Video streaming, including conferencing, was a big driver of mobile broadband network data traffic increases during the pandemic, but it is a long-term driver of explosive broadband data traffic growth as well and operators will need to optimize their networks to make sure performance matches that demand.

That is according to Ericsson's latest Mobility Report, which found an almost 300-fold increase in mobile data traffic in the past 10 years.

Also: Video Will Consume 76% of Mobile Capacity in Five Years

Over the long term, the report said, mobile traffic growth will be driven by the rising number of smartphones tapping into networks--5.5 billion have been added worldwide since 2011--in combination with rising data volumes driven primarily by video streaming.

Based on current and historical network data Ericsson looked at, video traffic currently makes up 69% of all mobile data traffic, and that is expected to rise to 79% by 2027, with 5G predicted to become the the dominant player by 2027, with a global estimate of 660 million subscriptions worldwide by year's end.

Network performance will need to keep up with the demands of that increased traffic to ensure a "positive user experience," but Ericsson suggests streaming will piggyback on the greater need for speed to keep up with Web browsers.

"Video streaming accounts for the majority of mobile network traffic, and has naturally been a focus area for improvement," the report said. "Compression techniques and adaptive mechanisms have been very effective at lowering the time-to-play and adapting to changing network conditions. But while streaming is buffered, web services place higher demands on network performance
as they require instant speed. Therefore, meeting the requirements for web browsing will also satisfy the demands of many other use cases, including HD video streaming and social media." ■

About 76% of global wireless bandwidth will be used for video delivery by 2025, according to the new annual Ericsson Mobility Report. The monthly use of 164 exabytes (equivalent to a billion gigabytes) compares to video's current level of 63% (33 EB) and reflects greater use of Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) and the continuing expansion of 5G technology, the report says. Ericsson's forecast expects 2.8 billion global 5G subscriptions by the end of 2025, compared to 190 million at the end of this year.

Ericsson's report acknowledges that it has "slightly decreased our 5G subscriptions forecast for 2020 and 2021 in North America," compared to previous estimates, although it offers no reasons other than "LTE will remain the dominant mobile access technology" for the next few years and "is projected to peak in 2022." Ericsson predicts that "5G subscription uptake is expected to be significantly faster than that of LTE" after its 2009 debut.

Video traffic in mobile networks will grow by around 30% annually during the next five years, Ericsson says, driven "by the increase of embedded video in many online applications, growth of video-on-demand (VOD) streaming services ... and viewing time per subscriber." It also cites "the evolution towards higher screen resolutions on smart devices" and "the increasing penetration of video-capable smart devices."

The growing impact of wireless video becomes even more significant when compared to the forecasts of exactly 10 years ago this month, when Cisco's Video Network Index for the year 2020 predicted that video would consume 79% of internet traffic -- almost entirely using wireline facilities.

The primary drivers for video traffic growth include the growing role of video in online content such as news, advertising and social media as well as video streaming and sharing services, according to Ericsson's analysis. It also cites:

• Changing user behavior

• Increased segment penetration, not just early adopters

• Evolving devices with larger screens and higher resolutions

• Increased network performance through evolved 4G deployments

• Emerging immersive media formats and applications, such as high definition and ultra HD, 360-degree video, augmented and virtual reality

The report also cites that decades-old visionary goal: "video being consumed anywhere, any time" (although it overlooked the "any device" trope).

Ericsson expects that video streaming via wireless networks will rely on higher resolution quality than the current 480p format.

"With smartphones and networks improving constantly, streaming in HD (720p) and Full HD (1080p) is becoming more common," the report says. "More immersive media formats and applications are expected to become a significant factor contributing to mobile data traffic growth, as 5G networks will provide the performance needed for a good user experience. For example, watching a streamed e-sports event in multi-view would consume about 7GB per hour, while a high-quality AR/VR stream with a media (bit) rate of 25Mbps would consume as much as 12GB per hour."

This year's forecast slightly ups the outlook that Ericsson predicted a year ago, when it expected 5G to account for 55% of North American mobile subscriptions by 2024.

Related: Ericsson Predicts Billion-plus Sub Boom in 5G

COVID-19 Impact

Ericsson's report begins with an examination of the role of networks and digital infrastructure during the COVID-19 pandemic, described by Fredrik Jejdling, Ericsson's executive VP and head of business area networks. He cites the impact of novel coronavirus starting early this year, including lockdown restrictions and new work-from-home "digital behaviors."

The report explains that, "in markets with limited penetration of fixed residential networks, the mobile data demand increase was especially high" and that in some markets "service providers made temporary changes to data plans [such as]... unlimited data for a certain period of time." The report also cites, "up to 90% increase in Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWiFi) calls for some service providers" and an "increase of 20% to 70% in voice due to more and longer calls. Data traffic increased due to more bidirectional and streaming services."

Expanded Role for Fixed Wireless Access

FWA connections are forecast to reach nearly 160 million by end of 2025 – totaling about 25% percent of global mobile network data traffic. At the end of 2019, global FWA data traffic was estimated to have been around 15% of the global total. It is now projected to grow nearly 8 fold to reach 53 exabytes in 2025, representing 25% of the global total mobile network data traffic.

"FWA delivered over 4G or 5G is an increasingly cost-efficient alternative for providing broadband," says the report, citing factors that are driving the FWA market, including growing demand for digital services and government-sponsored programs and subsidies in some countries.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is praising the announcement by Ericsson that is will build a new factory in the U.S. to produce 5G equipment.

It will be the company's first automated "smart" factory and will build "Advanced Antenna System radios to boost network capacity and coverage, including rural coverage, as well as 5G radios for urban areas, both necessary for rapid 5G deployments in North America."

That move serves at least three Trump Administration goals. One is winning the race to 5G. Another is trying to build out those 5G networks and devices without using the Chinese telecoms/equipment suppliers that dominate the market with suspect tech, particularly for low-cost tech employed by smaller network providers. The third is the "Made in the USA" mantra of attracting offshore manufacturers onto U.S. shores. Though highly automated, the factory will still create 100 jobs, yet another administration goal.

“I applaud Ericsson for today’s announcement that the company will build a new factory in the United States that will open in early 2020 and produce 5G radios," said the chairman. "Building 5G equipment in the United States is good for our economy, good for the supply chain, and good for the rapid rollout of the next generation of wireless connectivity in the United States.”

Ericsson announced last August it would be boosting U.S. investments in 5G, including on R&D, to accelerate deployment.

Subscriptions to next-gen 5G mobile wireless are expected to be 1.9 billion worldwide and reach 45% of the population. 

That is according to forecasts in the June 2019 Ericsson Mobility Report, that is up 400 million subs from its 2018 report projection for 2024, or an almost 27% boost. Ericsson expects to play a big part in that rollout.

That 5G rise will need to be meteoric since Ericsson reports that it only expects there to be a little more than 10 million 5G subs worldwide by the start of 2020.

“5G is definitely taking off and at a rapid pace," says Fredrik Jejdling, EVP and head of networks for Ericsson. "This reflects the service providers’ and consumers’ enthusiasm for the technology....[T]he full benefits of 5G can only be reaped with the establishment of a solid ecosystem in which technology, regulatory, security, and industry partners all have a part to play," he said.

The Trump Administration has definitely talked up 5G deployment as a priority as the President looks to win the race against China for that new tech beachhead.

The report projects the 45% coverage figure could jump to 65% if spectrum sharing technology pans out and 5G can be deployed using LTE spectrum bands. 

"The strong commitment of chipset and device vendors is also key to the acceleration of 5G adoption," it said.

Making an announcement that will certainly be heard by aspiring U.S. providers of fiber backhaul, Ericsson announced that it has teamed with Deutsche Telekom to produce 40 Gbps speeds data transmission speeds and sub 100-microsecond latency with wireless backhaul.

Ericsson said the test recently took place at the Deutsche Telekom Service Center in Athens. The test used millimeter wave transmission over a distance of 1.4 kilometers.

”While fiber is an important part of our portfolio, it is not the only option for backhaul,” said Alex Jinseng Choi, senior VP of strategy and technology innovation for Deutsche Telekom, in a statement.

“Together with our partners, we have demonstrated fiber-like performance is also possible with wireless backhauling/X-Haul solutions,” Choi added.

Noted Per Narvinger, head of product area networks for Ericsson: “Microwave continues to be a key technology for mobile transport by supporting the capacity and latency requirements of 4G and future 5G networks. Our joint innovation project shows that higher capacity microwave backhaul will be an important enabler of high-quality mobile broadband services when 5G becomes a commercial reality.”

Perhaps hoping to speak a robust global market for 5G technology into existence, Ericsson released a report this week predicting that 55% of all North American mobile subscriptions by 2024 will be for 5G network services.

A copy of Ericsson’s report can be found here.

That, of course, is a bold prediction, given that 5G services were only recently introduced in the U.S. and currently command a nil market share.

Ericsson also forecasts that 5G will be available to 40% of the global population by 2024, and that the technology will have 1.5 billion subscribers worldwide at that time.

Related: Cisco Study: 4K Video to Drive 153% Jump in Internet Traffic by 2022

Like Cisco, Ericsson is predicting that consumption of video—enhanced by the increased data requirements of 4K resolution—will drive global demand for 5G services.

Ericsson said that by 2024, video will account for 74% of mobile data traffic worldwide.

Both Ericsson and Cisco arrived at their conclusions based on sales of their own technology products. 

As it seeks to build out wireless infrastructure to support its sizable spectrum holdings, Dish Network said that Ericsson will will deliver radio access and core network technology for its Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT).

Separately, tower builder SBA Communications confirmed in its third-quarter earnings call Monday that it is seeing a “fair amount of activity” from Dish as the transitioning satellite TV company looks to complete its NB-IoT network in March 2020. In fact, SBA CEO Jeffrey Stoops said the level of business is “most notable” for his company outside the Big Four U.S. wireless operators—Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile.

Related: Ergen: Narrowband Net Will Be 'Big Dish' IoT Play; 5G to Follow

Ericsson said it completed the initial radio frequency (RF) design for the NB-IoT project earlier this year. Ericsson and Dish have validated NB-IoT data transmissions based on 3GPP standards, including extended range connections up to 100 kilometers from a base station.

“Dish is in the unique position of building a greenfield network, starting with NB-IoT, with a clear path to 5G,” said Niklas Heuveldop, president and head of Ericsson North America, in a press release. “We are excited that Dish has decided to partner with Ericsson to address the IoT opportunity. We believe that NB-IoT holds great potential for both consumers and businesses across the U.S.”

