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Mirantis co-founder launches FreedomFi to bring private LTE networks to enterprises
Boris Renski, the co-founder of Mirantis, one of the earliest and best-funded players in the OpenStack space a few years ago (which then mostly pivoted to Kubernetes and DevOps), has left his role as CMO to focus his efforts on a new startup: FreedomFi. The new company brings together open-source hardware and software to give enterprises a new way to leverage the newly opened 3.5 GHz band for private LTE and — later — 5G IoT deployments.
“There is a very broad opportunity for any enterprise building IoT solutions, which completely changes the dynamic of the whole market,” Renski told me when I asked him why he was leaving Mirantis. “This makes the whole space very interesting and fast-evolving. I felt that my background in open source and my existing understanding of the open-source landscape and the LTE space […] is an extremely compelling opportunity to dive into headfirst.”
Renski told me that a lot of the work the company is doing is still in its early stages, but the company recently hit a milestone when it used its prototype stack to send messages across its private network over a distance of around 2.7 miles.
Mirantis itself worked on bringing Magma, a Facebook-developed open-source tool for powering some of the features needed for building access networks, into production. FreedomFi is also working with the OpenAirInterface consortium, which aims to create an ecosystem for open-source software and hardware development around wireless innovation. Most, if not all, of the technology the company will develop over time will also be open source, as well.
Renski, of course, gets to leverage his existing connections in the enterprise and telco industry with this new venture, but he also told me that he plans to leverage the Mirantis playbook as he builds out the company.
“At Mirantis, our journey was that we started with basically offering end-to-end open-source cloud buildouts to a variety of enterprises back when OpenStack was essentially the only open-source cloud project out there,” he explained. “And we spent a whole bunch of time doing that, engaging with customers, getting customer revenue, learning where the bottlenecks are — and then kind of gradually evolving into more of a leveraged business model with a subscription offering around OpenStack and then MCP and now Kubernetes, Docker, etc. But the key was to be very kind of customer-centric, go get some customer wins first, give customers a services-centric offering that gets them to the result, and then figure out where the leveraged business model opportunities are.”
Currently, enterprises that want to attempt to build their own private LTE networks — and are willing to spend millions on it — have to go to the large telecom providers. Those companies, though, aren’t necessarily interested in working on these relatively small deployments (or at least “small” by the standards of a telco).
Renski and his team started the project about two months ago and for now, it remains self-funded. But the company already has five pilots lined up, including one with a company that produces large-scale events and another with a large real estate owner, and with some of the tech falling in place, Renski seems optimistic that this is a project worth focusing on. There are still some hurdles to overcome and Renski tells me the team is learning new things every day. The hardware, for example, remains hard to source and the software stack remains in flux. “We’re probably at least six months away from having solved all of the technology and business-related problems pertaining to delivering this kind of end-to-end private LTE network,” he said.
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Huawei’s ill-fated foldable returns with a more robust upgrade
MWC may have been canceled on account of rising coronavirus concerns, but the party still went on for Huawei (albeit to what appears to have been a mostly empty room). A year after wowing crowds with the Mate X, the company is introducing the Mate Xs.
Rather than a proper successor, the device appears to be the result of Huawei’s decision to go back to the drawing board, following Samsung’s very public problems with its own original foldable.
The design looks nearly identical to the original version of the phone — which is a pro. Honestly, the one major downside of the device (aside from a lofty price tag) is the fact that it never fully arrived, outside of what appears to be a relatively small batch offering in China.
Like Samsung, Huawei’s update focused a lot on the hinge; with increased mechanical components, the product should be more rugged than the original. Keep in mind that, while we were able to play around with the original Mate X, that was about it. Personally, I saw one at MWC and had an opportunity to try one for a few minutes during lunch, between meetings at Huawei HQ in Shenzhen.
Now that foldables have arrived, it seems Huawei is finally ready to take the leap. Of course, one ought not forget the company’s ongoing issues here in the States that will not only make it more difficult to procure here, but also blocks access to Android apps and services. That will continue to be a major issue for the company’s products, going forward.
