Huawei Analyst Summit 2021

neXt Curve attended Huawei’s Analyst Day (HAS) 2021 which was hosted in-person and virtually from Shenzhen, China. This event shortly followed Huawei’s Annual Report which presented the state of their business during a difficult year for the company as it faced a wide range of sanctions by the US and the global Coronavirus pandemic. HAS 2021 gave us an holistic overview of the progress that Huawei has made in evolving and executing its “survival” strategy over the last two years since the company became the focus of deteriorating relations between the United States and China.

Huawei Annual Report 2020: A Year of Survival

neXt Curve was in Nice, France attending the premier global event for digital transformation in the telecommunications industry held from May 14th through May 16th and hosted by TM Forum.  Leading vendors and operators converged to discuss what it will take help the telecom industry reinvent itself and aid telecom service providers in becoming digital service providers.  Now that 5G has arrived in select markets around the globe, the pressure is on for telecom operators to transform their operating models to capture the value promised by the next generation network.

Huawei MBB Forum 2020: Key Takeaways

neXt Curve virtually attended the 11th annual Huawei Global Mobile Broadband Forum (MBBF) 2020 which was held from November 12th to the 13th in Shanghai, China. The theme for this year’s event was “5G for Good and Innovate for New Value.” Now that we are approaching year two since the first commercial 5G deployments, Huawei is now focusing on accelerating operator value by making deployments easier and faster, and fostering new-breeds of applications that will enable digital transformation across industries. Even in these early days of 5G, Huawei is looking at what is coming next. Here is what neXt Curve found out.

Industry Insight: Rakuten Rolls Out 5G

Rakuten recently launched their long-waited and highly-anticipated 5G network service. Despite a Covid-19 induced delay, Rakuten has managed to put up a 5G network in a very short time. The jury is out as to whether they have succeeded but one thing is for certain, Rakuten has proven that an industry outsider can put up a compelling offering with the help of new cloud-based and open technologies.

Tech Insight: Heterogenous Computing

The semiconductor industry is the foundation of our digital world. Everything runs on semiconductor products and continues to advance with each new process node. As we reach the physical limits of Moore’s Law, what comes next? Heterogenous computing and heterogenous packaging are opening up new possibilities for progressing Moore’s Law through advancements in the way that we design, integrate semiconductor devices and systems.

Industry Insight: Connecting The Remote and Rural

Satellite communications have become cool again thanks to a new breed of LEO or low Earth orbit satellites that are the staple of Tesla’s Starlink constellation and Amazon’s Project Kuiper which received FCC approval in July of 2020. These satellites are deployed in the thousands with the purpose of providing global broadband coverage.

Industry Insight: Who Will Win 5G Gold?

Telco operators have great expectations of 5G and the industry hype mill has set very high bar for the value that 5G technologies and new market possibilities will bring to the communications sector. Is this excitement justified given the rapidly shifting ICT landscape? We are witnessing a dramatic change in the face of competitors and partners as new entrants into the communications service provider (CSP) space change the OTT dynamic and introduce a new breed of UTB (Under the Bottom) threat to traditional telco operators. Who will win 5G gold?

Industry Insight: Nvidia + Arm – An Industry Positive or Negative?

Shortly after Softbank announced that it was looking to spinoff or sell Arm, which they acquired in 2016 for $32 billion, the rumor mill went into full speed. Speculation ran the gamut from Intel to Apple as potential buyers. Who would court Arm? Rumors settled on Nvidia, the GPU company. Would a Nvidia + Arm union make sense? After all, Nvidia has done well and created a disruptive narrative within the semiconductor industry with its GPU-centered plot line which branches off into numerous subplots in telco networking, edge computing and various AI application domains such as autonomous vehicles, intelligent systems and smart manufacturing.

Industry Insight: Qualcomm/Huawei Settlement

An unexpected but pleasant surprise was announced at Qualcomm’s recent earnings call. Huawei had settled its $1.8 billion dispute with Qualcomm regarding the licensing of essential technologies. It represents another important win for Qualcomm in its long and hard fought battle with OEMs including Apple to preserve the integrity and vitality of its technology business. It can be considered a win for innovation. But what does the settlement mean in the grand scheme of things and the rising tensions between the US government and Huawei?

Tech Insight: Debunking 5G Myths & Hype

5G is here,.. but what does that mean. Apparently, it means a lot of things due to the myths and the hype that have characterized the next-generation mobile wireless technology and its early rollout by operators beginning in early 2019. Given the deafening media and marketing noise that has drowned out the 5G signal, it is difficult to figure out what is real and what is, quite simply, fake. What are the facts that debunk the myths and hype so that we can get to the value of 5G?