“Ericsson’s wireless expertise has been central to our initial deployment,” added Tom Cullen, Dish executive vice president of corporate development. “In addition to planning and deployment, Ericsson will be a key partner in certifying compliance with DISH’s coverage specifications.”

The CBRS Alliance and the Wireless Innovation Forum announced this week that Ericsson, Nokia and Sercomm have joined Arris’ Ruckus Networks unit as the first technology vendors to achieve certification for new CBRS band devices.

Last month, Ruckus said that it had been given FCC certification for its entire portfolio of “OpenG”-branded access points designed to work in the 3.5 Ghz Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum.

Related: Ruckus Gets CBRS Certification for Access Points

Cable and wireless operators are exploring opportunities for the Citizens Broadband Radio Service Device band, a 150 MHz-wide portion of largely underused spectrum existing between 3.55 GHz and 3.7 GHz. CBRS will ultimately be used for private LTE networks such as airports and industrial campuses.

Having the telecom industry’s major vendors certified is a major step in the broader plan to have CBRS commercial deployments achieved by the end of the year. Earlier today, Federated Wireless said that it has asked the FCC for permission to move forward with commercial CBRS deployments as soon as October, the company announced.

“This major milestone in the commercialization of the CBRS band represents the first of what we believe will be many more certifications announced over the next few months as the industry moves towards Initial Commercial Deployment,” said Lee Pucker, CEO of the Wireless Innovation Forum, in a statement.

By the end of the year, the CBRS Alliance said it expects to have nearly a dozen labs set up around the world to conduct testing for what it has branded as its “OnGo” certification of CBRS technology.

“We see immense value in leveraging OnGo technology for private LTE and neutral host environments and are seeing growing interest across industry sectors, including public venues, smart cities, enterprises, healthcare and more,” said Chris Stark, head of North American business development at Nokia and chairman of the CBRS Alliance.

“Ruckus Networks believes this innovation band will open up compelling new use cases by enabling LTE technology to be deployed and operated in a cost effective and scalable manner,” added Mehmet Yavuz, CTO of Ruckus Networks. “As one of the first companies to achieve FCC & OnGo certification for 3.5 GHz indoor and outdoor access points, we have been seeing extraordinary results in more than 20 OnGo trials across different verticals that are ready for initial commercial deployment and range from connectivity to automation use cases.”

India has joined the growing list of countries shutting the door on Chinese technology vendors Huawei and ZTE, excluding the companies from upcoming 5G trials over security concerns, according to a local report.

"We have written to Cisco, Samsung, Ericsson, and Nokia, and telecom service providers to partner with us to start 5G technology-based trials, and have got positive response from them," telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan reportedly told The Economic Times.

"We have excluded Huawei from these trials,” he added.

Related: ZTE, Huawei Are Excluded from Government Contracts

Responded Huawei in a statement: “We are in regular touch with [India’s Department of Telecommunications] and concerned government officials. The Indian government has always supported Huawei and has been appreciative of our path-breaking technologies and solutions.”

India is only the latest country to shut out the two Chinese tech companies, which are accused of gathering information for the Chinese government.

In the U.S., the Trump Administration is working with Congress to pass legislation that would ban the Chinese electronics makers.

And last month, the Australian government issued a restriction on Huawei and ZTE participating in the Down Under 5G rollout.

"The Australian government's decision to block Huawei from Australia's 5G market is politically motivated, not the result of a fact-based, transparent, or equitable decision-making process,” Huawei said. “It is not aligned with the long-term interests of the Australian people, and denies Australian businesses and consumers the right to choose from the best communications technology available.”

"Interpreting Chinese law should be left to qualified and impartial legal experts,” the Chinese company added. “Huawei has presented the Australian government with an independent, third-party expert analysis of the Chinese laws in question: Chinese law does not grant government the authority to compel telecommunications firms to install backdoors or listening devices, or engage in any behavior that might compromise the telecommunications equipment of other nations.” 

Canadian tier 2 operator Cogeco Connexion announced the rollout of Ericsson’s recently rebranded MediaFirst IPTV platform.

The Montreal-based cable operator will deploy the MediaFirst TV platform with Android Google mobile services, encoding on-demand, video storage and processing Platform (VSPP), content management system (CMS) and professional services,

“Once integrated, Cogeco Connexion's new MediaFirst Video Experience will be entirely IPTV-based, voice activated, and will rely entirely on a media-optimized cloud-based TV platform," said Michel Blais, VP, engineering and operations, Cogeco Connexion, in a statement. ”We expect to make the service available to customers throughout our footprint by mid-year 2019 and it will then become the standard video experience offered to new customers."

Related: Ericsson Rebrands Media Solutions Unit as MediaKind

It was only in July when Ericsson announced that its Media Solutions unit, which includes the MediaFirst IPTV platform, has been rebranded as MediaKind. The unit includes technology Ericsson has acquired from such companies as Aspex, Azuki Systems, Envivio, Fabrix, HyCGroup and Tandberg Television. The division currently serves more than 900 cable, satellite and telecom service providers and broadcasters around the world with video delivery technology.

In January, One Equity Partners agreed to buy 51% of the Media Solutions business. MediaKind also named its senior executive team, led by CEO Angel Ruiz.

In its press release, Cogeco said, “Customers currently enjoying our existing video services, including the advanced TiVo solution, will continue to be offered their current services in the future as MediaFirst will coexist with these video platforms.”

In January 2017, Congeco announced the deployment of a TiVo-powered 4K DVR, along with the introduction of TSN 4K, a channel that provides Ultra HD coverage of live sporting events and games featuring the Toronto Maple Leafs, Ottawa Senators, Toronto Raptors, and Toronto FC.

Related: Bell Canada Rings Up Ericsson for Upgraded TV Platform

As for MediaFirst, other Canadian operators have deployed the IPTV platform, as well. In January, for example, Bell announced an expanded deal with Ericsson to make the platform part of the technology offering that serves more than 1.5 million Fibe TV and Alt TV subs in Canada.

Telus, another Canadian service provider that has previously used Ericsson’s MediaRoom, is announced in December of last year that it’s also upgrading to MediaFirst to augment Optik TV, its full-freight, managed IPTV service. Telus is also using Ericson’s MediaFirst platform to power Pik TV, an IP-delivered skinny bundle service that was introduced last year.

"Trends in TV viewing clearly show that operators must always innovate in order to offer a rich and customized customer experience,” said Ken Smithard, president of Cogeco Connexion. “After careful consideration, we are confident that the MediaFirst IPTV platform is the best vehicle to fulfill our promise to Canadian viewers by offering a cutting-edge technology with personalization features and greater ease of use for the kind of viewing experience our customers want and deserve."

Ericsson’s Media Solutions unit, which includes the Mediaroom IPTV platform, has been rebranded as MediaKind, the company said. 

The unit includes technology Ericsson has acquired from such companies as Aspex, Azuki Systems, Envivio, Fabrix, HyCGroup and Tandberg Television, and currently serves more than 900 cable, satellite and telecom service providers and broadcasters around the world with video delivery technology.

RELATED: Cisco Attacks Ericsson's Mediaroom Market

In January, One Equity Partners agreed to buy 51% of the Media Solutions business. The new brand will carry through after that deal closes later this year, the company said.

MediaKind also named its senior executive team, led by CEO Angel Ruiz. 

Ericsson previously separated Media Solutions from its Broadcast and Media Services business unit, dubbed Red Bee Media.

Fox Sports is teaming up with Ericsson, Intel and AT&T on a plan to stream live 4K video over via 5G-based technology for a “potential” national broadcast from this year’s 118 U.S. Open Championship from Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton, N.Y.

Fox Sports, which will broadcast regular coverage of the event via Fox and FS1 from June 14-17, is also planning this effort in conjunction with the Fox Innovation Lab. They said the trial will deliver the first available broadcast footage using 5G technology from a premier U.S. golf event.

Under the plan, those partners will use 5G-based technology to transmit images in 4K and in High Dynamic Range from two Fox Sports cameras positioned on the par-3 seventh hole via the Fox Sports production truck.

For the test, Ericsson has been tapped to provide the 5G radios, baseband, simulated network core, and the 4K video encoder and decoder. Intel, meanwhile will provide its 5G Mobile Trial Platform, billed as a compact device that can transmit at 1.6 Gbps. It will be positioned at the seventh hold to handle the 5G-to-IP translation.

AT&T, meanwhile, will use millimeter wave spectrum to deliver the 5G-based connection.

Those feeds will be available to Fox Sports and its viewers through DirecTV, but in the future, 5G could possibly be used to deliver real-time VR views from the course to viewers as well, Fox Sports noted.

“It’s part of our FOX Sports DNA to aggressively explore evolving technologies as part of our live sports production,” Michael Davies, Fox Sports SVP of field & technical operations, said in a statement. “This is exactly the kind of effort we consistently put into the leading edge of today’s technology, in preparation for what will become the industry standards of the future.”

"As we prepare for the launch of 5G networks, it is essential for us to test real-world business cases, such as for wireless streaming of 4K video at sporting events,” added Niklas Heuveldop, head of market area North America at Ericsson. 

Ericsson used this week’s NAB Show to bow a variant of its cloud-based MediaFirst platform that supports Ultra HD and High Dynamic Range.  

The offering features and integrates Ericsson’s AVP System Encoder (supporting MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC and HEV), the MediaFirst Content Processing system, and the MediaFirst Video Processing platform for VOD and live, linear TV.  

Ericsson didn’t announce any initial takers for the UHD-capable version of MediaFirst, but Bell Canada recently inked a deal with Ericsson for an upgraded TV platform that will support multiscreen video services.  

RELATED: Bell Canada Rings Up Ericsson for Upgraded TV Platform 

Bell Canada has been using Mediaroom, the IPTV platform Ericsson acquired from Microsoft in the fall of 2013. MediaFirst is a next-gen, cloud-powered IP video platform from Ericsson that covers TVs as well as web browsers, smartphones and tablets and targets MVPDs as well as OTT service providers. Other announced MediaFirst customers include J:COM, Japan's largest cable operator, and Canada's SaskTel.  

In late January, Ericsson announced that One Equity Partners would acquire a majority stake in Ericsson's Media division, which includes Mediaroom and MediaFirst.  

Arris will get a piece of the action as Bell Canada upgrades its Fibe TV service to a personalized, multiscreen offering that will be powered by Ericsson’s MediaFirst platform.

