US broadband vendor Inseego completed its deal to buy Nokia’s fixed wireless access (FWA) CPE business, in a move it expects will roughly double its revenue.

By adding indoor, outdoor and mmWave FWA technologies to its wireless broadband portfolio, Inseego stated it now has a global presence across consumer and business connectivity.

Its footprint for operators now includes Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Oceania and the Americas, while also expanding its engineering capabilities.

To support its global ambition, Inseego established an international headquarters in Amsterdam, a development centre in Athens, Greece, expanded its presence in Bangalore, India, and added customer-facing sales and technical resources across its new markets.

“We now have the scale, technology, and global reach to support carriers across business, residential, and mobile use cases,” Inseego CEO Juho Sarvikas said.

The deal, announced in April, grants Nokia approximately 1.9 million common shares, representing an 11% ownership stake in Inseego

The Finnish vendor also received warrants to purchase up to 800,000 shares of common stock, at an exercise price of $4.26 per share.

Nokia will also kick in a further $10 million cash payment by 15 October to support engineering work on interoperability between Inseego’s device operating system and cloud platform and certain Nokia technology ecosystems over the coming year.

Nokia will provide transition support and refer new FWA opportunities to Inseego.

About 250 people from the acquired business will support Inseego’s engineering, product management, supply chain, sourcing and customer support operations. They include employees joining Inseego and Nokia personnel providing support under a transition services agreement.

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Infineon officially opened a $1.4 billion facility in Thailand, a move it pitched as strengthening and diversifying its manufacturing footprint while adding capacity for further growth.

The semiconductor company stated the new backend manufacturing hub was strategically located in the heart of Southeast Asia, reinforcing its ability to serve customers worldwide at a time when demand continues to grow, “driven by digitalisation, electrification and energy transition”.

It has been designed for a phased expansion, with the potential to scale up to five modules, meaning it could become one of the company’s largest backend manufacturing sites over time.  

The site will initially open with 30,000sqm of cleanroom space, which can be expanded to 150,000sqm.

Infineon has initially made an investment of $113 million into the site, while the Thailand Board of Investment stated the entire project is worth $1.4 billion.

In total, the site will create 1,000 highly skilled roles, starting with an initial 350 jobs.

The move complements a wider semiconductor drive, with the country aiming to secure around $18 billion in investment within the sector across photonics, power electronics and sensors.

Alexander Gorski, COO at Infineon, said the company was establishing a new hub in the region, which was “surrounded by a fast-growing ecosystem and with excellent access to global logistics”.

Infineon adds Thailand to its global manufacturing footprint, consisting of 13 locations across US, Europe, China and Southeast Asia.

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T-Mobile US, Verizon and AT&T sealed their joint venture (JV) to expand coverage across areas of the US that terrestrial services cannot reach, in a rare example of cooperation between the big three.

The move followed an announcement in May outlining how the operators planned to pool their spectrum resources to eliminate “dead zones” by expanding satellite coverage for customers nationwide.

Former AT&T, Cingular Wireless and Ameritech executive Paul Roth is serving as the interim CEO of the JV while a search for a permanent chief is underway. The entity will be managed by a board with representatives from each founding member.

The companies stated the JV will “nearly eliminate dead zones in the U.S. currently without mobile service, reaching previously unserved areas” to cut down on coverage gaps.

It will also be beneficial for first responders during natural disasters or other disruptions by providing connectivity when terrestrial services are down.

They claim the new service will also provide a better customer experience for direct-to-device (D2D) consumer services through the unified approach.

T-Mobile notably has launched a commercial D2D service in collaboration with SpaceX, while Verizon has rolled out a satellite messaging service with Skylo Technologies. Verizon and AT&T are also separately working with AST SpaceMobile.

AT&T Business has a partnership in place with Jeff Bezos’ Amazon Leo to provide connectivity to businesses across the US. SpaceX is also mulling a mobile service through its Starlink birds, but the industry is somewhat sceptical of its approach.

The operators stated the venture will also be a boon to additional satellite providers while also collaborating closely with rural mobile operators to expand access and simplify integration.

The service could emerge as a threat to cable operators such as Cox Communications, formerly Charter Communications, Comcast and smaller providers across rural areas which are currently losing broadband subscribers to fixed wireless access services offered by the trio.

The combined use of each operator’s spectrum will improve efficiency while enabling mobile operators to deploy new services at a faster rate.

The JV also plans to take a standards-based approach to satellite services while allowing each of the three to continue their individual efforts across the sector.

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In the first of our special podcast series focused on digital industries, Kavit sits down with executives from Viasat, Orange Business and Ennoia Technologies to discuss the viability for satellite to become a mainstream enterprise connectivity play, exploring the economics, network challenges, and AI opportunity.

0:00 Intro
3:00 Economics of adopting satellite
6:00 Satellite business case
15:00 Enterprise network connectivity
22:00 Working with MNOs
28:00 The AI question
35:00 Audience Q&A
40:00 Five-year outlook

The post Podcast: How will satellite shake-up enterprise? appeared first on Mobile World Live.