Bids for AWS-3 spectrum reached more than $40 billion at the end of day 12 Tuesday of Auction 97. Bids rose 0.5 percent in rounds 42-43 and 0.3 percent in rounds 44-45, UBS analysts said Wednesday in a research note. The top 25 markets commanded an average price of $3.89/MHz POP for paired spectrum, they said. Atlanta was the most active market, rising 6.2 percent from day 11, followed by Pittsburgh and Sacramento, analysts said. Despite no new bids, Chicago remained in the lead, followed by New York and Los Angeles, UBS said. Auction 97 could run at a slower pace for an extended period, it said. The AWS-1 and 700 MHz auctions lasted for 161 and 261 rounds respectively, with minimal activity after rounds 52 and 27, it said. The momentum of the action is slowing, Evercore analysts said in a research note. The end of the auction “could be soon,” they said. The focus will shift “to how the bidders will finance their bids and when they have to finance them by,” Evercore said. The bidding exceeded the reserve price shortly after the auction started last month (see 1411180061).
In a move to grab customers from its two biggest competitors, Sprint said Tuesday it will buy out AT&T and Verizon customers’ wireless contracts up to $350 in a “Cut Your Bill in Half” event beginning Friday. Sprint will pay customers up to $350 per line via a Visa prepaid card to cover their early termination fee or installment bill balance when they switch, it said. Sprint will offer unlimited talk and text within the U.S. over its network and match customers’ data allowance for half the cost of their current data plan. The promotional rate “will be the customer’s ongoing price” as long as they remain on the plan, Sprint said. To participate, AT&T and Verizon customers need to upload a copy of a current wireless bill to the Sprint website, visit a Sprint store with a copy of the latest bill, turn in their current phone, pick a service plan and get a new phone using one of Sprint’s leasing options -- or pay full rate for the phone, the carrier said.
Level 3 will provide Intelsat with network connectivity to its new North America headquarters in Tysons Corner, Virginia, and to other locations. Intelsat will have access to additional network capacity and diverse routing options to enhance the IntelsatOne terrestrial fiber and teleport network linked to Intelsat's global satellite infrastructure, Level 3 said in a Tuesday news release. The agreement intends to improve information access and operational efficiency, while also ensuring business continuity and disaster recovery across Intelsat's locations, Level 3 said.
Broadcom unveiled a global navigation satellite system location hub that supports the European Union's Galileo satellite system. Smartphones with built-in support for the new system "will experience an even higher level of accuracy and better positioning with faster times to first fix," Broadcom said Tuesday in a news release. In certain modes, Broadcom's advanced hardware design and increased memory "can reduce power consumption by up to 95 percent over traditional architectures, significantly conserving battery life in mobile devices," it said. It increases accuracy with simultaneous support for six constellations and "recognizes distinct user activity for better location intelligence," it said.
Most provisions in the October FCC order that eliminates the Dec. 31, 2016, deadline for public safety licensees using 700 MHz narrowband spectrum to transition their radio systems to 6.25 kHz technology will take effect Jan. 2, the commission said Tuesday in the Federal Register. Some rule changes included in the order await approval by the Office of Management and Budget, the FCC said. The order implements several rule changes beyond eliminating the narrowband deadline, including redesignating as available for public safety aircraft voice operations the channels in the 700 MHz band that are currently licensed for secondary trunking operations. The order allows voice operations on data interoperability channels on a secondary basis and reallocates the reserve channels on the narrowband into general-use channels (see 1410240032). The FCC said it would dismiss multiple waiver requests, including one from the Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communications System Joint Powers Authority, as moot due to the order.
Hughes launched upgraded satellite Internet access plans for small- and medium-sized businesses. The Business Internet Select and Access plans feature download speeds from up to 5 Mbps to up to 15 Mbps, Hughes said Tuesday in a news release. The plans will operate over the HughesNet Gen4 service, it said.
