Versatile Amphibian

One of the big themes at this year’s Mobile World Congress was the integration of multiple radio access standards into a single, seamless wireless connectivity system. Variously called “off-loading” and “small cell”, the idea is to provide mobile device users with seamless access to many different technologies simultaneously, providing a massive boost to quality of service. I visited many of the major vendors at MWC – what follows is a few words on the small cell market. Wi-Fi has been a growing part of the industry for a number of years, particularly in densely populated countries like the UK and cities like New York, however it has hitherto been a somewhat unsophisticated system, requiring separate authentication and lacking decent quality of service. All that has changed in the last year or so as technologies from the cellular industry, such as beam-forming and handover techniques have found their way into mainstream solutions. The objective is to create a system that aggregates mac...

Two meaty telecoms stories circulating at the moment. First, AT&T's reported $39B deal for T-Mobile USA came out of the left field yesterday at a time when many observers (myself included) were wondering whether Sprint/ T-Mobile was a runner. Provided it gets SEC clearance, the deal is dynamite for AT&T, but the really interesting question is "what is DT going to do with $39B?" As with Vodafone's recent strategy of cashing in minority investments, I find myself rather stumped by the strategy in play. Should we expect a massive share buy back or a mad spending spree in emerging markets? Or is this the first move in a strategy of massive consolidation into global super-majors - could Teliasonera, KPN or Teliasonera find themselves the subject of merger talk? Looks like a fascinating year is in store for the mobile industry. Nowhere more so than in the UK, where Ofcom has unveiled the rules for the forthcoming auction of 800 and 2600 spectrum , suitable for LTE....