There are a few news items to report from the last week of 2015.

Companies and Products

ANADIGICS' board received three bids for the company: GaAs Labs matched the $0.54 per share offer from an unnamed competitor, prompting a competitor to bid $0.58 per share, which was followed by a second unnamed competitor bidding $0.68 per share — 94 percent above the original deal price of $0.35 per share. ANADIGICS' board said the higher offer has "material issues that need to be negotiated and resolved." GaAs Labs has until January 4 to respond.

China Mobile and Ericsson signed an agreement to collaborate on 5G R&D, including radio technology, network architecture and IoT.

China Telecom's chairman, Chang Xiaobing, was accused of "serious violations of discipline" by the Communist Party's watchdog and subsequently resigned his position. China watcher Doug Young thinks this may lead to the merger of China Telecom with China Unicom.

Fairchild's deal to be acquired by ON Semiconductor is in play following a revised offer by a Chinese suitor offering to cover the risk of a CFIUS (Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S.) denial and resulting termination fee. The new offer is $21.70 per share, compared with ON Semi's agreement to pay $20 per share.

GigOptix is trying to become a major player by riding the growth of the datacom market. L&F Capital Management is bullish on their outlook. I'm not as bullish nor endorsing any investment, as GigOptix has formidable competition from MACOM and Qorvo. However, I find their ambitions and bravado interesting to watch.

Intel completed the $16.7 billion acquisition of Altera. The Altera brand will survive, operating as a separate business unit.

Markets and Technology

Cellular — The recently concluded WRC-15 conference added a band at 3.5 GHz for mobile services and small cells. WRC-19 will address spectrum allocations above 24 GHz.

5G — Verizon is pushing 5G development in the U.S., while T-Mobile and AT&T are waiting for the standards to gel. Verizon plans initial trials in 2016, with wider deployment in 2017. More details in these articles from RCR Wireless and DSL Reports.

Broadband — New York City began installing public, gigabit Wi-Fi kiosks, slated to become the modern version of the POTS (plain old telephone service) phone booth.

The latest Pew survey shows that U.S. broadband penetration is plateauing while smartphone-only access is increasing. Cord cutting is also growing.

Alphabet and Facebook are racing to bring Internet to the 4.2 billion people on the globe who are not yet connected.

Drones — ADS-B is one of several systems being considered to keep drones segregated from airlines and other aircraft (source: Wall Street Journal article). The challenge is that aircraft development is well ahead of integrated navigation systems and the regulatory framework.

If you come across news that you think I should include in this weekly summary, please send it to me at glerude@mwjournal.com. Also, if you'd like to receive these weekly updates via email, let me know.

Happy New Year. Have a good week.