Arris said it will be aiding that deployment with new boxes that support both 4K and High Dynamic Range, as well as 802.11ac WiFi using a 4x4 architecture. Arris’s  global services team will also provide integration services and customization for the user experience as Bell Canada moves to a MediaFirst-based offering.

Heading into the upgrade cycle, Bell Canada has been using Mediaroom, the IPTV platform Ericsson acquired from Microsoft in the fall of 2013. Arris has also been a key supplier of set-tops for Mediaroom.

Bell Canada’s IP-delivered Fibe TV service has about 1.5 million customers.

Arris reports Q4 2017 results on Wednesday afternoon.

Ericsson has concluded a review of strategic opportunities for its Media division (Media Solutions and Red Bee Media), announcing that One Equity Partners will acquire a majority stake in that business.

Ericsson’s Media business includes Mediaroom, the IPTV platform acquired from Microsoft in September 2013, as well as MediaFirst, a next-gen, cloud-based video platform for MVPDs and OTT service providers.

RELATED: Bell Canada Rings Up Ericsson for Upgraded TV Platform

Financial terms of the transaction with One Equity Partners was not disclosed. The deal is expected to close in Q3 2018. 

Ericsson, which retains a 49% stake in the Media Solutions unit, said it completed its review following an evaluation of different opportunities for both Media Solutions and Red Bee Media, including partnerships, divestments and continued in-house development. Ericsson initiated the review in March 2017.

RELATED: Ericsson Wraps Up Red Bee Buy

Last November, Ericsson renamed its Broadcast and Media Services business unit Red Bee Media, setting off another wave of speculation that the decision was tied to possible M&A activity involving that division.

RELATED: Ericsson Renames Broadcast and Media Services Business

Uncertainty about the future of Mediaroom and MediaFirst has caused some competitors to take advantage.

Cisco Systems, for example, has been pushing ahead with a Mediaroom replacement program that aims to convert some of those service providers to Cisco’s own cloud-based, multiscreen offering, the Infinite Video Platform. Cisco, which is in discussions with service providers about that program with plans to start trials soon, has said that Mediaroom users can convert to Cisco’s platform without swapping out their old set-top boxes.

RELATED: Cisco Attacks Ericsson’s Mediaroom Market (subscription required)

More Changes Afoot 

Ericsson announced the deal amid Q4 2017 financial results and a restructuring of its exec team.

Among the exec changes, Ericsson has created a Business Area Emerging Business unit to focus on “innovation and new business development,” with an initial focus on IoT and distributed cloud solutions.  Effective April 1, Åsa Tamsons will take on the role of SVP and head of Ericsson’s Business Area Emerging Business. Tamsons joins Ericsson from McKinsey & Company, where she has held the position as partner in McKinsey’s Stockholm office.

Ericsson is also streamlining its group function structure, from currently six functions to four. The majority of current Group Function Technology & Emerging Business, including hosted group responsibilities such as the CTO office and Ericsson Research, will form part of Business Area Emerging Business.

Starting February 1, current Group Function Marketing & Communications and Group Function Sustainability & Public Affairs will be merged into a new Group Function Marketing & Corporate Relations, headed by Helena Norrman, currently head of Group Function Marketing & Communications.

Ericsson said its Business Area Digital Services is “undergoing significant transformation to create a profitable and strong offering in this strategically important area,” and Ulf Ewaldsson has decided to step down from leading the unit, and assume the role as advisor to the CEO.

On the financial end, Ericsson said Q4 sales dipped 12%, and that it saw a net reduction of 10,000 employees and external workforce during the quarter.

Ericsson isn’t the only company providing an upgrade path for Mediaroom, the IPTV platform it acquired from Microsoft in 2013.

Cisco Systems is applying some competitive pressure on Ericsson as it moves ahead with a replacement program that takes direct aim at Mediaroom’s market. In addition to converting those service providers to Cisco’s own cloud-based, multiscreen offering, the Infinite Video Platform (IVP), Cisco said it can help operators make the move without swapping out their old set-tops.

Cisco embarked on the Mediaroom replacement program after a number of its customers “expressed concerns around where Ericsson was with their media division” and asked if Cisco would be interested in providing an alternative offering, Ramin Farassat, director of product line management and product marketing for Cisco’s Service Provider Platforms & Applications unit, said.

Farassat said those conversations got underway about a year ago. Coincidentally, they were happening around the time a Bloomberg report suggested Ericsson had hired banks to review its media business, including the search for a possible buyer for its broadcast and media services unit.

Ericsson hasn’t confirmed those plans, but last year it renamed its Broadcast and Media Services business unit Red Bee Media, sparking fresh speculation the decision was tied to possible M&A activity involving that division.

UPDATE (1-31-2018): Ericsson Sells Majority Stake in Media Solutions Unit

Enabling the Move to IVP
The premise behind Cisco’s Mediaroom replacement program is to enable those service providers to move to IVP, which supports linear TV, video-on-demand, cloud DVR services (including 4K) and new interfaces and voice navigation for set-tops and mobile devices, in a way “that doesn’t actually reinvent the wheel,” Farassat said. “We didn’t want to introduce another completely new architecture to customers.”

While Cisco’s Mediaroom replacement approach leans on the IVP cloud backend for video management and distribution, it doesn’t require the operator to swap out most of the boxes they are currently using for Mediaroom. Those include boxes originally made by suppliers such as Arris, Technicolor and Cisco. (Cisco sold its consumer premises equipment business to Technicolor in late 2015.)

Cisco’s program calls for those operators to convert those legacy boxes to support IVP, a move that does require a changing out of the box’s operating system, middleware and user interface.

Farassat said Cisco did a survey of boxes now used by Mediaroom to see if they have the processing and memory required to run IVP. It found that most of them — save for a few first-generation models still in the field — are eligible for the conversion/upgrade.

Cisco is also looking to complement those older Mediaroom boxes (to be outfitted with a new Linux-based platform during the conversion) with new, more advanced boxes that run Android TV.

However, both environments — the legacy boxes and the new ones running Android TV — would use the same style of user interface. Those UIs “look identical and have the same performance,” Farassat said.

Making Newer Connections
In addition to operator-supplied boxes and smartphones and tablets, IVP’s converged core also would pave the way for operator partners to run services on TV-connected retail streaming devices.

For the set-top box conversion process, Cisco is setting up a way for operators to target individual boxes or groups of deployed boxes without requiring expensive truck rolls. For example, the consumer would get a message prompting them to reboot the box to receive the new software, then reboot it again for the new interface to be installed.

“Everything is done remotely,” Farassat said.

Service providers that opt for the program will be running Mediaroom and IVP in parallel until the conversion ends. After that, they can shut down the Mediaroom servers, encoders and other elements of the platform.

Cisco has not announced any takers for its program, though Farassat expects that trials will be underway as early as the end of Q1 2018 or by the start of Q2.

Don’t expect Ericsson to merely stand by as Cisco attempts to steamroll its Mediaroom market. Ericsson has had some success in getting Mediaroom partners to upgrade to MediaFirst, its new cloud-based, multiscreen platform.

Earlier this month, Bell Canada and Ericsson expanded a multiyear deal that will pave the way for BCE to upgrade to MediaFirst. Telus, another Mediaroom customer, is also upgrading to MediaFirst to augment Optik TV, its full freight-managed IPTV service. Telus is also using MediaFirst to power Pik TV, an IP-delivered skinny bundle service introduced last April that runs on smartphones, tablets and an Android TV-powered box sold by Telus.

J-Com, Japan’s largest cable operator, and Canada’s SaskTel are other announced MediaFirst customers. AT&T, a longtime Mediaroom user for its U-verse platform, said in 2015 it had tapped Ericsson to “enhance” its telco TV platform and evolve its satellite and wireline TV offerings in the wake of the AT&T-DirecTV merger. That announcement did not mention MediaFirst, but last year FCC documents revealed AT&T was working on an Android TV-powered device.

Though Cisco is using IVP to target the Mediaroom base, the vendor has already notched several deployments of it with service providers outside the Mediaroom universe that include Vodafone (for its GigaTV service in Germany), Canada’s Eastlink and Israel’s YES, among others.

Ericsson Media Solutions and Bell Canada have inked an expanded multi-year deal that paves the way for the Canadian telco to build and launch a new multiscreen TV service powered by the vendor’s cloud-based MediaFirst platform.

The deal will bring personalized and converged multiscreen services to more than 1.5 million Fibe TV and Alt TV subs in Canada, they said.

Bell Canada has been using Mediaroom, the IPTV platform Ericsson acquired from Microsoft in the fall of 2013. MediaFirst is a next-gen, cloud-powered IP video platform that covers TVs as well as web browsers, smartphones and tablets.

“When integrated with Mediaroom, MediaFirst will deliver an agile, next generation TV platform with the necessary flexibility to easily incorporate third party apps,” they said.

Telus, another Canadian service provider that has previously used Mediaroom, is also upgrading to MediaFirst to augment Optik TV, its full-freight, managed IPTV service. Telus is also using Ericson’s MediaFirst platform to power Pik TV, an IP-delivered skinny bundle service that was introduced last April that runs smartphones, tablets and an Android TV-powered box sold by Telus for C$100.

RELATED: Telus Soft-Launches Skinny Bundle IPTV Service

Other announced MediaFirst customers include J:COM, Japan's largest cable operator, and Canada's SaskTel. 

A set of Canadian cable service providers – Shaw Communications, Rogers Communications and Videotron – are moving ahead with next-gen, multiscreen pay TV services that are powered by Comcast’s X1 platform. In the U.S., Cox Communications is also using an X1 syndication deal to underpin its new Contour pay TV service.

RELATED: Videotron to Use Comcast’s X1 Platform to Power New IPTV Service

Ericsson said Telus is using the vendor’s new cloud-based MediaFirst platform to enhance and augment Optik TV, the Canada-based telco’s full-freight, managed IPTV service.

Among those enhancements, MediaFirst will add personalization features across devices (including TV and mobile) and enable Optic TV subs to watch TV, set recordings and watch VOD content on the Optik TV app using a unified interface. Those additions are now reflected in the Optik TV apps for iOS and Android.

The updated platform also taps into advanced analytics tools that help the service provider target relevant content and promotions to viewers, they said.

In the first phase, Telus has launched the enhanced version of the Optik TV app to almost 1 million customers in British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec.

Optik TV was originally developed on Mediaroom, the IPTV platform that Ericsson acquired from Microsoft in the fall of 2013.

