Verizon Wireless Set To Rollout 4G In 2010

Verizon Wireless completed its first successful Long Term Evolution (LTE) Fourth Generation (4G) data call in Boston based on the 3GPP Release 8 standard; the company also announced that it had earlier completed the first LTE 4G data call based on the 3GPP Release 8 standard in Seattle. While Verizon previously disclosed its intentions to test the 4G standard in the two cities, the carrier had not provided details on the trials until now.

The tests involved streaming video, file uploads and downloads, and Web browsing. Interestingly, Verizon also said it placed voice calls using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology to enable voice transmissions over the LTE 4G network, though the carrier has said in the past that it plans to keep most voice traffic on its existing CDMA 1x network.

Technology partners helping to enable data calls in these initial markets include Alcatel-Lucent (Boston) and Ericsson (Seattle) for base station/radio access network, LG and Samsung for trial devices, and Starent Networks and Nokia Siemens Networks for network equipment. Devices from LG and Samsung will soon be supplemented by devices from ST Ericsson, Motorola and Qualcomm.

Boston and Seattle each now have 10 LTE 4G cell sites up and running on the 700 MHz spectrum. These LTE 4G markets were selected by network planners due to their geographic configuration of suburban and urban areas as well as the areas’ high-technology population. The trials will help Verizon Wireless and its LTE 4G network partners understand issues that include how to best prepare cell sites and how to add the new technology to the network.

Verizon Wireless expects to commercially launch its LTE 4G network in up to 30 markets in 2010, covering 100 million people. In subsequent years, an equally aggressive growth plan will result in full nationwide coverage in 2013.

For more information about Verizon Wireless’ LTE 4G network, visit www.verizonwireless.com/lte.
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Nokia Unveils N97 3G HSDPA Mobile Phone

Nokia unveiled the Nokia N97, the world's most advanced mobile computer, which will transform the way people connect to the Internet and to each other.

After the iPhone shakened up the cellphone market, celllphone manufacturers are desperately trying to create an iPhone killer.

Nokia too announced the Nokia N97 to compete in this space and here are the features:

* 3.5″ Wide Screen (16:9)
* Symbian
* WiFi and HSDPA
* A-GPS
* 3.5 mm standard headphone jack.
* MicroSD slot.
* 5 Megapixel Camera with Carl Zeiss lens.
* 32GB onboard memory, expandable to 48 MB.

Unlike the iPhone, Nokia is following a lot of standards, which is plus. Read more!

Nokia Going for Linux Instead of Android

After unveiling the very impressive N97, Nokia Vice President of markets units, Ukko Lappalainen, made several comments that brought to our attention the fact that the Finnish manufacturer was thinking of using the Linux OS for its more expensive, upcoming smartphones.

“In the longer perspective, Linux will become a serious alternative for our high-end phones,” said Lappalainen in what can only be deemed his most relevant statement in this sense.

Such a development may become a reality also because of the fact that Google has now developed a Linux-based Android platform. This may be one of the solutions that Nokia will be employing, although more realistic is the theory that the world's biggest mobile phone maker could be developing its own Linux system for its smartphones. This theory rings true mainly because the potential clients of this kind of smartphones are very demanding, their needs being a bit special, so it’s understandable if Nokia didn't want to take too many risks in this respect.

Also, the Linux maemo operating system found on the niche line of Internet tablets has been performing quite well, and is seemingly in conformity with the demands of Nokia's presidents in all aspects. As Lappalinen stated, “I don’t see anything in Android which would make it better than Linux maemo.”

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Caller ID-Spoofing Service In UK shuttered After Five Days

Spookcall, the UK's first caller ID-spoofing service available to the general public, has decided to close less than one week after launch.
Spookcall allowed anyone to impersonate any other phone number on a call recipient's caller ID display. Spookcall also offered customers the ability to disguise their voice using software. It cost £5 for every 10 minutes of faked calling.



It's thought such trickery is currently legal in the UK. The Liberal Democrats have called on regulators to act however, claiming the availablity of such services in the UK could make it even easier to fleece the public and invade privacy.

Caller ID spoofing services have been available in the US for several years.Spookcall brought the controversial practice to the UK with the tagline "be anyone you want to be".

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Cisco, Intel And Others Join To Form WiMAX Patent Pool

Six WiMAX firms have teamed together to create the Open Patent Alliance, a group that's goal is to jointly license WiMAX patents so they can keep royalty rates in check and make the technology more affordable. The companies involved in the formation of the OPA include Cisco Systems, Intel Corp., Alcatel-Lucent, Clearwire, Sprint and Samsung.
the OPA members made it clear that companies that join the group don't relinquish their patents. The IPR remains with the owners and they are free to use them. Instead the group will work to make it easier for others to license those patents.


