Complete Telecom Products Made in India

In the last few years, market place is abuzz about India as an emerging destination for R&D due to availability of quality talent, people with knowledge of product development process moving back to India, cost arbitrage, MNC R&D centers and several other advantages. This holds true for 'offshored R&D functions' and for 'software products' to a great extent but not beyond that.

While there is some amount of work happening on the non-software front, it is limited to a few players and a few areas. For any country to be termed as an R&D hub, it needs to have companies working on 'complete product' development with several homegrown product companies/technologies. India is at par with the world when it comes to emerging technologies and products development in the 'software' field. The ecosystem for Indian software product companies and start-ups have evolved significantly during this decade. However, telecom industry in India, even though with one of the largest and fastest growing subscriber base, is far behind in terms of development of core products (including hardware) around wireless/wireline technologies or other products compared to its peers like China. China has several homegrown technologies (such as TD-SCDMA) and product companies such as ZTE and Huawei, etc. Leave aside emerging technology areas such as 3G, 4G, WCDMA, LTE, HSDPA, IPTV, etc.

Telecom Products Manufacturing In China Adds To ZTE's Bottom Line

Chinese telecom equipment maker ZTE has published its semi-annual financial results for the first half of 2011, stating that its operating revenue increased by 21.55% year-on-year to CNY37.345 billion.

Due to the influences of its market expansion strategy, product structure change, and delay of export tax rebate, ZTE's gross margin declined during the reporting period. The company's net profit also decreased by 12.42% year-on-year to CNY768 million.

In the first half of 2011, ZTE continued its expansion and its revenue from international business reached CNY20.81 billion, accounting for 55.7% of its total operating revenue. Meanwhile, its revenue from Chinese business reached CNY16.535, despite the delay of investments by the three major Chinese telecom operators.

In regards to product, ZTE believed that facing the current market situation, it is necessary to realize coordination among scale, profit, and customer layout, and adopt specific strategies for various products. In the wireless communication sector, the company aims to establish wider quality customer relationships in the starting stage of the fourth-generation construction; for wired communication, ZTE said it needs to rely on the new opportunities from the PTN, IP-RAN, and xPON industries to change the market structure; and for the smart terminal sector, the company needs to rapidly establish its star products and brands to expand market share. Therefore, the company increased targeted investments on major production lines and made strategic choices during the first half of 2011.

Green Telecom & IT Workshop by IISc and Bell Labs

The GreenTouch consortium was formed with the ambitious goal of inventing new technologies that could reduce the energy expenditure of telecommunication networks by a factor of 1000 by 2015. Two of the newest members of the consortium are the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, two premier research institutes in India.  We recognized that India faces certain unique challenges and Green is not only far more relevant in emerging markets such as India, but also that emerging markets require certain unique technical challenges in the field of Green Networking. With this in mind, the Green Telecom and IT Workshop was co-organized by Bell Labs and IISc with support from GreenTouch to explore collaborative opportunities, on April 4-5, 2012.

The Workshop was kicked off with two exciting keynotes by Dr. Gee Rittenhouse, President of the GreenTouch consortium and Prof. Rod Tucker from the University of Melbourne. Dr. Gee Rittenhouse outlined the vision of GreenTouch. He outlined some ongoing projects in wireline and wireless networking that would help achieve this goal. Dr. Rod Tucker then delved into the details of why research in Green networking was absolutely essential. His analysis showed that while Telecom comprised about 2% of total energy consumption today, with the rapid growth in data traffic, this fraction could reach alarming proportions in a few years.

Further, on Day two there was a keynote talk by Prof. Vinod Sharma from IISc. Apart from these key notes, there were 21 technical talks from Academia and Industry comprising IISc, IIT Delhi, IIT Chennai, IIT Mumbai, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), IBM Research, Microsoft Research and Bell Labs. The talks were divided into 6 sessions comprising Green IT, Green Access (2 sessions), Green Routers and Transport, Green Devices and Energy Harvested Networks.

A Real Concern For Apple’s Stock: Telecom Carriers Threaten to Kill Subsidies on Phones

Apple's (AAPL) stock has pulled back sharply in recent weeks, falling ~10% from a high of $645 to $570.
This is in part due to the spectacular moonshot the stock enjoyed during the fall and winter, when it blasted from $400 to nearly $650. Apple's stock has often sold off after moves like this, and the current pullback may be just more of that behavior.
But, still, a change in trend like Apple's may indicate a fundamental concern. And these fundamental problems often start small and grow in importance over time, dragging the stock down with them.
So it's worth thinking about what investors might be worried about.
There are still a couple of catalysts that could drive Apple's stock higher this year, namely the launch of the iPhone 5 and the expected debut of the full-fledged Apple TV in the fall. But analysts have begun backing away from the expected launch date of the TV in recent weeks, which may be having some impact.
And there's the broader and more profound concern that, by 2013, Apple's new products will no longer benefit from the firsthand influence of Steve Jobs. Steve worked right up until he died last year, and he likely had a significant influence on this year's product releases. Next year, that won't be the case, and Apple's team will have to demonstrate that it can create the same product magic without Steve.
Both of those are real concerns, but a more immediate one may be this: A concerted effort among some of the world's telecom carriers to reduce the level of handset subsidies that they're giving consumers.

Geist: Big Telecom Wants to Make Money on Online Spying

If we end up footing the bill for mandatory online spying for through our taxes—the alternative being that we pay even more on our monthly bills—Big Telecom may be looking at violations of your privacy as a new revenue source. According to law professor Michael Geist, Big Telecom may be looking to trade support for the online spying bill (C-30) for payments to cover their costs, "leaving subscribers stuck with less privacy and ultimately footing the bill."

Article by Michael Geist:

Last week, I posted about a recent Justice Committee report that includes recommendations that would expand Bill C-30, the lawful access/online surveillance bill, in several important ways. Toward the end of the post is a comment from Bell on the issue. While the source article is no longer available online - it appears to have been pulled - the company spokesperson states:

"Our primary concern in this area has always been the capacity of industry to implement any new requirements and who bears the cost."

The message from Bell that it prioritizes cost on the lawful access issue should not come as a surprise. For years, the telecom and Internet provider community have focused most of their attention on the costs associated with divulging subscriber information or responding to other law enforcement requests. While recouping the costs associated with installing new surveillance-capable equipment is an obvious issue, the potential to turn subscriber information disclosures into a new revenue source is particularly troubling.

In 2006, ITAC, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, CAIP, and the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association responded to the original lawful access bill by emphasizing the need to address compensation for provider costs. The concerns focused on three cost issues: mandated capability before the development of technical standards, operational costs, and a transition period. The first concern pointed to the problem of mandating surveillance capabilities. The associations argued that carriers would cover the costs of normal upgrades, but that customized solutions that extended beyond typically available equipment should be compensated by the government. The transition period concern was similarly focused on meeting normal equipment upgrade cycles.

On compensation for operational costs, the associations adopted the position that they should be compensated for all disclosures, including the disclosures of subscriber information under the mandatory warrantless model. A year later, the CWTA went further, telling Public Safety that "unless our legitimate concerns are addressed, it will be difficult for the industry to support this important initiative going forward." Given the tens of thousands of disclosures that occur every year (most presumably without compensation), this could turn into a new source of revenue.