Price, too, will continue to be an issue, at around $2,700 when it goes up for sale in certain markets next month. That extremely inflated price gets you a 6.6-inch display, 5G, a beefy 4,500 mAh battery, the latest Kirin 990 chip, 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. Go big and/or go home, right?
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Sony announces its first 5G flagship, the triple lens Xperia 1 II
Sony has announced its first 5G smartphone: The Xperia 1 II. (For the curious or confused, it is pronounced ‘Xperia One, Mark Two.’)
“No one understands the entertainment experience better than Sony,” said president of mobile communications, Mitsuya Kishida, claiming the company is “uniquely positioned” in the era of 5G cellular technology to offer its target users an “enriched” experience thanks to Sony’s extensive content portfolio.
“Whether you are a broadcast professional who requires dynamic speed or an everyday user who desires enhanced entertainment, Xperia with 5G takes your mobile experience to the next level,” he said.
As ever with Sony — a major b2b supplier of image sensors to other smartphone makers (rather than a major seller of its own phones) — it’s made the camera a huge focus for the new Android 10 flagship, which has a 6.5in 21:9 “CinemaWide” 4K HDR OLED (3840×1644) display and is powered by a Qualcomm 865 Snapdragon chip (with 8GB of RAM on board).
Round the back the Xperia 1 II packs three lenses which offer a selection of focal lengths (16mm, 24mm and 70mm) for capturing different types of photos — from super wide angle to portraits.
All three rear lenses have a 12MP sensor, while round the front there’s an 8MP lens. Sony is also using Zeiss optics for the first time in a smartphone, expanding a long-running collaboration to a new device type.
Talking up the camera, Kishida touted ultra-fast, low light autofocus, noting that it supports 20fps autofocus and auto-tracking burst (which he called a world first in a smartphone) for capturing crisp action shots.
“Our new continuous auto focus keeps tracking of moving subjects. What’s special about this is with 20fps it calculates the object 3x per frame — that’s 60x per second — capturing the very moment,” he said.
“With the power and speed of 5G you will be able to share those moments more quickly and more easily across the network,” he added.
Another photo-friendly feature is real-time eye auto focus. Sony demoed this by showing it working on a video of a cat playing with a toy. So, tl;dr: Sony has trained its model on data-sets of pets too, not just humans.
A ‘Photo Pro’ interface on the handset, meanwhile, has been designed to be familiar to users of Sony’s mirrorless Alpha cameras — letting photographers tune shots via access to tweakable parameters they’re used to using on Sony’s high end digital cameras.
Sony is paying the same mind to video makers, with a video editing interface on the device that offers features such as touch autofocus and custom white balance — which Kishida said will help “visual storytellers” control the camera more easily.
There’s also a noise reduction feature to improve audio capture.
Best of all, the Xperia 1II has a 3.5mm headphone jack — enabling audiophiles to enjoy the simple pleasure of plugging in their favorite pair of high-end wired headphones and tuning out everything else.
Kishida flagged the use of an AI technology, called DSEE Ultimate, which he said upscales the sound signal to “near high resolution audio” — including when streaming. “This the best on the go acoustic experience available,” he claimed.
On the games front he touted a collaboration that will let users of the device play a mobile optimized version of Call of Duty using PlayStation 4’s DualShock 4 wireless controller.
The handset, meanwhile, packs a 4,000mAh battery as well as fast wireless charging.
Per Kishida the Xperia 1 II will start shipping from Spring onwards, though it’s not yet clear which markets Sony will be bringing the device to. (Last year the company’s mobile division was reported to have defocused most of the global market in a bid to focus on profitability.)
The Xperia 1 II may have a fairly niche target buyer, as Sony is a relative bit player in consumer smartphone sales vs giants like Samsung and Huawei, but is intended to act as a showcase for what the company’s camera technologies can offer other mobile makers.
Sony’s mobile chief was making the announcements at a virtual press conference screened via YouTube after the company became one of the first big companies to pull out of attending the Mobile World Congress tradeshow.
