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Nokia buys controlling stake of Nokia Siemens Networks for $2.2b
That didn't take long -- just hours after Bloomberg reported that Nokia was planning to buy out its German partner, the two firms have made it official: Nokia Siemens Networks is about to become a fully owned subsidiary of Espoo. The €1.7 billion ($2.2 billion) buyout will eventually see the Siemens name dropped from the network, naturally, though Nokia hasn't yet announced what the restructured entity will be called. The transaction isn't a complete surprise, of course -- earlier this year Siemens CFO Joe Kaeser told Dow Jones Newswires that 2013 was the year his company would help "NSN to move into a better place," announcing plans to separate from the partnership. Kaeser continued the thought in today's announcement, calling Nokia's new acquisition as "an attractive opportunity to actively shape the telecom equipment market for the future and create sustainable value." Nokia head honcho Stephen Elop echoed the sentiment, speaking highly of NSN's recent financial growth and looking ahead to future ventures. Read on for Nokia and Siemens official press release, complete with quotes, statements and financial specifics.
Bloomberg: Nokia will buy Siemens' share of joint venture for less than $2.6b
Not all partnerships pan out, and Nokia seems ready to call it quits: according to Bloomberg, the company might announce a buy out of the German half of Nokia Siemens Networks later this week. Sources familiar with the matter say that the the Finnish firm is planning to use a bridge loan to finance the $2.6 billion purchase (less than 2 billion euros), taking the entire operation under its own wing. It's not a completely unexpected move on Nokia's part -- the company previously avoided selling off stake in the network back in 2011, opting to lean on its own shareholders instead. Bloomberg reports that Siemens has declined to comment on the issue, but we'll let you know if we hear anything solid.
Nokia Siemens Networks hands business support division to Redknee, reaffirms focus on mobile broadband
There aren't too many surefire ways to get oneself focused in the business world, but completely detaching a corporation from a business division ain't a bad tactic. Just two days after Nokia Siemens Networks announced that it'd be selling off its optical business in order to focus on LTE, the firm has relinquished absolute control over yet another division. Dubbed a "planned acquisition" by Redknee CEO Lucas Skoczkowski, his company will be taking ownership of NSN's Business Support Systems. For Nokia Siemens Networks, it means 1,200 fewer employees to handle (they'll be moving to Redknee, not fired), and who knows how many saved headaches. The division is presently responsible for providing "real-time charging, rating, policy, and customer care solutions to more than 130 communication service providers, including half of the top 100 global mobile operators." In other words, precisely the type of baggage you'd hope to drop if looking to "focus on mobile broadband," as stated by NSN CEO Rajeev Suri. Nothing like a little spring cleaning in December, huh?
Nokia Siemens Networks sells off its optical business, swings focus to LTE
Nokia Siemens Networks has long been eager to shed as much weight as it can (unfortunately, including some staff) in a bid to turn around a business full of legacy hardware. The next on the chopping block, however, is a big one: the optical networking division. NSN has struck a deal to sell the fiber-focused group to Marlin Equity Partners and spin it out as a separate company. While the price of the deal isn't public, we're glad to hear that the 1,900 workers affected by the shift should keep their jobs if the agreement closes as promised, in early 2013. NSN chief Rajeev Suri makes no bones about the handover's goal -- it's to let his company concentrate on LTE and other thriving businesses while giving the optical group a second chance through Marlin's investment, if all goes well. We're left with an NSN that's considerably smaller than what we knew from its glory days, but it could be worth the hurt pride if the company stays standing.
Nokia's Q2 2012 financials: 4 million Lumias sold, $1.01 billion dollar loss
The past three months haven't been the best for Finland's former world number one. It hasn't been helped by the three biggest credit agencies lowering the company's bond rating to "junk," and the Lumia 900's violently slashed price. Unfortunately the latest results reveal continuing gloom: the manufacturer made an operating loss of $1.01 billion dollars for the quarter. The company managed to make €7.5 billion in sales ($9.2 billion, down .5 billion since the last quarter), shifting four million Lumia handsets in the process. In fact, the only cause for optimism is that sales of the Lumia range have roughly doubled each quarter. The number of handsets pushed out the door increased (thanks to the Asha range of budget phones) with the company selling 73 million phones. That said, the company has clearly failed to crack America, selling a paltry 600,000 handsets in the States. The cash pile has also continued to dwindle, with the piggybank currently standing at €4.1 billion ($5.1 billion), down from $6.3 billion in Q1, despite getting a further $250 million in kickbacks from Microsoft. Unsurprisingly, the prediction for the third quarter of the year was similarly dour, summed up rather euphemistically as "difficult."