Telus is also using Ericson’s MediaFirst platform to power “Pik TV,” an IP-delivered skinny bundle service that was introduced in April that runs smartphones, tablets and an Android TV-powered box sold by Telus for C$100.

RELATED: Telus Soft-Launches Skinny Bundle IPTV Service

Other announced MediaFirst customers include J:COM, Japan's largest cable operator, and Canada's SaskTel. 

RELATED: J:COM Taps Ericsson for New Multiscreen Service 

Verizon Communications said it has hired Rima Qureshi, the former president and CEO of Ericsson North America, as executive vice president and chief strategy officer.

Qureshi, who starts that job effective Nov. 6, will succeed Roy Chestnutt, who had previously announced plans to pursue interests outside Verizon and is expected to leave the company by year-end. Chestnutt had joined Verizon in 2011 from Motorola.

Qureshi will report to Verizon chair and CEO Lowell McAdam, and will take over responsibility for development and implementation of Verizon's overall corporate strategy, including business development and strategic investments, the company said.

Prior to becoming president and CEO of Ericsson North America in 2016, Qureshi was Ericsson's chief strategy officer and head of M&A.

Qureshi, who joined Ericsson in 1993, is currently on the board of MasterCard Inc. and Great West Lifco. She earned her undergraduate and master's degrees from McGill University in Montreal.

"We thank Roy for his leadership and strategic focus, which have helped transform Verizon into a major player in next-generation markets," McAdam said, in a statement. “The addition of Rima is another game-changer for Verizon. She's a visionary leader, with a global perspective and a thorough understanding of our industry and where it's headed."

J:COM, Japan’s largest cable operator, has tapped Ericsson for a next-gen, multiscreen TV service that will utilize Ericsson’s cloud-powered MediaFirst platform.

J:COM’s new offering, to become available to about 3.7 million subscribers, will also feature hybrid set-tops that use the Reference Design Kit (RDK), a preintegrated software stack that’s managed by a joint venture of Comcast, Liberty Global and Charter Communications (coming way of Charter’s acquisition of Time Warner Cable).

RELATED: Ericsson Connects With The RDK

In addition to providing personalization features and a cloud-based interface, the new platform will also support Ultra HD content, they said.

Ericsson, which announced the deal ahead of this week’s IBC show in Amsterdam, said the basic design phase for J:COM’s new offering will get underway in Q4 2017.

The deal marks a significant win for Ericsson’s MediaFirst platform, which is also being used by Canada’s Telus for a new IPTV service called Pik TV that runs on smartphones, tablets and an Android TV-powered set-top.

RELATED: Telus Soft-Launches Skinny Bundle IPTV Service

“Consumers have more choice than ever before and it is therefore imperative that we stand out from the crowd to remain competitive in an ever-cluttered TV landscape, Hirohiko Imura president of J:COM, said in a statement. “We believe that a seamless and personalized TV Everywhere service will enable J:COM to create that distinction. By deploying Ericsson MediaFirst TV Platform, we will have access to a range of uniquely intelligent, high performance solutions that will help us to transform our television offering and strengthen our position at the forefront of TV innovation.”

TiVo said Roz Ho has joined the company as senior vice president and general manager, consumer and metadata.

In that role, she will lead those teams and oversee the company’s strategic product roadmaps. Ho will be based out of  TiVo’s San Jose office and report to Pete Thompson, TiVo’s executive vice president and chief operating officer.

She joins TiVo after serving as head of product management for Ericsson TV and video products, including Mediaroom and MediaFirst.  Prior to that, Ho was with Microsoft, which sold its Mediaroom IPTV platform to Ericsson in 2013.

RELATED: SaskTel Goes With Ericsson’s MediaFirst Platform for New IPTV Offering

TiVo and Rovi completed their merger last fall.

“As a seasoned technology veteran, Roz brings extensive experience managing engineering teams and the incubation of key product launches, making her an especially good fit for this executive position at TiVo,” Thompson said in a statement. “Her impressive corporate background, leading large global teams and driving the delivery of prized software and services will be key to this role and we’re pleased to have her on-board to further our consumer and metadata businesses.”

Nuvu, Ericsson’s mobile-focused SVOD service for emerging markets, said it has acquired more than 2,500 hours of movies and TV shows from partners such as Viacom, MGM, CBS, Al Jazeera, DHX Media and Mattel.

Examples of titles that are part of the agreements include Hawaii Five-O, Next Top Model, CSI: Miami, Being Mary Jane, SpongeBob SquarePants, Bob the Builder, and Vikings.

Introduced in November 2015, Nuvu is an SVOD service – covering both the technology platform and the content licensing components -- for mobile operators in emerging markets.

Among its features, the SVOD service also allows subs to download content to smartphones or tablets during off-peak hours without eating into their data plans. Per the service web site, streaming capabilities are also coming to the platform.

Ericsson and Airtel Nigeria jointly launched Nuvu in Q1 2016 to more than 30 million subs. There, it’s selling for 1,000 Nigerian Naira (US$3.17) per month, or 400 Nigerian Naira (US$1.27) per week.

Nuvu is currently offered on Android mobile devices, with plans underway to extend access to iOS smartphones and tablets.

“We created Nuvu to help mobile operators in emerging markets to address a significant untapped market for video content. Africa has some of the highest mobile adoption rates globally and there is a high demand for quality content from consumers,” Thorsten Sauer, head of broadcast and media services at Ericsson, said in a statement. “We are proud to announce this slate of deals, which we believe will meet and exceed the expectations of Nuvu’s discerning audiences, and we look forward to announcing more content deals over the coming months.”

Nuvu’s existing content partners include BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5, BT Sport, ITV, FOX, DreamWorks, Liberty Global, NPO, Canal+, NOS, Bonnier Group, Sky, HBO, TV5 Monde and France 24.

Shares in Ericsson were down more than 17% in pre-market trading Wednesday after the video and telecom company announced preliminary Q3 results that are “significantly lower” than expectations.

Ericsson said Q3 sales dropped by 14% and gross margins plummeted to 28%, noting that it’s seeing weaker demand for mobile broadband.

Ericsson said negative industry trends from the first half of the year have accelerated, with sales declines mainly driven by markets with weak macro-economic environment such as Brazil, Russia and the Middle East.  Capacity sales in Europe were also lower following completion of mobile broadband projects in 2015, the company said.

Word of the disappointing Q3 results follow recent plans to cut 3,000 jobs in Sweden amid a broader restructuring plan that is targeting savings of SEK 9 billion (about $1 billion) during 2017.

"Our result is significantly lower than we expected, with a particularly weak end of the quarter, and deviates from what we previously have communicated regarding market development,” Ericsson president and CEO  Jan Frykhammar  said, in a statement. “The negative industry trends have further accelerated affecting primarily Segment Networks. Continued progress in our cost reduction programs did not offset the lower sales and gross margin. More in-depth analysis remains to be done but current trends are expected to continue short-term. We will continue to drive the ongoing cost program and implement further reductions in cost of sales to meet the lower sales volumes."

Ericsson said it has notched a two-year deal with Liberty Global properties in Latin America to expand the MSO’s DVR services with Catch-Up TV and Restart TV capabilities.

Ericsson, which will enable that with its video storage and processing platform, said the deal involves VTR in Chile and Liberty Cablevision of Puerto Rico, operators that are part of the Liberty Global’s LiLAC Group.

"We are looking forward to supporting LiLAC Group in delivering ever-improving content, quality and features that delight TV consumers and meet their unique and ever-changing needs. With our solution we are addressing all customer segments with unique configurations, while providing LiLAC Group with the ability to future-proof and grow as they see necessary,” Adrian Gioia, Head of TV & Media, Ericsson Latin America and Caribbean, said in a statement.

Ericsson has been building out its cloud DVR and cloud video capabilities through acquisitions such as Fabrix Systems in 2014, and Envivio in 2015. Ericsson, which closed its acquisition of Microsoft's Mediaroom business in the fall of 2013, has also been pushing ahead with MediaFirst, a cloud-powered, multiscreen platform for MVPDs and OTT providers. 

Ericsson said it has integrated MediaFirst, its cloud-based multiscreen platform for MVPDs and OTT providers, with the Reference Design Kit (RDK), the preintegrated software stack for video and broadband devices being managed by Comcast, Liberty Global and Charter Communications (via its acquisition of Time Warner Cable).

Ericsson said the integration will be key as cable operator and satellite providers evolve to hybrid IPTV delivery platforms. Canada-based Telus is one of the early adopters of MediaFirst, but has not announced any plans to use RDK-based devices. Ericsson said other tier-1 providers in the U.S., Europe, and Asia are also on board, but isn't at liberty to identify them by name yet. 

MediaFirst is Ericsson’s new, HTML5-focused platform that’s tailored for the cloud and support for an array of connected devices/clients, including set-tops, tablets, smartphones, streaming players and PCs.

MediaFirst is separate from Mediaroom, the IPTV platform acquired by Ericsson in 2013 that’s deployed by providers such as AT&T U-verse, CenturyLink, Windstream, and Frontier Communications, among others.

Ericsson is one of more than 275 companies, including CE manufactures, chipmakers, software developers and service providers, to license the RDK.

“In this new IP world, consumers will put even greater demands on their providers to deliver amazing viewing experiences,” Shiva Patibanda, the new head of business line TV platforms at Ericsson, RDK pioneer, and the former CTO and GM of in-home products at SeaChange International. “By integrating MediaFirst TV onto the RDK, we can offer cable operators or any TV operator adopting RDK, a powerful cloud-based TV Platform to expand capabilities above and beyond consumers’ expectations.”

“Pay TV operators around the globe can now benefit from the common underlying software of the RDK, while retaining the ability to differentiate their customer facing TV experience using the innovative MediaFirst TV platform,” added Steve Heeb, president and general manager of RDK Management LLC. “Ericsson is a proven IPTV market leader whom we are proud to collaborate with and look forward to scaling this integration across Ericsson’s global customer base.” 

Ericsson said it will use the IBC show in Amsterdam next month to outline its vision for “TV as a Service.”

Ericsson said that will include elements such as content discovery, its “MediaFirst” video processing platform  approach that supports Ultra HD/4K and high dynamic range video, targeted advertising solutions, and its cloud-powered MediaFirst platform for OTT and more traditional pay TV operators.

“At IBC 2016, Ericsson will introduce its vision for TV as a service and showcase its latest never-before-seen innovations, covering advertisement and analytics, virtual and augmented reality, an immersive sports showcase and the latest developments in video delivery,” Elisabetta Romano, Ericsson’s head of TV and media, said in a statement.

