Nokia Siemens Networks

NSN staggers into 'last chance saloon'

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:31:26 -0500

The drastic surgery about to take place across the Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) business empire is being judged by industry observers as too little, too late. By only cutting around 10 per cent of its 64,000 workforce, the company is gambling that the infrastructure market will experience an upturn over the next 18 months enabling NSN to return to profitability, albeit small scale, sometime in 2011.

The cuts are the latest blow for the joint venture, which started operations in April 2007 by unveiling a €2 billion cost-saving programme including the loss of some 9,000 jobs. This time NSN has said that the cost saving could be around €500 million, or more, by substantially lowering procurement costs and reducing headcount.

However, according to CCS Insight analyst Paolo Pescatore, the recent consolidation among operators and moves towards network-sharing agreements will place greater pressure on equipment manufacturers, such as NSN, to secure new business. "'We are bound to see further casualties in the network infrastructure space as operators rethink their business models and reconsider additional network investments," he said.

NSN has also announced plans to reduce from five to three the number of business units, and looks to establish more partnerships and acquisitions to boost growth. The software developer Bridgewater Systems is being rumoured as a potential target.

Copying Ericsson's spotlight on services, NSN's new CEO, Rajeev Suri, said the revamp was designed to focus mostly on providing more services to operators in emerging markets who were increasingly looking at outsourcing. "I think Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe play an important role in managed services," Suri said. "So far only a few operators in these regions have started to outsource operations."

But the idea of workforce reductions has, predictably, triggered an angry response from unions in Finland and Germany, claiming that this drastic restructuring would not stimulate orders and would reduce the overall power of the company. Nokia fought protracted battles with unions over the closure last year of a handset manufacturing plant in Bochum, Germany.

For more on this story:
Forbes

NSN tests LTE interop with device vendors

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:32:03 -0400

As an indication that LTE is moving towards commercialisation, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) has confirmed it is conducting end-to-end interoperability testing with four LTE device manufacturers.

The company said that the tests covered a number of steps in end-to-end network configuration based on commercial LTE hardware, including the Flexi Multiradio base station, the Evolved Packet Core and standard compliant software in the AWS, 700MHz and 2100MHz frequency bands.

"NSN is playing an important role in the LTE ecosystem by enabling leading device vendors to conduct early LTE interoperability testing," said Marc Rouanne, head of radio access for NSN. "Our focus is on commercial LTE hardware and software to support early commercial LTE deployments worldwide."

The company said the tests were taking place at its LTE competency centre in Dallas, US, in close cooperation with research and development sites in Ulm, Germany, and Oulu, Finland.

Separately, the newly appointed head of its US division, Sue Spradley, said that its Dallas site was being used to trial LTE for a large customer, speculated to be T-Mobile US. Despite not having gained a role in the high-profile Verizon Wireless LTE contract, Spradley claimed it was "not the end of the world", and that NSN would "be a leader in LTE in this [US] market."

For more on this story:
Cellular Wireless and Light Reading

NSN: surrounded by gloom as parents back away

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:17:45 -0400

As both Nokia and Siemens fail to give any indications of strong support for their mobile infrastructure JV--Nokia Siemens Networks--industry analysts are beginning to question what future the company has. The situation has become increasingly difficult following the €908 million write down made by Nokia for its stake in NSN, and comments from Siemens that it wanted to exit the JV.

Telecoms analysts have taken these pointers and heaped further gloom on NSN, maintaining that to float the company would have to be at a deep discount because of its loss making and declining market share. The notion of Nokia taking full control has been dismissed given that the Finnish company has sufficient strategic issues to resolve without the mountain of troubles that would come with acquiring NSN.

Other options being floated, and dismissed, include:

Ericsson--the company gained key assets on the cheap with its Nortel purchase, and doesn't need NSN.
Alcatel-Lucent--not in a position to make a major acquisition, and still struggling to merge the French and US technologies and culture.
Huawei--up and coming, but hidebound by all the usual political problems that such a deal would entail.
Private equity--could make a good restructuring story (for the very brave), with a focus on services.

In an attempt to lift the depressing picture, Nokia recently upgraded its estimates for the global mobile infrastructure market, predicting a 5 per cent fall in euro terms in 2009, compared with an earlier estimate of a 10 per cent decline.

However, while analysts cautiously accept that mobile operators might now be spending more on infrastructure, they forecast this will largely benefit Ericsson who will continue to pick up market share from NSN.

