Steven P Jobs leave from Apple caused a drop in Share Price

Apple’s shares showed some resilience on Tuesday after the chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, announced he was taking a medical leave of absence just ahead of the release of the company’s quarterly earnings.

The announcement on Monday that Mr. Jobs, 55, would take a leave of absence a year and a half after his return from a liver transplant raised some questions about the long-term prospects for Apple, given the influence and inspiration that he has wielded at the company he co-founded three decades ago.

But analysts have said they expected a strong earnings report later on Tuesday

“The stock has performed quite well this morning in view of the news,” Charles Wolf, an analyst at Needham & Company said, adding that the stock prices reflected a buying opportunity.

Apple’s shares fell more than 4 percent at the open but regained ground as the day went on. Even with the decline, the company’s shares were almost 6 percent higher for the year.

“The reality is the stock was not very expensive to begin with,” Mr. Wolf said. “It was downright cheap by any measure of valuation. That served to contain the decline.”

Michael H. Abramsky, the managing director for RBC Capital Markets, said that Apple’s fundamentals have not changed.

“Clearly Steve is a huge part of Apple,” Mr. Abramsky added. “At the same time Apple has great products in the pipeline.”

The company has seen strong sales across almost all of its products, and analysts have forecast earnings of $5.47 to more than $6 a share, with sales of 4 million Mac computers and 15 million iPhones. Most analysts forecast first-quarter revenue at $24.4 billion.

Mr. Jobs, who recovered from pancreatic cancer after surgery in 2004, has not appeared at public events since October, and has looked increasingly frail in recent weeks, according to people who have seen him. He also took a leave of several months in 2009, when he left Timothy D. Cook, the chief operating officer, in charge.

Mr. Cook, who will take over day-to-day operations, joined Apple nearly 13 years ago and is otherwise responsible for the company’s worldwide sales and operations. He kept the development of products like the iPhone 4 and the iPad on track, increased Macintosh computer sales and improved Apple’s financial performance during an economic downturn.

Mr. Wolf said that Mr. Jobs had a talent for bringing “disruption” to the industry with Apple products, and then building an “ecosystem” around the products that drew in customers, like with iTunes and Apps stores. He agreed that to some extent these developments have made the company self-sustaining.

“The reality is nothing is going to happen at the company for years,” he said. “The next several years’ performance is going to be absolutely identical to what it was in the past. Steve didn’t care how the stock performed.”

“The reality is I did not see any new product coming out in 2011 and possibly 2012,” he said.

Mr. Wolf said the timing of the announcement just ahead of the results report was cause for reflection. “I don’t think they would have announced it yesterday unless they had a blockbuster quarter,” he said.

“I think investors are concerned but cautiously optimistic that this situation will not be deeply negative for Apple,” he said.

“Clearly Steve is a huge part of Apple,” he added. “At the same time Apple has great products in the pipeline.”

Craig Berger, an analyst with Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Company, said there would “naturally” be some investor concerns about Mr. Jobs’ leave “given his importance in the company and his hands-on managerial style.”

But Mr. Berger, who analyzes companies that provide chips for Apple products, said those manufacturers were still set to supply chips for millions and millions of iPhones and iPads in 2011.

“So from that perspective this news doesn’t change anything, and the refreshed iPhone and iPad products in queue are going to launch regardless,” he said in an e-mailed statement. (source: Christine Hauser -NYT)

Australian NBN Co awarded A$1.6 Billion in FO deals

Australia's NBN Co has awarded A$1.6 billion ($1.58 billion) worth of infrastructure contracts for the government's A$39 billion national fiber network rollout.

The company set up to oversee the NBN buildout has announced passive optical infrastructure deals with Corning, Prysmian and Australia's Warren & Brown.

NBN co said the agreements will create at least 450 new jobs and result in the expansion of each company's Australian presence.

Corning, a US-headquartered manufacturer, won a deal worth up to A$1.2 billion over five years to supply aerial cables and cable sheathing for the project.

The company will invest in expanding its Australian operations, including A$25 million on developing its Melbourne facility, and expects to hire up to 300-400 new staff as a result.

Milan-based Prysmian scored a $300 million deal to provide underground cabling for the project, and plans to build a new A$13 million plant in Australia which will be able to manufacture high volumes of fiber optic cables.

