Samsung is top LTE patent holder — TIPO

South Korea’s Samsung Electronics is the top holder of standard-essential patents related to LTE technologies, according to a two-year study by Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO).

Samsung led with a 17 per cent share of standard essential LTE-related patents, while rival LG Electronics and US-based Qualcomm shared second with 14 per cent each.

Ericsson, Nokia and NTT Docomo each had a 5 per cent share, and China’s Huawei held a 3 per cent share.

TIPO analysed about 6,200 LTE/LTE-Advanced related patents filed with the US Patent & Trademark Office.

Philippines approves bill for free WiFi in public places
The Philippines House of Representatives has approved a bill providing free WiFi connections in all public spaces.

The bill calls for WiFi services to be available within two years of the bill becoming law and requires stable broadband hotspots in public spaces, such as government offices, state universities, parks, public hospitals, and public transportation terminals like airports, seaports and bus stations.

The country ranked 176 out of 202 countries with an average download speed of 3.64Mb/s, according to internet testing firm Ookla. The average is 23.3Mb/s.

Docomo opens VoLTE network for testing
NTT Docomo claimed it is the first member of the Global Certification Forum (GCF) to open up a Voice over LTE (VoLTE) network for field trials.

Japan’s largest mobile operator, which launched VoLTE service last June, said in a statement that the trials are an important step in the forum’s efforts to encourage mobile device makers to verify the interoperability of their devices with VoLTE commercial networks.

It joined the GCF in 1999 and was one of 21 operators selected to run field trials.

Docomo said it also provides a carrier aggregation network to support the development of devices.

Spark taps OpenCloud for VoLTE platform
Spark New Zealand selected OpenCloud’s application server for its virtualised VoLTE proof-of-concept.

The companies said the project went from a concept on paper to a fully-functioning, fully-virtualised VoLTE network in less than 14 weeks.

In addition to OpenCloud’s Rhino Sentinel VoLTE platform, Spark partnered with Cisco Systems for its virtualised network infrastructure, management and packet core functions and Metaswitch for its virtualised IMS functions.