Report: Sprint planning to dump Lightsquared as early as next week
According to Bloomberg, Sprint is considering pulling the plug on its partnership with Lightsquared as early as next week. Philip Falcone's burgeoning enterprise was subject to a March 15th deadline to gain approval for a nationwide LTE network, but that was shot down by the FCC last month. The company's been treading water ever since and whilst it remains optimistic that a workaround can be found, it's already ousted former CEO Sanjiv Ahuja, fired 45 percent of its staff and defaulted on a $56 million payment to Inmarsat. The same report claims that Nokia Siemens Networks, the infrastructure arm of the handset maker has suspended network building projects until further notice. The split would cost Sprint around $74 million, but given the current state of affairs, that may look like a bargain.
Nokia Siemens promises better TD-LTE and CDMA coverage, no alarms or surprises
So, Nokia Siemens Networks wasn't fibbing when it said it would re-focus its efforts on mobile broadband. It's just announced a 'six pipe' radio head upgrade for time division LTE (TD-LTE) base stations that can boost capacity by 80 percent and coverage by 40 percent compared to a traditional three-sector site. Alternatively, the same replacement can be used to reduce a station's running costs, by allowing it to cover three sectors using a single radio head. As far as we're concerned, anything that recalls OK Computer is a good thing, but if it speeds up carriers' shift to LTE then it's even better. Meanwhile, for those who still want to invest in CDMA, Nokia Siemens is pushing it's 1X Advanced technology, which also promises big improvements in voice and data capacity as well as energy efficiency. Read on for more technical details in a PR double-shot.
Nokia Siemens Networks looks to unload WiMax division onto NewNet Communication
WiMax expansion isn't exactly all the rage as of late, and so it comes as no surprise that Nokia Siemens Networks is shedding itself of the extraneous baggage. Following its recent whopping round of layoffs, the move is a continuation of the company's efforts to bring stability to its bottom line. NewNet Communication Technologies has agreed to bring the castoff WiMax technologies into its fold, along with approximately 300 NSN employees -- all for an undisclosed price -- in a deal that's expected to be finalized before year's end. A full press release follows the break.
Nokia Siemens to cut 17,000 jobs as part of global restructuring
Nokia Siemens Networks has just announced a new global restructuring initiative that will result in the loss of a whopping 17,000 jobs. According to a statement released today, the company will "realign its business to focus on mobile broadband (including optical), customer experience management and services." To achieve this, Nokia Siemens plans to reduce its operating expenses and overhead costs by about €1 billion and its workforce by nearly a quarter -- both by the end of 2013. The company explained the job cuts thusly: "These planned reductions are expected to be driven by aligning the company's workforce with its new strategy as well as through a range of productivity and efficiency measures. These planned measures are expected to include elimination of the company's matrix organizational structure, site consolidation, transfer of activities to global delivery centers, consolidation of certain central functions, cost synergies from the integration of Motorola's wireless assets, efficiencies in service operations, and company-wide process simplification." No word yet on which countries will receive the brunt of the blow, though the company says it will launch local re-training and re-employment programs in affected areas. The mass layoff is only the latest in a recent spate of Nokia-related cuts, and according to Nokia Siemens CEO Rajeev Suri, it's lamentably necessary. "As we look towards the prospect of an independent future, we need to take action now to improve our profitability and cash generation," the exec said. "These planned reductions are regrettable but necessary - and it is our goal to make them in a fair and responsible way, providing the support we can to employees and communities." Full press release after the break.
