Ericsson expands video capabilities with Red Bee acquisition

Ericsson continued the expansion of its video portfolio with the acquisition of Red Bee Media, a London-based media services company with more than 1,500 employees. This is a substantial addition to Ericsson’s expertise and capability in video and will expand its UK operations to 4,000 employees in all, making that region the global media hub for the company.

Sigma Systems scoops Tribold

Sigma Systems completed its “Idea-to-Install” platform with the acquisition of Tribold Limited on July 9. Tribold serves tier 1 communications service providers (CSPs) in Europe, the US, Africa, New Zealand, and Australia, and is best known for its Configure Price Quote (CPG) solution.

In the official announcement of the acquisition, Tim Spencer, president and COO of Sigma Systems, commented on the ways in which the new platform will benefit Sigma’s CSP customers. “Service providers can now take immediate advantage of network and service innovation to roll out value-added services, including consumer, enterprise, cloud, and M2M applications, and to improve revenues and margins in their core businesses.”

The combination makes a lot of sense, as Tribold CEO Simon Muderack explained. “Sigma and Tribold have worked together closely over the last several years to ensure interoperability between our solutions. We have also collaborated on several service-provider cloud projects, including the recently announced deployment with Tiscali in Italy.”

Mobile-money partnerships

It’s Orange and Visa in one corner and Deutsche Telekom and MasterCard in the other. In July of last year, DT and MasterCard linked up to drive mobile payments, and this year Visa found a home with another tier 1 CSP when Orange continued its innovative push into mobile money by announcing a groundbreaking deal with the financial-services company on August 6. Emerging markets such as Botswana will be the first targets for the two companies’ new mobile financial services, but the combination of a global CSP and a powerhouse like Visa is sure to create waves that will reach all shores in due time.

Coopetition and partnerships

In the US wireless market, consolidation is the predominant game plan at the moment, but in Europe coopetition and partnerships underlie recent developments. It makes sense: the European market is fragmented, managed by more than 20 separate state regulators, so until a unified Euro-network strategy is in place—but don’t hold your breath—CSPs are on their own to craft deals that let them control the cost of roaming and tap into each other’s resources.

Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom partnered in mid-May to advance next-gen network development; the deal will permit Vodafone to offer high-speed terrestrial broadband and IPTV (internet protocol-based television) to its customers in Germany using DT’s network. Later that month Russian CSP MegaFon became the latest addition to Telefónica’s Partners Programme when it signed a cooperative agreement with the telco; the program includes operators such as China Unicom and Telecom Italia, which have much greater capability and reach together than they would on their own. 

Telefónica also finalized an agreement with Samsung to integrate its carrier-billing service into the leading device manufacturer’s smartphones. Wayne Thorsen, vice president of global partnerships for Telefónica Digital, noted the significance of the partnership in a company news release. “We strongly believe that carrier billing has the potential to drive the monetization of digital content. Partnerships like this allow us to harness the power of the billing relationships we have with our customers to make it easier for them to consume content on their tablets and mobile devices.”

Elsewhere, Orange Business Services and the T-Systems division of Deutsche Telekom have teamed up to boost international videoconferencing options, granting customers who use the latter’s Corporate Video Exchange Services the ability to meet in real time with customers of the former’s Telepresence Community, and vice versa.

One CSP partnership story did originate in the US in May: Dish Network, the satellite-based multiple-system operator (MSO) that made bids on both Sprint and Clearwire, struck a deal with nTelos Wireless to pursue a converged fixed-wireless broadband offering. Charlie Ergen, the press-savvy cofounder and chairman of Dish, shed some light on the proposed service in a press release, indicating that it will first address the needs of a frequently overlooked demographic. “By working with nTelos, we believe we can create a service that simultaneously addresses the mobile and in-home requirements of rural residents, with the potential to serve as a model for how we can utilize spectrum more effectively while creating differentiated consumer offerings.”

Finally, in mid-May three major players in the field of operational support systems (OSS) formed an initiative of their own: NSN, Ericsson and Huawei signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to kick off the OSS Interoperability Initiative, or OSSii. This is just the kind of innovation Pipeline has been suggesting for years—but how deep will it actually go? It all depends on how many vendors sign on and how open they’re willing to be.

Peter Patomella, head of OSS business at NSN, commented on the need for a standardized platform in a statement from the company. “The OSS marketplace is a patchwork of standards and proprietary interfaces that are controlled by the IPR [intellectual-property rights] owners,” he said. “With cross-license agreements, we want to help operators take full advantage of the best available products in our industry. Openness and fairness have been the guiding principles in the agreement of the OSS Interoperability Initiative.”

In its own statement, Ericsson’s VP and head of product area radio, Thomas Norén, added that the initiative “will stimulate innovation in network management and cut costs for our customers, which is great.” To learn more about OSSii, visit its web portal.