Do Smartphones Cause Cancer?

It is looking incredibly unlikely that mobile phone use is giving anyone cancer.  A long term study into the incidence of brain cancer in the Australian population between 1982 to 2013 shows no marked increase.

ZTE Attempts To Double Marketshare

China’s ZTE Corp, the world’s seventh-largest smartphone maker, wants to nearly double its U.S. market share in the next three years by increasing spending on marketing.

ZTE, which trails nearby rival Huawei Technologies Co Ltd in selling both smartphones and telecoms equipment, wants more share of the fat profit margins promised by sales of high-end phones in the United States.

But the company needs to first work on its image. Its mainstay telecom equipment business was essentially shut out of the U.S. and other markets after government officials flagged security concerns about Chinese-made equipment.

ZTE targets a U.S. market share of 10 percent by 2017 from 6 percent in 2013, Lv Qianhao, global marketing director of mobile devices, told Reuters at a company event on Thursday.

That would place it a distant third behind Apple Inc with 41 percent and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd with 26 percent, according to September-November data from researcher comScore.

To that end, ZTE will increase its U.S. marketing budget by at least 120 percent this year from last, Lv said without elaborating. Like other Chinese handset makers, ZTE is grappling with low brand awareness in the world’s second-largest smartphone market and perceptions of inferior quality.

Samsung Electronics, which earns around two-thirds of its operating profit from its mobile division, spent $597 million on marketing in the United States in 2012, according to researcher AdAge.

Last year, ZTE signed a deal with the Houston Rockets basketball team and released a Rockets-branded phone.

“We want young U.S. consumers to participate in our marketing activities, so we will have more NBA (National Basketball Association) stores and channels that sell our products,” Lv said.

Globally, ZTE aims to ship around 60 million smartphones this year compared with about 40 million smartphones last year, said Senior Vice President Zhang Renjun.

The company sees much of that growth in developed markets – including Russia and China- which accounted for 68 percent of mobile device revenue last year compared with 35 percent in 2007, said Lv.

ZTE’s mobile device business sells feature phones as well as smartphones. It was the fifth-biggest mobile phone vendor in July-September, according to researcher Gartner, though it fell out of the top five smartphone sellers list in the same period.

ZTE expects to have swung to a profit for last year having booked its first-ever loss as a public company in 2012.

It based its turnaround on cutting costs, signing fewer low-margin contracts, and winning contracts to build fourth generation telecommunication networks.

The company expects global investment in 4G to reach $100 billion this year, Zhang said.

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Did Huawei Steal From Cisco?

Huawei has replied to US rival Cisco after the networking firm made allegations about the Chinese company relating to a lawsuit between the two firms.

The case dates back to 2003 and relates to the alleged theft of source code by Huawei from Cisco for use in its networking products. The case was settled confidentially out of court.

Cisco complained about what it saw as a willful distortion of the facts of the case after Huawei’s chief representative in the US, Charles Ding, claimed the outcome was that Cisco stood down over its allegations.

In response, Cisco released excerpts from a report by an independent analyst that was used to form the basis of a settlement, which Cisco said proved Huawei had used its source code in its products.

However, in a statement sent to The INQUIRER, Huawei said it was “disappointed with the continued rhetoric from Cisco” and claimed there was no basis to its argument.

“With respect to the lawsuit which took place about 10 years ago, the fact is the court dismissed the case, upon a joint stipulation of the parties, after the neutral expert’s review. This shows Cisco’s present allegations have no merit,” it said.

Furthermore, the firm also said it didn’t believe Cisco had the right to report elements of the review.

“We don’t think Ding violated the agreement between Cisco and Huawei, which had a negotiated confidentiality provision in it,” it said. “Cisco’s general counsel’s selective and misleading cropping of a confidential report from the Neutral Expert may have violated that provision.”

Huawei added that it would consider releasing more information on the case, though, in an effort to paint a more complete picture of the case.

“However, since Cisco has put selected snippets into the public domain, the truth may require that more than carefully selected quotes be put in the public record. Huawei is exploring the best way to accomplish that goal,” it said.

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Huawei Investigating Security Flaws

Huawei Technologies said on Thursday it was investigating claims that its routers contained critical vulnerabilities, after security researchers disclosed alleged problems last.

“We are aware of the media reports on security vulnerabilities in some small Huawei routers and are verifying these claims,” Huawei said in an email. The company added it uses “rigorous security strategies and policies” to protect the networks of its customers, while following industry standards and best practices concerning security.

“Huawei has established a robust response system to address product security gaps and vulnerabilities,” the company said. The company is also calling on industry to promptly report all product security risks so that the problems can be addressed and fixed, it said in its email.

The alleged security vulnerabilities were disclosed at the Defcon hackers conference this past Sunday by two security researchers. The vulnerabilities were found in the firmware of Huawei AR18 and AR29 series routers, which once exploited through the flaws, could be taken over via the Internet.

One of the researchers, Felix Lindner the head of security firm Recurity Labs, described the security of the Huawei devices he analyzed as “the worst ever”, and said there were bound to be more security flaws with the products.

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Mobile Networks Near Capacity

Mobile networks in North America are using 80 percent of capacity, with 36 percent of base stations facing capacity constraints, according to a survey by investment firm Credit Suisse.

Networks in other regions also are more than 50 percent utilized, with the global average at 65 percent, Credit Suisse said after surveying carriers around the world. That level of use matches the average “threshold” rate that would trigger the service providers to start buying more network equipment, the report said. Looking ahead, on average the carriers expected their utilization rate to grow to 70 percent within 12 months.

Credit Suisse used the results to predict new sales by makers of cellular equipment, such as Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia Siemens Networks and Huawei Technologies. But at a certain level, heavy use of a base station can also affect the mobile experience of individual subscribers. The survey found that 23 percent of base stations worldwide had capacity constraints (defined as a utilization rate over 80 percent during busy hours), while 36 percent in North America were under that kind of pressure.

The North American networks were 72 percent utilized two years ago. The region’s carriers expect the rate to ease back down to that point within two years. North American service providers are likely to buy more equipment soon, because having their networks 74 percent filled is the threshold rate in that region, the survey said.

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