Nokia Siemens makes multi-carrier HSPA+ hurtle at 336Mbps
It's easy to shrug off technical achievements like this while real-world data speeds still lag so far behind. Nevertheless, the adrenalin junkies at Nokia Siemens Services insist their latest HSPA+ platform will be commercially available to carriers by the end of next year and, to prove it actually works, they've been demoing at PT Expo Comm in Beijing. The technology uses the latest 3GPP standardization to hog eight 42Mbps frequency channels at the same time, delivering a peak throughput of 336Mbps. Sure, it doesn't come close to the 1Gbps speeds we've seen from Ericsson with LTE-Advanced, but if it gets here first we'll have it. [Thanks, Alan]
Nokia Siemens Networks chooses a suitor: its own shareholders
A lot of marriages hit rough patches from time to time, and it's no different for companies and their shareholders. The last three months have likely been especially tumultuous for Nokia Siemens Networks as it played the field, conducting a review to assess potential private equity interest. In the end, however, NSN determined the grass was indeed greener on its own side. According to the press release (found after the break), it concluded that "the current shareholders are in the best position to further enhance the value of the company." Given that NSN's reported three successive quarters of year-on-year growth, the troubled relationship appears to be out of hot water for now -- we just hope the shareholders are willing to kiss and make up.
Nokia Siemens Networks looking for a date, despite some baggage
Well it appears the big dreams of the Nokia / Siemens joint-venture have gone adrift. WSJ reports the parent companies are mulling options to sell a majority stake in Nokia Siemens Networks. While both Nokia and Siemens insist they're not actively seeking suitors, leadership suggests the deal could provide $2 billion to the equipment provider that's been losing money since its founding. NSN has experienced a rough patch lately, with the news of AT&T's buyout of T-Mobile hitting particularly hard -- especially since the partnership had banked on helping T-Mo expand its HPSA+ network. While the equipment provider remains optimistic of its $7 billion contract with LightSquared, things could get tricky if the LTE start-up opts to purchase capacity from existing carriers. Even though NSN doesn't appear desperate, perhaps there's $2 billion up for grabs in some boardroom somewhere. Any offers? Anyone? Bueller?
Motorola and Huawei drop pending lawsuits, enter into new info-sharing agreement
After months of fighting on the playground, Motorola and Huawei have finally come to an agreement to settle their differences once and for all. Both parties have now dropped their pending lawsuits, with Motorola originally accusing Huawei of stealing trade secrets from its former employees, and later on Huawei getting all worried about Motorola leaking confidential information over their partnership to the rivaling Nokia Siemens Networks. The new agreement will now allow Motorola "transfer its commercial agreements with Huawei to NSN for a fee," which would then permit NSN use this info to service Motorola's networks that utilise Huawei's equipment. Aww, isn't it nice when money solves everything? Press release after the break.
Motorola temporarily banned from spilling Huawei secrets to NSN, could affect $1.2B sale
Well, that didn't take long at all: in response to Huawei's lawsuit yesterday over concerns that Motorola could tell its dirty secrets to Nokia Siemens Networks in the wake of their $1.2 billion unit sale, a judge in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois has issued a temporary ruling banning Motorola from disclosing any Huawei proprietary information to NSN. Technically, we suppose that doesn't prevent the sale -- which the two companies had hoped to close in early 2011 -- from going through unabated, but in reality it probably does since there's no clean way for the transfer to happen without including information that Huawei had previously shared with Moto. We're sure this will take a little time to work itself out, but for the interim, looks like Huawei's gotten its wish.
Huawei sues Motorola over concerns it'll reveal secrets to Nokia Siemens
After tying off a $1.2 billion deal last July, Motorola and Nokia Siemens Networks -- the new owner of Moto's telecom infrastructure business -- have had a little roadblock thrown in their way courtesy of China's Huawei. Turns out Moto and Huawei had a partnership in place that involved the former reselling the latter's equipment, which necessitated some rather cozy information sharing -- and now Huawei's concerned that Motorola might be turning over some or all of that intellectual property to NSN as a part of the sale. You'd think this is the sort of thing that would've been squared away prior to inking a ten-figure deal, but Huawei says that it "had not been given assurance that Motorola would not transfer proprietary information" over to NSN, one of Huawei's fiercest rivals in the infrastructure biz... so you can kinda understand their concern. More on this as it develops.