Prysmian said it planned to employ up to 50 new production staff, which would also create new jobs in transport, logistics, training and administration as a flow-on effect.

Warren & Brown has been tipped to provide optical distribution frames and sub-racks in an up to $110 million deal.

NBN Co CEO Mike Quigley said a key benefit of using an Australian supplier “is the ability for Warren & Brown to fill orders within short timeframes to meet [our] rollout requirements.”

The NBN is a $39.3 billion federal government project to connect 93% of Australia's population with fiber connections of up to 1Gbps, and serve the remainder of the country with wireless and satellite technologies.

The government late last year won a key political battle by passing legislation required to split Telstra and pave the way for the operator's participation in the NBN. But the project still has some hurdles to pass in 2011.

(source: telecomasia.net)

Indian BWA interest shifted to TD-LTE

The second half of 2010 in India was abuzz with discussion of several possibilities for BWA licensees regarding whether to deploy TD-LTE, Wimax, or a hybrid-type network (supporting Wimax in the initial stage with a migration path to TD-LTE).

These speculations have been laid to rest with license holders now leaning towards TD-LTE. Indian bigwig Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) has selected TD-LTE for rolling out its nationwide BWA network.

Ever since RIL issued its first press release mentioning “a single 20 MHz TDD spectrum when used with LTE has the potential of providing greater capacity when compared with existing communication infrastructure in the country,” Maravedis predicted it would deploy TD-LTE; there was no reference to Wimax in the press release.

In November 2010 RIL showcased the results from its first field trial of TD-LTE technology using ST-Ericsson dongles. The operator said it had achieved 80 Mbps downlink and 20 Mbps uplink speeds during the trial.

It also reported full mobility with delivery of applications such as HD multimedia streaming; LIVE TV was demonstrated with on-the-go speeds of 50 and 70 kilometers per hour, as well as a seamless handover among the number of LTE base station sectors.

RIL is reported to be testing kits from Ericsson, Huawei and Alcatel-Lucent, although it is not yet clear if it intends to select a single vendor or split the contract between multiple partners. It is close to selecting the vendors for a $1 billion TD-LTE rollout, with a decision anticipated in the next
couple of months.

Maravedis predicts RIL will have a tough time launching a commercial BWA service using TD- LTE in India until the end of 2011. The fundamental question is whether there is a TD-LTE solution that can go into deployment today to meet the broadband needs of Indian consumers at an affordable price?

Current prices of LTE devices are way too high (starting at $100 for USB dongles) for the average Indian consumer.

The curve of device prices to reach below $30 (the price an Indian consumer can afford) would be on par as that witnessed by Wimax, and thus may take up to 18-24 months to reach that level. Because of this, Indian operators are expected to develop an initial strategy of targeting
business users.

From an economic perspective Chinese vendors (Huawei & ZTE) are usually cheaper, but they have faced some legal trouble when entering the Indian market due to security concerns from the government and competition between the two countries.

When price is a concern and the most price competitive vendors face roadblocks entering the market, TD-LTE adoption may evolve even slower than expected.

It will be interesting to watch – at least in the beginning – how chipset vendors manage to offer cheap LTE chipsets so the resulting device price is suitable for the Indian economy. Qualcomm is not the only chipset vendor, so the results of efforts made by the company to foster TD-LTE adoption in India will also be enjoyed by other players.

RIL's decision to deploy TD-LTE rather than Wimax is likely to be followed by the other major BWA spectrum holders, such as Bharti Airtel and Aircel. One of our industry sources has informed us that Augere, another Indian BWA licensee, has decided to go with LTE. Tikona, which bagged five circles in the BWA auctions, has already revealed that it will adopt LTE.

It will be in BWA license holders’ best interest to opt for vendor financing. Although major operators like RIL and Bharti Airtel can fund deployments, vendor financing arrangements provide additional confidence that the vendor will deliver networks that work well. It can also result in a substantial cost advantage over the duration of the financing. This tends to lock in the supplier, which is the obvious objective during this formative stage of TD-LTE trials and deployments.

Given the latest HSPA evolutions announced and the maturity of that technology, 3G licensees in India can directly compete with BWA licensees, since TD-LTE devices will be more expensive and it will take another few months for the first ones to appear in the worldwide market.