IBC is set for September 8-12. 

Setting its sights on a next-gen FTTP platform that can deliver 10 Gbps to the home, Verizon said it has tapped two vendors as it kicks off testing of NG-PON2 technology at its Innovation Lab in Waltham, Mass.

Later this month, Verizon will start to test equipment from Ericsson (in partnership with Calix) and Adtran. The tests will focus on NG-PON2 features such as tuning performance, the ability to carry residential and business services on the same platform, and interoperability and conformance tests against Verizon ONT specs.

The coming lab trials follow Verizon’s tests of NG-PON2 conducted in 2015 and the issuance of an RFP, holding then that the next-gen platform could “easily provide” symmetrical speeds of 10  Gbps to homes and business locations. 

Verizon noted that NG-PON2 supports up to 40-Gig of total capacity and up to 10 Gbps per customer, both up and down, on a single fiber.  Verizon said it plans to deploy NG-PON2 initially for business services in 2017, and then follow with residential rollouts “as the technology matures and the market demands.” The ITU-T approved NG-PON2 specs last year.

Verizon’s current high-end residential tier for Fios delivers 500 Mbps up and downstream; the telco has not announced when it might bump speeds up to 1-Gig to match up with the speeds being offered by AT&T (via GigaPower), Google Fiber, and various MSOs that are using DOCSIS 3.0 to offer downstream burst speeds approaching 1-Gig.

Verizon is also moving ahead with NG-PON2 as it braces for DOCSIS 3.1, a next-gen HFC platform that is capable of delivering multi-gigabit speeds. While the initial D3.1 specs envisioned capcities of 10-Gig down and at least 1-Gig up, a “full-duplex” flavor of D3.1 that can support high-capacity symmetrical speeds is under development at CableLabs.

Among MSOs, Comcast has kicked off advanced consumer trials of DOCSIS 3.1 in two markets – Atlanta and Nashville – and plans to expand the platform to three more markets (Chicago, Miami and Detroit) later this year.

Following a preview at INTX in Boston, Comcast said it has begun to deploy a portable broadband platform, called Xfinity WiFi on Wheels, that was developed in partnership with Ericsson.

The platform, tailored to bring WiFi connectivity to venues such as concerts and festivals as well as emergency response situations, is a customized Ford T-350 van equipped with six Ericsson WiFi access points perched on a 40-foot tall mast.

“The Wi-Fi has a 500-foot range and can support up to 3,000 users, potentially reaching speeds five times faster than cellular,” Eric Schaefer, Comcast’s SVP of wireless product management, noted in this blog post.

He said Comcast conducted a practice run at the Wizard World Comic Con in Philadelphia, noting that the platform provided users with access to WiFi speeds of more than 50 Mbps.

Comcast has since taken its act on the road, stopping by the New Haven Arts and Ideas  Festival in June, but have it back in Philadelphia in time for next week’s Democratic National Convention.

Ericsson noted earlier this year that the van specs include multiple network access connections, non-line-of-sight (NLOS) microwave backhaul, onboard backup power and modular deployment elements that enable Comcast to deploy and get them operational in a matter of minutes.

Here’s a video showing some of the early deployment activity:

Social networking will continue to eat up a sizable chunk of mobile data traffic, but video will remain the category's dominant application for the foreseeable future, according to Ericsson’s latest Mobility Report.

Ericsson predicts that mobile video traffic will grow by about 55% annually through 2021, when it should account for more than two-thirds of all mobile data traffic. By 2020 , video will account for around 70% of mobile data traffic, the report found.

Social networking will grow by 41% in the next six years, but its relative share of traffic will drop from 15% in 2015, to about 10% in 2021, thanks to video’s continued growth.

“The trend is accentuated by the growing use of embedded video in social media and web pages, which is considered video traffic in this context,” Ericsson noted in the report.

Ericsson said YouTube will dominate video traffic on most mobile networks, accounting for 50% to 70% of total video traffic. In markets where Netflix has launched services (it’s been expanding globally), its share of video traffic is poised to reach 10% to 20% of total mobile video traffic.

Among other key findings, Ericsson said the Internet of Things will overtake mobile phones as the largest category of connected devices by 2018. Looking further ahead, Ericsson said 17 billion of the 28 billion total devices that will be connected by 2021 will be IoT devices.

That growth, Ericsson said, will be principally be driven by regulatory requirements, such as smart utility meters, coupled with growing demand for connected cars.

“From 2020, commercial deployment of 5G networks will provide additional capabilities that are critical for IoT, such as network slicing and the capacity to connect exponentially more devices than is possible today,” Rima Qureshi, SVP and chief strategy officer at Ericsson, said in a statement.

Per the report, global mobile subscriptions are growing at about 3% per year, and reached 7.4 billion in Q1 2016.  India (21 million) saw the most growth in terms of net additions, followed by Myanmar (+5 million), Indonesia (+5 million), the U.S. (+3 million) and Pakistan (+3 million).

Mobile broadband subscriptions, meanwhile are growing by around 20% per year, rising by roughly 40 million in Q1 2016 alone. Total LTE subscriptions currently stand at around 1.2 billion, Ericsson said.

In an effort to help cable operators and other partners bring wireless connectivity to a greater range of venues, Ericsson (booth 341) is using this week’s show to roll out WiFi On Wheels, an offering that features Ford Transit 350 cargo vans outfitted with six access points.

Ericsson estimates that each van supplies enough capacity to serve about 2,500 people attending an event.

The vendor said it worked with Comcast to bring the offering to life, as the MSO plans to use the vans to support a range of community activities, sporting events and for emergency response initiatives. Notably, the WiFi On Wheels platform enables service without the constraint of site construction and a coverage radius of up to 500 feet.

According to Ericsson the van specs include including multiple network access connections, non-line-of-sight (NLOS) microwave backhaul, onboard backup power and modular deployment elements that enable Comcast to deploy and get them operational in a matter of minutes.

“Driving innovation means not only bringing the best technology, but also enabling it to be used in new ways. This new rapid deployment solution will mean fast dispatch and hassle-free setup for Comcast, so they can bring coverage to new hard to reach locations,” Angel Ruiz, president and CEO of Ericsson North America, said in a statement.

“Comcast manages the world’s largest WiFi network and we continue to look for innovative ways to provide consumers with access to XFINITY WiFi in even more places,” added Eric Schaefer, senior vice president and general manager, communications, data and mobility at Comcast.

With outdoor, business and in-home wireless gateways factored in, Comcast’s WiFi network spans about 14 million hotspots.

Shares in Ericsson were down almost 14% in morning trading Thursday after the company announced disappointing Q1 results and a restructuring aimed at driving further growth and profitability into the tech giant.

Sales dropped 2.4%, to 52.2 billion kroner (US$6.4 billion), off from the 54.4 billion kroner expected by analysts, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Gross operating margins slid to 33.3% from 35.4% in the year-ago period.

In its new structure, which takes effect July 1 and designed to bring more agility and speed to the company, Ericsson will operate under five business units, and one dedicated customer group for Industry & Society.

Its core business will be made up of Business Unit Products and Business Unit Services, and will seek growth opportunities via its new IT & Cloud business units (Business Unit IT & Cloud Products and Business Unit IT & Cloud Services) along with a new Business Unit Media.

"The changes we are making will make it easier for our customers to do business with us, whether they are an operator, a media company or from another industry,” Ericsson president and CEO Hans Vestberg said, in a statement. “The changes will also take into account the different characteristics, needs, and pace of each of the businesses we are in. I am convinced this will make us even more competitive and enable us to grow both our company and our earnings.”

Shares in Ericsson were down $1.36 (13.95%) to $8.39 each in morning trading Thursday.

Amid heated competition from rivals such as Huawei Technologies and Nokia (which closed its acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent in January), Ericsson and Cisco Systems forged a business and tech partnership last November focused on building next-gen networks.

Here’s the first of a series of news briefs emerging from this week’s NAB show in Las Vegas.

-A coalition of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), America's Public Television Stations (APTS) and the Advanced Warning and Response Network (AWARN) have filed a joint petition with the FCC requesting local TV stations and TV receiver manufactures are allowed to adopt ATSC 3.0, a new, IP-based over-the-air broadcast transmission standard, on a voluntary, market-driven basis. The petition requests the FCC approve the core transmission technology for the new standard as an option for local broadcasters and receiver manufacturers, they said, noting that elements of the next-gen TV standard will be displayed at the show.

As envisioned, ATSC 3.0 will support Ultra HD, advanced emergency alert information, increased programming streams and channels, mobile broadcast TV, immersive audio, interactivity features and datacasting, they explained.

-Ericsson has introduced MediaFirst Video Processing, a platform that comes almost six months after Ericsson acquired Envivio. Ericsson said the new platform combines video processing and video compression, and complements its cloud-focused MediaFirst TV platform for OTT and MVPD partners. Ericsson has also introduced its global content discovery portfolio for TV and VOD, a platform that comes together following its acquisition of TV metadata and entertainment image content provider, FYI Television.

-SeaChange International said it’s showing the streaming of live channels and VOD/time-shifted services running on its Adrenalin and Rave OTT platform on Android TV-powered devices, such as the Google Nexus Player and Nvidia Shield.

-NBC Olympics, a unit of NBC Sports Group, said it has picked Cisco Systems to provide IP video contribution and distribution solutions, along with networking and security solutions for its production of the Summer Olympic Games in Brazil, set for August 5 to 21, 2016. Cisco noted it will help with on-site production by streamlining the management and publishing of video content to consumer devices using solutions from the Cisco Media Blueprint, the company’s new applications and converged IP infrastructure approach for producing, storing, distributing and securing broadcast media content.

-OTT and TV Everywhere specialist Anvato has added functions to its Media Content Platform that enable content owners, service providers and media companies to deploy over-the-top services more rapidly. Enhancements include enhanced business insights (real-time metrics), “instant live-to-VOD,” and support for dynamic ad insertion across devices. Anvato also said MCP now supports Roku TV and Amazon Fire platforms with “frame-accurate server-side DAI stitched stream capabilities.”

-Net Insight has entered a partnership with Verimatrix for a secure, live OTT platform, called Sye, that utilizes Verimatrix’s Video Content Authority System. Net Insight said the deal will give the companies the ability to jointly deliver a digital rights management (DRM) solution for live, premium OTT services. Separately, Net Insight has teamed with Accedo to deliver live OTT via mobile apps. That arrangement will match Net Insight’s Sye platform with Accedo’s software development kit for video apps.