MWC’s organizer, the GSMA, subsequently cancelled the annual mobile industry event, which had been due to take place in Barcelona this week, after scores of exhibitors said they would not attend due to public health concerns attached to the novel coronavirus.
MWC typically attracts more than 100,000 visitors across four days. So the sight of Sony’s press conference being streamed to an empty room — entirely devoid of cameras, claps or woos but still with built in pauses for the media to take photos of the new hardware — was more than a little surreal.
Kishida had another 5G handsets to tease: the Xperia Pro, a flagship handset aimed at video professionals. It features 5G mm wavelength technology for improved capability to stream high-resolution video, as well as a handy micro HDMI port for easy plugging in of other high end camera kit.
Sony touted tests it’s done with U.S. carrier Verizon (TechCrunch’s parent company) to use the forthcoming 5G handset for live streaming of live sports events.
“Sony’s expertise and long history in providing profession digital imaging solutions is very unique,” added Kishida. “Only Sony has such deep and well established relationships, and we are bringing decades of experience to an end-to-end solution — from professional content creation to mobile communications technology in 5G.”
There was a mid-range smartphone announcement, too, also shipping from Spring onwards: The Xperia 10 II packs a 6″ display and also features a triple lens camera as well as water resistance.
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Phone manufacturers eye their next move as 5G goes mainstream
For two years running, Samsung played the same trick and front-loaded its annual event by announcing a new foldable.
Last year’s announcement of the Fold was a huge one — the first viable (relatively speaking, of course) foldable handset from a major manufacturer. Of course, some stuff has happened in the intervening months, taking a bit of the shine off the device and the category at large.
This week at Unpacked 2020, Samsung came out of the gate swinging once again, announcing the Galaxy Z Flip at the top of the event. As with last year, the move had the effect of taking some of the wind out of its flagship announcement, a sign of a company convinced that standing out from the pack and reversing flagging smartphone sales trends will require some bold decision-making.
That’s not to say the company’s not pushing the envelope on its flagships. Between 100x zoom on the Ultra and 8K video on all of the devices, Samsung is still duking it out on imaging. But it appears not to have any illusions about what really gets users excited in an era of smartphone ubiquity.
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Qualcomm faces fresh competition scrutiny in Europe over RFFE chips for 5G
Qualcomm is facing fresh antitrust scrutiny from the European Commission, with the regulator raising questions about radio frequency front-end (RFFE) chips which can be used in 5G devices.
The chipmaker has been expanding into selling RFFE chips for 5G devices, per Reuters, It is encouraging buyers of its 5G modems to also buy its radio frequency front-end chips rather than buying from other vendors and integrating their hardware with its 5G modem chips.
A European Commission spokeswomen confirmed the action, telling us: “We can confirm that the Commission has sent out questionnaires, as part of a preliminary investigation into the market for radio frequency front end.”
We’ve reached out to Qualcomm for comment.
The chipmaker disclosed the activity in its 10Q investor filing. Qualcomm wrote that the regulator requested information in early December, “notifying us that it is investigating whether we engaged in anti-competitive behavior in the European Union (EU)/European Economic Area (EEA) by leveraging our market position in 5G baseband processors in the RFFE space.”
Qualcomm says it’s in the process of responding to the request for information.
It’s not yet clear whether the investigation will move to a formal footing in future. “Our preliminary investigation is ongoing. We cannot comment on or predict its timing or outcome,” the EC spokeswoman told us.
“It is difficult to predict the outcome of this matter or what remedies, if any, may be imposed by the EC,” Qualcomm also wrote in the investor filing, adding: “We believe that our business practices do not violate the EU competition rules.”
If a violation is found it also warns investors that the EC has the power to impose a fine of up to 10 percent of its annual revenues, and it could also issue injunctive relief that prohibits or restricts certain business practices.
The preliminary probe of Qualcomm’s 5G modem business is by no means the first antitrust action the chip giant has faced in Europe.
