Sunday, September 7, 2008
Bush to control the Mortage Giants
Bush Administration Seizes Control of Mortgage Giants
The Bush administration seized control Sunday of troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, aiming to stabilize the housing market turmoil that is threatening financial markets and the overall economy.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is betting that providing fresh capital to the two firms will eventually lead to lower mortgage rates, spur homebuying demand and slow the plunge in home prices that has ravaged many areas of the country.
The huge potential liabilities facing each company, as a result of soaring mortgage defaults, could cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, but Paulson stressed that the financial impacts if the two companies had been allowed to fail would be far more serious.
"A failure would affect the ability of Americans to get home loans, auto loans and other consumer credit and business finance," Paulson said.
But more importantly, "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are so large and so interwoven in our financial system that a failure of either of them would cause great turmoil in our financial markets here at home and around the globe," he added in a televised announcement.
The companies, which together own or guarantee about $5 trillion in home loans, about half the nation's total, have lost $14 billion in the last year and are likely to pile up billions more in losses until the housing market begins to recover.
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama issued a statement agreeing that some form of intervention was necessary, and promised, "I will be reviewing the details of the Treasury plan and monitoring its impact to determine whether it achieves the key benchmarks I believe are necessary to address this crisis."
On Saturday, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said Fannie and Freddie "have gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers. The McCain-Palin administration will make them smaller and smarter and more effective for homeowners who need help."
Both companies were placed into a government conservatorship that will be run by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the new agency created by Congress this summer to regulate Fannie and Freddie.
The executives and board of directors of both institutions are being replaced. Herb Allison, a former vice chairman of Merrill Lynch, was selected to head Fannie Mae, and David Moffett, a former vice chairman of US Bancorp, was picked to head Freddie Mac.
Paulson was careful not to blame Daniel Mudd, the outgoing CEO of Fannie Mae, or Freddie Mac's departing CEO Richard Syron for the companies' current problems. While both men are being removed as the top executives, they have been asked to remain for an unspecified period to help with the transition.
The Treasury Department said it will immediately inject $1 billion in each of the companies through the purchase of senior preferred stock, paying 10 percent interest, and could boost its investment to as much as $100 billion each over time if the funds are needed to keep the companies afloat as losses mount. In exchange, the government will receive warrants entitling it to purchase ownership stakes of 79.9 percent in each.
Officials defended this approach by saying it underscores the importance of the trillions in mortgage debt that each company either holds or guarantees and the need to make sure that investors in this country and overseas keep buying this debt.
In addition, officials said the Treasury Department plans to purchase $5 billion in mortgage-backed debt from the two companies later this month.
The impact on existing common and preferred shares, which have slumped in value in the last year, will depend on how investors react to Paulson's assertion that they must absorb the cost of further losses first.
The Federal Reserve and other federal banking regulators said in a joint statement Sunday that "a limited number of smaller institutions" have significant holdings of common or preferred stock shares in Fannie and Freddie, and that regulators were "prepared to work with these institutions to develop capital-restoration plans."
The two companies had nearly $36 billion in preferred shares outstanding as of June 30, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Under government control, the companies will be allowed to expand their support for the mortgage market over the next year by boosting their holdings of mortgage securities they hold on their books from a combined $1.5 trillion to $1.7 trillion.
Starting in 2010, though, they are required to drop their holdings by 10 percent annually until they reach a combined $500 billion.
Paulson said that it would be up to Congress and the next president to figure out the two companies' ultimate structure and the conflicting goals they operated under -- maximizing returns for shareholders while also being required to encourage home buying for low- and moderate-income Americans.
"There is a consensus today ... that they cannot continue in their current form," he said.
Paulson and James Lockhart, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, stressed that their actions were designed to strengthen the role of the two mortgage giants in supporting the nation's housing market. Both companies do that by buying mortgage loans from banks and packaging those loans into securities that they either hold or sell to U.S. and foreign investors.
Lockhart said dividends on both common and preferred stock would be eliminated, saving about $2 billion a year. He said that all lobbying activities of both companies would stop immediately. Both companies over the years made extensive efforts to lobby members of Congress in an effort to keep the benefits they enjoyed as government-sponsored enterprises.
source : ekbtv.blogspot.com
Friday, September 5, 2008
Notebook with 3G?
