What’s up with… NTT Docomo, the FCC, Harmonic

• NTT Docomo, Nokia, SKT put AI to work in 6G tests
• The head of the FCC is clearing her desk
• Activist investor wants Harmonic to throw itself at Ciena

In today’s industry news roundup: With 5G monetisation still causing angst in the operator community, NTT Docomo is pushing ahead with next-generation wireless networking tests for the 6G era; Jessica Rosenworcel is bowing out of the FCC gracefully; the Ciena team has ordered some popcorn to watch the scene playing out at cable broadband and video tech vendor Harmonic; and much more!

Using AI to optimise indoor wireless communications can improve data transmission efficiency and boost broadband speeds, according to Japanese mobile operator NTT Docomo, which has been working on next-generation networking tests with its parent company, NTT, as well as SK Telecom and Nokia. According to Docomo, the use of AI-based baseband transmission and reception processing technology (running on a GPU-based server) developed by the Finnish vendor in a wireless network scenario using spectrum in the 4.8 GHz band can improve transmission speeds by “up to 18% compared to conventional methods”. The Japanese operator noted in this announcement: “With further upgrades, the technology is expected to optimise modulation and demodulation schemes for diverse propagation environments and thereby improve communication quality across a broad range of wireless transmission [use] cases. Going forward, Docomo will continue further test initiatives with major domestic and international vendors as well as international operators.” The telco is pitching this as R&D for the 6G era, and noted that it “expects to accelerate 6G R&D and contribute to 6G’s global standardisation and commercialisation.”

With Brendan Carr already identified by US president-elect Donald Trump as her successor, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has announced that she plans to leave the US telecom and media regulator on 20 January 2025. “Serving at the Federal Communications Commission has been the honour of a lifetime, especially my tenure as chair and as the first woman in history to be confirmed to lead this agency. I want to thank President Biden for entrusting me with the responsibility to guide the FCC during a time when communications technology is a part of every aspect of civic and commercial life. Taking the oath of office on the street outside of the agency during the height of the pandemic, when so much of our day-to-day moved online, made clear how important the work of the FCC is and how essential it is for us to build a digital future that works for everyone. I am proud to have served at the FCC alongside some of the hardest-working and dedicated public servants I have ever known. Together, we accomplished seemingly impossible feats like setting up the largest broadband affordability programme in history – which led to us connecting more than 23 million households to high-speed internet, connecting more than 17 million students caught in the homework gap to hotspots and other devices as learning moved online, putting national security and public safety matters with communications front and centre before the agency, and launching the first-ever Space Bureau to support United States leadership in the new space age.”

Cable broadband and video delivery equipment vendor Harmonic is coming under pressure from an activist investor to sell itself to a larger vendor, and Ciena, which has been building up a presence in the high-speed access technology sector in the past couple of years, has been identified as a suitable suitor. The activist investor, Ancora Holdings (which holds less than 3% of harmonic’s stock), issued a public statement earlier this week, proclaiming that there is greater value in the company from flogging it than there is from continuing to run it as a standalone company and that “there is a clear opportunity for Harmonic to attract interest from well-capitalised acquirers, such as Ciena.” The optical equipment vendor’s management and board must have been thrilled! “We consider Harmonic to be a great underlying business, but believe the company does not have infinite time to achieve its full potential,” noted Ancora, which is a rather cheeky way of asking someone else to pay over the odds for the stock it is holding. In its most recent financial quarter, Harmonic generated revenues of $196m and an operating profit of $35.4m. 

Google is in the spotlight as the US Department of Justice (DoJ) is calling for the forced sale of the big tech firm’s Chrome browser in order to level the playing field in the internet search market, reports NBC. The DoJ noted in a document that, to remedy what it believes to be a current anti-competitive situation, Google is required to “divest Chrome, which will permanently stop Google’s control of this critical search access point and allow rival search engines the ability to access the browser that for many users is a gateway to the internet.” The DoJ also listed a number of other remedies, including barring deals with smartphone makers, such as Samsung, that make Chrome the preferred search tool on their devices, and requiring Google to share its US search results with rival search engine companies for a period of at least 10 years. As you’d expect, Google is not impressed. “The DOJ continues to push a radical agenda that goes far beyond the legal issues in this case,” said Google executive Lee-Anne Mulholland in a statement published by the BBC.  

The bucks keep on pouring into the AI sector, with Elon Musk’s xAI startup reportedly having raised a further $5bn in a new funding round that values the company at about $50bn, according to The Wall Street Journal. xAI, which has now raised $11bn this year, reportedly plans to use some of the funding to buy 100,000 Nvidia chips to train its AI models (no wonder Nvidia is raking in the greenbacks!).  xAI is developing a generative AI (GenAI) tool, dubbed Grok-1, to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT.   

A Chinese ship that set sail from the Russian port of Ust-Luga and is suspected of damaging subsea communications cables in the Baltic Sea has been detained by the Danish navy, according to Defence24. As reported earlier this week, damage to two subsea optical lines is believed to have been deliberate sabotage, and Chinese vessel Yi Peng 3 is believed to be the perpetrator.  

South Korea mobile operator LG Uplus has a new CEO. Hwang Hyun-sik, who has been in the hot seat since March 2021, is stepping down and will be replaced by Hong Beom-sik, who is currently head of the LG Group’s Management Strategy Division, as the new CEO. Hong “is considered the right person to lead LG Uplus’s new leap forward based on his strategic insight within the LG Group,” the company noted in this announcement (in Korean). For more background, see this article from TOPDaily. The move comes only weeks after Hwang presented the operator’s updated and expanded AI strategy, including plans to invest up to 3tn won ($2.1bn) and forge close relationships with big tech giants, such as Google, over the next four years to help it become an AI transformation (AX) company – see South Korea’s LG Uplus expands its AI strategy.

– The staff, TelecomTV