Tata Communications, by complementing its 3G deployment with residential Wimax offload, could have the opportunity to attract customers early and engage them by developing appealing value-added services – in particular, voice, since VoLTE is still far from becoming a reality in that market.

After the 2G scandal in India, providing voice services over 3G is a good way to attract and secure new customers.

There is a possibility that nationwide licensee RIL can sell wholesale services to other BWA licensees like Augere and Tikona who would be willing to expand to other circles. Augere won spectrum in one circle, while Tikona obtained spectrum in five circles in the Indian BWA auction.

Augere has funding from Orange and is in a good position to expand to other circles in India. On the other hand, Tikona received approval to increase foreign investment in the company up to 74% in March 2010. Tikona’s investors include Goldman Sachs Investment Partners, Indivision India Partners, Oak India Investments, and L&T Infrastructure Finance.

With RIL opting for TD-LTE, Wimax advocates are now betting high on the BSNL’s Wimax plans in India. BSNL is set to receive a $524 million grant to complete the rollout of a Wimax network in rural areas, having informed the government that it would only continue the buildout with additional compensation for the project. (source: Basharat Ashai/Maravedis)

BSNL, which acquired the BWA spectrum almost a year ago, has not been able to take advantage of the lead it had over private players due to delays in finalizing the tender.

BSNL has made its franchises contractually commit to converting to LTE in the event that the other operators in the country support the standard.

There certainly does seem to be cause for concern for Wimax advocates now that RIL has decided to deploy TD-LTE. However, considering that BSNL is the only operator in India who has been very active rolling out Wimax, and that it has major plans and government support, we expect it to be a late entrant (no earlier than 2012) to the LTE market.

RIM delivers BlackBerry Monitoring System for India

RIM has developed a BlackBerry monitoring solution for the Indian government it says fulfills the nation's surveillance requirements – but one which still can't decrypt corporate emails.

The company said it had completed development of an access system for its Messenger and public email services that will allow carriers to meet legal obligations on lawful interception.

RIM, which had been under pressure to enable state surveillance of its services by January 31, said in a statement sent to the media that it was pleased to have completed the solution before this mutually-agreed deadline.

But the company said the solution does not apply to its highly-encrypted corporate email service, reiterating that it is unable to provide access to these messages as it does not retain a copy of customers' decryption keys.

It said setting up an email server in India, the suggested solution to the impasse, would not work because the security architecture on its BlackBerry Enterprise Server is identical worldwide.

In an update to customers, RIM said it had been assured that all its competitors will be pressed to provide the same lawful access capabilities if they had not done so, Press Trust of India reported.

It is currently unclear whether the government, which had originally demanded complete access, will be satisfied with RIM's partial solution. India has already reportedly rejected at least one of RIM's draft monitoring proposals.

RIM last week revealed it could take 18-24 months to deliver an effective enterprise email monitoring solution.

The company, which this week was forced to agree to develop a porn-blocking solution for BlackBerrys in Indonesia, recently revealed it is currently under no pressure from India to filter any internet content.

RIM agrees to Filter porn in Indonesian BB Network

RIM has agreed to develop a solution to filter porn in Indonesia, in a bid to stave off a ban on BlackBerry services in the large market.

But the government is also pressing RIM to enable Indonesian security officials to monitor BlackBerry services, a demand that could be harder to satisfy.

Indonesian officials want RIM to to block porn browsing on BlackBerry smartphones from within the nation, in order to comply with local anti-pornography laws.

RIM has revealed it will develop a system as quickly as possible, Dow Jonesreported, marking the first time the vendor will apply internet filtering to any country.

The government will meet with RIM and six mobile operators on January 17 to discuss the matter. It has warned it may ask RIM to shut down its browser service, in advance of a potential blanket ban, if RIM does not satisfy.

RIM, which has an estimated 1.5 million BlackBerry users in Indonesia, said in a statement to Reuters it was working with local carriers to develop a compliant filtering solution.

But in response to RIM's comments, Indonesian communications minister Tiffatul Sembiring said simply, “so do it.”

The communications ministry is simultaneously pressing RIM to enable lawful interception of BlackBerry messages, through the establishment of a local server in Indonesia.

