French operator SFR has criticised France Telecom (FT) Orange for signing a roaming agreement with Iliad's Free Mobile, allowing Free to launch low-cost services.

Esser

The CEO of SFR, Frank Esser, said in an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde that Free Mobile wouldn't have been able to offer such cheap pricing without the Orange roaming deal, adding, "We have always said that we will never sign such an agreement."

Esser pointed to Free Mobile's "social" package, which costs as little as €2 per month for one hour of calls. "Making offers for €2 does not provide support for a quality network. Transporting voice still has a cost, despite the assertions of Mr. Niel," Esser said, referring to Iliad CEO Xavier Niel.

Recent French newspaper reports have speculated that Free Mobile network is struggling to support the number of customers it has signed up, with coverage in Paris being reported as poor.

Free Mobile is also said to still be in the process of negotiating mobile termination rates (MTR) with other French mobile operators. Iliad, has suggested that asymmetric MTRs be adopted, which SFR's Esser has rejected. "There is no question of accepting the asymmetric MTRs for voice calls and SMS, this would subsidise the Free Mobile offers up to €7," Esser said.

Separately, Bouygues Telecom announced significant price cuts to its quad-play and smartphone subscriptions in response to Free Mobile's offerings. A report carried by Les Echos has suggested that Bouygues Telecom's speed of reaction has been triggered by it losing customers to Free Mobile.

Orange, SFR and Bouygues Telecom have already lowered the price of their low-cost packages, Sosh, Red and B&You, repsectively, in an effort to retain customers.

Separately, the French regulator Arcep announced late last week that it would inspect Free Mobile's network in an effort to address accusations made by its competitors that the new entrant's infrastructure was not operational. Some reports indicated Free was turning off some its antennas and directing traffic onto Orange's network, which would violate the terms of its licence, since Free must cover 27 percent of the population with its own network in order to maintain the roaming agreement. Free Mobile has denied turning off its equipment.

"Our competitors are trying to make it seem to consumers that there is a problem with our network. There isn't," Free Mobile CEO Maxime Lombardini told Reuters. "When you are faced with false rumours, the best thing to do is get back to the real facts."

For more:
- see this L'Expansion article (translated via Google Translate)
- see this Les Echos article (translated via Google Translate)
- see this Reuters article

Related Articles:
French MVNOs hit hard by Free Mobile launch
Free Mobile rush overwhelms French number portability systems
Iliad's Free Mobile finally unleashes price war in France
FT Orange prepares to fight Free Mobile on price
Free Mobile preps brutal price war with French operators

Nokia's fourth-quarter loss of €1.07 billion underscores the uphill task the company has in competing with Apple and Samsung for smartphone prominence, according to a new report Fitch Ratings.

However, the credit ratings firm believes Nokia's robust cash position provides breathing space for the company to challenge the two leading suppliers as the Finnish company makes the transition to a new smartphone strategy based on its partnership with Microsoft's Windows Phone.

Of note, Nokia's poor fourth-quarter results failed to affect the company's credit rating which Fitch had already factored into a downgrade made in June 2011 from 'BBB-'/Negative from 'BBB+'/Negative.

While some analysts have registered their surprise at Nokia shipping over 1 million Lumia smartphones since the Windows Phone devices wen ton sale in November, Fitch has indicated that it will take several more quarters before the success of the Lumia range can be evaluated, especially given the high cost of marketing that is required to promote the new smartphones.

Fitch confirmed that any change to Nokia's rating was not likely until the company's situation becomes clearer, and is also dependent on the wider success of a broad product range of based upon the Windows Phone platform. Looking further into the future, Fitch said that it would judge a successful turnaround for Nokia once it could demonstrate an ongoing refresh of its smartphone products with new models, together with regaining market share in key markets, including sales traction in the United States.

Commenting on the Nokia's likely 2012 performance, CEO Stephen Elop said the company's operating margin would be around break-even in the first quarter, give or take 2 per cent. He also said that Nokia annual guidance targets had been dropped, claiming that 2012 would be a year of transition.

For more:
- see this release
- see this Cellular News article
- see this The Guardian article

Related Articles:
Nokia's Lumia sales show promise in Q4, but Symbian continues to slide
Report: Nokia under pressure to slash Lumia 710 pricing in UK
Nokia, Microsoft boosted by bullish Credit Suisse report on Windows Phone
Nokia's Elop: Boosting Windows Phone volumes is the top priority
Can Windows Phone outpace Apple's iOS by 2015?

O2 UK has exceeded its daily amount of tweets allowed by Twitter in a campaign to pacify subscriber fears over a security breach that gave customers' phone numbers to websites they visited on their mobile phones. 

The company admitted that it had accumulated the same amount of Twitter mentions in a day as it typically does in an entire week as thousands of O2 UK customers sought answers via the company's Twitter account. Worried customers wanted to understand what O2 UK was doing to stop subscribers' mobile numbers were being leaked to any website they visited in a security breach that was only discovered last week.

According to Marketing Week, O2 initially admitted it had been passing customer's cell phone numbers over to "certain trusted partners" since Jan. 10. While the operator said that this was "standard industry practice," it confirmed that the "technical error" was fixed on Jan. 25.   The phone numbers were only stored on web logs and could be accessed by the companies running the sites, but not to other visitors of the sites, according to the Financial Times.

Speaking at a London-based conference last week, James Paterson, O2 UK's public relations and social media campaigns manager, said the company felt that it was important that O2 UK "not stay quietly in [its] shell" as news circulated about the data breach.

Paterson said that the company had adopted a strategy to immediately answer user's questions. "We wanted to respond to as many people as possible with fair answers. In the past we may have just given a Q&A to the well-known media outlets, but our people understand that if you answer queries and communicate to people on social media straight away, problems tend to be resolved more quickly."

Graham Cluley, security consultant at Sophos, the IT security company, told the Financial Times: "It is pretty bad, what they have done, even if it was a mistake. Any website that O2 UK customers have gone to over the last 14 days will have those mobile details, which could be used for spam emails, or even to sign people up to premium rate services without their knowledge. There are plenty of ways to abuse this data."

For more:
- see this Marketing Week article
- see this Financial Times article (reg. req.)

Related Articles:
Report: GSM-R making rail services vulnerable to DoS attacks
Rogue femtocells could be used to steal user data
Smartphones become target for cyber criminals
3G encryption can be broken in 2 hours, 'suggest' security experts

German mobile operators face a 15-fold increase in data traffic between 2011 and 2016 driven largely by an increase in video consumption, according to a new report from Solon Management Consulting (SMC). The growth will accelerate as more mobile-oriented content becomes available and faster networks make video calling and streaming a more viable option, SMC said.

"Younger users especially are no longer just exchanging text messages. They want to permanently check their Facebook accounts, make video calls via Skype or watch video," Stephan Kalleder, an SMC analyst and author of the report, said in a statement.

Of note, the report states that the average mobile broadband user in Germany consumed less than 0.4 GB per month in 2010, but the SMC expects mobile data usage to rise significantly to almost 2.3 GB per user per month by 2016. This increase will see mobile browsing and video consumption becoming mass-market services, putting huge strain on mobile operators' networks.

While the SMC study believe this 15-fold increase in data traffic will push operators into heavily investments in radio access networks and backhaul upgrades, it will also open up new revenue opportunities. "For operators, this will be the key to stabilising mobile ARPU," Kalleder said. "They have to look for new, intelligent pricing and business models in order to best monetise the growing data traffic."

For more:
- see this Solon Management Consulting release

Related Articles:
Telefónica Germany inks backhaul deal with Deutsche Telekom
O2 Germany CEO promises quick fix to network overload, but doubts remain
Telefónica in talks to share German backhaul network
O2 Germany admits network meltdown; smartphones blamed
Everything Everywhere pours £1.5B into three-year network upgrade plan 
Vodafone Germany inks fibre backhaul deal for LTE deployment

Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao indicated that the positive resolution to its $2.2 billion dispute with the Indian tax authorities has helped open the door for an initial public offering for its India subsidiary.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Colao told Reuters: "Everything that goes in the direction of stability of law and certainty of law is (positive) as we are an investment led sector...and therefore we need to have long-term visibility and stability of conditions to tell our shareholders and prospective shareholders what we are going to do."