Last summer, Europe’s competition commission fined Qualcomm close to $270M following a long-running antitrust investigation into whether it used predatory pricing when selling UMTS baseband chips, with the regulator concluding Qualcomm had used predatory pricing to force a competitor out of the market.
Two years ago the Commission also fined the chipmaker a full $1.23 billion in another antitrust case related to its dominance in LTE chipsets for smartphones, specifically related to its relationship with Apple and its iPhone.
In both cases Qualcomm is appealing the decisions.
It is also battling a major competition case on its home turf. In 2017, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed charges against Qualcomm, accusing it of using anticompetitive tactics in an attempt to maintain a monopoly in its chip business.
Last year, a U.S. court sided with the FTC, agreeing the chip giant had violated antitrust law and it warned that such behavior would likely continue given Qualcomm’s key role in making modems for next-gen 5G cellular tech. But, again, Qualcomm has appealed, with a decision on the appeal possible this year.
In August, the chipmaker won a partial stay against an earlier court decision that had required it to grant patent licenses to rivals and end its practice of requiring its chip customers sign a patent license before purchasing chips.
“We will continue to vigorously defend ourself in the foregoing matters. However, litigation and investigations are inherently uncertain, and we face difficulties in evaluating or estimating likely outcomes or ranges of possible loss in antitrust and trade regulation investigations in particular,” Qualcomm adds.
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No pan-EU Huawei ban as Commission endorses 5G risk mitigation plan
The European Commission has endorsed a risk mitigation approach to managing 5G rollouts across the bloc — meaning there will be no pan-EU ban on Huawei. Rather it’s calling for Member States to coordinate and implement a package of “mitigating measures” in a 5G toolbox it announced last October and has endorsed today.
“Through the toolbox, the Member States are committing to move forward in a joint manner based on an objective assessment of identified risks and proportionate mitigating measures,” it writes in a press release.
It adds that Member States have agreed to “strengthen security requirements, to assess the risk profiles of suppliers, to apply relevant restrictions for suppliers considered to be high risk including necessary exclusions for key assets considered as critical and sensitive (such as the core network functions), and to have strategies in place to ensure the diversification of vendors”.
The move is another blow for the Trump administration — after the UK government announced yesterday that it would not be banning so-called “high risk” providers from supplying 5G networks.
Instead the UK said it will place restrictions on such suppliers — barring their kit from the “sensitive” ‘core’ of 5G networks, as well as from certain strategic sites (such as military locations), and placing a 35% cap on such kit supplying the access network.
However the US has been amping up pressure on the international community to shut the door entirely on the Chinese tech giant, claiming there’s inherent strategic risk in allowing Huawei to be involved in supplying such critical infrastructure — with the Trump administration seeking to demolish trust in Chinese-made technology.
Next-gen 5G is expected to support a new breed of responsive applications — such as self-driving cars and personalized telemedicine — where risks, should there be any network failure, are likely to scale too.
But the Commission take the view that such risks can be collectively managed.
The approach to 5G security continues to leave decisions on “specific security” measures as the responsibility of Member States. So there’s a possibility of individual countries making their own decisions to shut out Huawei. But in Europe the momentum appears to be against such moves.
“The collective work on the toolbox demonstrates a strong determination to jointly respond to the security challenges of 5G networks,” the EU writes. “This is essential for a successful and credible EU approach to 5G security and to ensure the continued openness of the internal market provided risk-based EU security requirements are respected.”
The next deadline for the 5G toolbox is April 2020, when the Commission expects Member States to have implemented the recommended measures. A joint report on their implementation will follow later this year.
