Free Mobile competitors could easily anticipate

The Chairman of Arcep, auditioned by a Commission of the National Assembly, returned to the entry of Free Mobile telecoms market.

Free Mobile competitors have, in the past months, regularly turned to - regulator Arcep for telecoms - to complain about the conditions enjoyed by the new entrant on the French market of mobile telephony. Arcep which, meanwhile, was very happy to see more competition to interfere in the market, since it benefits directly to the Subscriber. Accused of not sufficiently well assessed the impact of the arrival of a fourth operator on the market, Arcep held to be explained once again by the voice of its president Jean-Ludovic Silicani, at a hearing before the Commission of Economic Affairs of the National Assembly.

Jean-Ludovic Silicani began by recalling an indisputable fact: "everywhere in Europe, we find four fixed/mobile operators." All studies show that the price of the mobile France, was higher than elsewhere. "And the choice of the place to a new entrant was made as early as 2000, when the decision on the distribution of 3 G frequencies".

From there, according to him, nobody can say taking courses. The president of Arcep also does not hesitate to explain that those who complain today, could handle the situation differently. "If they had thought in 2006/2008 to spend a full-MVNO with Free agreement, the issue would not have arisen and they would not be in this situation, perhaps Free have not deployed fourth mobile network." "It is a choice on their part: they did everything to block the development of the full MVNO in France while they were abroad the increasing" he says.

As the price of the licence paid by Free Mobile, competitors believe bradee, yet Jean-Ludovic Silicani presents things flat: "If the conditions were so favourable, if the price was so low, other operators have jumped at the opportunity to be a candidate." "However, despite our efforts, a single operator competed". The price paid for the license is logical, because Free Mobile has a lower volume of frequencies. Not to mention that the new operator arrived very late on its competitors.

Finally, the last difficult question concerns the consequences of the arrival of Free Mobile employment, since its competitors dismiss to restore their margins, and relocate more: "I remember that the sector is facing a trend decline in its numbers, so is somewhat easy to do on the back of Free (...)" For direct employment we are to 1 600 posts deleted via voluntary departures. For indirect jobs, depends on the strategies of operators but 1,500 jobs could be affected (...) Meanwhile, Free have recently created 2,000 jobs including via the launch of two centres of calls in the Paris region. "In all we have 3,000 in losses and 2,000 in gains so the balance is negative 1 000 jobs".

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Free Mobile could be punished by Arcep

Alternative Mobile has, on behalf of the MVNO, before the Arcep regards wholesale offers Free mobile virtual operators...

The conditions for the entry of Free Mobile in the mobile telephony market have been defined by Arcep - Telecoms Regulator - and negotiated in exchange for commitments specific (and ambitious) to animate the competition. If, in terms of rates applied, Free Mobile has fulfilled its commitments and even a little more than that by planting a beautiful mess (the first results are visible, with an average revenue per user down), this is hardly the case with respect to offers of large virtual operators, the famous MVNO. Thus, Alternative Mobile seized Arcep comes formally to initiate a procedure against Free Mobile for breaches of commitments.

It must be said that the wholesale rates proposed by Free Mobile in the MVNO are such that they do not really to propose offers more interesting than those already placed on the market by the néo-opérateur. Thus, the monthly access subscription is billed at least €2 duty-free, while Free Mobile offers its customers to package to €2 per month TTC. According to Alternative Mobile, this demonstrates that Free Mobile does not take its commitments of animation of the competition, leaving no room for manoeuvre to the MVNO, as explained already here: Free Mobile does stimulate competition or kill the MVNO?

Alternative Mobile welcomes the decision of Arcep to have put in place a procedure and hope that it will go to an end to punish Free Mobile and force it to honour its commitments so that the MVNO who would rely on its network to offer their offers, can do so at competitive rates.

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Android royalties: Huawei could say “not” at Microsoft

Microsoft does succeed to reach an agreement with China's Huawei to receive royalties on sales of its Android devices?

Micosoft believes that Android devices infringe its patents and does not hesitate to put pressure on manufacturers of these to get royalties on each model delivered. A strategy that works, big brands have already signed agreements with the U.S. software giant, which allows Microsoft to generate more revenue now than its own Windows Phone. Recently, Samsung was concerned, joining HTC, Onkyo, Velocity Micro, General Dynamics Itronix, Acer and Viewsonic.

New target for Microsoft, China's Huawei, which - after having long made ??white label terminals for operators - markets recently Android smartphones under its own brand. Huawei has told the Guardian he was approached by Microsoft as part of an agreement to license a patent against royalties. Victor Xu, marketing director, confirmed that negotiations are under way with Microsoft, but it is clearly not ready to abdicate at the moment, challenging the legitimacy of the process.

Huawei U8230, the first Android smartphone sold in the Chinese own name

"We are part of those who respect intellectual property. But we also hold 65,000 patents worldwide. We can protect ourselves," says he, also waiting to see if the purchase of Motorola Mobility enough Google will enrich the portfolio patent editor for Android change the situation vis-à-vis Microsoft royalties. We do not yet know Huawei is able to sign with Microsoft or it will go to trial, as have Motorola decided to do it or Barnes & Noble.

A subject on which it is desirable that justice looks anyway, because if one side believes Microsoft still have not seen a single terminal that Android does not infringe its patents, Google accuses the firm of Redmond to extort money by threatening to manufacturers of trial. What had led to heated exchanges in the public, via Twitter.

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IBM Racetrack memory could be a reality by 2020

IBM gave a Conference of press last Wednesday on his memories of the future and for the first time, Big Blue States that its Racetack could be a reality by the end of the Decade. In addition, by three years of capacity of 1 Po can be stored in a surface equal to a 1U rack, always according to the firm.