Commenting on the possibility of an IPO, Robin Bienenstock, an analyst at London-based Bernstein Research, recently said that Vodafone was expected to list 30 per cent of the Indian business later this year, which could raise £3.4 billion.

Colao noted that the tax case had clearly been a barrier to an IPO, but also pointed towards the new telecoms policy (NTP) as being another potential hurdle. "Stability for the future, ability to forecast what is happening, stability of the regulatory framework is extremely important," said the CEO, adding: "Friendliness is very important."

Vodafone--together with Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular--is believed to be looking toward the forthcoming NTP to trigger a much needed wave of consolidation in the Indian mobile market, which has suffered from being heavily overcrowded leading to poor margins and falling APRUs for the larger service providers, according to a report in The Financial Express.

For more:
- see this Reuters article
- see the The Financial Express article

Related Articles:
Vodafone wins Indian tax case, but no IPO imminent
Vodafone targets partnerships for global growth
Vodafone hikes full-year outlook on growth in emerging markets
Vodafone overhauls Asian partnerships
Vodafone rewards shareholders with £2B Verizon dividend payment

Smartphone penetration across the UK, France, Italy, Spain and Germany (collectively known as the EU5) outpaced the United States in the three months ending October 2011, according to market research firm comScore. The company said that smartphone uptake in the EU5  reached 42 per cent, compared to 39 per cent in the United States. ComScore also said that Symbian remains the dominant operating system in the EU5 with 32 per cent market share, although Google's roid is closing in fast at 28 per cent for Android and Apple's iOS has 21 per cent.  Article

Tablets are attracting a new category of consumers who want better usability than a smartphone without the bulk and complexity of a laptop. Tablet vendors have worked hard to break away from current smartphone/laptop doctrines, while making touchscreens a revelation to those unfamiliar with how to interact with email and the Web.

Altogether, tablets can justifiably be seen as enabling a new sector of society with mobile computing and communications. The market potential for tablets would appear to be strong as an increasing number of manufacturers enter the market with different form factors and price points--accepting that Apple's iPad remains the benchmark product today.

An indication of the market potential comes from Informa Telecom & Media, which claims in a new study that over the next five years retail sales of tablets will grow from $34.5 billion in 2011 to $121.5 billion in 2016.

Crucially however, the market research firm noted that the consumers increasingly prefer to purchase tablets directly from the vendor, or from independent outlets, such as Carphone Warehouse, Amazon and the big-brand supermarkets.

This raises the question of what role mobile operators can have in this burgeoning sector--apart from supplying a 3G or LTE SIM cards and data plan.

Their lack of imagination in grasping the tablet opportunity indicates a punishing lack of retail awareness for this new class of mobile user who continues to believe that operators only sell phones bundled with a bewildering array of tariffs. The major consumer electronics retailers have leapt on the tablet opportunity by revamping their stores to provide a specific focus on these devices with the aim of educating potential buyers. Selling a data plan then becomes comparatively simple once the buyer is hooked into the delights of a touchscreen tablet.

Meanwhile, the likelihood of major online and High Street retailers further encroaching on operator's current sales territory looks very high as smartphones continue to become more affordable. This shift to more sophisticated mobile devices--tablets and smartphones-- could isolate operators further from consumers leaving them as little more than providers of smart and affordable networks.

Our once-mighty fixed-line service providers have struggled with this trend for a decade or more, and have become resigned to being data pipes. Can mobile operators do otherwise? --Paul

Former Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein left Hewlett-Packard, effective Friday, after fulfilling terms of a 12-24 contractual month stint at the computer giant following HP's $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm and its webOS software in 2010.

Rubinstein

"Jon has fulfilled his commitment and we wish him well," HP spokeswoman Mylene Mangalindan told AllThingsD, which first reported the news.

In an interview with the publication, Rubinstein said he had decided to leave HP a few months before the company shipped its ill-fated TouchPad tablet last summer, but stayed on afterward in an advisory role as the future of webOS was debated inside HP. "And now there's a path for webOS and PSG [HP's Personal Systems Group] has its path and it's time for me to move on," he said. "This has been in the works for quite some time."

Rubinstein had faded from view during the past several months, as HP sidelined webOS device sales and then put the platform into limbo before deciding to make it an open source project. In July Stephen DeWitt took charge of HP's webOS global business unit, taking over from Rubinstein. Rubinstein, who was the driving force behind webOS at Palm before HP acquired the company, took over product innovation in the HP Personal Systems Group, which encompassed smartphones, tablets and PCs. "That 'innovation' gig he was given in July was his first step toward the exit," an unnamed former Palm executive with close ties to Rubinstein told AllThingsD in a separate report.

After it discontinued sales of its webOS-powered TouchPad tablet (as well as its smartphone business) in August, HP went through a period of internal turmoil. Leo Apotheker was ousted as CEO and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman was brought into replace him. After months of speculation over what it would do with webOS, HP said in December it would keep webOS but make the operating system open source, allowing developers and others to modify and expand on the platform.

"You know, we always developed Enyo so it could be open sourced because we saw it as a very powerful cross-development platform," Rubinstein said in the AllThingsD interview. "The future is clearly Web-based apps. And some people don't get that, and I certainly understand, but that is the reality. And, frankly, we were way ahead of our time. WebOS is a great piece of work and really it's just beginning."

Rubinstein is perhaps most famous for his work on developing Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPod. After he left Apple in 2006, he joined Roger McNamee as a partner in the private equity firm Elevation Partners, a Palm investor. Rubinstein then replaced longtime Palm CEO Ed Colligan in 2009 and spearheaded the development of Palm's new operating system, webOS, which was based on Web standards and focused on multitasking and combining multiple threads of information from contacts and calendars, a process dubbed Synergy. The platform was widely praised by analysts and the technology industry more broadly, and many of its motifs have been adopted by other smartphone platforms.

Palm's first device, the Pre, was sold exclusively by Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S), and although it, too, was widely praised, the device was not a major hit on the scale of Apple's iPhone. Palm later added AT&T Mobility (NYSE:T) and Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ) as supporting carriers for its webOS devices, but the gadgets never caught fire with consumers (possibly due to anemic carrier support).

After HP acquired Palm, it introduced new webOS devices including the Veer smartphone through AT&T, but its luck was ultimately no better than Palm's at selling webOS devices.

Rubinstein, 55, said he is going to take a break but said he is not retiring. "I'm going to spend some time with my family and think about what to do next. Who knows what I'll do," he said. "Anything's possible."

For more:
- see this AllThingsD article
- see this separate AllThingsD article
- see this The Verge article

Related Articles:
HP to make webOS open source, plans webOS tablets in 2013
HP writes down nearly $1.7B in losses on Palm investment
Report: HP wants to sell webOS for 'hundreds of millions' of dollars
HP to decide webOS future in 'next couple of months'

Quick news from around the Web.

@FierceWireless: "@allthingsd: HTC to Give Up on Quantity and Try Quality -by@JohnPaczkowski. Article" | Follow@FierceWireless

> Apple's CEO feels "outrage" at a recent New York Times article on the work conditions at its suppliers. Article

> A ZTE tablet appears poised to arrive in the United States. Article

> Research In Motion is reportedly planning a 3G PlayBook. Article

> Juniper reported a drop in profits. Article

> HTC's Sense 4.0 reportedly leaked onto the Web. Article

> A German court rejected Samsung's latest patent ploy against Apple. Article

> Verizon Wireless' Samsung Galaxy Nexus is $99 at Amazon. Article

Mobile Content News

> Valve Software, creators of the Steam desktop gaming platform, is expanding to mobile devices with the new Steam app. Article

> Google head of consumer payments Vikas Gupta has resigned his post. Article

> Offering iOS and Android applications at discounted prices can lead to significant revenue increases according to new data from app store analytics firm Distimo. Article

And finally... Windows Phone fights malaria. Article

Research In Motion's (NASDAQ:RIMM) new CEO Thorsten Heins acknowledged that the company has to turn around its performance in the U.S. market, but also said that he is confident in RIM's assets and abilities. He also said Android handset makers are "all the same."