Dell Netbook: Bundled with 3G
Posted by Sam Churchill on September 5th, 2008Dell’s new netbook, the Inspiron Mini 9 ($399), will be sold with built-in mobile broadband by Vodafone for HSPA access in the UK, the companies announced on Thursday.
For now its “in key European markets”. Vodafone is a part owner in Verizon. No announcement of a partnership with U.S. carriers has been announced (yet), but speculation is that cellular carriers may subsidize a Dell netbook, much like they subsidize fancy smartphones (with a two-year service contract).
Dell’s netbook has an Atom processor, 8.9-inch LED display, and an SSD (solid state disk) for storage, holding up to 16G bytes.
Vodafone will start selling the Mini 9 later this month, but has not yet said in which countries it will offer the netbook.
Laptop Magazine has an interview with Dell’s Product Manager John New
Are there plans for adding mobile broadband and do you think the monthly fees need to come down?
We think the mobile broadband capability speaks perfectly for this category so we defined the device with internal capabilities because to have an external dongle on a highly mobile device didn’t make much sense. The carriers are working on options. Right now the industry norm is $55 a month and that is a bit expensive for a low cost device. I think at some point we will see day passes, like you see with hotspot day passes. It is going to be a premium option for this category, however. As adoption continues to grow, hopefully we will see those prices come down.Do you see carriers subsiding the cost of the hardware? What flavor of mobile broadband options are you exploring?
I can’t really speak to that, but it is our job at Dell to get the technology into our customers hands and speak to the benefits of the technology. We will announce the flavors when we announce the partners.
Will it be WiMax capable?
We aren’t talking to WiMax right now.
Why the decision to only offer solid state drive options?
We are really focusing on high mobility and we are trying to lead here with the solid state disks. Because of there are no moving parts and quiet performance they are really ideal for this type of device. We have a 4, 8 and 16 GB option, but we also have partnered with Box.Net for Internet storage.
The Atom processor is due to upgrading next year. Today’s Atom-branded Diamondville-class processors are based on a Silverthorne architecture. The new 45-nm Pineview processors are expected to arrive in Q3 of 2009. They will be based on a new Lincroft micro-architecture boasting an integrated graphics core and memory manager that connects to memory via DMI, not a FSB.
source : dailywirless.org
Japan launching WiMax Rival
Japan Launching WiMAX Rival
Posted by Sam Churchill on September 5th, 2008Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications auctioned two blocks of broadband wireless spectrum in the 2.5 GHz band last December. Cellular carrier KDDI, with a WiMAX strategy, was the winner of one nationwide license. Willcom was awarded the other.
The other license winner in Japan is personal handyphone system (PHS) operator Willcom. They plan to invest $1.7 billion over six years on a broadband wireless network at 2.5 GHz.
But Willcom is not planning a WiMAX implementation.
Willcom plans to use the Japanese Personal Handyphone System (PHS), with a new standard called XGP that will offer mobile broadband speeds that rival WiMAX and LTE, reports Telecom TV.
The Willcom trial begins next April and will cover Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka and offer 20Mbps of symmetrical data speeds using a 10MHz spectrum block. A full commercial service is scheduled for August 2009.
PHS was an early digital cellular offshoot with roots in cordless phone technology. It has low power, low range characteristics and was adopted there mostly because it was deemed suitable for Japan’s high urban densities back in the 1990s. It’s cheaper to deploy than GSM, but isn’t so good at high-speed handover and is now losing ground in its home market to GSM.
But a cost-effective next gen platform for data may be possible with the eXtended Global Platform (XGP) . According to Nobuaki Takamatsu from the engineering department of Kyocera, a trial XGP service will go live in three Japanese cities as early as next April.
On display at the XGP booth at the ITU Asia show was a base station that was the size of small hand luggage as well as prototype data cards and USB dongles. At this point, the system is designed for data only services, but handsets are expected at a later stage.