-Swisscom has tapped Nokia’s 5910 Video  Services Appliance for its “2.0” TV offering, including coming support for 4K/UHD video. The 5910 VSA includes Fast Channel Change (less than one second) and Retransmission, which prevents video and audio distortion, Nokia said. Swisscom's more than 1.3 million IPTV subscribers use Fast Channel Change today, and will do the same for Swisscom’s coming launch of live UHD streams

-IBM said Comic-Con HQ, Canadian Broadcasting Corp, AOL and Broadway Video are tapping the company’s new Cloud Video unit to launch new channels for and to and improve video management of their respective services. Among that group, Comic-Con HQ, a partnership between Comic-Con International and Lionsgate,  has selected IBM Cloud Video’s Clearleap platform to power its new subscription video-on-demand service, which will debut May 7.  IBM acquired Clearleap late last year.

-IC Real Tech has introduced the ALLie Camera, a 360-degree camera that allows for 24/7 viewing, recording and live streaming, as well as still-capturing and the ability to share content on social networks. IC Real Tech also said it has hired photography and video industry veteran Mark Sherengo as VP of sales and marketing.

Ericsson confirmed that it has hired video tech industry vet Shiva Patibanda as vice president and chief technology officer of TV and Media.

Patibanda was formerly CTO and GM of in-home products at SeaChange International, in charge of its Nucleus video gateway software (and components that were included in the initial version of the Reference Design Kit), and left the company last year. Patibanda joined SeaChange in 2010 when it acquired middleware company VividLogic. According to his LinkedIn profile, Patibanda has been serving as president of a company called Danishta Inc., with his role described as a technical advisor and angel investor.

Patibanda joins Ericsson as it looks to stay aggressive in the TV and video sector, and focus on both traditional MVPDs as well as a broadening array of over-the-top providers.

In addition to bringing multiscreen enhancements to Mediaroom, the IPTV platform it acquired from Microsoft in 2013,  Ericsson is putting even more energy into MediaFirst, a new, HTML5-focused platform that’s tailored for the cloud and support for an array of connected devices/clients, including set-tops, tablets, smartphones, streaming players and PCs.

Ericsson is also playing a significant role at AT&T as the company, which already uses Mediaroom for U-verse TV, looks to evolve and integrate its satellite and wireline TV platforms. Earlier this week, AT&T announced plans to launch three DirecTV-branded OTT services in Q4 2016, and stressed that its broader video strategy will eventually revolve around a unified middleware and software platform for all of its video service distribution points (OTT, satellite, wireless, and managed IPTV).

Here’s another batch of news briefs from this week’s Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona. Go here to check out our first roun of briefs. 

-Verizon said it has opened the door to thousands of developers to ThingSpace, its Internet of Things platform. Verizon said more than 4,000 developers are using ThingSpace since its launch in October 2015. Noting its global ambitions, Verizon said its IoT footprint now spans more than 120 countries, and expects to raise that total to nearly 200 by year-end. Verizon also said cloud APIs for ThingSpace will soon be available in beta form

-On the heels of a business and tech partnership forged last year, Ericsson and Cisco said they’ve been selected to transform Vodafone’s Portugal IP mobile backhaul platform. The system will feature Cisco Aggregation Services Router 9000 and Ericsson systems integration and global services.

-Expway, a wireless multicast company, introduced FastLane, a content delivery network solution optimized for mobile networks.FastLane, it said, optimizes the link from the network cell to devices using LTE Broadcast, Multicast Dynamic Switching and pre-emptive caching. At the show, Expway is running demos with Akamai and Huawei. Expway also announced that MediaTek will integrate the Expway middlware on its “helio” smartphone SoC family.

-Ovum issued a forecast that the number of m-commerce users worldwide will grow from 452.78 million in 2014, to 2.07 billion in 2019 amid the surge in adoption of person-to-person mobile transfer and mobile proximity payment technologies and the use of powerful smartphones with larger screens. The firm also expects the global transaction value of m-commerce to grow from $50.92 billion in 2014, to $693.36 billion in 2019.

-Chipmaker Marvell is showing a suite of silicon and software for the Internet of Things, wireless and smart home ecosystems, including demos running on Google Weave and Brillo and advancements in its Kinoma suite of products, modular virtual system on chips, and its Andromeda Box platform, which is made for Brillo.

As Mobile World Congress gets rolling, here’s a snapshot of what’s making news in Barcelona.

-Ericsson launched OTT Cloud Connect (OCC), an “open” cloud service that enables mobile operators to link up with multiple over-the-top players to deliver services. Ericsson said OCC “strives to fill the gap” between operator networks and OTT services by  “exposing” the OSS and BSS capabilities of players on both sides of the equation. Ericsson said Google/YouTube is among the first partners to get on-boarded on the OCC platform.

-Casa Systems, a company known for making cable modem termination systems and converged cable access platforms, is pushing deeper into wireless with the launch of the Axyom “virtualized” edge platform and Apex, a multi-standard, low-power small cell solution.  Casa said Axyom a virtualized multi-access solution for 3G/4G and trusted/untrusted WiFi access.

-Cisco Systems said it will work with  Ericsson and Intel to develop and trial what’s it’s billing as the industry’s first 5G router, claiming it will achieve faster speeds, lower latency and be able to handle “exponentially more Internet-connected devices.” As members of the Verizon 5G Technology Forum, Cisco, Ericsson and Intel are partnering with the carrier on an ecosystem aimed at accelerating the pace of 5G innovations.

-Ericsson said a 5G trial held with Verizon of new radio prototypes earlier this month achieved multi-gigabit speeds. The field trials of those prototypes used a mix of advanced beam forming, beam tracking,  new antenna designs (128 antenna elements and 64 radio chains in each prototype), and Multi-User MIMO technologies to enable speeds of more than 10 Gbps, the vendor said. 5G signals an evolution of today’s LTE technology, plus new radio access technologies that are often operating in higher frequency ranges.

-Elsewhere on the 5G front, T-Mobile and Ericsson said they’ll team on field and lab trials in the U.S., expecting them to get underway in the second half of 2016. Ericsson said it has already notched more than 20 memorandums of understanding to test 5G with operators worldwide.

-AT&T said it is growing its Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem by integrating tools and developer solutions with Cisco, Intel, and Microsoft. AT&T said, for example, that its developer tools, including AT&T Flow Designer and AT&T M2X, will now work with Cisco’s Fog agent, Fog apps, and Fog analytics systems, Intel’s IoT Developer Kit, and with Microsoft's cloud, analytics, and visualization tools.

-Adobe has added MPEG-DASH support and dynamic ad insertion to Adobe Primetime, its multiscreen TV platform, noting that the implantation will use the same workflows and business rules used to insert ads into HLS streams. The resulting work will enable streams with stitched ads to reach devices and browsers that support MPEG-DASH, including HTML5-complaint browsers, Adobe said.

Ericsson’s Broadband and Media Services unit said it has a deal to acquire FYI Television, an entertainment metadata and rich media content supplier.

Grand Prairie, Texas-based FYI Television accumulates and distributes  entertainment content and linear scheduling data from more than 9,000 TV networks each day for digital, media and analytics clients for use in connected devices such as tablets, phones, desktops, Web portals and gaming consoles.  Its database contains more than 2.8 million cast and crew related entities, and 1.5 million images directly relating to specific program titles, celebrities and stations, including logos, seasonal key art, movie posters and stills.

FYI Television has about 150 employees, who will join Ericsson’s Business Line Broadcast & Media Services when the deal closes during Q1 2016.

Ericsson said it’s poised to “create a powerful global force in content discovery” as it combines FYI Television’s U.S.-market expertise with Ericsson’s reach in Europe. The acquisition seemingly will improve Ericsson's competitive positioning with respect to metadata against companies such as Rovi and Gracenote. 

Ericsson said it opened a U.S. broadcast and media services hub in Atlanta, Ga., earlier this year, noting that it Braodcast and Media Services unit distributes more than 2.7 million hours of programming in more than 90 languages for 500-plus TV channels worldwide.

Ericsson, which offers an IPTV solution (via its acquisition of Mediaroom from Microsoft) and a newer cloud-based video offering called MediaFirst, said content discovery is a “key component” of the company’s multiscreen TV and media strategy.

"As the TV industry evolves and viewing behavior changes, we believe that high-quality, rich metadata will be a key component for a personalized TV experience,” Magnus Mandersson, EVP and head of business u nit global services at Ericsson, said in a statement. “Combined with our capabilities in TV platforms and content discovery, we will be able to help our customers to improve the video experience and identify new revenue opportunities.” 

Ericsson shot down a report claiming that Cisco Systems and Ericsson are talking about a merger just days after the companies forged a far-reaching technology and business partnership.

Swedish daily Dagens Industri reported that Cisco is seeking a deal with Ericsson's board and major shareholders on a possible takeover.

"We note that there are rumors in the market regarding an acquisition of Ericsson by Cisco possibly spurred by the recent announcement of a partnership between our two companies,” Ericsson president, CEO and board member Hans Vestberg said in a statement issued Monday.  “The talks leading up to the partnership announcement have been ongoing for a year and there have not been any discussions whatsoever on a merger or an acquisition."

The business agreement, announced on November 9, covers joint development, product reselling, and collaboration in key emerging markets, and seeks to create an additional $1 billion in incremental sales for each company by 2018.

The day it was announced, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins said a partnership, rather than a merger, was the option that that would enable both companies to pursue their business goals at the most rapid pace.

“We think that this brings the innovation from both sides and allows us to move now. It allows us to absolutely deliver solutions to our customer immediately,” Robbins said.

A far-reaching technology and business relationship forged by Ericsson and Cisco Systems will focus on next-gen networks and wired/wireless convergence and virtualization, but it also spells trouble for several of their networking rivals.

“[W]e think this news bodes negatively for competitors and partners, including Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia, Juniper and Ciena,” Raymond James analyst Simon Leopold said in a research note issued Monday in the wake of the Ericsson-Cisco agreement.

Investors seem to agree, at least with respect to Juniper, whose shares were down 7.88% in mid-day trading Monday. Feeling less of the brunt was Ciena (down 1.85%), Alcatel-Lucent (down 0.86%), and Nokia (down 1.46%). Ericsson shares were up 1.35%, and Cisco’s were down 1.09%.