Heins

In a series of interviews, Heins sought to clarify his stance on where he wants to take the company following the resignation of Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, the long-time co-CEOs of the BlackBerry maker. Both Balsillie and Lazaridis are still RIM board members.

In an interview with CNBC, Heins said that he knows the company has to fight back to reclaim its  position in the U.S. market, where it has been steadily losing market share for the past three years to Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android and Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone. "It hurts. It hurts me to see us losing market share in the U.S. There was a paradigm shift, and we did not shift with it..." Heins said. "I know we've made mistakes, and I know I'm in for a fight."

However, Heins said the company plans to fight back, including the introduction of new software for its PlayBook tablet, due next month. "We want to stop the bleeding," he said. Heins also pointed to RIM's strong international growth, noting the company has expanded the number of BlackBerry users from 50 million to 75 million in one year.

Heins also reiterated that one of his first tasks will be to appoint a new CMO--"top-notch talent," he said--and to put all external brand communication under that person. "We need to talk more about us," he said. "We need to talk more about how great our products are."

The new RIM chief also talked about how he will work with the company's former leaders. "I will make the strategic and the tactical decisions around RIM's and BlackBerry's future," he said. "But I will also seek Mike and Jim's advice on strategic questions, because they have been in this industry for a long, long time. They have been very successful. And I would be foolish not to use the experience and the capacity that they have."

In a separate interview with the website CrackBerry, Heins said that many misunderstood his comments earlier this week when he said he didn't think a "drastic change" was needed at RIM, which some commenters took as a signal that he would merely continue with the policies of Balsillie and Lazaridis.

"I think this got into a little bit of the black and white zone. I was talking about drastic or seismic changes," he said. "What I was trying to address was that there was some suggestion that RIM should be split up or should even be sold. My true belief is that RIM has the strength and the assets that we can really succeed in this market. There is a lot of change [at the company]. There is a lot of structure change, there has been already a lot of change in terms of our software, our software platform, bringing QNX in. There is no standstill at any moment here at RIM."

Heins also hit at Android handset makers as undifferentiated OEMs. "Just take a look where the Android OEMs are. I leave this to you," he said. "Take a look at their recent announcements and what you will immediately see is there is just no room for differentiation because they are all the same."

For more:
- see this CNBC article
- see this Crackberry post
- see this AllThingsD article

Related Articles:
The 3 things that RIM's new CEO needs to execute on: devices, carriers, messaging
RIM replaces long-time co-CEOs Balsillie and Lazaridis
Report: RIM prepares to name new chairman amid investor pressure
RIM delays BlackBerry 10 launch to 'latter part' of 2012
RIM to change BBX platform name to BlackBerry 10 amid legal furor

Check out this week's most-viewed stories across Fierce's wireless publications:

FierceBroadbandWireless
1. Infonetics: Small cells taking off, femtos leaving home
2. Wi-Fi offload at core of reported Ericsson BelAir buy
3. Johnson: Microwave backhaul will stay strong in 2012 even as operators hint at slower capex

FierceDeveloper
1. AT&T's Summers talks about open APIs, HTML5 and how developers can be more successful
2. WebGL proponents want developers for Web-based 3D mobile apps
3. Chris DeWolfe: From MySpace to the mobile space with 'Fluff Friends Rescue'

FierceMobileContent
1. 'Tiny Tower' creator NimbleBit blasts Zynga clone 'Dream Heights'
2. Mobile payments, advertising firms attract top VC dollars in 2011
3. PayPal expanding mobile wallet trial to 2,200 Home Depot stores

FierceWireless
1. The 3 things that RIM's new CEO needs to execute on: devices, carriers, messaging
2. AT&T, T-Mobile file request for AWS spectrum transfer
3. Clearwire nabs LightSquared customer Simplexity as an MVNE partner

FierceWireless:Europe
1. French MVNOs hit hard by Free Mobile launch
2. Report: Nokia under pressure to slash Lumia 710 pricing in UK
3. Report: Smartphones uptake limited by confused and indifferent consumers

Midway through the fourth-quarter earnings season, it's becoming apparent that while Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) had a record-breaking quarter with 37 million iPhone sales and Samsung did nearly as well, most other handset makers are struggling or facing stagnation.

Click here for a chart on the 2010 and 2011 smartphone shipments reported so far this year.

Why are Apple and Samsung so successful? And what can other handset makers do to emulate them in today's cut-throat market, especially for smartphones? Analysts point to the unique attributes that have buoyed Apple and Samsung, including their access to components, scale, brand recognition and overall product execution. Still, they argue, it is becoming more difficult for OEMs to succeed with traditional business models. The weak fourth quarter results--traditionally handset makers' best--either posted so far or expected from HTC, Motorola Mobility (NYSE:MMI), Nokia (NYSE:NOK) and Sony Ericsson, attest to the challenges. 

One of Apple and Samsung's advantages is that they develop components internally, including chips, and they have massive scale. "They're not just OEMs that slap a bunch of components together," said ABI Research analyst Kevin Burden. "They are able to develop their own component technologies. What other companies have those?" Samsung, an international electronics conglomerate, recently said it will spend $42 billion in 2012 on research and development and on upgrading plants, an investment few companies can achieve. 

Analysts said another advantage Apple and Samsung have over their competitors is their ability to engineer and deliver products to market that carriers will quickly pick up. Samsung does this at a much faster rate than Apple, but both have developed strong relationships with scores of operators and can deliver flagship products that operators can easily get behind. "That combination of consistent new product development and launch really helps with operator demand," Informa Telecoms & Media analyst Andy Castonguay said of Samsung.

The ability to stand above the fray, as Apple has done with the iPhone 4S and Samsung has with its Galaxy S line, speaks to an issue affecting handset makers more broadly: that there are too many SKUs in the market, and new models get lost in an largely undifferentiated sea of devices. To combat this, analysts said handset makers should try and focus on fewer models. Indeed, Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha said at the Consumer Electronics Show that the company intends to release fewer devices in 2012 as it focuses on producing models that can break through the smartphone clutter. Executives at HTC, which posted a 25.5 percent drop in fourth-quarter profit, have made similar comments. Ultimately, Burden said, this comes down to the bottom line. "Do they end up spending too much money per phone and not getting the same return back if they limited their SKUs?"

Yet for all of Samsung's ability to invest in components, it may soon struggle with the same problems affecting other OEMs, said CCS Insight analyst John Jackson, noting that Samsung and Apple are "two very different animals."

"Apple is a formula," he said. "Apple is a self-reinforcing formula built on top of control of the distribution of third-party content, world-beating industrial design, a world-beating brand, a fantastic retail footprint and a legacy of innovation that consumers are aware of."

While Samsung has tried to become more vertically integrated with the introduction of its Media Hub services and has attempted to make mobile devices the centerpiece of the digital living room, Jackson contends that Samsung is at heart a very good OEM. "If you are a device business and nothing else, sooner or later your margins will fall away," he said. "It's harder and harder to create and sustain a differentiated proposition."

The market is accelerating its move away from OEMs and toward platform companies such as Amazon, Facebook, Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and others, Jackson said, arguing that the market essentially forced this transformation at Nokia, pushing it into the arms of Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and led Motorola into the arms of Google. Sony's move to take control of the Sony Ericsson venture could be seen as an attempt to create its own platform for its content and devices--it was simply missing a mobile phone unit to call its own. Jackson said that as this shift continues, OEMs that are muddling along may either be acquired or exit the market. What is clear, analysts said, is that there is a great deal of upheaval in the market.   

"This is perhaps the most fascinating time in terms of watching how the competitive levers are pulled and changed," Castonguay said.

