executives to its team. The new Chief Operating Officer is Kristian Tear, while Frank Boulben has become the Chief Marketing Officer. Both are said to bring an abundant amount of mobile computing experience to the table. RIM President and CEO Thorsten Heins said the two have a strong understanding of the emerging trends in mobile communications and computing.
T-Mobile has hired Ericsson and Nokia-Siemens today for the upcoming $4 billion LTE buildout. T-Mobile's current HSPA+ network covers 220 million people in 229 major markets, and the company argues that it can be called 4G based on speed alone. The LTE expansion is expected to be completed sometime in 2013.
Sony in a brief message called for a corporate strategy meeting on April 12 in which it would outline the company's new direction for the media. Details were short, but it would involve just-instated CEO Kaz Hirai. Most expect the discussion to center around Hirai's definition of a "One Sony" strategy meant to eliminate the 'silos' that have kept Sony divisions either isolated or even competing against each other.
Sony's Xperia S smartphone has been plagued with an issue with its screen, Crave has found. When the phone gets too warm, its screen emits a yellow tint. Sony is aware of the problem, stating that only a "limited number" of Xperia S phones are affected when they reach 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).
ST-Ericsson is expected to unveil its plans to restructure its operations within the next two weeks. Reuters sources now claim that the reorganization of the joint venture between Sweden's Ericsson and France's STMicroelectronics is in line with the company's plans to be acquired by another chipmaker. Potential buyers named include AMD, NVIDIA, Intel, and Texas Instruments.
Last week, Sony took complete control of its former joint venture with Ericsson. Sony has already begun to phase out the Ericsson name from its mobile products branding. Its first step has been to redirect online viewers from the Sony Ericsson site to the company's SonyMobile web portal.
Sony at early Thursday Japanese time formally completed its buyout of Ericsson's stake in Sony Ericsson. The move now leaves Sony Mobile Communications as a completely Sony-owned company. Bert Nordberg would still be CEO of the mobile group, which it revealed had about 100 million euros ($130.3 million) in stated working capital.
Newly uncovered documents from Apple's opposition to a Motorola attempt to silence its requests have uncovered Motorola's demands for a 3G patent license. In explaining why it needed to get details of Qualcomm's patent deal with Motorola, Apple mentioned that Motorola had wanted a 2.25 percent royalty on Apple product sales as its attempt at a FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) patent licensing offer. Florian Mueller, who unearthed the details, saw it as likely an excessive rate given that Apple wouldn't only be licensing from Motorola and that it could significantly raise the price of selling an iPhone or 3G iPad.
Mobile device chipmaker Qualcomm and network and communications gear Ericsson on Thursday announced they've reached a significant milestone by handing over a call from an LTE network to a WCDMA network using a single radio. They used the Single Radio Voice Call Continuity (SRVCC) 3GPP specified feature to hand off the Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) call when a user left the coverage area to the more widespread 3G network. The hand-off was made on December 23, 2011 on the Ericsson network on a handset using Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 processor at the heart of new phones and tablets.
Cellular infrastructure equipment provider Ericsson is reportedly adding Wi-Fi capabilities to its catalog. GigaOM reports that the company is buying BelAir Networks, a provider of high-performance outdoor hotspot technology. Up until now, BelAir has been providing equipment mainly to the cable industry.
Apple on Friday is now known to have called on information from Ericsson to help defend against Motorola's patent lawsuits in the US and Germany. An ex parte request for discovery is asking Ericsson whether or not it has a license to the same Motorola patents that are being used to sue Apple. The requests would be used primarily in German courts, where Apple has so far lost to Motorola.
Ericsson and ZTE on Friday made peace and dropped lawsuits against each other over cellular technology. In return for stopping legal action, they agreed to license some of each other's technology patents. ZTE would take a license of Ericsson's patents for GSM and 3G under lower standards-based rates; it's not clear what if anything Ericsson would be paying ZTE.
A company called Kopin has shown off its wearable, Motorola-branded computer, the Golden-i. It connects to the cloud using 4G and has many possible uses, from law enforcement, to medicine (such as surgery) to mechanical work at home. It sports Kopin's uniquely dense one-inch display, which equates to a traditional 15-inch monitor due to its proximity to the wearer's eye, and the display appears to be 18 inches away.
(Updated with end of basic phones) Sony has announced it has acquired Ericsson’s interest in what had been their ten-year old joint mobile phone venture. Previously rumored, the move ultimately came at a cost of €1.05 billion ($1.47 billion) as Sony bought Ericsson’s 50 percent stake in the company. The purchase also grants Sony access to what it calls a broad IP cross-licensing agreement and ownership of “five essential patent families.”