Adding further woes, a new report from Infonetics claims that Huawei is dramatically improving its global image, having good technology and offering strong value for money. Stéphane Téral of Infonetics said: "Huawei is overtaking Alcatel-Lucent on many fronts, and is now en route to attacking NSN's market position in the mobile infrastructure space. And watch out, because another Chinese telco equipment maker ZTE is on the rise as well."

For more on this story:
Rethink Wireless

Focus now on smartphones, as Nokia exec's move seats

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:53:01 -0400

Having publicly blamed the troubled Nokia Siemens Networks JV for its Q3 loss of over €900 million, Nokia's CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, is now also holding responsible a lack of smartphone components for its poor performance in the mobile phone sector.

In an effort to wrench the company out of its steeply downward spiral, Kallasvuo has announced a reshuffle of its senior executives and split its bloated mobile phone division into two units. Smartphones will now become a separate unit under the direction of Nokia veteran Jo Harlow, with the objective of attempting to improve the quality and consumer appeal of its current lacklustre smartphone portfolio.

This acceptance that Nokia has manifestly failed to challenge the iPhone or Blackberry products might breathe fresh life into the company's smartphone ambitions. However, analysts are questioning how long Nokia can continue using the Symbian OS for the majority of its smartphones given its complexities and slow pace of development.

Harlow will also have the problem of capacity constraints that Kallasvuo said was behind the poor Q3 smartphone sales figures. "The constraints did in fact hit the smartphone part of the business more than the rest of the devices," said the CEO.

While the Smartphone division will be tasked with driving shipment numbers and keeping the margins high, the second unit, called Mobile Phones, will be run by Rick Simonson, currently Nokia's CFO, with a focus on low to mid-priced handsets. This will mean leading the portfolio, product and lifecycle management of all Series 30 and Series 40 devices, which account for more than half of Devices & Services net sales, representing a significant part of Nokia's business. Simonson will have overall responsibility for the sourcing of components for both the Smartphone and Mobile Phone divisions of Nokia.

This reshuffle is being seen by industry watchers as the company preparing Simonson for promotion to CEO at a later stage, noting that previous Nokia CEOs have come from a background as both CFO and head of mobile phones. What remains unsaid is how long Kallasvuo can remain as CEO of Nokia given his track record - albeit in economically difficult times.

For more on this story:
Financial Times

LTE: NSN claims first call made using commercial software

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:01:21 -0400

The likelihood of LTE becoming a reality next year has taken a step forward with the announcement from Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) that it had made the world's first LTE call using commercial base stations and fully standard compliant software.

According to NSN, this move, which is viewed as a mandatory precondition for commercial network rollouts and for end users to benefit from a wide range of LTE devices from different vendors, was based upon fully compliant software meeting the 3GPP Rel.8 (March 2009 baseline) LTE standard.

Marc Rouanne, head of NSN's radio access business unit, said that the call, which was made from the company's R&D centre in Ulm, Germany, was a significant landmark and demonstrated the company's commitment to LTE. "We see customers adopting LTE along differing timelines and we stand ready to meet the needs of early adopters of LTE as well as operators with extended migration paths from 3G/HSPA+ to LTE," he added.

Rouanne maintained that NSN, having missed out on some of the first high-profile LTE infrastructure deals, was instead focused on being ready for the mass market. "We are in a strong position with LTE-ready base stations, which can be upgraded with just new software, having sold them to some 80 operators around the world."

Asked to comment on this LTE milestone, Intel--a leading advocate of WiMAX--dismissed the event as being ‘one call', whereas WiMAX was enabling millions of people around the world to access next-gen 4G wireless broadband today.

For more on this story:
Reuters and Hexus

Nokia Siemens wins Russian 3G contract

Ian Channing — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 12:16:00 -0400

MegaFon, one of Russia's largest mobile operators, has announced the results of its recent 3G network tender and at least 60 per cent of the Node B base stations in the new network will be supplied by Nokia Siemens Networks. Other companies involved in the tender process were Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Huawei and ZTE.

Huawei has been chosen by MegaFon to work with Nokia Siemens Networks on the provision of technical support during the installation of the network and on technical maintenance thereafter. This is the first occasion that MegaFon has used a two-stage tender process, with the first stage being a technical evaluation and the second a comparison of financial metrics.

The initial supply frame contracts are effective until the end of 2010 but can be extended by mutual agreement.