RIM has so far been unable to come up with a surveillance solution for its heavily encrypted corporate email service that satisfies the Indian government, and last weekrevealed it could take another two years to develop one. Indonesian lawmakers could prove just as hard to please.

Indonesia has been pressuring RIM to enable BlackBerry monitoring since mid-2010. (source: telecomasia.net)

Japanese Government pressed Apple on Content Filtering

The internet is abuzz with speculation that the Japanese government plans to order Apple and carrier partner Softbank to install content filtering controls for all iPhones sold in the nation.

Tech blogs and news sites have picked up on a Japanese report claiming that Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications will notify the companies to implement filtering software as quickly as possible.

The ministry reportedly feels the existing parental control options for mobile browsing are insufficient to protect children, and may contravene Japan's strict laws regarding safe mobile internet usage for minors.

But Softbank believes installing filtering software for the iPhone would be impractical, as it would require users to share personal data including credit card numbers at point of purchase.

Apple has been involved in a long-running tussle with the Japanese government over 2008 incidences of exploding iPod nano devices. In August last year, Japan ordered Apple to publish a statement explaining how concerned nano users can receive replacement batteries under Apple's swap program.

The Differences between 4G and 3G

The discussion about how 4G is different or enabling compared to 3G should start with a few guideposts.

It's important to note that 4G is built upon advancements in both wireless and wired networks. The link technology of Wimax and LTE is different than 2G and3G because it uses MIMO-OFDMA rather than CDMA/W-CDMA. OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Domain Multiple Access) works in the frequency domain, which makes it more efficient and easier to take advantage of evolution of smart and distributed antenna technologies.

The most authoritative definition of real 4G comes from the ITU. Both 3GPP LTE-Advanced and IEEE 802.16m (Wimax2) were last month officially granted admittance by the ITU's Radiocomms sector into the IMT-Advanced family.

The standard sets out stringent requirements, covering spectral efficiency for various MIMO configurations and deployment scenarios. Also included are latency and jitter, channel size and aggregation, and other criteria that impact the delivery of a wide range of communications from low-duty cycle M2M monitoring to applications that support real-time video and voice. The standard pushed the envelope of performance with the result now showing up in commercial trials that demonstrate sub-50ms end-to-end latency and high bandwidths.

Wider focus

What is also important is that 4G network standards are being developed to incorporate "intelligent" or "smart networking" methodologies. In fact, the ITU describes IMT-Advanced in terms of ICT, which is more comprehensive than simply describing this as the 4th generation of wireless networks.

Where do the innovations, improvements in performance, and enabling of new types of services come from that can make 4G much different than 3G? Both 3G and 4G have much in common in terms of technologies, product designs and manufacturing methodologies, and in the evolution of commercial markets.

LTE refers more to the evolution of commercial markets than the strict evolution of wireless technologies. 3G devices and prior equipment can't be used on the same frequency bands as LTE networks and vice versa. Newer equipment is often based on SDR/SCR (software defined/configurable radio) platforms that can be software upgraded from 3G to LTE or Wimax (Wimax being unlikely).

Much of the innovation comes from the combining of benefits and new capabilities that stem from convergence of wireless broadband with wired networks and computing methods. This impacts both the highly visible consumer device level and the various levels of the network and computing environment.

I leave the discussion of device and applications innovations as this is more a step-wise improvement over 3-3.9G. The new networks will deliver much lower latency and jitter, resulting in better performance for video conferencing and other real-time streaming applications than 3G.

However, even that gets blurred because HSPA+ adopts, even at a high cost and as a dead-end strategy, many of the MIMO and self-forming network (smart network), technologies. Users will not see a startling difference in speed between networks. However, 4G provides another 10- to 20-year roadmap for improvements.

Major advances will be made over the next 20 years or so in smart distributed WBB networks (SDWN). What that represents is the evolution of smart storage, routing and computing both from central servers, mostly the model of today, to more dynamic distributed ICT topologies. The evolution pairs with that of systems on a chip, distributed processing, smart DRM and other advances.

What is different about 4G is that it is an ICT rather than strictly a wireless platform. There are distinctions that will help lead to greater use of microcell and multiple-node aggregate base stations that are more easily deployed and help deliver greater capabilities at lower cost per bit. Overall, that is compelling.

(source: Robert Syputa, Maravedis)