Top stories from the 3GSM, Barcelona - Part 2

1. More music from O2
2. Phone SIMs, 3GSM to be integrated in notebooks
3. China limbers up with 3G licenses
4. Lucent Selects Ubiquity’s SIP application serve for IPMS
5. MetaSolv lays out IMS play
6. Alcatel unveils mobile WiMAX base station
7. New records in attendance for the 3G World Congress
8. Rogers Communications selects Ericsson for UMTS/HSDPA in canada
9. GSMA touts video sharing tests

More music from O2

O2 has been clarifying some of its latest moves in the music space, at 3GSM Barcelona. It also hosted a gig from latest boy band signing – Upper Room.

To more closely identify with its customerbase, O2 has decided to actively sponsor a four piece band from Brighton called Upper Room. They played a live gig to the assembled suits from the 3GSM show in a swish Barcelona nite club last night.

It's hoped the move will trigger more of the UK's youth to actively follow O2's music offerings on both its WAP site (O2 Active) and its i-mode site. O2 recently said it had over 100K users and 130 sites on its i-mode portal.

Head of content management with O2, Graham Riddell, also revealed that O2's recently announced support for the Loudeye platform uses the Beast's DRM technology.

That means you can download the same music track to your mobile phone, your PC and your personal music player. As long as they support Windows Media Player, of course.


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Phone SIMs, 3GSM to be integrated in notebooks

The GSM Association and chip giant Intel said they will push the standard for notebook machines so that people can connect and roam across mobile networks around the world.

The trade association and Intel are developing reference guides to integrate 3G modems and SIM cards into laptops making it a bit easier to connect if you're out of range of a hotspot.

Every notebook will be SIM ready - according to Rob Conway, the chieftain of the GSM Association. He said that laptops with connectivity to 3GSM will make secure authentication and connection just that bit easier.

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China limbers up with 3G licenses

China is anticipated to issue 3G licenses by June this year to ensure it has a cutting-edge mobile phone infrastructure in place for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

This move would generate $12 billion in spending on new equipment, and has been the talk of the 3GSM mobile trade fair in Barcelona this week.

Though China has the pressing deadline of the Olympics, which will mark its high-profile launch onto the world stage, it is keen to push its homegrown 3G mobile communications intellectual property. This standard, TD-SCDMA is still being tested which is why China is being slow to divvy up its 3G licences.

The Chinese government has to decide whether to push ahead with the commercially unproven TD-SCDMA standard, or opt for the European standard WCDMA. There is also the US standard, CDMA 2000.

Some industry watchers believe China will hedge its bets and build networks based on both WCDMA and CDMA 2000, with TD-SCDMA used more for support rather than as a stand-alone system.


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Lucent Selects Ubiquity’s SIP application serve for IPMS

Lucent Technologies has formally selected Ubiquity’s SIP application server for the vendor’s growing IP Multimedia Subsystem portfolio, agreeing to resell the server to its carrier customers and to further work on integrating the SIP technology with its own architecture. Ubiquity has been working with Lucent, IBM and other vendors and integrators as ecosystem partners, but today’s Lucent announcement is the first time Lucent has agreed to an OEM deal with the vendor.

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MetaSolv lays out IMS play

MetaSolv Software used the backdrop of the 3GSM World Congress this week to present its strategy for IP multimedia subsystem, or IMS, support in convergent activation and mediation. The company also introduced Mediation 5, a new version of its mediation application designed for multi-service 3G wireless, IP, voice-over-IP and traditional voice networks.

MetaSolv, which was named this week by analyst firm, OSS Observer in its report "Market Share: Global OSS Market Leadership in 19 Segments," as the market leader in service activation and the runner-up in service fulfillment, will position its IMS solutions as those that can achieve the holy grail of automated service delivery.

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Alcatel unveils mobile WiMAX base station

Alcatel became the first vendor out of the gate with a mobile WiMAX portfolio. At the 3GSM World Congress, it took the cover off of an Evolium base station built to the recently finalized IEEE 802.16e standards.

Though not technically mobile WiMAX, since the WiMAX Forum has not even set a date for the technology’s certification, Evolium is the first product built with an eye toward the upcoming specification. It is not, however, the first 802.16e to hit the market. Korea’s WiBro technology is built under the IEEE’s standards also, and LG and Samsung already have live networks running in Korea and at the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Turin, Italy.

Alcatel said the base station would be available for commercial deployment in mid-2006. The vendor has been working closely with chipmaker Intel to develop interoperable CPEs and base stations. The two are now planning a co-marketing campaign to commercialize the technology.

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New records in attendance for the 3G World Congress

The GSM Association said today it has broken new records in attendance for the 3G World Congress after moving the convention from Cannes, France, to Barcelona, Spain, this year. Final attendance figures came in at 50,000 delegates, exhibitors, staff and other participants over the last four days at the Fira de Barcelona convention center. The first day alone saw 34,900 visitors to event, compared to 24,300 at the first day of the Congress in 2005.

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Rogers Communications selects Ericsson for UMTS/HSDPA in canada

Ericsson said this week that it has been selected to be sole supplier for Rogers Communications UMTS/HSDPA build out in Canada. Rogers is Canada’s largest wireless carrier, and has used Ericsson as its primary supplier for its wireless infrastructure, while many other Canadian carriers have used homegrown vendor Nortel Networks.

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GSMA touts video sharing tests

The GSM Association (GSMA), in an initiative led by Scandinavian mobile operator TeliaSonera, has begun interoperability trials on three continents to ensure that mobile users will be able to share video across networks. Successful completion of the trials, taking place in Europe, Asia and the U.S., will ensure that video sharing services work smoothly across networks and national boundaries, the GSMA said at the 3GSM World Congress here.

The GSMA has brought together major equipment and handset-makers, including Ericsson, LG, Lucent, Motorola, Nokia, NEC, Samsung, Siemens and Sony-Ericsson, for the trials to ensure that this service will work across as many mobile devices as possible. Intel Corp. and other firms also are participating in the trials.