EncryptoTel weekly digest(24.02.19)
Intel holds Apple back, Huawei is winning the smartphone market, and Donald Trump talks about non-existent technology, confusing 5G and 6G
Intel will introduce 5G smartphones chips not earlier than 2020
Smartphones with modem chips from Intel, working with 5G networks, will be available no earlier than in 2020. This was announced during a press conference in Palo Alto by Sandra Rivera, who oversees the production of network chips in Intel. And this means that their largest buyer — the American smartphone maker Apple — will be far behind in supplying 5G smartphones to the market, making way for its competitors in this direction.
Apple still has a chance to keep up with the market and to launch a 5G smartphone if the company manages to supply Samsung and MediaTek chips. It is known that the negotiations are underway, but so far their results are not reported.
Apple is going through hard times. According to the traditional rating by Fast Company, in 2018 Apple ranked first among the most innovative companies, but in 2019 fell 16 positions down, taking only 17th place. This is due to the fact that the company failed to create really impressive gadgets or technologies last year, with the exception of the A12 Bionic chipset, which was the first 7-nm solution in the industry.
Donald Trump hints a soften stance at Huawei in his tweet
The American president published a series of tweets in which he declared that the United States should be the first to develop the latest telecommunications technology. But the message of Donald Trump only confused his subscribers. In the first tweet, he wrote that he wanted 5G and “even 6G” technologies to appear in the US as soon as possible, as they offer a more powerful, faster and smarter connection than current communication standards. True, the technology 6G does not exist anywhere else in the world, and it is not entirely clear what exactly Trump had in mind, mentioning a non-existent technology.
Some media outlets suggested that the tweets of the American president imply a softer position of the authorities towards the Chinese manufacturer of telecommunications and 5G equipment Huawei, which the US accuses of collaborating with the Chinese authorities and intentionally introducing spyware vulnerabilities into their products. The fact that the Trump administration has resumed trade negotiations with China is pushing for such an interpretation of presidential tweets.
All this is happening against the background of rumors about an order to ban the purchase of equipment produced by Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE in the United States. It is possible that now Trump hints at the opportunity to reconsider his position regarding manufacturers from China.
Gartner: Huawei increases its share in the smartphone market amid falling demand for Apple and Samsung products
Apple and Huawei smartphones are too expensive, so consumers are increasingly buying smartphones from the Chinese manufacturer Huawei, said the report from the well-known Gartner consulting company. According to Gartner, the current quarter was the worst for Apple in terms of iPhone sales.
In the fourth quarter of 2018, the share of Huawei in the smartphone market increased to 15%, which is 4 percentage points higher than in the fourth quarter of 2017. Huawei has come close to a long time leaders of the market — Samsung (17%) and Apple (16%). But unlike Huawei, in the fourth quarter of the year their share of the smartphone market decreased by 2 percentage points for Apple, and 1 percentage point for Samsung.
“Apple is losing ground on several fronts, especially when it comes to emerging markets such as China,” Anthul Gupta, senior research director at Gartner, told CNBC in an interview. “In China, we see that the leading Chinese players have significantly improved the quality of their smartphones.”
South Korean telecom companies show interest in integrating blockchain solutions
The South Korean company SK Telecom together with the German media company Deutsche Telekom will develop blockchain solutions for mobile identification. The solution is designed to allow identity verification using a mobile phone. At the initial stage, SK Telecom (SKT) and Deutsche Telekom customers will automatically become users of the blockchain platform, who will have access to simplified identification without direct disclosure of personal data from partner companies, as well as being able to obtain a number of public services.
Another South Korean telecom company KT Corporation plans to launch blockchain as a service (BaaS) platform next month. Introducing the platform, the company said it wants to increase the availability of the blockchain technology and reduce the markets entry barriers. Using the BaaS platform, companies will be able to create blockchain nodes and implement smart contract APIs with a few clicks.
“The KT BaaS platform will lower entry barriers into the blockchain sphere and create an ecosystem that can grow with its partners. We will continue to develop the blockchain industry in South Korea, ”said KT’s senior vice president and head of the blockchain center at Seo Yong-il.
EncryptoTel launched a series of educational materials
Our team understands that any new service may cause wariness, so we decided to introduce our future customers to the product closer. In the instructions published in the EncryptoTel blog, we told how to create a free business account and start working with a virtual PBX with integrated blockchain services EncryptoTel.
In the first tutorial, we showed how easy it is to get started with EncryptoTel, register, get an internal and external virtual numbers, and top up your balance in a safe and confidential mode.
Materials about our services will appear weekly. Stay tuned!