Leopold said the new relationship makes business sense for Ericsson-Cisco, in some of the same ways it does for the pending merger between Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia.

“Both companies (Cisco and Ericsson) bring intellectual property and R&D to the table,” Leopold said. “ Cisco's greatest strengths lie in software, switching and routing, along with its powerful enterprise channel, and Ericsson brings strength in wireless, services, and telco network management."

While he is optimistic about the partnership, which ties together similar challenges and objectives, Leopold warned that many such arrangements have not panned out. Juniper and Ericsson have been partnered up for several years, but have “suffered after Ericsson acquired Redback,” he pointed out.

On a call Monday to discuss the deal in more detail, top execs with Cisco and Ericsson highlighted the incremental growth opportunities it presents, and focused less on how the agreement will impact existing partnerships with other vendors.

Ericsson and Cisco have been in discussions about the deal for about 13 months, with a “significant acceleration” in those talks in the last six months, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins said, noting that Ericsson’s service reach (65,000 people in that group) complements Cisco’s much smaller 11,000.  “It’s very much about looking out ahead of what’s in the markets and dramatic transformation of networks and IT.”

“This is a big bet for both of us,” added Ericsson president and CEO Hans Vestberg.

Both Vestberg and Robbins will have management oversight of the partnership, which aims to create an additional $1 billion in incremental for each company by 2018.

Why not just merge the companies? Robbins said partnership was the best way to accelerate the goals that the companies can bring to the table with their respective products and technologies.

“We think that this brings the innovation from both sides and allows us to move now. It allows us to absolutely deliver solutions to our customer immediately”

Vestberg agreed that Ericsson had options to build, buy or partner to fulfill its longer-term missions, “and partner was the only way forward in order to make it efficient.”

“We believe this is the right move for us, right now,” Robbins added.

Vestberg said Ericsson’s existing vendor partnerships will remain intact, and views the Cisco deal as a growth opportunity that will also enable the company to broaden its portfolio.

The video marketplace is growing increasingly fragmented as traditional players develop multiscreen offerings and new over-the-top providers enter the fray.

While this dynamic has applied new kinds of pressure on the multichannel universe and caused incumbent players to pivot and introduce new bundles and services, it’s a welcome development for companies like Ericsson, which is now poised to support providers that are pursuing any and all angles.

“In general, [the video opportunity] is broadening, and it’s gotten broader based on the acquisitions we’ve made,” Simon Frost, head of media marketing and communications at Ericsson, said, noting that the opportunity spans content owners that are going over-the-top, cable programmers and broadcasters, as well as more traditional multichannel video programming distributors. “We focus on all of them, but in different ways.”

Ericsson, which competes in this sector with other giants such as Cisco Systems and Arris, has shored up its multiscreen-video capabilities by pairing internal development with a string of recent acquisitions, keyed by its 2013 acquisition of Microsoft’s Mediaroom business.

“We’ve been building up the armory to come up with a sufficient next-generation set of technology platforms that enable a common set of needs,” Frost said.

A key need across the board is to be more like Netflix, hesaid — at least in terms of going with an operational model that’s a cloud-based and software-driven platform, enabling the service provider to make changes quickly, experiment more often and move away from rigid, old-school development cycles that might allow it to make a significant change once or twice a year.

“Everyone wants to be able to move at the speed of some of the new startups and become ultra-agile,” Frost said. “If you want to compete with Netflix, you have to be prepared to go that extra mile, and go to continual development models.”

While Mediaroom helped to expand Ericsson’s reach into the world of managed IPTV services, much of Ericsson’s focus moving forward will be on MediaFirst, a platform that’s more focused on the cloud and support for a wider range of devices.

Mediaroom “is a relevant, short-term solution,” Frost said. “But the energy is going into MediaFirst.”

Coming out of the earlier IPTV era, Mediaroom’s architecture largely relies on thick client set-tops and an interface that resides in the device. By comparison, MediaFirst’s premise is that every “client” is based in HTML5 and agnostic in terms of which device it’s connecting to, whether it’s an IP-based set-top, tablet, smartphone or PC.

Frost said Ericsson has several MediaFirst-facing deals in the queue, but so far has announced one trial, with Telus in Canada. One other possible candidate is AT&T, which uses Mediaroom today for U-verse TV but recently tapped Ericsson to help evolve its IPTV platform and the satellite-based one acquired in the merger with DirecTV.

While Ericsson will also try to secure MediaFirst deals with an emerging crop of OTT providers, the solution can also be applied to other traditional MVPD players, such as cable operators. Opportunities could come by way of MSOs that adopt the Reference Design Kit (RDK), the preintegrated software stack for IP-capable set-tops and gateways managed by Comcast, Liberty Global and Time Warner Cable.

Ericsson is an RDK licensee — one of a group of about 150 that holds that distinction — and believes RDK can provide a foundation for MediaFirst.

“RDK is one of several different standardized environments that create a common platform for devices that operators can get some cost scale out of,” Frost said.

M&A PLAYS

Ericsson has built its video platform by pairing internal development with a string of recent acquisitions.

September 2015: Put up $125 million for multiscreen video processing specialist Envivio, a company that went public in 2012. The deal gives Ericsson increased exposure with some tier 1 service providers, including Comcast, Cox Communications, Liberty Global, Telstra, Sky and Time Warner Cable.

September 2015: Deepens its cloud DVR and video-on-demand expertise via $95 million acquisition of Israel-based Fabrix Systems, whose known customers include Cablevision Systems, which offers a network-based DVR product that lets customers record as many as 15 shows at once.

February 2014: Buys Azuki Systems, a startup that specializes in adaptive bit rate technology and content protection, enabling Ericsson to shore up its ability to support authenticated TV Everywhere services and OTT video.

September 2013: Closed acquisition of Microsoft’s Mediaroom business, a deal that, at the time, spanned IPTV systems and software that power video services in about 13 million homes and 24 million set-tops and customers such as AT&T U-verse, Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica and Telus Optik TV.

SOURCE: Ericsson and Next TV research

Taking deeper aim at cable’s growing metro WiFi market, Ericsson has introduced an 802.11ac Wave 2 access point, the AP 6335.

Ericsson said the product, an “evolution” of the Ericsson BelAir 100SNE cable access point, is a new strand-mounted device that includes an integrated DOCSIS modem and multi-user MIMO, and connects to the cable plant’s power and backhaul capacity.  The new AP 6335 also features  Passpoint Release 2.0 and IPv6 “with full support of all FCC channels,” said Ericsson, which has deployed more than 100,000 cable WiFi access points worldwide.

The new product enters play as cable operators continue to expand their metro WiFi networks. The Cable WiFi roaming consortium of Comcast, Cablevision Systems, Cox Communications, Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable have deployed more than 400,000 WiFi hotspots.

“This robust, high-performance outdoor access point will meet the complex and stringent requirements of cable operators and enable them to meet the demand of data-hungry, Wi-Fi consumers,” Paul Challoner, head of WiFi at Ericsson, said in a statement .

Back in the early 2000s, CableLabs’s DOCSIS certification crew had its hands full running tests on DOCSIS cable modems and reference designs from companies like Com21, 3Com, Panasonic, Scientific-Atlanta, Linksys, Tellabs, Texas Instruments, Toshiba, Terayon Communication Systems, HighSpeed Surfing, US Robotics – companies that are all no longer in the cable modem business for one reason or another (they bugged out of the market, got bought, or just plain died).

Another in that group was Ericsson, which I'm sure everyone remembers sold its cable modem business to a Canadian company called Aastra Technologies in January 2002 (Aastra merged with Mitel in 2014, and cable modems are no longer part of the product lineup from what I can tell).

Ericsson, which made DOCSIS gear under the “PipeRider” brand (see photo), exited the cable modem business as the sector was busting at the seams with suppliers, product margins were shrinking, and the whole smash was in need of a heavy dose of consolidation.

So my curiosity was piqued when I noticed that an Ericsson DOCSIS 3.0 modem came away with CableLabs certification in June following wave 114. The last time Ericsson’s name came up on the list was in December 2001 (cert wave 20), when it got a modem stamped for DOCSIS 1.1, a spec that added QoS to the mix for services like VoIP.

So, again, I was curious. Clearly, it made zero sense for Ericsson to jump back in and sell cable modem products at retail. You need CableLabs certification for that, but MSOs still require vendors to get the CableLabs stamp even on products that are sold directly to cable operators.

Maybe, I thought, Ericsson is working on some fancy IPTV cable video gateway powered by DOCSIS. After all, it’s a licensee of the Reference Design Kit, a software stack managed by Comcast, Liberty Global and Time Warner Cable. Plus, it now has Mediaroom and recently launched a cloud-focused video platform for pay TV and OTT providers called MediaFirst. Maybe that’s the connection, I thought.

Nope. Turns out to be something that’s much less interesting (to me, anyway).

Ericsson got back to me on it, reminding me that they offer a range of WiFi access points to the cable industry, that those products contain integrated D3 modems, and have been in the portfolio for some time. Still not clear is if Ericsson is making that DOCSIS module itself or sourcing it from someone else.

So, mystery (mostly) solved. The PipeRider will not ride again.  But it was fun to take the WayBackMachine for a spin.

Ericsson said it has struck a multi-year broadcast and media services deal to help BT Sport launch what’s being billed as the U.K.’ first Ultra HD TV channel, as well as two other channels and a new multiscreen interactive “red button” service.

Financial terms weren’t disclosed, but Ericsson is tasked with designing, building and running BT Sport Europe, free-to-air service BT Sport Showcase, and BT Sport UHD. BT Sport also extended Ericsson's existing six-year contract for BT Sport 1 and 2 by an additional three years. This contract includes playout and media management services and access services for both channels.

Ericsson said BT Sport UHD will be the first 4K/Ultra HD channel to launch in the UK and will feature live soccer and other “premium” content. BT’s 4K offering is slated to launch in August, debuting with Community Shield, a “the traditional curtain raiser to the English football season,” per Broadband TV  News. 

The coming interactive, red button service, BT Sports Extra, will enable viewers to pick from up to eight UEFA games that are broadcast live at the same time, including UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League games.

"BT Sport's UEFA Champions League coverage sets out to bring viewers the best ever experience of football's leading club competition,” Jamie Hindhaugh, COO of BT Sport and BT TV, said in a statement. “Our 4K coverage of the UEFA Champions League alongside other competitions will bring a truly cinematic experience into fans' living rooms."

BT Sport was launched in August 2013, and is offered through BT TV, Sky's satellite platform, Virgin Media and via the BT Sport App.