Special Report: Wireless in the fourth quarter of 2011

Related Articles:
Apple smashes sales record with 37M iPhone sales in fiscal Q1
Analysts: Samsung primed for record smartphone shipments in Q4
Nokia ships more than 1M Lumia smartphones, but reports $1.4B loss in Q4
Sony Ericsson posts Q4 loss ahead of ownership switch
Motorola falls to Samsung, Apple in Q4
HTC's Q4 profit drops nearly 26% as Samsung's profit soars

Cricket provider Leap Wireless (NASDAQ:LEAP) said CFO Walter Berger will leave the company in the coming weeks to take a job at an unnamed firm in the technology sector. The company did not immediately name a replacement.

Berger

Berger, who has served as Leap's CFO since 2008, will leave the flat-rate carrier shortly following the filing of Leap's annual report, which is expected to occur by Feb. 29. Leap spokesman Greg Lund told FierceWireless that Berger's new company will announce his arrival soon.

In a statement, Leap CEO Dough Hutcheson praised Berger's contributions to the carrier's growth over the past four years. "Walter has played an important role in the significant improvements to our operating and financial performance during his nearly four years of service," Hutcheson said. "He has also contributed to our growth and innovation initiatives including Muve Music and our national distribution expansion. Leap is well positioned for its next phase of growth, and we appreciate Walter's professionalism in working with us to ensure a smooth transition. We wish him well in his new endeavor."

Leap did not give a specific timeline for naming a new CFO. "Leap is carefully examining its options in regards to a replacement and will make an announcement about next steps at some point in the near future," Lund said. "Our goal is to find the right person to fill the role and we will be working to do this as quickly as we can."

The carrier will announce its fourth-quarter earnings Feb. 16 but has already reported net subscriber additions of 175,000 for the fourth quarter, up substantially from 10,000 in the third quarter but down from 300,000 in the year-ago quarter when it benefited from getting customers from Pocket Communications. Smartphones and Muve devices made up 60 percent of the company's total sales in December.

2012 will likely be a busy year for Leap. Earlier this month it announced it plans to launch session-based data services over its existing tiered data pricing structure, a move that likely will allow customers to purchase faster data speeds for short periods of time. The company said it will launch the service in the first half of the year. Leap is also expanding its LTE footprint and expects to cover a total of 25 million people with LTE by the end of 2012.

For more:
- see this release
- see this Dow Jones Newswires article

Related Articles:
Leap deploys CDMA 1X Advanced for more efficient voice calling
Leap to launch session-based data transactions on top of tiered pricing
MetroPCS, Leap post sequential subscriber gains in Q4
Leap launches LTE service in Tucson
Leap to cover 25M people with LTE by the end of 2012
Leap: 60% of new customers chose smartphones

Samsung Electronics had another massive earnings bonanza in the fourth quarter, delivering solid growth in profits driven by its smartphone sales. However, according to analysts, Samsung lost its quarterly smartphone crown to Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), which sold a record 37 million iPhones in the quarter. Analysts estimated Samsung shipped around 36 million smartphones in the quarter.

On a company-wide basis, the electronics conglomerate's net profit rose 17 percent to $3.56 billion and total sales jumped 13 percent to $42.1 billion. Samsung's telecommunications business, which comprises both is handset and network units, saw its sales rise 52 percent from the year-ago period to $15.88 billion, and overall mobile sales rose 54 percent to $15.32 billion.

Samsung has not reported its specific handset and smartphone shipments for several quarters now, so it is difficult to know where exactly it stands among the likes of Apple and Nokia (NYSE:NOK). However, according to research firm Strategy Analytics, Samsung shipped a total of 95 million handsets in the fourth quarter, up from 80.7 million in the year-ago period, and placing it second behind Nokia's 113.5 million.

In smartphones, Samsung did say that its shipments were up 30 percent from the third quarter, which given Strategy Analytics third-quarter estimate of 27.8 million units would give Samsung 36.14 million. As it stands, Strategy Analytics officially said Samsung shipped 36.5 million smartphones in the quarter, just behind Apple, meaning Samsung's smartphones accounted for close to 40 percent of its total handset shipments. The company said its average selling price increased from the third quarter, but it did not give specifics, and said sales of high-end devices such as the Galaxy S II shined alongside more mass-market devices including the Galaxy Ace.

Though Apple took the No. 1 spot in global smartphone sales in the second quarter, Samsung passed it in the third quarter. Many had expected Samsung to retain its No. 1 position in the fourth quarter, but Apple's surprisingly strong fourth-quarter results pushed it past Samsung in terms of smartphone sales.

Looking ahead to 2012, Samsung said it expects the overall handset market to increase by a high single-digit percentage, and for the smartphone market to grow 30 percent over 2011. The company also said it expects the tablet market to grow "significantly" year-over-year, but that competition will intensify due to more mass market devices, which could be an allusion to devices such as Amazon's Kindle Fire. 

For more:
- see this Samsung release
- see this Strategy Analytics release
- see this Reuters article
- see this WSJ article (sub. req.)
- see this Bloomberg article

Special Report: Wireless in the fourth quarter of 2011

Related Articles:
Apple smashes sales record with 37M iPhone sales in fiscal Q1
Analysts: Samsung primed for record smartphone shipments in Q4
Samsung surpasses 300M handset sales for first time in 2011
Report: Samsung's Galaxy S II scores high with consumers
Apple falls to Samsung in Q3 smartphone sales as overall handset shipments grow
Samsung's Q3 blowout: Gains in tablets, smartphones and feature phones

In what is likely its last quarterly earnings as an independent company, Motorola Mobility (NYSE:MMI) reported that it shipped 5.3 million smartphones and 200,000 tablets in the fourth quarter, in line with weaker expectations it provided earlier this month. As previously reported, Google (NASDAQ:GOOG)  is expected to finalize its acquisition of Motorola this quarter.

Motorola shipped 10.5 million handsets and 5.8 million smartphones in the fourth quarter compared to 11.3 million handset shipments and 4.9 million smartphone shipments in the year-ago period. The company also said it shipped 200,000 tablets in the fourth quarter, and just 1 million for the year. Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ) recently launched two new LTE-enabled Motorola tablets, dubbed Droid Xyboards. 

On Motorola's financial side, the company posted net revenues of $3.4  billion, roughly flat from the year-ago quarter. Revenue from the company's mobile devices business clocked in at $2.5 billion, up 5 percent from the year-ago period.  The company also reported an $80 million net loss compared to an $80 million profit a year ago. Earlier this month the company blamed its weak fourth-quarter results on "increased competitive environment in the Mobile Device business and higher legal costs associated with ongoing Intellectual Property litigations."

Motorola said it still expects Google's $12.5 billion acquisition of the company to close early this year. Regulators around the world, including at the Department of Justice, still need to approve the deal, after which the Android smartphone maker will become a subsidiary of Google. In light of the impending closure of the deal, and in line with what it did for third-quarter earnings, Motorola did not conduct an earnings conference call for investors.

Google, which licenses Android to Motorola and dozens of other companies, has said Motorola will remain an independent business unit inside the company. Google hopes to use Motorola's patent cache to bolster the Android ecosystem, although numerous Android licensees, including HTC, LG and Samsung have already inked patent licensing deals with Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT).

For more:
- see this release

Special Report: Wireless in the fourth quarter of 2011

Related Articles:
Motorola plans to make fewer smartphone models in 2012
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AT&T Mobility (NYSE:T) reported a stunning 9.4 million smartphone sales in the fourth quarter, up nearly 60 percent year-over-year and nearly double its smartphone sales in the third quarter. The figure seems to prove once again that the operator's success in the smartphone arena isn't due solely to its exclusive deal with Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) for the iPhone, which ended in the first quarter of 2011.

Click here for key slides from AT&T's earnings presentation.

However, the company's smartphone success comes with a downside: AT&T's wireless service margin dropped to 28.7 percent in the fourth quarter, down from 43.7 percent in the third quarter.  For the year, AT&T reported wireless service margins of 38.1 percent, down from 40.7 percent in 2010.  The company said it expects its wireless margins to improve in 2012 thanks to its new tiered data price plans that it unveiled last week (the company now offers 300 MB of data for $20, 3GB of data for $30 and 5 GB of data for $50) as well as other actions such as its new upgrade policy that it put into place last year.