In addition, the OPA referred to itself as a "patent pool" and said that it is very different from the WiMAX Forum, an organization with a goal of promoting interoperability and collaboration among its members.

However, several well-known WiMax providers are not on the list, including Motorola Inc., which is providing equipment for a field test of mobile WiMax services in Chicago as part of the Xohm initiative spearheaded by Sprint. Other companies which are interested in WiMAX, which are not yet a part of this pool are Motorola, Qualcomm and Nokia.


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Nokia Launches Mobile Wallet Phone

Handset giant Nokia introduced the Nokia 6212 classic, a new 3G handset featuring integrated Near Field Communication (NFC) technologies enabling users to share content and access services as well as conduct payments and ticketing transactions.

According to Nokia, travel tickets may be charged over the air, eliminating waits at service counters--users can securely store their credit card info on the 6212 classic and access accounts directly from the handset. A single tap on an NFC-enabled tag also enables users to receive new content like weblinks, audio files or contact data--they may also activate profiles and open applications including FM radio or web browsing. Photos and videos may be easily shared by tapping another NFC-capable phone and pairing with a Bluetooth NFC-enabled device. The Nokia 6212 classic is expected to start shipping in the third quarter in selected European and Asian markets. Read more!

Some facts and figures about SMS

* The first text message was sent in December 1992, and SMS was launched commercially for the first time in 1995
* 1998 - Interconnect between UK Operators O2, Orange, Vodafone and T-Mobile
* The first recorded monthly text message total was 5.4 million in April 1998
* August 2001 was the first month in which over one billion messages were sent in the UK
* December 2002 - 1 billion SMS per day were exchanged globally
* The MDA has forecast that 36.5 billion messages will be sent throughout the UK during 2006, with an average of 100 million messages being sent per day



* 65 million UK subscribers were registered as active on UK networks as of the end of December 2005 of which over 70% send text messages
* 95% of 16-24 year olds use text messaging regularly, each sending an average of 100 texts per month
* On New Year's Day 2003, the number of text messages sent in one day topped one hundred million for the first time
* On New Year's Day 2006, the highest daily total ever recorded by the Mobile Data Association was reached, when 165 million messages were sent
* Annual SMS totals: 1999 - 1 billion; 2000 - 6.2 billion; 2001 - 12.2 billion; 2002 - 16.8 billion; 2003 - 20.5 billion; 2004 - 26 billion; 2005 - 32 billion
* Britons sent 120 million text messages on Valentine's Day 2006, compared to the estimated 12 million cards sent.
* On average, 4.1 million messages are sent every hour in Britain.
* 72% of women v 70 % of men text regularly (source - ICM Research)
* More women than men use picture messaging, while men are bigger users of the mobile internet (WAP) (source - Enpocket)
* The peak hours for texting are between 10.30pm and 11.00pm
* There is a huge range of services that can send you text updates e.g. Movie reviews, bank balances, sports, and weather.
* The Rt. Hon. Tony Blair MP became the first UK Prime Minister to use text message technology to talk directly to the people on 25th November 2004, answering questions submitted in advance by text message from members of the public as well as in real-time in a mobile phone chat-room, transmitted live from No.10 Downing Street.

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Google Launches Adsense For Mobile

Google has launched Adsense for mobile. Adsense is an advertising program that contextually targets advertisements to website content.
Like Google's other AdSense products, mobile text ads run on an auction model. The system automatically reviews the content of publishers’ mobile websites and delivers text ads that are relevant to the websites’ audience and content. Publishers earn money whenever mobile users click on the ads.

If you have a website optimized for mobile browsers, or are interested in creating one, you can start monetizing your mobile site by accessing a growing number of our mobile advertisers.
When you add the new AdSense for mobile code to your site, we'll display relevant ads using the same targeting technology that you are familiar with for existing AdSense products.

AdSense for Mobile will be available in the following countries: US, England, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Ireland, Russia, Netherlands, Australia, India, China, and Japan (available in the coming weeks). Read more!

Chinese Airline Offers InFlight Mobile Service

China's Shenzhen Airlines has fitted its planes with communications technology that will allow passengers to use their mobile phones to make voice calls and send e-mail and SMS messages during flights.

The OnAir service is set to be installed across Shenzhen Airlines' full fleet of Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 aircraft by mid-2009. Three "demonstrator" aircraft are also being readied for the Beijing Olympic Games in August 2008.

OnAir said its equipment will be retrospectively fitted on Shenzhen's existing aircraft and line-fitted on new aircraft. The service is aimed at passengers with smart phones or basic handsets.

The deal with Shenzhen is the third such agreement OnAir has secured that covers an airline's whole fleet, following a pact signed last summer with low-cost carrier Ryanair and an agreement in June this year with AirAsia. The Ryanair in-flight communications service is due to go live by the end of this year, according to an OnAir spokesman, and the AirAsia service is slated to launch in early 2009.

