Chip Giant Downsizes

Intel (News - Alert) is reorganizing in an effort that will eliminate 12,000 positions globally, representing about 11 percent of its employees. The move comes as the company works to transform itself from a PC company to cloud and Internet of Things player. Intel expects the effort to result in $750 million in savings this year and an annual run rate savings of $1.4 billion by mid-2017. If all goes as planned, the company will have more success in these new areas of focus than it did in the smartphone space, for which it missed the bus, so to speak.

No. 3 Smartphone Supplier Wants More

Huawei Technologies Co. aims to raise $2 billion by selling a 10-year U.S. dollar-denominated bond to fund its ambitions to move up from the No. 3 global smartphone player. The Chinese networking and smartphone vendor did a similar thing last year, but that one was a $1 billion bond. Mobile World Live in mid-April reported that at Huawei’s annual analyst event rotating CEO Eric Xu commented: “As you may know, up until now, China has not yet produced a high-end consumer brand. Therefore, we want to take that as a mission, and hopefully in the next five to 10 years we can do that.”

Telefonica Mexico Leverages Radio Dot

More than 1,000 Ericsson Radio Dot Systems will be deployed in airports, and commercial buildings including shopping malls in Mexico City as part of a Telefónica Mexico initiative. The systems, which support 4G/LTE (News - Alert) and 3G/WCDMA mobile broadband indoors, will allow for better coverage. Ericsson notes that’s important given

90 percent of our time is spent indoors, and only three in 10 smartphone users are satisfied with indoor voice quality, coverage, and reliability.

Spur Offers Acknowledgement for IoT

ContinuumBridge has launched Spur, a call-to-action device and service  aimed at service providers in the facilities management, retail, leisure and hospitality industries. It allows service users to initiate a request or report an issue and provides those users with  immediate acknowledgement. For example, if installed by a coffee machine the display could say, “Push here if this machine requires more coffee” and then after pressing the button the display could change to say, “More coffee for this machine has been requested”.

New Solution Lightens the Load of Managing Heavy Equipment

ORBCOMM (News - Alert) Inc. has added a new heavy equipment telematics solution to its portfolio. It relies on the dual-mode PT 7000 device and the FleetEdge web application to monitor and control equipment in construction, mining, and rail and utility environments. “The powerful combination of ORBCOMM’s PT 7000 and the depth of information provided by FleetEdge offers our heavy equipment customers a complete fleet management solution with a strong return on investment,” said Marc Eisenberg (News - Alert), ORBCOMM’s CEO. “By leveraging detailed equipment reports and analytics, customers can make informed business decisions about their fleet, while improving maintenance management, reducing operational costs, and gaining better equipment performance and uptime.”

Interop Tapped for WiFi Calling

SI Wireless is leveraging Interop Technologies’ CorePlusX voice over Wi-Fi solution to support its Wi-Fi calling service, the companies have announced. “Interop’s CorePlusX VoWiFi solution will allow us to capitalize on the immediate market demand for WiFi Calling, as well as allow our subscribers to experience one of the most exciting advanced IP services in the marketplace,” said Mike Jaksich, CTO of SI Wireless. “Many competing OTT voice applications are available today, so offering WiFi Calling as our own branded service helps us keep a leading position in our markets.”

Vendor Trumpets Its 5G Leadership

Ericsson has 21 contracts with operators around the world for 5G, a 5G test-bed that demonstrates speeds over 25Gbps, and various research partnerships around this new cellular technology, the company recently emphasized. Eric Parsons, head of mobile broadband for 4G/5G Radio Access at Ericsson, says: "Ericsson's pioneering demonstration with Telefónica, combined with the enhancements to our industry-leading indoor radio portfolio, represent a milestone in the development of LTE-U. With global data traffic growing exponentially, spectrum has become one of the world's most valuable resources. By enabling the use of unlicensed 5GHz spectrum to boost peak data rates and capacity, LTE-U helps operators extract maximum value from their spectrum investments while bringing high-quality experiences to mobile broadband users everywhere."

IoT to Overtake Mobile Phones by 2018

The new Ericsson Mobility Report forecasts that 16 billion connected devices will join the Internet of Things by the end of 2021. It also suggests that smartphone subscriptions will surpass those for basic phones in the quarter of this year. And it indicates that teenage use of cellular data for smartphone video grew 127 percent in just 15 months.

NTT DoCoMo Completes Interop Test of Altair Chipset

Japanese mobile services giant NTT DoCoMo has completed interoperability testing with Altair Semiconductor’s (News - Alert) FourGee-3800 chipset, the supplier has announced. “Completing this IOT process with NTT DoCoMo is a strategic milestone,” said Eran Eshed, co-founder and vice president of worldwide sales and marketing for Altair. “Completing IoT with a top-tier carrier like DoCoMo serves to significantly expand Altair’s global presence, while providing customers with access to multiple new markets.”