AT&T also reported total wireless revenues, which include equipment sales, of $16.7 billion, up 10 percent year-over year and wireless services revenues of $14.3 billion, up 4 percent in the fourth quarter. The company had 2.5 million wireless net additions in the quarter, bringing its total wireless subscriber base to 103.2 million.

On the company's quarterly earnings call with investors and analysts, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson championed the need for more spectrum and chastised the FCC for creating more confusion. Specifically, he said that if the FCC needs to take action and show more leadership, adding that companies like AT&T lack options for acquiring more spectrum if the FCC is not going to allow M&A activity such as AT&T's failed $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA. "The FCC is intent upon picking winners and losers instead of making this market work," he said.

Here is a breakdown of other key metrics for the quarter:  

Smartphones: The company sold 9.4 million smartphones in the quarter, and 7.6 million iPhones were activated. However, AT&T also sold twice as many Android smartphones as it did in the previous year's quarter. Also, 56.8 percent of AT&T's 69.3 million postpaid subscriber have smartphones, up from 42.7 percent a year earlier.

LTE Deployment: Stephenson said that the company ended the year with 74 million POPs covered with LTE and will have 80 percent of the U.S. covered with LTE by year-end 2013.  In addition, he said that the company now has 80 percent of its network equipped with Ethernet backhaul to help speed data delivery. AT&T also added about 80,000 new antennas to its network and 30,000 carriers.

Tiered Data Plans: The company reported that 22 million of its 69.3 million postpaid subscribers are on tiered data price plans.

Data-only Devices: AT&T added 751,000 tablets, aircards and data-only devices to its network for a total of 5.1 million. Approximately 311,000 of those new subscribers were tablet customers.

Data Revenues: Data revenues increased 19.4 percent to $5.9 billion.

Subscribers: AT&T added 717,000 wireless postpaid subscribers, the largest increase in five quarters. The company added 159,000 prepaid subscribers and 592,000 customers came from resellers. The company also added 1.03 million connected devices.

ARPU: Postpaid average revenue per user was up 1.4 percent to $63.76

Churn: Churn was up slightly to 1.21 percent from 1.15 percent in the year-ago quarter.

 For more:
- see this release

Special Report: Wireless in the fourth quarter of 2011

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Quick news from around the Web

@FierceWireless: @allthingsd: Apple to Exxon: Try to Keep Up Will Ya? Article | Follow@FierceWireless

> Ron Resnick stepped down as president of the WiMAX Forum. Release

> Here is a map of the spectrum AT&T Mobility is giving to T-Mobile USA as part of its breakup fee. Article

> Will AT&T launch the Nokia Lumia 900 for $100 in March? Article

> The latest iPhone rumors have the next iPhone pegged for a summer launch. Article

> Motorola Mobility hit Apple with another patent lawsuit. Article

> The world's first commercial white space network is launching North Carolina. Article

> Hewlett-Packard said the first open source version of webOS will come in September. Article

Mobile Content News

> Google raked in 51.7 percent of U.S. mobile ad revenues in 2011, translating to about $750 million, according to a new eMarketer report. Article 

> Mobile commerce solutions provider ShopSavvy introduced SavvyListings, a Craigslist-like mobile marketplace enabling consumers to sell products directly from their smartphones. Article

> 955 Dreams, the startup responsible for hit iOS applications including Band of the Day, closed a $3.25 million seed round led by accelerator program 500 Startups and venture firm m8 Capital. Article

Broadband Wireless News

> With Windows 8 connection manager, Microsoft shows it gets mobile. Commentary

> The travails of wireless backhaul provider FiberTower are continuing, as the company acknowledged it had received a delisting notice from Nasdaq. Article

> Celeno Communications is looking to land its Wi-Fi technology in consumer living rooms after inking a deal to supply Wi-Fi solutions for Amino Communications' IPTV set-top boxes. Article

European Wireless News

> Telefónica and KPN have both initiated discussions to merge their respective German mobile businesses E-Plus, and O2 Germany, but no concrete offers have been made on either side. Article

> Italy's leading mobile operators selected CommScope to supply and install a cellular network to provide 2G/3G coverage across Rome's Metro network by the end of this year. Article

> The UMTS Forum will request at the forthcoming World Radiocommunication Conference that additional spectrum be urgently identified and allocated to support the projected growth in mobile data. Article

And finally... Nokia sold a former factory in Romania to Italian appliance maker De'Longhi. Article

Nokia Siemens Networks reported weaker fourth-quarter sales and although the vendor now has the acquisition of Motorola Solutions' (NYSE:MSI) networks business under its belt, NSN is in for a rough first quarter and 2012 as it embarks on a massive restructuring program.

In the fourth quarter Nokia Siemens reported an operating profit in the fourth quarter of $88 million, up from an operating profit of just $1.3 million in the year-ago period. However, sales fell 4 percent to $5 billion in the quarter. NSN noted in its earnings statement that since its acquisition of Motorola Solutions' closed on April 30, 2011, its fourth-quarter results are not directly comparable to those in 2010. Excluding the Motorola Solutions assets, sales would have decreased 11 percent year-over-year. NSN said that just over half its fourth-quarter revenues came from its global services business.

"The cause for the plunge in revenue is a falloff in deployment activity in India for 3G networks and a wrap up of major network modernization contracts in Europe," TBR analyst Chris Antlitz wrote in a research note. "While those trends supported topline growth for NSN, they hurt profitability because of the aggressive pricing tactics employed by Huawei and ZTE to grab market share."

Nokia CFO Timo Ihamuotila confirmed that Nokia Siemens secured a $1.69 billion credit facility. According to a Reuters report earlier this week, the company was originally hoping to raise close to $2 billion but market turmoil made that impossible and the company had to settle for the smaller amount.

NSN said in November it would undergo a major restructuring to focus on mobile broadband and that it will slash up to 17,000 jobs by the end of 2013. The vendor said it expects to take substantial charges in the first quarter related to the restructuring. Since that November announcement NSN has sold several of its business units. In December it sold its wireline business to Adtran and its WiMAX business NewNet Communication Technologies, which is backed by private equity firm Skyview Capital. In November, NSN sold its microwave business unit to DragonWave.

Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) CFO Jan Frykhammar said that his company might be interested in acquiring NSN assets, but only if they were up for sale. "If they put out assets for sale and there comes official processes, I think our responsibility...is--if we are invited to have a look--[to] look at them," he told Total Telecom.  Frykhammar pointed to Ericsson's $1.5 billion purchase of OSS/BSS vendor Telcordia as well as Ericsson's participation in a consortium to purchase Nortel networks' patents for $4.5 billion as examples of the company acquiring assets that add value.

However, Frykhammar stressed that Ericsson is not actively looking to acquire NSN's assets. "As a leadership team we do not speculate on consolidation," he said. "If assets are available we look at them; whether we go and acquire assets, that's completely different."

For more:
- see this release
- see this Total Telecom article
- see this Reuters article

Special Report: Wireless in the fourth quarter of 2011

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The ability to use both TDD and FDD spectrum in LTE networks is a great opportunity to increase capacity and to tap into more affordable spectrum bands, but it is also a challenge that has started to spur innovation among mobile operators, writes Monica Paolini. Japanese carrier Softbank's new 4G network is one of the earliest examples of a TDD deployment integrated within a wide FDD 3G network. What makes the Softbank network different from other LTE networks is not intrinsically due to the fact that it uses TDD. Rather, it is Softbank assets and requirements that pushed the operator in a new direction. To deploy the network, Softbank bought Willcom's 2.5 GHz spectrum, but it also inherited its 1.9 GHz Personal Handy-phone System (PHS) network infrastructure--a very dense collection of urban sites that serves as the initial footprint for the 4G deployment, with sites, backhaul and antennas shared between the two networks. Commentary

Nokia (NYSE:NOK) said it has shipped more than 1 million Lumia smartphones running Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Phone software to date. The phones first became available in November and CEO Stephen Elop said he is encouraged by consumer reception to the devices. Nevertheless, Nokia posted a $1.4 billion loss in the fourth quarter and reported a 21 percent drop in sales.