As production of smartphones and smart watches that use flexible displays ramps up, the market for flexible displays is forecast to increase almost ninefold next year over 2014, said Charles Annis, DisplaySearch vice president-manufacturing research, Monday in a blog post. "This nearly exponential advance is being enabled by rapid flexible manufacturing capacity growth as both LG Display and Samsung increase capacity on current lines and Samsung begins production at its new flexible-dedicated A3 line." Since late 2013, "a variety of displays fabricated on plastic substrates have come to market" that are "very thin, light, and rugged," and also "enable device design freedom with curved features," he said. "Regardless of the remaining challenges and unknowns about how fast and how far the market will grow in the long run, our outlook remains optimistic." From a "simple applications perspective," any current rigid flat-panel display "could be replaced by thin, light, unbreakable, and even low-cost flexible alternatives," he said. "Also, flexibility may create new applications, some of which we may not have even imagined yet."
Supply chain services supplier Ingram Micro made a "binding offer" to acquire Anovo, a French-based supplier of reverse logistics and repair services for smartphones, tablets, wearables and set-top boxes across Europe and Latin America, the companies said in a joint announcement Friday. Anovo has operations in seven countries in Europe (Belgium, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, Switzerland and the U.K.), three in South America (Chile, Columbia and Peru), plus China, but none in North America, its website shows. The acquisition is to be completed in early 2015, the companies said. Terms weren’t released, but Anovo is expected to contribute more than $300 million annually to Ingram Micro’s revenue, they said. Europe and Latin America are "two regions that are experiencing robust growth with the proliferation of mobile devices, accessories and wearables," they said. Anovo CEO Francois Lacombe will continue to lead the company after it becomes an Ingram Micro subsidiary, they said. In a separate announcement Monday, Ingram Micro said it acquired a majority stake in Armada, which it called the largest value-added technology distributor in Turkey, with 2013 sales of more than $280 million. Ingram Micro plans to make a mandatory tender offer for the remaining shares in compliance with Turkish financial rules, the company said. Terms weren't disclosed.
IDC sees the Windows Phone operating system more than doubling its share of global smartphone shipments to 5.6 percent in 2018, compared with 2.7 percent this year, the research firm said Monday in its worldwide quarterly mobile phone tracker. In terms of global share, the Windows Phone OS will still pale in comparison with Android (its share will decline to 80 percent in 2018 from 82.3 percent this year) and iOS (12.8 percent in 2018 vs. 13.8 percent in 2014), the firm said. It sees the industry shipping nearly 1.3 billion smartphones globally in 2014, an increase of 26.3 percent over 2013, it said. IDC expects 1.4 billion smartphones to be shipped worldwide in 2015, a 12.2 percent year-over-year growth rate, it said. Slower annual growth continues through 2018, when shipments will approach 1.9 billion units, for a 9.8 percent compound annual growth rate for the 2014–2018 forecast period, it said. "Smartphone revenues reflect a starker picture, as they will be hard hit by the increasingly cutthroat nature of pricing," resulting in a 4.2 percent compound annual growth rate over the same forecast period, it said. "The impact of upstart Chinese players in the global market will be reflected in a race to the bottom when it comes to price. While premium phones aren't going anywhere, we are seeing increasingly better specs in more affordable smartphones. Consumers no longer have to go with a top-of-the-line handset to guarantee decent hardware quality or experience. The biggest question now is how much lower can prices go?" IDC pegs the average selling price of smartphones shipped globally this year at $297, but sees ASPs dropping by 19 percent to $241 by 2018, it said: "Emerging markets like India will see much lower smartphone prices, as ASPs hit US$135 in 2014 and fall to US$102 by 2018. In contrast, ASPs in mature markets are not expected to change significantly and modestly higher shipment volumes will not drive up overall revenues as each generation of flagship phones shows less and less differentiation from its predecessors."
The FCC received Office of Management and Budget approval of its September order approving changes to the technical rules of signal boosters, the commission said Friday in The Federal Register. The September order granted relief sought by Wi-Ex on testing procedures to certify wideband boosters, which the company said were complicated by the need for special test equipment to determine whether the device complies with the downlink noise limit in the FCC rules. The FCC also had approved some technical changes sought by V-Comm, Verizon and Wilson Electronics (see 1409250033). The technical rule changes take effect Dec. 29, the FCC said Friday. The commission also sought comment Friday on its September Further NPRM on whether to retain the “personal use” restriction for provider-specific consumer signal boosters. Comments on the FNPRM are due Dec. 29 and replies, Jan. 20, the FCC said.