We presented you the progress of the IBM's Racetrack last December. A reminder, this memory is based on a mechanism different from the current submissions. Instead of fetching the data bit in the cell, as is the case today, it moves on a track of a few tens of nanometers in thickness. Researchers still need many challenges and better understand its functioning, but published last December results allow to consider marketing in five to seven years, according to Big Blue. We are nevertheless talking about a project that could be abandoned or used for other purposes.

This is not the first time that IBM would work on a memory that would not see the day. Is remembered for his research on the Millepede, a chip where the information is stored in holes etched in a fine polymer. The memory cells are written and read by one of the multiple branches of a MEMS walks on the surface. The Millipede was scheduled for 2007, but too high production costs were ultimately correct its existence. The technology is not dead. Gerd Bining, head of the project at IBM, said during the Conference IEEE last May that the firm was still working on it, but no more account do the memory of tomorrow. Big Blue recycle technologies developed in other products, such as probes used in lithographic processes.

During the Conference last Wednesday, IBM has also pledged to increase memory density, without giving more details. He spoke only of "magnetic technology", according to IDG that reported the event. The fact that this technology arrives within three years suggests that he is working on his own MRAM, which would be nothing surprising. We know that it has partnered with TDK to his development and he presented a paper at the IEDM (International Electron Device Meeting) in 2010 (see "IBM and Samsung talk TWU RAM").

Things change very quickly and the STT-MRAM could start to compete with Flash memory within three years (cf. "Toshiba would out a STT-MRAM in 3 years"). Research in this area abound (cf. "A new structure of MRAM") and manufacturers show more enthusiasm for this technology, which is always a good sign.

For the record, the STT-MRAM is based on spin transfer torque (Spin-Transfer Torque in English) which is a phenomenon appearing when a spin-polarised current (which contains electrons with the same angular movement, Editor's note) passes through the junction magnetic tunnel, a structure composed of two ferromagnetic elements separated by a thin insulating layer. As shown in the diagram on the left, one of the ferromagnetic layers is said trapped by Antiferromagnetic element. Whatever happens, its polarity will remain unchanged. However, the other layer is free and the polarized current through the junction tunnel effect, it will adopt the spin of electron sent, a phenomenon known as Spin-transfer Switching. We will then measure the magnetic strength of the structure. If it is strong, it means that the two ferromagnetic plates have opposite polarities, which represents a 0. If it is low, the polarities are identical, which is a 1.

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The HTC Android could be banned after the victory of Apple

Last Friday, the U.S. international trade commission found that the HTC smartphones violated two patents for Apple on multimedia content processing and treatment of information from an email. Florian Mueller, an analyst for the FOSS Patents blog believes that these two technologies take root in the operating system of Google and not from HTC codes, which could be very damaging to the editor. Manufacturer of course appealed this decision and a special commission will decide on December 6, 2011. If the Taiwanese is guilty, it could prohibit the export of its terminals in the U.S. market.It is a decision that surprised, because Apple was given loser since that one of the Councillors of the ITC gave an unfavourable opinion from the firm Apple (cf. "A symbolic victory for Nokia against Apple"). Case Friday dealt the ten patent infringement which has been the subject of a complaint lodged in March 2010.The answer of HTC did not do wait. "Will vigorously fight the two remaining patents in appealing to the ITC Commissioners who will take their final decision." The manufacturer then attempted to downplay the importance of this decision by stating that it is "to one step among many others in the legal procedure".

However, the stakes of this case are huge, because it is sufficient that HTC is recognized guilty of violating one of the two patents to prohibit the sale of its terminals to the United States. The ramifications of such a decision would be equally important. Apple would have strong arguments to file a complaint against other manufacturers and in other countries.

Indeed, as suggested by several analysts, including Mr. Mueller is cited by the LA Times, the technology would be specific to Google. This means that Apple could prohibit all smartphones Android using the codes in question and that the solution is to rewrite the software considered illegal is not a simple matter because the editor will have to design a parade and deploy it to all relevant terminal before that sales can resume.The two patents that give winning Apple were filed in 1994 and 1996, i.e. well before the commercialization of smartphones, which explains their fundamental and speculation as to their scope. They have been designed for computers, but are broad enough to be applied to mobile terminals.

Reminder, manufacturers of smartphones are entangled in complex legal battles are mark industry. Apple accused Samsung of the copy, which would have pushed him to abandon the Korean for the manufacture of its processors ARM (see "TSMC would produce processors Apple A6"). In addition, Cupertino has paid an unknown amount to Nokia in exchange for the abandonment of judicial proceedings and an exchange of patents.

Microsoft has convinced HTC to pay $ 5 for each smartphone Android sold in exchange for not not the trainer in the courts. There is doubt, however, the company Apple wishes to negotiate a settlement agreement for the time being. Indeed, Redmond is now completely overtaken by the new world of mobile operating systems. It has for the moment no popular system for Tablet and Steve Ballmer admitted that sales of Windows Phone 7, who arrived later were disappointing (see "400 million Windows 7 licenses in nature"). It thus has interest to make a profit on Android. iOS is however in a position of strength and Android is a serious rival. Cupertino may prefer see terminals Android banned the market rather than receive a commission on their sales. A settlement agreement is not impossible, but it remains unlikely. Whatever happens, the disputes between the Apple and HTC are not completed. The father of iOS, laid new complaints last week against HTC believing that the firm violated five new patents on information scrolling, zooming and rotation of the screen.

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