Key actions being endorsed in the toolbox include:
- Strengthen security requirements for mobile network operators (e.g. strict access controls, rules on secure operation and monitoring, limitations on outsourcing of specific functions, etc.);
- Assess the risk profile of suppliers; as a consequence, apply relevant restrictions for suppliers considered to be high risk – including necessary exclusions to effectively mitigate risks – for key assets defined as critical and sensitive in the EU-wide coordinated risk assessment (e.g. core network functions, network management and orchestration functions, and access network functions);
- Ensure that each operator has an appropriate multi-vendor strategy to avoid or limit any major dependency on a single supplier (or suppliers with a similar risk profile), ensure an adequate balance of suppliers at national level and avoid dependency on suppliers considered to be high risk; this also requires avoiding any situations of lock-in with a single supplier, including by promoting greater interoperability of equipment;
The Commission also recommends that Member States should contribute towards increasing diversification and sustainability in the 5G supply chain and co-ordinate on standardization around security objectives and on developing EU-wide certification schemes.
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Have we hit peak smartphone?
Last Halloween, we broke down some “good news” from a Canalys report: the smartphone industry saw one-percent year-over-year growth — not exactly the sort of thing that sparks strong consumer confidence.
In short, 2019 sucked for smartphones, as did the year before. After what was nearly an ascendant decade, sales petered off globally with few exceptions. Honestly, there’s no need to cherrypick this stuff; the numbers this year have been lackluster at best for a majority of companies in a majority of markets.
For just the most recent example, let’s turn to a report from Gartner that dropped late last month. The numbers focus specifically on the third quarter, but they’re pretty indicative of what we’ve been seeing from the industry of late, with a 0.4 percent drop in sales. It’s a fairly consistent story, quarter after quarter for a couple of years now.
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Samsung acquires TeleWorld Solutions to help build 5G infrastructure
Samsung this morning announced that it has completed the acquisition of TeleWorld Solutions. The Virginia-based telecommunications company provides wireless networking and consulting services. It’s TWS’s 5G solutions that Samsung is clearly the most interested in as part of this deal.
The electronics giant says it plans to leverage TWS’s services to help U.S.-based networks build out the next generation of wireless.
“The acquisition of TWS will enable us to meet mobile carriers’ growing needs for improving their 4G and 5G networks, and eventually create new opportunities to enhance our service capabilities to our customers,” Samsung EVP Paul Kyungwhoon Cheun said in a release. “Samsung will continue to drive innovation in communications technology, while providing optimization services for network deployments that accelerate U.S. 5G network expansion.”
The deal will make TWS a wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung, allowing the brand to continue to offer its consulting services to existing clients. That last bit is important, so as to not leave companies in the lurch over the course of the next year, as 5G becomes an increasing focus beyond just smartphone connectivity.
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Razer shows off Sila, the first 5G router built for gaming
Gaming — with its huge demands on bandwidth, graphics and overall processing power — is likely to be one of the big use cases for 5G networking in the future, and today one of the big players in consumer gaming hardware showed off a 5G router that underscores that trend. Razer, the consumer electronics upstart that has long billed itself as “for gamers, by gamers,” today at CES showed off a new product called the Razer Sila 5G Home Router — a high-speed networking device that both automatically prioritizes bandwidth for gaming and streaming, and also lets users choose which devices on the network get more or less juice.
Alongside that, it also unveiled a new universal mobile gaming controller — Razer Kishi; a new gaming desktop Razer Tomahawk Gaming Desktop, and a new Razer e-racing simulator created in collaboration with game publishers and vendors (we’ve put this as the main picture because — let’s face it — routers are not nearly as cool-looking even if they are more likely to have legs).
The Sila and e-racing simulator are both concept pieces at this point, while the Android- and iOS-compatible controller will be on the market in early 2020. (No date given for the Tomahawk.)
Razer — which went public in 2017 (market cap currently around $1.5 billion) — has faced recent controversy from a number of former employees coming out to criticize its figurehead and CEO, Min-Liang Tan, and how he runs the company, alleging a culture of fear with violent threats and more.
Tan at the time of the reports brushed off the remarks claiming they were in jest, but it’s notable that he doesn’t seem to be making himself particularly visible or available this year at the show — a contrast from years before.
Instead, we are presented with the fruits of the company’s labor over the past year, a time where it has continued to produce hardware — computers, peripherals like controllers, mainly — but has made a number of moves to figure out the best way ahead with software and services, where it says it is increasing its share of revenue, but has also shut down its digital game store, as well as its Ouya and Forge TV services.