The Finnish vendor reported a net loss of $1.4 billion in the quarter, down from a profit of $979 million in the year-ago period. Since Nokia officially formed its location and commerce business in the fourth quarter and valued it at $5.39 billion, the company booked a goodwill charge of $1.44 billion. Nokia's board also nominated entrepreneur Risto Siilasmaa to succeed Jorma Ollila as chairman of the company.

Overall, net sales fell 21 percent to $13.1 billion, down from $16.6 billion in the year-ago period. In the company's key devices and services business, sales fell 29 percent in the fourth quarter to $7.8 billion. Nokia shipped a total of 113.5 million handsets in the fourth quarter, down 8 percent form 123.7 million in the year-ago period. The company also shipped 19.6 million smartphones, down 31 percent from 28.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2010, roughly in line with analysts' estimates, according to Reuters.

Nokia unveiled its Lumia phones, the 800 and the 710 in late October, and started shipping them in select locations in Europe and Asia shortly thereafter. In the United States, the company's 710 started selling this month through T-Mobile USA for $50 with a service contract, and AT&T Mobility (NYSE:T) is set to release the LTE-capable Lumia 900 sometime in the next few months.

Elop said during the company's earnings conference call that he is pleased with the market reception to its Lumia phones but said the company still has "a tremendous amount to accomplish in 2012 in order to position Nokia for long-term sustainable growth." He noted that the company had established "beachheads" in several markets, and will expand its Lumia lineup this year, including to China and Latin America in the first half. He said that the performance of the devices have varied market to market, and that while retail execution in the UK has been "mixed" due to the strength of Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS and Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android platform, the devices have fared better in Germany and Spain.

The Nokia chief said that carrier executives think having a strong third smartphone ecosystem is critical. He added that the company will work to increase the engagement of retail sales representatives, will seed more devices into the retail channel and is learning more about how to approach its marketing and brand awareness. He also said the company is adjusting its plans and will increase the rate of new Windows Phone product introductions.

Interestingly, Nokia said in the fourth quarter it received a $250 million payment from Microsoft for using Windows Phone, the first quarterly "platform support payment" Microsoft will make to Nokia. Nokia said it has a competitive software royalty structure, which includes minimum software royalty commitments. Nokia said that over the life of its agreement with Microsoft both the platform support payments and the minimum software royalty commitments are expected to measure in the billions of dollars.

For more:
- see this release
- see this WSJ article (sub. req.)
- see this NYT article
- see this Bloomberg article
- see this Reuters article

Special Report: Wireless in the fourth quarter of 2011

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Article updated Jan. 26 to reflect that Nokia said it has shipped more than 1 million Lumia phones "to date," and not in the fourth quarter.

Nokia may have shipped over 1 million Lumia handsets in the fourth quarter, and could boost this number to 3.2 million in the first quarter, according to a survey of analysts.

A Bloomberg survey of 22 forecasters had only one analyst predicting Lumia sales of below 1 million, with 1.3 million being a popular estimate for shipment made by the end of 2011. Expectations among the 22 analysts surveyed ranged from sales of 800,000 Lumia phones to 2 million, though the average expectations were above 1 million. Nokia will report its fourth-quarter earnings Thursday.

"The numbers look promising," Espen Furnes, an Oslo-based fund manager at Storebrand Asset Management, told Bloomberg. "If Nokia is able to have a strong launch and surpass at least one million and keep that type of momentum, this would help put them in a credible position that is crucial to winning back investors."

However, Nokia's overall smartphones sales, which still rely heavily on Symbian, may have plummeted 36 per cent in the quarter, analysts said, and will likely have a damaging effect on Nokia's overall revenue and profit. Industry watchers are already saying that the company is likely to have made a loss of €91.6 million in the fourth quarter, with sales down 21 per cent at around €10 billion, according to Bloomberg.

Commenting on the decline in Symbian sales, Goldman Sachs analyst Tim Boddy issued a note claiming that Nokia remains in a challenging transition period. "First-half device sales are likely to be soft as Lumia demand ramps up only gradually and Symbian declines steepen," he wrote.

This worry regarding Lumia sales volumes has been highlighted by Neil Mawston, a director at research firm Strategy Analytics. Speaking to Dow Jones Newswire, Mawston said investors are focusing too much on Nokia's latest smartphones so soon after their release, and given they're only available in a handful of countries.

"It's too soon to judge," Mawston said. "If you look back to Apple's iPhone performance in 2007 and Google's Android in 2008, they had a sluggish start the first quarter after launch and people started to write them off, but new models came a year or so later and sales rocketed."

For more:
- see this Bloomberg article
- see this Dow Jones Newswire article

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Report: Nokia under pressure to slash Lumia 710 pricing in UK
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Rumour Mill: O2 reverses course, agrees to sell Nokia's Lumia phones in Germany

Telefónica and KPN have both initiated discussions to merge their respective German mobile businesses E-Plus, and O2 Germany, according to O2 CEO Germany René Schuster. However, the approaches from both firms have never moved beyond informal discussions. "Every time I talk to them they say they're not for sale, and every time they talk to us we say we're not for sale," Schuster said in an interview with Reuters at a conference in Munich.

Schuster added that he did not foresee that German regulators would block the consolidation of the mobile market from four operators to three. "I could never say what the regulator would do but all the analysis that we've seen leads me to believe they wouldn't oppose it," he said.

However, any suggestion of a merger has been squashed by KPN CEO Eelco Blok, who said that no talks are currently underway. However, Blok said at an investor conference in November that it would make sense to merge the two companies' German operations.

KPN stated earlier this week that its weak fourth-quarter results would mean a cut to its 2012 forecast, and that it would sell the international IT division of its Getronics unit. KNPN said it will sell Getronics' European operations outside the Netherlands to Germany's Aurelius and its Latin American business to private equity firm OpenGate Capital, each for undisclosed sums. However, KNP said the businesses had combined sales of €665 million last year. KPN bought Getronics for €776 million in 2007

The sales triggered speculation that KPN may be moving toward a radical restructuring, but analysts cautioned against that. "Selling Getronics International will tantalise some investors with the possibility that this company [KPN itself] will either be taken private or broken up altogether," Robin Bienenstock, an analyst at Bernstein Research, told Reuters. "But those hopes are unrealistic as KPN's results clearly show that KPN Netherlands needs KPN Germany's cash in order to right itself."

For more:
- see this Reuters article
- see this separate Reuters article
- see this AP article

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Ericsson surprised the market by announcing a 66 percent slump in fourth-quarter net profit of €170.3 million, down from around €499 million in the year-ago period. The Swedish vendor put the blame on declining sales in its core networks business and said that operators are being cautious about network spending.

The quarterly results were "really bad," Alandsbanken analyst Lars Soderfjell told Dow Jones Newswires. "The big negative surprise is the weak performance for Ericsson's networks business unit, where sales have fallen brutally. This is primarily a result of weak sales in North America."

In an attempt to steer the focus away from the quarterly results, CEO Hans Vestberg said in a statement that full-year sales for 2011 had increased by 12 per cent to €25.7 billion while net profit rose by 9 per cent to €1.43 billion.

"For the full year 2011, we had a strong sales growth and an increase in net income," Vestberg said in a statement. "In the fourth quarter, however, we saw weaker development in networks, as well as an expected gross margin impact from a changed business mix with more coverage projects, modernisation projects in Europe, and a higher services share."

Adding more detail, Ericsson CFO Jan Frykhammar told Telecoms.com that the cause of this poor quarterly performance was a slowdown in network spending in North America and Russia. The company had also been building its strength in Europe, taking on less profitable deals with the aim of winning more repeat business in the future--a strategy that is working but has impacted the gross margin as a result.

Frykhammar also highlighted the 70 new managed services contracts Ericsson had won during 2011, together with the strong growth in consultancy and systems integration helped along by its acquisition of OSS/BSS vendor Telcordia.

