4G Trends

By Andrew Silberstein, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Services Globecomm Systems Inc. Hosted network strategies are a sensible option for resource-conscious operators that want to successfully migrate to 4G/LTE while managing day-to-day business. Hosted networks can bring more than the network, providing additional engineering talent, improved economics on equipment and reduction of the effort relating to vendor and technology management. Rural operators, which typically don’t have excess human and cash resources to take on a major migration, can benefit from hosted approaches through the 4G/LTE transition period and in the long term. Accelerate, De-Risk and Expand The shift from 3G to 4G/LTE is significant for any operator, and particularly for rural operators that must scrutinize factors like expense, risk and business disruption. The move to 4G signals a transition into a more robust set of services, placing new demands on operators’ front offices and requiring greater focus on customer engagement. Operators need to focus on caring for customers while introducing them to the new services 4G/LTE enables. But 4G network complexity can distract from those priorities. As rural operators set their 4G/LTE migration strategy, hosted services should be considered as a means to accelerate, de-risk and expand access to critical resources. Hosted networks offer advantages in time to market; phased deployment; cost certainty; simplified migration both up the ‘G’ levels and from GSM to CDMA; and improved economics relating to equipment and software licenses. A hosted provider can represent a buying collective, creating economies of scale across its customer base that have more leverage than an operator may generate on its own. The effort involved in acquiring new network equipment and software licenses can become the hosted providers’ responsibility, so internal teams aren’t bogged down with RFPs, managing bidding processes or negotiating one-off contracts. Operators can preserve capital as ... (Read Full Article)

By Carl Howe, Research VP, and Eugene Signorini, Senior VP of Research BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion (RIM) has finally made changes at the top. On Jan. 22, it announced: Current co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie will step aside. Mike Lazaridis has become vice chair of RIM’s board and chair of the board’s new Innovation Committee. Jim Balsillie remains a member of the board. Current co-COO Thorsten Heins will become CEO. Heins joined RIM from Siemens AG in December 2007 as senior VP for hardware engineering and became COO for product and sales in August 2011. Barbara Stymiest will take over the role of board chair. Stymiest formerly served as a member of Royal Bank of Canada’s Group Executive and has been a member of RIM’s board since 2007. She will be the sole chairperson of the board, replacing co-chairs Lazaridis and Balsillie. RIM will search for a new chief marketing officer (CMO). During the analyst conference call on Monday, Jan. 23, Heins also announced that RIM will hire a new CMO. This CMO is expected to not only head up RIM’s advertising and messaging, but also make the company more marketing-driven and consumer-oriented. With this leadership change, RIM makes it clear that its core strategy of selling integrated products and services isn’t changing; Heins will instead focus on better execution of that strategy. Yankee Group believes these changes are long overdue. We think they are important because the leadership change will buy the company time, Heins is a good fit for the CEO job and the business desperately needs a better marketing strategy. But RIM needs to change more than some titles. To be successful, Heins must not only execute on the current RIM plans, but also: Stop the erosion of its customer base. Over the past year, intent ... (Read Full Article)