For more on this story go to Cellular News

NSN could raise offer for Nortel's LTE/CDMA, and hints at taking more units

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:27:35 -0400

The lingering demise of Nortel has taken another turn as the company, under increasing pressure from its shareholders, looks to push Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) to lift its bid by hinting heavily that other bidders are emerging. In turn, NSN has responded that it might raise the offer, and could also be interested in other Nortel business units.

This manoeuvring, which also has a strong political driver from the Canadian government, has been given fresh impetus by Nortel's VP of wireless marketing, Bruce Gustafson, claiming during a teleconference: "If you're assuming there are no additional bids because there's no public disclosure, you'd be mistaken."

While the private equity firm MatlinPatterson and at least one group of former Nortel executives have registered their interest in acquiring parts of Nortel, no rival bids have been made public. However, NSN is sufficiently keen to grab Nortel's CDMA and LTE assets that its North American head, Sue Spradley, has indicated NSN's commitment to up its offer if needed.

Separately, NSN's latest result indicates that services are becoming a major revenue generator for the company as equipment sales come under increasing pressure from Huawei. As revealed in the Nokia numbers, NSN would appear to be gaining 45 per cent of its overall revenues from outsourcing, integration, consulting and maintenance services.

According to Unstrung, with NSN's Q2 revenues running at €3.2 billion (US$4.5 billion), its Services divisions pulled in revenues of €1.44 billion ($2 billion) for the quarter. And as if to highlight the Services division's ongoing potential, NSN today announced a new five-year managed services deal with Brazilian fixed and mobile carrier Tele Norte Leste Partricipacoes SA (better known as Oi) worth €1.1 billion (US$1.55 billion).

For more on this story:
Rethink-Wireless and Lightreading

Base stations Opex reduced using new battery cooling technology

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:39:03 -0400

Operators requiring to run base stations in extreme climatic conditions could benefit from new battery cooling cabinets announced by Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN). The company claims that the new SiteStar cabinets can increase battery life by three times, and reduce the electricity consumed for cooling batteries at a base station site by up to 95 per cent.

NSN maintains that the life of base station batteries is inversely proportional to the temperature under which it operates, and is reduced by 50 per cent with a 10°C increase above the optimal temperature of 20°C. Prashant Agnihotri, head of GSM/EDGE product management at NSN, said that the new SiteStar product is capable of maintaining a constant optimal temperature in very hot or cold climates, and increasing battery life by three times in operating temperatures of 35°C, compared to a fan based cabinet. "SiteStar also reduces electricity consumption for cooling batteries by up to 95 per cent when compared to traditional air conditioned cabinets as it typically consumes only 40W."

For more on this story:
Cellular News

3 Ireland completes I-HSPA upgrade

Ian Channing — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:51:28 -0400

Working with Nokia Siemens Networks, Irish mobile operator 3 has successfully completed the upgrade of its network to the I-HSPA (Internet High Speed Packet Access) technology. This is the first commercial deployment of I-HSPA in Ireland. The technology is being deployed as part of Ireland's National Broadband Scheme (NBS) for which 3 has been selected as the wireless provider. Initially 3 will be offering customers in NBS coverage areas download speeds of 7.2Mbit/s but this will be upgraded in 2010 to 14.4Mbit/s.

In preparation for the evolution to I-HSPA 3 has totally replaced all the base stations in its WCDMA network with new Flexi units from Nokia Siemens Networks. Upgrading the network to I-HSPA will provide 3 with greater scalability and a smooth evolutionary path to LTE.

For more on this story:
- go to European Communications and Mobile Europe

Global Wireless Infrastructure Revenues Declined 22.4% YoY in Q1/09

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:37:44 -0400

The global wireless BTS infrastructure market revenues declined by 22.4 per cent for the first quarter of 2009 to US$9.8 billion compared with the first quarter of 2008, according to the latest report from EJL Wireless Research. The figure includes shipments by wireless OEMs including Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia Siemens Networks, Nortel Networks, and ZTE--but not Huawei. "While we expected a seasonally weak Q1, revenues were off by 32.5 per cent from Q4 which is indicative of the continued economic uncertainty within the wireless sector," says founder and President Earl Lum. ZTE was the only company that did not decline substantially in Q1 from Q4 levels while Nortel was down 60.6 per cent due to the continued uncertainty on the emergence of the company from bankruptcy protection." Article