iOS 4.2 supports new tech to reduce network congestion, Nokia Siemens says
One of the world's top suppliers of cellular infrastructure, Nokia Siemens, has dropped some juicy knowledge today that Apple's new iOS 4.2 update supports a technology called network-controlled fast dormancy that better optimizes how the phone connects to the network. The company touts that it's a win-win -- better battery life, less unnecessary network utilization -- and also points out that Nokia implemented the technique in all of its smartphones starting earlier this year. Since network-controlled fast dormancy is a feature that benefits the network itself as much as it benefits the individual user, knocking out two power players like Nokia and Apple (over half of new smartphone sales, NSN points out) should make a big dent. Interestingly, NSN seems to have arrived at this discovery through "tests" it conducted, not by working with Apple on implementing it. Sure, we don't pretend to know all the interactions that occur between manufacturers, carriers, and suppliers during a phone's development, but it certainly seems to us that Apple would benefit by engaging infrastructure companies early and often as these baseband updates come together -- particularly as it seeks to keep a tight lid on the very congestion issues that network-controlled fast dormancy is designed to help eliminate. Either way, it's interesting to see how quick Nokia Siemens was to probe for the change this time around.
Nokia Siemens Networks sees 825Mbps over traditional copper, Phantom DSL claims 'the future'
Look, it's not easy nor cheap to lay an entirely new network infrastructure -- just ask Verizon. Regardless of how badly we all want a fiber optic cable ran directly into our closet, it's probably in our best interest if companies like Nokia Siemens Networks continue to improve existing services. Since we're on the topic, it's probably prudent to point out a new discovery surrounding existing copper wires -- one that involves data transmissions at up to 825Mbps. As the story goes, NSN is testing new technology (let's call it Phantom DSL) that could dramatically increase capacity of conventional copper wires, with the aforesaid data point coming on a trial transfer across 400 meters of wire; when stretched to 500 meters, it still held steady at 750Mbps. We're told that Phantom DSL promises a bandwidth increase of 50 to 75 percent over existing bonded copper lines, but mum's the word on when ISPs will actually have access. Yesterday, please?
Nokia Siemens Networks doubles network capacity with DFCA
Nokia Siemens Networks seem to be onto something magical in the neverending crunch carriers face as they balance (or don't) new subscribers with network capacity. The joint venture's dreamed up something they've dubbed Dynamic Frequency Channel Allocation, a fancy name for tech that purportedly doubles a cell site's capacity with clever radio tricks. Essentially DFCA reduces the spectrum required for calls in EDGE, WCDMA, and LTE networks, freeing that extra space up for your data needs, potentially doubling capacity within the same cell site, and even helping to reduce energy consumption. The big bonus for carriers here is that this new tech is mostly software-based thereby negating the need for more hardware purchases. Magic right? Well the jury's still out on that but the whole thing sounds like it could certainly shake things up a bit for the lucky folks using Nokia Siemens hardware. Well done NSN, we love anything to do with bigger, better, faster networks.
LightSquared does LTE and satellite connectivity wholesale, Nokia Siemens to do the heavy lifting (video)
Chances are you're a little sick of different carriers having different qualities of service in different areas of the country, and have probably wondered at some point: "Can't we all just get along?" The answer is no, we can't, but LightSquared is looking to launch something of an alternative. It's starting a multi-billion dollar wholesale LTE deployment that will run coast-to-coast in the United States, covering 90 percent of the population by 2015. It will also mix that in with satellite connectivity somehow, pledging true nationwide coverage. Nokia Siemens Networks will be laying the groundwork, a $7 billion project that will surely be aided by that company's recent acquisition of Motorola's networking bits, and the total rollout is estimated to create 100,000 jobs -- good news regardless of your carrier allegiance. Anyone who wants to offer connectivity to their customers can buy some bandwidth and pass it along, meaning we could see the rebirth of the MVNO. After watching the inspirational video after the break, we're firmly sure that anything is possible.
Nokia Siemens Networks' Multiradio Flexi makes 2G / 3G-to- LTE shift easier
Nokia Siemens Networks made quite a bit of noise at last year's CTIA by introducing an LTE solution for North America, and during this year's run-up to Mobile World Congress, it's vying for attention once more. The outfit's Flexi Multiradio Base Station is an understandably flexible solution that "meets the needs of new and existing 2G and 3G operators who can use their existing infrastructure to deploy new network-wide technologies via simple software upgrade to 3G or LTE." The true multiradio base station should ease concerns from operators worried over divvying up investment dollars for supporting various technologies, and it's even backwards compatible with existing Flexi Base Stations for those looking to spruce up their current hardware. For the consumer, this device could help carriers ease into LTE deployment more quickly, as the whole cut-and-run approach to simply axing one technology and moving over suddenly to another doesn't seem to sit well with most mega-corps.