Mobile data traffic has more than doubled in one year, Ericsson found. According to a GigaOM report, the doubling came between the second quarter of 2010 and the same quarter in 2011. Ericsson found than an active smartphone owner uses more than 1MB per day.
Sony Ericsson is on the verge of splitting up as Sony hopes to get a more Apple-like control of its phones, insiders disclosed Thursday. Under the terms slipped to the WSJ, Sony would buy Ericsson's 50 percent stake. Little is known other than that the Ericsson share could be worth as much as $1.7 billion and that Ericsson's mobile-focused patents might be involved.
(Update: clarification on Google role) InterDigital's attempt at a sell-off is getting close and attracting key Android phone makers, insiders claimed Friday. HTC and returning candidate Samsung are considering initial bids when they start in an auction now said to be starting in two weeks. Ericsson and Intel were also involved in the Bloomberg version of events.
Apple in a response to Samsung's countersuit late Monday accused the Korean company of abusing its stance on patent licensing terms. The firm accused Samsung of "serial standard-setting abuses" by illegally getting monopoly status in fields where its patents are billed as essential to the technology and promptly 'tricking' standards bodies by hiding its requirements around Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) licensing terms, letting it abuse its claims against others. Apple contended that Samsung's lawsuit was an "anticompetitive ambush" and was exploiting this to try and make Apple drop its self-proclaimed legitimate anti-copying complaints.
Unlike the rumored investigation by the Department of Justice and the FTC of the recent Nortel patent buy, the Canadian government won't review it, the Industry Minister Christian Paradis said on Tuesday. While the Investment Canada Act requires foreign investments of more than $328 million must be reviewed, the book value of the $4.5 billion deal may be much lower, said a Tuesday report.
We've had the opportunity to use Rogers' new LTE 4G network both on our own equipment as well as on a handful of devices the company had at its live event. Regardless of the hardware, we've seen speeds that even put Verizon's LTE network to shame. Read ahead for our first takes -- as well as some big concerns about the bandwidth limits being put on such a fast service.
The consortium win in Nortel's auction was headed by Apple against a Google that was at times difficult to take seriously, uncovered details from the inside have shown. The group, nicknamed "Rockstar," led almost from the start and was facing off against just Google by the very end. After already reaching $3 billion, the two sides seen by Reuters' observer bid in $100 million increments up to $4 billion, where Google "tapped out" even after getting special permission to continue past an earlier $3 billion limit.
Intel has reportedly received blessings from the Federal Trade Commission to acquire Nortel's patent portfolio, though the chip maker must outbid several competitors to secure the bankrupt company's intellectual property. The latest report corroborates earlier rumors, which pointed to a possible bidding war between Google, Intel, Apple, Ericsson, and RPX, a company that buys patents defensively to protect clients against patent trolls.
The FTC on Thursday gave the go-ahead to Apple participating in a Nortel patent auction. Confirming recent rumors, it determined that Apple's bids wouldn't pose a competitive threat. Concerns had existed that Apple might over-aggressively pursue lawsuits with the patents in tow, particularly against Android phone makers.
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group on Tuesday marked unusual additions as it brought both Apple and Nordic Semiconductor to its board of directors. The move gave the two greater control over how the short-range wireless standard works. Apple would be there to help with "platform development" for technologies like Bluetooth 4.0 while Nordic would help refine sensor chips.
Both Apple and Intel have been cleared to bid in Nortel's vital wireless patent auction, contacts slipped out on Friday. After investigations, both have been allowed to go ahead. Ericsson had also been greenlit, according to the Wall Street Journal, and was being accompanied by RPX, a proxy company that buys patents to avoid them being used against its clients.
Clearwire has announced that it will transfer operational responsibility for its 4G network to Ericsson. Under the seven-year agreement, Ericsson will take over day-to-day responsibility for the network, while Clearwire will still retain physical ownership. Clearwire has taken this action in an effort to reduce its operating costs while maintaining network quality.
At the Business Innovation Forum in California on Wednesday, Verizon Wireless executive director of LTE didn't provide any direct reasons for the network's outage late in April. When pressed, Brian Higgins told the audience Verizon took steps to ensure the problem won't reoccur, but did not provide any details on why it happened or which of its vendors is to blame, ConnectedPlanet wrote on Wednesday. The company's 3G and LTE networks went out for 24 hours across the US.
Ericsson has announced that it has successfully demonstrated its "HD voice" technology on a CDMA network. The new technology, which was first previewed using an HSPA network, promises to bring significant improvements to voice quality and intelligibility, while expanding the spectral range to reach from 50Hz to 7kHz.
Ericsson on Monday showed off new record speeds for 3G. The network gear designer said it had successfully tested HSPA service running at 168Mbps downstream and 24Mbps upstream using a real "prototype consumer device" and practical networking hardware. Its speed, achieved by using bonding an unnamed number of channels together, was about four times the 42Mbps peak of the very latest cellular networks.