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Study: Consumers still wary of mobile ads

A new study from Forrester Research poses the titular question "Is the U.S. Ready for Mobile Marketing?" and while the results indicate the answer is a tentative "Yes," 79 percent of the sample group finds the idea of handset marketing annoying and only 3 percent say they trust ads delivered via mobile device.
"We've grown up with this view of the TV commercial interrupting our favorite program," Forrester analyst and report co-author Christine Spivey Overby said in an interview with AdAge. "There's this ad-equals-interruption mindset that we have, and when you think about something as personal as the mobile phone that you hold in your hand and carry in your pocket, the idea of a marketer interrupting you while you have the phone, that's an idea that consumers hate." According to the Forrester report, text messaging coupons and short codes remain the most consumer-friendly mode of mobile advertising, but are also far less immersive than ad-sponsored games and other more interactive content. Forrester's basic recommendations to mobile marketers: Keep the message brief and measure consumer response, target campaigns to the demographics most likely to respond, and adopt a mindset of value.

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EU Commissioner Calls For DVB-H Mobile TV Standard

The European Commission is urging the European telecommunications industry to accelerate its mobile TV efforts, calling for action to determine a single broadcasting technology standard. "I'm not very impressed with the progress the industry and governments in Europe have made so far," European Commissioner for Information Society and Media Viviane Reding told Dow Jones Newswires. "The time for decisions is now--otherwise mobile TV will miss the boat to the European soccer championships in 2008." Reding said she considers the DVB-H standard the front-running broadcasting technology option.

Despite ongoing hiccups, the European Commission remains bullish on mobile TV--according to its most recent estimates, mobile TV services will generate €11.4 billion in global revenue by 2009, buoyed by an international market of 50 million video-enabled handsets.

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Yahoo! expands oneSearch service to the Mobile Web in the U.S

Yahoo announced the expansion of its new oneSearch service beyond its Go for Mobile 2.0 platform onto the mobile web. According to Yahoo, the move makes oneSearch accessible on more than 85 percent of the U.S. handset population. "Yahoo oneSearch has already started to change the mobile search game by fundamentally improving the way consumers' access and use the Internet on their mobile phones," said Yahoo senior vice president of connected life Marco Boerries in a prepared statement. "Consumers that have tried oneSearch love it, telling us it's easier and more helpful than any other mobile search services they've used. We are delivering the results consumers want with just one search, not a list of Web links."
Yahoo added it plans to roll out oneSearch in additional global markets and languages in the months ahead.

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Nokia announces platforms to connect advertisers and media publishers with mobile

Nokia announced two mobile advertising services. Nokia Ad Service is a fully managed service for advertisers to conduct targeted advertising on mobile services and applications. Nokia Ad Service consists of a group of mobile publishers forming a mobile ad network and a platform to deploy, manage and optimize mobile advertising campaigns. Nokia also introduced Nokia Advertising Connector, a private label service for third party Publishers and Advertising Aggregators that want to extend to relevant mobile advertising.
According to Nokia, Nokia Advertising Connector operates as an intelligent switch, selecting between text, visual, audio and video ads - depending on the user's context - and feeding the ad to the device.
The Nokia Ad Service is designed to support and manage the complete ad campaign lifecycle, including planning, deploying and reporting. According to Nokia, the service targets advertisers launching global mobile campaigns, agencies expanding into mobile advertising alongside traditional media initiatives, and publishers exploring new business models and larger consumer audiences.
Nokia Ad Service is now available in Europe and will roll out globally in the second half of 2007. "Mobile advertising is becoming an increasingly attractive channel for brands," said director of Nokia Ad Service Tom Henriksson in a prepared statement. "We have completed a number of pilot campaigns with advertisers and mobile publishers for testing the Nokia ad serving technology and consumer experience. The feedback has been very positive from all parties."

For more info read the release Read more!

NXP Introduces Nexperia Cellular Linux System for 3G Handsets

NXP, the newly independent semiconductor company founded by Philips, announced the availability of the Linux open source operating system for its 3G mobile phone system solution. Working in collaboration with Purple Labs, a French design company offering fully integrated solutions for mobile communication products, NXP has launched the Nexperia(TM) cellular system solution 7210 with Linux for 3G handsets. Not having the additional cost and complexity of integrating a dedicated application processor, manufacturers will be able to enjoy the time-to-market advantages of using a high level operating system. Operators will also be able to provide a stable and powerful, yet cost effective platform to offer new connected services.