The technology behind is based on the PHS architecture of numerous microcells offering limited coverage, but will incorporate a new air radio interface based on OFDMA/TDMA/TDD methodologies. Kyocera and UTStarcom will manufacture the radio access equipment for XGP while NEC Infrontia and NetIndex are developing the data card modules for the service. Canada’s Wavesat and Israel’s Altair is supplying the baseband chips for XGP. Like LTE and WiMAX, XGP will support viable spectrum blocks.
Japan has some 52 million landline telephones and 105 million mobile and PHS users (as of 2007) with a mobile penetration rate over 80%. NTT Docomo has more than 50 million customers, which is more than half of Japan’s cellular market. The rest is largely split between CDMA cellular provider KDDI (which spun off their PHS business as Willcom), and Softbank.
The United States has more than 250 million cellular subscribers but they’re spread over some 3.8 million square miles, while Japan’s land mass is only 146,000 sq miles.
source : dailywireless.org
WiMax Forum
Forum Maps WiMAX
Posted by Sam Churchill on September 5th, 2008The WiMAX Forum has announced the launch of their Interactive Deployment Database, which has information on more than 300 WiMAX deployments around the world.
The new Interactive Deployment Database relies upon the WCIS database offered by Informa Telecoms, and focuses upon various WiMAX operators, providing the readers with the latest data regarding the WiMAX deployments that have been made worldwide. A link to the database has been provided at the homepage of the WiMAX forum, and can be accessed at www.wimaxmaps.org.
WiMAX operator case studies are being added to the Forum’s website including commercial WiMAX networks by KT (Korea), DBD Deutsche Breitband Dienste (Germany), Iberbanda (Spain), WiMAX Telecom (Austria, Slovakia and Croatia), Liberty Technologies (Panama), DigitalBridge Communications (U.S.A.) and Max Telecom (Bulgaria). Additional case studies will be added to the collection later this year.
Meanwhile, Clearwire service may be available in Portland, Oregon in a month or so. By the end of the year, Clearwire may also launch service in Atlanta, Las Vegas and Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Ben Wolff, Clearwire CEO (right), expects that the joint venture will get a boost from a $3.2 billion investment from Google, Intel and three cable companies, soon, to “fuel our nationwide mobile WiMax network deployment.
source : dailywireless.org
T-Mobiles first HSDPA
Sony Ericsson TM506, T-Mobile's first HSDPA handset, goes live
by Chris Ziegler, posted Sep 5th 2008 at 2:00PM
source : engadget.com
Dell looking to Sell
Dell looking to sell factories to increase profitability
It looks like Dell is taking a rather drastic step to attempt to cut some of the costs that have been dragging it down in recent years, with The Wall Street Journal now reporting that the company plans to sell "most -- and possibly all -- of its factories" within the next 18 months -- if it can find some buyers, that is. As the paper notes, the factories were originally built to serve a PC market driven by corporate customers ordering large volumes of desktop PCs, but they've fast become a drag on the company as growth has shifted towards laptops sold at retail stores. While nothing is anywhere near official yet, the Journal pegs big contract manufacturers angling for a bigger piece of Dell's business as the most likely buyers, although there's a number of obstacles that could block such a sale, particularly when it comes to Dell's factories in the US. Dell is also said to be considering simply closing down some of the factories, and instead rely on those aforementioned contract manufacturers to build its PCs. Hit up the link below for the full saga and backstory.
source : engadget.com
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
India BSNL WiMAX
Intel + India’s BSNL = 100m WiMaxers
Posted by Sam Churchill on September 2nd, 2008India is the most promising major market for WiMAX and Intel is taking steps to ensure India’s potential is realized, says industry analyst Caroline Gabriel, today.
BSNL, the 7th largest telecom company in world, is a state-owned incumbent. It is the first and largest operator in India. After India’s telecommunication policy was revised to allow private operators, companies such as Bharti Telecom, Tata Indicom, Vodafone, MTNL, BPL and others have entered the space.
Intel’s new alliance with BSNL - a significant supporter of WiMAX - puts this relationship in a different league, in the view of Gabriel:
The partnership with BSNL will see Intel, and reportedly Cisco, putting a framework in place that should enable BSNL to accelerate its roll-out, with a far higher likelihood of commercial and operational success, despite the economic and geographical complexities of the Indian territory.