However, Robert Jakobsen, analyst at Jyske Bank, was less upbeat in his assessment: "It is hard to find anything positive in the report," he told Reuters. "The company has indicated there would be a slowdown, but this is much worse than expected."

For more:
- see this release
- see this AFP article
- see this Telecoms.com article
- see this Reuters article

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Italy's leading mobile operators selected infrastructure solutions firm CommScope to supply and install a cellular network to provide 2G/3G coverage across Rome's Metro network by the end of this year.

In comparison, Transport for London (TfL), which operates the London Underground, has announced that Tube passengers will have access to Wi-Fi services in advance of the London 2012 Olympics, but only when waiting on the underground platforms.

Commenting on the Italian contract, CommScope said that it had been selected by Telecom Italia, Vodafone, Wind and H3G to provide and install a multi-operator system to provide voice and data services to passengers and staff throughout the system's stations and trains. The company has already installed similar systems in Turin and Milan.

CommScope's sales director Samuel Buttarelli said that multi-operator, multi-frequency band and multi-technology standards were common scenarios when working on train projects such as these. "Despite the complexities of providing wireless coverage in moving trains, narrow tunnels and enclosed stations, CommScope expects to quickly implement a successful solution with minimal impact on the existing infrastructure, resulting in greater passenger satisfaction and more loyalty to our operator customers," Buttarell said in a statement.

Meanwhile, TfL said it has yet to select a WI-Fi system provider, but intends to appoint and have the system installed in 120 London Underground stations. According to Mobile Today, Everything Everywhere, O2, 3UK and Vodafone are bidding for the contract, with BT and Virgin Media competing to win the fixed-line side.

TfL's director of strategy and service development Gareth Powell told Mobile Today: "We are in the final stages of the tender process. London Underground is continuing with preparations to install the necessary infrastructure and is on schedule to complete the project as planned. An announcement of the chosen service provider will be made in early spring, leaving plenty of time for this to be delivered to customers in time for the 2012 Games.'

For more:
- see this release
- see this Mobile Europe article
- see this Mobile Today article

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The skyrocketing growth in smartphone sales might slow dramatically due to potential users being confused or apathetic about upgrading, according to a new research report from Analysys Mason.

The report found that 46 per cent of consumers surveyed who haven't purchased a smartphone are reluctant to do so because of the high price and lack of need for functionality they provide. The study also highlights the confusion among consumers about different cellular network generations and whether their handset will work in the future.

Analysys Mason's report is based on a survey of 7,485 consumers in six European countries and the United States. The survey covers a wide range of topics and issues related to the adoption and usage of, and attitudes towards, all telecoms services, including fixed and mobile broadband, fixed and mobile voice and TV and video services.

Martin Scott, the author of the report and a principal analyst at Analysys Mason, believes the uncertainty has been heightened following ambiguous marketing by some mobile operators and the numbering of Apple's iPhone models has resulted in nearly half of iPhone 4 users believing they are already using a 4G-capable handset.

"Consumers are, for the most part, ill-informed about what 4G is and what it enables," Scott said in a statement. "Mobile operators' ability to articulate the benefits of Long Term Evolution (LTE) and 4G to the average consumer will have a significant impact on take-up of these technologies."

For more:
- see this Analysys Mason release

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The UMTS Forum will request at the forthcoming World Radiocommunication Conference that additional spectrum must be urgently identified and allocated to support the projected growth in mobile data. The UMTS Forum, whose members include Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Orange France and SFR, said its calculations indicate that mobile data traffic will grow by a factor of 33 during decade from 2010 to 2020. This growth is even more pronounced in Western Europe, where the same study forecasts that data traffic will leap by a factor of 67 in the same 10-year period. The trade body claims that investment in new technologies and network density alone cannot address this upsurge in demand that is widely supported by many other industry forecasts. As such the Forum has asked the ITU to consider reviewing the IMT spectrum allocation at the next World Radiocommunication Conference in 2015. Release

Microwave mobile backhaul in 2011 weathered the economic storm fairly well, even here in North America.  Emmy Johnson, the founder of Sky Light Research,  writes that the backhaul market is expected to see positive growth in 2012, despite operators' plans to either slow or restructure capital expenditures. Sky Light Research believes that backhaul is one area in the network that will continue to receive funding, due to the critical role backhaul plays. Commentary

LG Electronics said it sold more than 1 million of its flagship Optimus LTE smartphones globally since the device's debut in South Korea in October, and the company's stock rose on optimism that its handset unit might post a fourth-quarter profit.

LG Optimus LTE

The news is a bit of a bright spot for the South Korean firm, which has struggled to keep with larger rival Samsung and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) in the smartphone arena. LG said it sold 600,000 units of the high-end device in South Korea and 400,000 outside. LG also noted that three major North American  carriers have launched the device, including AT&T Mobility (NYSE:T), which launched it as the Nitro HD in December for $250 with a two-year contract (it is now sold for $200). The device has a dual-core 1.5 GHz processor, a 4.5-inch 720p HD screen, 8-megapixel camera and up to 20 GB of total storage.

LG has had other recent U.S. wins for its Android-based LTE devices. Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ) earlier this month launched the LG Spectrum, which features a 4.5-inch True HD In-Plane Switching (IPS) display. Verizon is selling it for $200 with a two-year contract. Flat-rate player MetroPCS (NASDAQ:PCS) will also launch the LG Connect 4G this month, adding to its LTE smartphone lineup.

In trading in Seoul, the company's stock rose 4.1 percent amid market optimism that its handset unit will turn a profit in the fourth quarter after six straight quarters of losses. LG has said it plans to raise $940 million via a rights offering in a bid to boost investment in its handset unit and other core businesses. The company will also boost spending on smartphones in 2012.

For more:
- see this release
- see this CNET article
- see this Bloomberg article

Related Articles:
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LG struggles in Q3, pins hopes on LTE smartphones

Quick news from around the Web

@FierceWireless: @gigaom: Apple pulls just ahead of Google in U.S. smartphones  Article | Follow@FierceWireless

 > Motorola Solutions announced fourth-quarter sales of $2.3 billion, up 5 percent from the same quarter in the previous year. Release

> Clearwire has priced an offering of $300 million senior secured notes due in 2016. Release

> Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) is concerned about possible inappropriate lobbying by LightSquared. Article

> Motorola plans to continue investing in "smart actions," or  rules designed to make it easier for novice users to make their phones act the way they want them to. Article

>  Nvidia cut its outlook for current-quarter sales, saying it has been hit by a shortage of hard drives as well as a decline in Tegra 2 chipset sales. Article

> IntelePeer priced its IPO at $9 to $11 per share in hopes of raising as much as $82.5 million. Article

Mobile Content News

> Thirty-six percent of consumers who purchased Apple's iPhone 4S jumped ship from a device running Google's Android, Research In Motion's BlackBerry or Palm's webOS, according to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. Article

> The Mobile Marketing Association trade association issued its finalized MMA Mobile Application Privacy Policy guidelines. Article

> Verizon Investments led a round of Series C funding in Skyfire, a mobile web and video optimization firm. Article

> NimbleBit has issued an open letter alleging Zynga's new Dream Heights copies its blockbuster Tiny Tower. Article

> Shopkick announced that its location-based rewards application now touts 3 million active users. Article

And finally... Have more money than you know what to do with? Consider the $2,400 BlackBerry Porsche Design P'9981 smartphone. Article

AT&T Mobility (NYSE:T) is accusing Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S) of taking advantage of expanded roaming rules to stop investing in its network. Sprint disputes the claim, saying that it has actually doubled its network investment in the past year.

In a blog post that started the fracas, Robert Quinn, AT&T's senior vice president for federal regulatory, pointed to two local news reports from the The Oklahoman and Kansas City Business Journal that said that starting  March 1 Sprint will be relying more on roaming in rural parts of Oklahoma and Kansas in a bid to cut network costs. "Due to rising network costs, we are making adjustments to the coverage we provide to some areas of Oklahoma and Kansas," Sprint spokeswoman Melinda Tiemeyer told the Kansas City Business Journal.