The NXP Nexperia cellular system solution 7210 is a powerful dual-mode UMTS multimedia platform running on a single-core ARM9 for the 3G mobile feature-phone market. By offering a Linux-based platform on a single core, the Nexperia cellular system solution 7210 gives greater flexibility, allowing easy development and upgrades. The choice of offering an open source operating system gives this flexibility without increase of cost.

"Linux is gaining ground in the mobile-handset space due to the benefits it brings to manufacturers and operators and eventually also to the end consumers," said Michel Windal, marketing director, Mobile & Personal Business Unit, NXP Semiconductors. "Linux motivates developers to generate and share new vibrant media applications such as games, advanced music players and intuitive TV-on-mobile, offering greater benefits to the end user and allowing for differentiation for both manufacturers and operators."

"The Open Source platform supports interoperability across the various brands of handset devices," said Dennis O’Donovan, managing director, Purple Labs, "Linux lends itself well to modular design by offering OEMs a flexible and powerful operating system, resulting in the easier development of new applications. Today’s end-users demand feature-rich, compact and cost competitive handsets, but will not compromise on core features such as low-power consumption and high performance, and the Nexperia cellular system solution 7210 with Linux easily enables manufacturers to meet these needs."

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MMA: Consumers more open to participating in mobile marketing campaigns

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) (www.mmaglobal.com) today reported key findings of its annual attitude and usage study on mobile marketing effectiveness. The study, conducted with global market research firm Synovate, measures both the perceptions and usage for wireless and text messaging, as well as overall receptiveness and participation in mobile marketing initiatives. More than 1,800 consumers between the ages of 13 and 65 were queried, with results indicating that mobile consumers are more educated about the features and functionality of their devices and are engaging more frequently in mobile marketing campaigns.

The study also revealed that the youth market reported the highest rate of interest and usage, ranging from 30 to 40 percent.

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One of Four Handsets Shipped in 2011 Will Cost Less Than $20, Says ABI Research

According to a new report from ABI, the global market for ultra low cost handsets (ULCH) under $20 will see more than 330 million units shipped in 2011. Additionally, ABI predicts that 50 percent of these handsets will be shipped in the emerging markets of Asia Pacific, while the other half will be shipped to Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Eastern Europe. India will prove to be the biggest ULCH market during the next five years, growing from 9 million handsets last year to more than 116 million by 2011.

While recent quarterly results from major handset makers like Nokia and Motorola have shown declining profits because of the emerging ultra-low cost handset market, ABI predicts declining ARPUs for mobile carriers in emerging markets as well. The average ULCH user has a monthly spending limit of between $2 and $5.

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Apple Reinvents the Phone With iPhone

After months of rumors and speculation, Apple finally unveiled its iPhone hybrid device during CEO Steve Jobs' keynote appearance at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The reality of the iPhone matches closely with the conjecture that anticipated the announcement: It is a quad-band GSM mobile phone, a widescreen iPod music/video player and Internet communications device all in one, complete with the function-over-form user interface hallmarks that are Apple's signature. As expected, Cingular Wireless will serve as Apple's exclusive carrier partner, and both Apple and Cingular stores will carry the iPhone when it reaches the U.S. market in June 2007; the 4GB model will retail for $499, while the 8GB model will carry a price tag of $599.

From a content standpoint, the most compelling iPhone news is unofficial--by spotlighting the Beatles' "Lovely Rita" during the CES iPhone demo, Jobs implicitly acknowledged that Apple finally secured digital distribution rights to the Fab Four's back catalog. No official announcement on a licensing deal was forthcoming, but music biz insiders confirm an agreement is in place. The two entities already share a long history, most of it tempestuous: Branding conflicts have kept Jobs' Apple in legal battle with the Beatles' Apple Corps for two decades, culminating in mid-2006 when a British judge ruled that iTunes did not violate a 1991 agreement stipulating the Apple Computer could continue doing business under the Apple name as long as the technology maker steered clear of the music industry. Interestingly, Jobs announced Tuesday that his company was officially updating its name from Apple Computer to Apple Inc., although it's unclear what if anything the change portends in regards to its relationship with Apple Corps.


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Ringback tones on the rise

Ringback tones continue to gain traction even as the U.S. ringtone market plateaus, according to new figures from M:Metrics.

The market research firm found that the popularity of ringback tones—music clips that a caller hears instead of a traditional ring before the person being called answers the phone—more than tripled last year, exploding from 2.4 million subscribers in January to nearly 8 million subscribers in November. The application continued to gain ground in Europe, as well, growing at a rate of roughly 150 percent in Germany and the United Kingdom during the year.

Meanwhile, ringtones remain popular, if not as lucrative. Nearly 7 percent of all U.S. wireless subscribers have made their own ringtones, M:Metrics found, as the percentage of users purchasing ringtones slipped from 10 percent of wireless consumers to less than 9 percent.

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