Intel is to review BSNL’s deployment roadmap, which has started with fixed access services in 3.3GHz, but will expand to embrace mobile, nomadic and hotzone systems too, in 2.5GHz and 2.3GHz.
It will help develop basic standards to underpin the roll-out and its applications, regardless of technology supplier, region or frequency band. That should reduce fragmentation in 2G and 3G - and provide a measure of future-proofing for BSNL as well as attract developers of software and content.
The agreement will also help BSNL create soft interfaces for interoperability between Wi-Fi, WiMAX and the IP backbone while supporting interconnection with other Indian carriers working with Intel.
While the business cases for India’s rapidly growing and hi-tech urban centers are not hard to make, the need for broadband is vital in its rural areas, which are inevitably harder to justify commercially. Thus the Intel partnership will focus mainly on issues such as spectral efficiency and low cost of build-out/service delivery, that are crucial to rural systems.
Intel and BSNL will also establish a proof of concept laboratory to study wireless broadband technologies including new CPE formats suited to India’s markets.
By 2012, the government hopes to link 500m citizens to the internet via more than 100m broadband connections and devices, the bulk of them wireless.
Later this year, the Indian Department of Telecommunications is to make 40MHz in the 2.3GHz band and 40MHz in the 2.5GHz band available for broadband wireless, most likely WiMAX. In the 2.5GHz band, 20MHz has already been set aside for state operators BSNL and MTNL. The remaining 60MHz in total is to be auctioned to three or more operators. 3G operators will be allowed to bid for one pair of 5MHz channels - 5MHz in the 1920-1980MHz frequency band and 5MHz at 2110-2170MHz.
Following the auctions, the potential for WiMAX operators to offer a full range of services will be greatly boosted if India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) succeeds in its proposals that WiMAX licenses will carry VoIP as well as data rights.
“The WiMAX lobby had argued that reserve price should be lower to enable them to make broadband services affordable. If they are allowed to offer voice services also they should be treated at par with existing mobile operators bidding for 3G spectrum,” a GSM industry representative told local newspapers.
Meanwhile, state-owned BSNL has become the first Indian cellco to launch 3G services, unveiling a 2Mbps free pilot service to 2,000 postpaid subscribers in the city of Pune.
BSNL will soon invite bids for WiMax equipment to cover urban areas in Punjab and Kerala. According to Unstrung, the project may be valued between $200 million and $500 million. This is the second tender issued by BSNL, which plans to spend $750 million on mobile WiMax to reach one sixth of India’s 1 billion-plus population.
According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the country, which has a population of more than 1.1 billion, had 272.88 million telephone connections at the end of 2007, of which 233.63 million were mobile and 39.25 million were fixed line.
source : dailywirless.org
AWS Testing
AWS Interference Testing Underway
Posted by Sam Churchill on September 3rd, 2008The FCC will conduct tests this week to see if the proposed 2150 MHz service interferes with T-Mobile’s ajoining AWS spectrum, notes Information Week.
The FCC wants to combine the 2155-2175 MHz band with the 2175-2180 MHz band to create a 25-MHz block of spectrum for a single nationwide license. This would then be auctioned off with the stipulation that the winner would have to use part of the spectrum to provide free wireless broadband.
Carriers don’t like the prospect of “free” broadband and hope to stop it. T-Mobile has argued that time division duplex (TDD) technology would be disruptive if deployed in the United States adjacent to its frequency division duplex (FDD) operations in AWS-1 due to mobile-to-mobile interference.
The AWS auction in the United States was held in 2006.
| Bidders | Net total of high bids |
| 1. T-Mobile | $4.2 billion |
| 2. Verizon Wireless | $2.8 billion |
| 3. SpectrumCo | $2.4 billion |
| 4. MetroPCS | $1.4 billion |
| 5. Cingular | $1.3 billion |
| 6. Cricket | $710 million |
| 7. Denali Spectrum | $365 million |
| 8. Barat Wireless | $127 million |
| 9. AWS Wireless | $116 million |
| 10. Atlantic Wireless | $81 million |
| Click here to find out who is backing these bidders. | |
T-Mobile spent more than $4 billion in 2006, more than anyone else, to acquire AWS spectrum. It is currently using the AWS band to roll out its UTMS/HSDPA service in a variety of cities.