Whether needed or not, the world has one more smart phone to choose from thanks to the latest collaboration between Sony and Ericsson: the Xperia Arc. This new smartphone is based on the Android platform, but hopes to stand out from the pack thanks to its Sony Bravia engine that the electronics maker claims will make it the brightest display on the market.
Rogers and Bell this week said they were trialling Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks for 4G. The technical trial for Rogers is being conducted in cooperation with Ericsson Canada in Ottawa, the country's capital. The theoretical maximum wireless transfer speeds of LTE are 150Mbps.
Novatel Wireless on Tuesday announced it will soon bring out the smallest dual carrier HSPA+ USB modem. It will initially be available at Spain's Telefonica Moviles network before arriving at other carriers around the world. The Ovation MC545 was demonstrated to provide a maximum download speed of 40.5Mbps when running on Ericsson’s DC-HSPA+ network.
Little-known patent holder InNova hoped to seize on the success of others today as it filed a lawsuit claiming that a large range of companies violate a patent on e-mail spam filtering. It accused high-profile technology firms such as Apple, Google and RIM as well as 3Com, AOL, Dell, Ericsson, HP, Symantec and Yahoo of copying technology allegedly invented by InNova founder Robert Uomini 15 years ago. Companies as diverse as Capital One Auto Finance and Frito-Lay were also implicated in the suit.
The VoLGA Forum has updated specifications for its Voice Over LTE standard. The new specs include mobile voice and SMS service over 4G, unlike the current standard, which only supports data. The changes will bring with them Voice over LTE via Generic Access (VoLGA) using 3G, HSPA-based networks, with users also getting the option of emergency calls even when there isn't a SIM card.
Netgear on Tuesday made an unusual branch into 3G this morning through teamwork with Ericsson. The MBRN3300 can use an internal 3G modem, including HSPA+ at roughly 20Mbps, and share the link through either 802.11n Wi-Fi or through four 100Mbps Ethernet ports. The companies envision it as a modem for homes where regular cable, DSL or fiber isn't available, or for completely mobile local networks; it even has the option of a car charger or a battery pack to run free of a traditional plug.
Wireless network operator 3 and Ericsson on Wednesday said they would introduce the first 84Mbps HSPA+ 3G wireless network in the world. The rollout will cover Denmark and four major Swedish cities. Significantly, the move means customers will see a theoretical fourfold increase in mobile broadband speeds even while they stay on a similar network standard.
As part of a just-announced partnership between Ericsson and Samsung, the latter has released the first USB modem fully compatible with the new Long Term Evolution (LTE) 4G standard. The Samsung GT-B3710 modem will be sold commercially through provider TeliaSonera in 2010 in Norway and Sweden. It promises to bring peak speeds of 150Mbps downstream as well as 50Mbps uploads.
Telefonica, which owns the UK-based wireless provider O2, announced that it will begin trial testing of its Long Term Evolution mobile broadband technology in six European countries. The 4G technology will allow for faster wireless data speeds, and the trials will involve hardware from six manufacturers including Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Huawei, NEC, Nokia Siemens Network, and ZTE.
Rogers today counted itself as one of the first North American carriers to offer an officially-sanctioned 3G wired and wireless router on its network. Rebadged as the Rocket Hub, the Ericsson-designed router can take cellular data, up to 7.2Mbps 3G over HSPA, and share it both over Wi-Fi as well as for those on an Ethernet link. The Hub is deemed particularly important for users who can't get Internet access for multiple devices but expect to remain in one place.
As part of its ongoing attempt to expand the wireless spectrum for its national broadband plan, the FCC has now opened comments to the public asking whether the so-called "prime bands" below 3.7GHz, considered ideal for wireless data and video, are sufficient for the near- and long-term demands of wireless broadband. The FCC seeks to get information from industry players by October 23rd regarding the ability of the current spectrum to support future build-outs and which bands are best suited for mobile or fixed wireless broadband.
Wireless provider MetroPCS on Tuesday announced some details on its upcoming high-speed 4G LTE mobile broadband network. Due for a release in the second half of 2010, MetroPCS will partner with Ericsson and Samsung to power the provider's 4G LTE service. Along with the service, which will be released thanks to Ericsson infrastructure, MetroPCS plans on launching a dual-mode LTE/CDMA smartphone built by Samsung in the major cities that MetroPCS offers its service late in 2010.
Sony Ericsson this morning set in motion a significant change in its strategy with news that its existing CEO Hideki Komiyama is being replaced. The executive will retire at the end of the year and is being replaced by Ericsson's Bert Nordberg on October 15th. The Swedish official specializes in "business realignment" and was responsible for growing that telecom company's business earlier this decade.