Quinn wrote this shows Sprint is free-riding on other carriers' network investments. The AT&T executive sharply criticized the FCC's April 2010 decision to abolish 2007 home roaming rules for voice services, and allow smaller carriers to seek roaming agreements in markets where they have spectrum but have not yet built their networks. He also was critical of an April 2011 FCC decision mandating automatic data roaming. Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ) sued to block the data roaming rules and the lawsuit will likely be heard in federal court this year. 

"As a result of those two FCC Orders, Sprint can now use other folks' networks rather than pony up its own investment dollars," Quinn wrote. "Nice work if you can get it."

Sprint disputed AT&T's claim and said in a statement that it was "disappointing, but not surprising" that AT&T is criticizing the data roaming rules, which AT&T had opposed. Sprint also blasted AT&T's critique of its network investment, and pointed to its multibillion-dollar Network Vision network modernization plan, which is under way. "The facts are that Sprint, as part of its Network Vision program, doubled its 2011 capital investment over 2010 to make tens of thousands of capacity upgrades, resulting in a better wireless experience for its customers," Sprint said in its statement. "With these network investments, Sprint continues to offer consumers a better value than AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile." 

AT&T and Sprint sparred repeatedly over network investment in 2011 and over AT&T's ultimately unsuccessful attempt to acquire T-Mobile USA for $39 billion. 

For more:
- see this The Oklahoman article
- see this Kansas City Business Journal article
- see this AT&T blog post
- see this The Verge article

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T-Mobile gets 7-year roaming deal, AWS spectrum as part of AT&T/T-Mobile breakup fee
In FCC filing, Sprint blasts AT&T for inept network management
Verizon files suit against FCC's data roaming rules
FCC approves mandatory data roaming rules
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Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) reported a 66 percent drop in net profit as the company confronted tepid operator spending and declining North American sales, particularly for CDMA products. Nevertheless, the Swedish vendor said it will become more efficient and focus on winning LTE business as carriers continue to upgrade their networks.

In the fourth quarter Ericsson posted a net profit of $222 million, down sharply from $651 million in the year-ago period, and well below analysts' expectations, according to Bloomberg. Overall sales inched up just 1 percent to $9.42 billion. Sales in the company's networks business, its largest unit, fell 9 percent to $4.9 billion, due mainly to weakness in Russia and North America.

The vendor said that networks sales in North America were down 27 percent, and that the market was impacted by "operator consolidation, technology shift from CDMA to LTE as well as a slower pace after a period of high operator investments in network capacity." In North America, where overall sales declined 20 percent in the quarter, Ericsson said CDMA sales declined sequentially and year-over-year "as a result of the ongoing rapid technology shift to LTE."

In an interview with FierceWireless, Ericsson CFO Jan Frykhammar said that the company knew when it acquired Nortel Network's CDMA and LTE units in 2010 that its CDMA installed base in North America would decline over time. "We think it has peaked and we think that the transition to LTE will now happen, and this will become more of a service business with maintenance and support," he said.

Frykhammar noted that Ericsson remains in a strong position in North America and that the shift to adopt and deploy LTE networks will now accelerate. Overall, he said that Ericsson is sensing some caution from carriers around the world on network spending but that the underlying conditions of continued mobile broadband growth and smartphone usage remained strong.

Despite the weaker results, Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg said the company will not embark on any major restructuring like its smaller rival Nokia Siemens Networks, which plans to cut up to 17,000 jobs and focus solely on mobile broadband. "That said, we're not planning across-the-board restructuring or layoff programs," Vestberg said in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires. "Instead, I expect that all our business units will continue to focus on becoming more efficient."

Vestberg also added that he is confident Ericsson gained market share from its rivals in 2011 and that investments in LTE will pick up. "This shift in technology means that there is a period when sales will slow down, but over time investments in next-generation networks will become very important for us," he said.

For more:
- see this release
- see this NYT article
- see this Dow Jones Newswires article (sub. req.)
- see this Bloomberg article

Special Report: Wireless in the fourth quarter of 2011

Related Articles:
Analysts: Network infrastructure spending cuts could hit Alca-Lu, NSN
Nokia to cut 3,500 jobs, invest $1.36B in NSN along with Siemens
Dell'Oro: Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent outpace competitors in global LTE market
Ericsson posts Q3 profit, but N. American sales continue to decline

The first wave of smartphone adoption and data/applications growth was primarily a consumer-oriented phenomenon. But over the past couple of years, the enterprise mobility market has been on fire.. Venture capitalists, initially reticent to invest in enterprise-centric plays after the "mobile middleware" debacle of ten years ago, are looking more favorably on the sector.

In 2011, VCs put some $1.5 billion into enterprise-oriented application and infrastructure firms, such as Antenna Software, Apperian, Pyxis Mobile/Verivo, MobileIron and Appcelerator. Major consulting companies are seeing significant growth in their mobility consulting practices. Leading operators are intensifying their focus on the enterprise, shown in the growth of AT&T's Business Solutions Group and Verizon's recent formation of the Enterprise Solutions Group. And 2012 will be the first year when the "mobile" component of major brands' advertising budget will be more than a rounding error.

The initial phase of enterprise activity in mobile has centered around three main components: 

• Developing mobile policies for smartphones, mobile data and applications. Bring-your-own-device, device management, security, and virtualization fit into this category.
• Mobile-enabling core functions. 4G wireless networks, more open development tools, smartphones, and cloud services are now enabling companies to extend core functions to an anywhere, any device framework, via the Web or as apps. This is a far more rapid and less costly process than it used to be.
• Developing a mobile presence. Business and consumer customers are starting to expect that they can use a smartphone or tablet to perform most of the transactions they can do today on a PC--and in fact expect the experience to be possibly even better. There is huge activity out there--such as Google's highly publicized GoMo initiative--to provide companies with the tools to rapidly and inexpensively mobile-optimize their Web presence.

As all the above activity occurs concurrently and at an accelerated pace, I believe the next several years will witness an even more significant transformation: leading brands will harness mobile to develop entirely new revenue streams. Although the B2E segment will continue to grow rapidly, we will see intensification of activity in the B2B and B2C spaces. One fascinating indicator is to see the number of "VP, Mobile Strategy" positions being recruited--across vertical industries.

Forward-thinking companies will see a mobile device not merely as a "portable computer", but for what it is: a combination information, personal assistant, entertainment, and purchasing appliance that is almost always with the person, is connected, knows where you are, has a unique interface, and, with the proper safeguards and permissions, encompasses a treasure trove of information about the subscriber that can be used proactively and productively.

Some leading-edge enterprises are already harnessing this potential. They can point to mobile initiatives that are either creating new or ancillary revenue streams, or are delivering some form of sustained competitive advantage. At OpenTable, for example, some 15 percent of all reservations are now booked via mobile, translating into one million seated diners per month.  At Pandora, nearly 70 percent of all use of Pandora comes from a mobile device, representing a huge part of the company's growth. Additional revenue streams will come from more relevant advertising and greater likelihood of instant purchases.

Think of travel as another example. Being able to purchase an airline ticket from your phone instead of a PC is a "check the box" phenomenon, per the above. Ancillary revenue opportunities might be a last-minute paid upgrade, based on dynamic pricing and inventory; proactively selling a day pass to the airline club when there's a delay; previewing and purchasing a meal or entertainment on the way to the airport, etc. 

Every major company is or will soon be "doing something" in mobile. But just as we saw with the Web, there will be a delta between those companies that merely mobilizing existing processes and those who use mobile to create substantial new business opportunities. There will also be enormous opportunity to develop the framework to help companies recognize the potential, and then plan, implement and measure against it.

Within a couple of years, any medium-to-large-size company whose Web presence and core customer functions are not "any connected device" enabled will be at a competitive disadvantage. The real story will be the companies that are using mobile to significantly extend or open new lines of business.

Mark Lowenstein, a leading industry analyst, consultant, and commentator, is Managing Director of Mobile Ecosystem. Click here to subscribe to his free Lens on Wireless monthly newsletter, or follow him on Twitter at @marklowenstein.