“The proposal upends two decades of spectrum policy in favor of a specially tailored auction designed to advance the particular business model of a single company. Moreover, this business plan - including free broadband - has a track record of failure,” CTIA wrote in a letter of complaint earlier this year.
Testing will be conducted on September 3 - 5, 2008 at Boeing Technology Services’ metrology lab near Seattle, and paid for by T-Mobile.
The free service, if it launches, would run at 768 kilobits a second. Premium services at higher speeds — 3 to 6 megabits initially — would likely start around $20 a month. Like Wi-Fi, M2Z’s broadband services will be “portable” — but not fully mobile. You could use M2Z services in any fixed location but not in a fast-moving car.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin says he supports the notion of using free broadband and plans to attach a condition to the AWS-3 spectrum that would require the winner to offer free broadband to 95% of the USA within 10 years. Only 25% of network capacity would have to be reserved for this purpose; the rest could be used for premium, paid services.
Television broadcasters are given our airwaves. Free. Like a Communist State.
The unlicensed Wi-Fi band also generates no revenue for The Treasury. But now Intel, the largest proponent of universal broadband, also has some skin in the game. That could make a strong consumer-oriented lobby for truly “free” broadband access less likely.
DailyWireless stories on 2155 GHz include; FCC Seeks Feedback on 2155MHz, Free Internet Auction: On Again, CellCos to Martin: Sit Down and Shut Up, $99 Settop = Free Triple Play?, FCC: Free Broadband at 2155-2180 MHz, Bill to Free 2155-2180 Mhz, Free 2155-2175 MHz!, FCC: Free Broadband at 2155-2180 MHz, Cleartalk: The 4th AWS Network, T-Mobile’s AWS Launch Schedule?, AWS: It’s Done, M2Z: On The Offensive for Free Wireless Internet, MXtv Makes Its Move, The Free Triple Play, How to Fix Muni Wi-Fi, Wavion Beamforms Backhaul, 
source : dailywireless.org
Dell Netbook under $400
Dell Netbook: Under $400?
Posted by Sam Churchill on September 3rd, 2008Dell’s 910 netbook launches Thursday reports Engadget and the WSJ. It may cost under $400.
According to documentation obtained by Gizmodo, the Inspiron 910 will support solid-state drives up to 16 GB, weigh as little as 2.2 pounds, and run either Ubuntu Linux or Windows XP. In addition, the device will include a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, up to 1 GB of memory, an 8.9-inch screen, three USB 2.0 ports, Wi-Fi support, and a built-in camera.
Worldwide shipments for “netbooks” are on pace to reach 5.2 million units this year and 8 million units next year, according to market researcher Gartner. Manufacturers could ship as many as 50 million of the devices in 2012.
source : dailywireless.org
Life 360
Life 360 Android App
Posted by Sam Churchill on September 3rd, 2008
Life360’s application automatically notifies families about emergency events and can send messages to selected family members, even if most infrastructure has failed (pdf). Life360 alerts are customized to each user; as an example, they can convey the location of the nearest shelter via turn-by-turn locations to the site using the phone’s GPS. The GPS system also allows users to track their family members’ locations in real-time.
If a user pushes the panic button on their phone, all other users nearby are notified of the event and receive streaming audio and video from the victim’s camera. Use of the network is not limited to major emergencies; users can post requests for relatively minor incidents like missing pets, or to let others nearby know that they have a resource or skill that may be useful for a given event.
The Community Network uses GPS technology, so all posts have a physical location on the map, and users have the option of making alerts visible only to those nearby. Life360 defines a Community Network is one that constantly runs in the background, but is available when needed.
“With a string of natural disasters in the last few years, and as we watch Hurricane Gustav make its way across the Southern US, we are again reminded of the importance of being properly prepared for natural disasters,” said Chris Hulls, CEO of Life360. “Life360’s application and the Android platform demonstrate how technology can make overcoming these challenges orders of magnitude easier, faster and more effective, potentially saving lives in the process.”
Life360 is currently testing its alpha product and will release a beta version to the public later this year. The Community Network will be free of charge, and the Family Manager will be available on a subscription basis.
source : dailywireless.org
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