4K activity is also picking up in the U.S. among MVPDs. DirecTV and Comcast have launched small on-demand offerings, and Dish Networks is expected to do the same later this year when it launches the UHD-capable Joey box.

Windstream picked tax day to launched an IP-based pay TV service over its fiber network in Lincoln, Neb., where it faces off with incumbent MSO Time Warner Cable.

Windstream is initially offering the TV service, called Kinetic, to about 50,000 homes. It’s powered by Ericsson Mediaroom platform, features VOD, and is being offered on souped up Arris-made whole-home, wireless HD-DVRs. Watch this video to see more on Kinetic.

Windstream said it is not charging extra fees for professional installations, HD service, or its whole-home DVR.

Windstream has lined up a batch of no-contract bundles:

Bundle 1 -- TV + Internet

Basic: $59.98/month

Select: $104.98/month

Preferred: $124.98 per month

Bundle 2 – TV, Internet and Phone

Basic: $64.98/month

Select: $109.98/month

Preferred: $129.98/month

Rates for a TV-only service are “available upon request,” said Windstream, which will roll Kinetic to other markets later this year.  Windstream provides residential service in parts of 18 states -- Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Texas.

It also offers a video service bundle through a partnership with Dish Network, and confirmed last fall, when it announced plans for Kinetic, that it will continue to support the Dish service option in all markets.

For Ericsson, Windstream is a win that comes after it rolled out multiscreen upgrades for Mediaroom in the wake of its acquisition of the IP video platform from Microsoft in 2013.

“We’re extremely excited to launch Kinetic in Lincoln,” said David Redmond, president of small business and consumer at Windstream, said in a statement. “Over the last year, we have heard loudly and clearly that this community is excited and eager for an alternative TV service. Windstream is confident that residents that sign up for Kinetic will find a highly interactive experience and a smarter way to watch TV than cable or satellite.”

The day after confirming that M&A talks were underway, Nokia said Wednesday that it has struck a deal to acquire Alcatel-Lucent in a stock deal valued at €15.6 billion (US$16.6 billion), an agreement that should put the companied company on squarer competitive footing against Ericsson and Chinese telecom giant Huawei.

The boards of both sides have approved the terms of the proposed deal, which they expect to close by the first half of 2016. Under those terms, Alcatel-Lucent shareholders will own 33.5% of the fully diluted share capital of the combined company, with Nokia shareholders owning 66.5%.

The combined company will be called Nokia Corporation and be headquartered in Finland, while maintaining a large presence in France. Risto Siilasmaa is planned to serve as chairman, and Rajeev Suri as CEO.

The aim is to generate a complementary portfolio of fixed and mobile broadband gear, IP routing and core networks products and cloud applications and services, and to target a wide geography with “particular strength” in the U.S., China, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

They expect the combined company, which will  have about 114,000 employees, to generate operating cost synergies of about €900 million (US$953 million) annually by 2019. They anticipate combined net sales of €25.9 billion (US$27.4 billion)

The companies talked up the innovation-facing components of the deal, claiming they’ll be able to take combined advantage of Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs and Nokia's FutureWorks, as well as Nokia Technologies, which will stay as a separate entity focused on licensing and the incubation of new technologies. 

“We have hugely complementary technologies and the comprehensive portfolio necessary to enable the internet of things and transition to the cloud,” Suri said, in a statement. “Together, we expect to have the scale to lead in every area in which we choose to compete, drive profitable growth, meet the needs of global customers, develop new technologies, build on our successful intellectual property licensing, and create value for our shareholders.

“The global scale and footprint of the new company will reinforce its presence in the United States and China,” added Alcatel-Lucent CEO Michel Combes.

Analysts said there are pros and cons to the proposed marriage.

“When you consider the strengths and weaknesses of Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia and their product portfolios, a merger of the two businesses seems logical,” Ovum said in a statement issued Tuesday about the prospect of a Nokia/Alcatel-Lucent combo. “Nokia is a mobile-only equipment vendor, while Alcatel-Lucent’s strengths are in the fixed network business (especially core network and IP routing). It has long-struggled in the wireless business, and its attempts to become a leading player in LTE have failed. Alcatel-Lucent has also been active in SDN/NFV with CloudBand and Nuage and aggressive with small cells – areas where Nokia is perceived to be lagging behind competition.”

But Ovum said a merger is also rife with risks, as it could “plunge both businesses back into a period of introspection and restructuring” and create “significant duplication in areas such as mobile broadband and small cells.”

On the mobile end, the new company will have a global market share of 35%, behind market-leader Ericsson (40%), but ahead of Huawei's 20%, Reuters said, citing Bernstein Research. Ovum estimates that Nokia and Alcatel Lucent’s combined share of total LTE contracts was at 26% at the end of 2014, behind Huawei (36%) and Ericsson (33%).

J.P. Morgan served as financial advisor to Nokia and delivered a fairness opinion to the Board of Directors of Nokia in connection with the transaction. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Roschier, Attorneys Ltd served as legal advisors. Zaoui & Co is acting as lead M&A advisor to Alcatel-Lucent and delivered a fairness opinion to the Board of Directors of Alcatel-Lucent in connection with the transaction. Sullivan & Cromwell LLP served as legal advisor.

Ericsson, the tech giant that has recently revamped its IP video platforms for service provider partners, said it will be cutting 2,200 jobs in Sweden, primarily in R&D and supply, as part of a cost-cutting program announced in November 2014.

The program, slated to run through 2017 on a global basis, is targeting structural improvements to R&D, service delivery and supply as the company pursues its primary areas of radio, core and transmission and telecom services. Ericsson also hopes the moves will create more efficiencies in sales, G&A, enable it to cut external costs tied to use of consultants, and push the consolidation of its IT portfolio.  Ericsson said the moves aim to cut annual costs by SEK 9 billion (US$1.1 billion) by 2017.

Ericsson employs about 115,000 people in 180 countries.

Ericsson recently added multiscreen capabilities and other upgrades to its Mediaroom platform, which Ericsson acquired from Microsoft in 2013, as well as MediaFirst, a new cloud-based, “software-defined” product for traditional pay-TV providers and new over-the-top players. Among recent wins, Windstream will tap Ericsson’s Mediaroom platform for “Kinetic,” a next-gen TV service that will initially be offered to more than 50,000 homes in Lincoln, Neb., in the first half of 2015.

Windstream unveiled plans to launch “Kinetic,” a next-gen TV service that will be powered by Ericsson’s Mediaroom platform and will initially be offered to more than 50,000 homes in Lincoln, Neb., in the first half of 2015.  

Windstream, which already offers a video service bundle through a partnership with Dish Network, will first bring Kinetic to a market served by incumbent cable operator Time Warner Cable, which is in the process of being acquired by Comcast.

Windstream said it plans to roll out Kinetic to other Windstream communities “in the latter part of 2015 and beyond,” noting that it will bundle video service with its high-speed Internet and phone services.

Windstream plans to continue its bundling partnership with Dish in all of its markets. “Within the Kinetic coverage area in Lincoln, customers will have a choice of both television service offerings from Windstream,” a Windstream official said via email.

Windstream hasn’t announced pricing for the coming Kinetic video service, but the company said it will feature wireless set-top boxes, a whole-home DVR (to be offered for no extra cost), multiscreen viewing (TVs, tablets, and  smartphones), video-on-demand, and a “MultiView” mosaic feature that will let viewers watch up to six channels on the TV at the same time.

“Our customers value advanced entertainment options and depend on us to develop next-generation technology that delivers an enhanced experience," said David Redmond, president of consumer services at Windstream, in a statement. “We’re extremely excited to roll out Kinetic in 2015 and beyond because we believe Kinetic represents more than just a great entertainment experience; it represents a stronger connection between Windstream and the communities we serve.”

The new service marks a nice win for Ericsson, which recently announced (subscription required) multiscreen capabilities and other upgrades to its Mediaroom platform (the image above is a sample of the new version of Mediaroom), which Ericsson acquired from Microsoft last year, as well as MediaFirst, a new cloud-based, “software-defined” product for traditional pay-TV providers and new over-the-top players.  

“We’re putting the gas back down on the Mediaroom platform,” Ben Huang, head of global marketing for Ericsson’s Mediaroom Business Group, said in a recent interview with Multichannel News.

When Ericsson closed its acquisition of the Mediaroom assets from Microsoft about a year ago, its video platforms were supporting about 13 million homes and 24 million set-tops. That has since grown to more than 17.5 million homes and 33 million set-tops, thanks to 76 commercial deployments across 30 countries, according to Huang.

One casualty in Ericsson’s process to shore up Mediaroom was Swisscom, which is moving away from Mediaroom in favor of a “TV 2.0” multiscreen product that will be based on the Android platform.

Ericsson is adding more cloud DVR and VOD assets and talent to its video roster through a $95 million acquisition of Israel-based Fabrix Systems.

Ericsson, which wrapped up its acquisition of Microsoft’s Mediaroom unit about a year ago and its purchase of Azuki Systems in February, said its latest buy will expand its multiscreen video portfolio.

Fabrix specializes in cloud storage and computing and network-based video delivery. One of its known customers is Cablevision Systems, which is using Fabrix to help power its network-based Multi-Room DVR product that now allows customers to record as many as 15 shows at once following a recent upgrade.

Fabrix has kept its wins close to the vest, but Mario Rainville, Fabrix’s VP of sales and marketing, told Multichannel News earlier this year that the company had “large deployments” with more than 10 tier-1 service providers in North America and Europe.

At this year’s NAB show in Las Vegas, Fabrix showed off targeted ad-insertion system tailored for cloud DVRs (subscription required) that utilized Fabrix’s software running on off-the-shelf servers and relied on an automated, programmatic-style ad-buying/selling model.  Febrix’s demo was run on a camaign-managmenet system from Videology.

Ericsson’s latest acquisition follows upgrades to its Mediaroom platform and a new MediaFirst offering that will be covered in more detail soon by Multichannel News.

“We are investing significantly across our TV platform and video-network areas to extend our market leadership position. Our Media Vision 2020 shows that traditional TV is shifting rapidly towards TV Anywhere and Ericsson's leadership in broadcast, video and networks places us in a unique position to enable the most demanding customers to define and deliver the future of TV,” Per Borgklint, SVP and head of business unit support solutions at Ericsson, said in a statement.

Ericsson said it expects to close the deal in the fourth quarter. Founded in 2006, Fabrix has 103 employees.