Although it’s only still a concept, the Sila 5G Home Router is perhaps the most exciting of the pack of announcements this year, as it is tapping into a bigger wave of interest in 5G by giving it a more relevant feel to the consumer market; and represents a notable new area for Razer itself (in routers).
The Sila is described as a “high-speed networking device tailored for gamers” and notable features include ultra-low latency during both stationary and mobile gameplay, built on Razer’s FasTrack engine — which allows a user to play a game with no pings or interruptions from other services or network glitches. The router has a built-in rechargeable battery so you can travel with it and use it outside the home.
It is built using a Qualcomm SDX55 + Hawkeye IPQ8072A chipset, and is also usable with 4G LTE over a 802.11ax 4×4 WiFi connection, with one 2.5Gbps WAN, 4 x 1Gbps LAN and 1 x USB 3.0 ports, along with a SIM slot to link up to the cellular network. All of it can be controlled through Android or iOS apps.
Razer’s presence at CES where it shows off its latest ideas has become a regular fixture at the annual event for good reason.
As gaming has expanded beyond traditional consoles and into the cloud and across the web to PCs and phones, it has become one of the most demanding uses of computer processing power, putting machines through their paces not just in graphics, but audio and overall responsiveness when it comes to gameplay.
At CES, if you go to any of the big product launches for the computing giants (Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Qualcomm), or visit any number of stands showing off the latest in computing tech, gaming is the most common demo you will see as a “proof point” — not just because it’s eye-catching, but because it genuinely is a test of how well something works.
So it’s no surprise that Razer, a company building hardware specifically for the gaming market, has a regular, big presence at CES, where it shows off both products that it plans to launch as well as those that are still in concept, in order to test market interest and have some fun with what could be in the future.
(It’s also a very obvious reason why Intel became an investor in the company many years ago when it was still in startup mode. It was a strategic move that helped ensure both that Intel could collaborate with Razer to have a closer idea of what is needed and should be built, but also to make sure that its chipsets are at the core of those new gaming-focused machines).
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TCL teases a 5G device, headset and its first foldable at CES
TCL is hardly a household name in the smartphone space. That’s hardly surprising, however, as the Chinese electronics company is better known for sub-brands like Alcatel and BlackBerry (hardware, not software — long story). Late last year, the company began really pushing its branded devices in Europe, a strategy it’s set to expand upon with some more cutting-edge devices.
The company’s been teasing the launch of both 5G and foldable handsets since last year, and is finally offering a little more info — on the former, at least. The TCL 10 5G will be its first 5G handset, following the release of an Alcatel-branded router last year. The device is set for a Q2 launch in the U.S. and Canada.
It’s one of three TCL 10 devices set for launch, with pricing on the line starting at less than $500. It’s clear that budget will continue to be a primary selling point for the line, though one assumes the 5G model will carry a not-insignificant premium on top of that. The device will be powered by Qualcomm’s 5G SoC line. The chipmaker introduced the 765 late last year, with the intent of offering a more affordable entry-point for the next-gen wireless technology.
And then there’s the matter of the foldable. At press time, we don’t have much information about the device, first alluded to at last year’s Mobile World Congress. What we do have, however, are a lot more renders. The fact that it’s still listed as “Foldable Smartphone Concept” doesn’t give one a lot of confidence that it’s ready for prime time.
The images do, however, point to a form factor similar to Samsung’s Galaxy Fold, along with what appears to be a quartet of rear-facing cameras. More information, one assumes, at Mobile World Congress late next month. So, something to look forward to in Barcelona, I guess.
And who can forgot Project Archery? Just kidding. Forgetting it would require that you’ve heard about it in the first place. I’m going to go out on a limb and say probably you have not. The device was announced — or, rather, alluded to — at last year’s IFA. It’s a wearable display with a “cinematic viewing experience.” We’ve seen those come and go over the years. TCL’s shown off the 2.0 version of the product, but offered up no additional information.
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