Wireless trend: Consumers have not reaped the expected benefits of cellphone 'number portability'

According to a report from Analysys Research, there are few countries where more than 10 percent of mobile phone subscribers have taken advantage of number portability, which refers to the rule that a customer can take a phone number to another carrier should he or she switch carriers. In Britain and Italy, just under 10 percent of mobile users took advantage of number portability. France and Germany's figure was so small its percentage was negligible. The U.S. saw about 5 percent of mobile users taking their numbers to a new operator. The curve-breaker of the 25 countries surveyed was (surprise, surprise) Finland, which saw 55 percent of mobile users transferring their numbers to a new carrier during the four years since portability first became available.

Number portability has not ushered in a new paradigm of radically improved mobile services or customer care as the hype machine predicted so many years ago. Here's a new topic to chew on: So, when do we do away with these numbers altogether?

Source Read more!

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.

Source Read more!

US Carrier price changes on handsets

As is typical for the post-holiday season, U.S. carriers, including T-Mobile, Alltel, Boost Mobile and Cingular Wireless are reconfiguring their pricing strategies for handsets. T-Mobile reduced its Samsung t609 from $50 to "free" and the carrier-branded Sidekick 3 from $250 to $200. It also raised the prices of the t619 from "free" to $40, the t629 from $100 to $450 and the Motorola V195 from $20 to $30. The T-Mobile Dash also crept up to $200 from $150.

Source Read more!

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.


Read the release Read more!

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.

Source Read more!

Cellphone Video Gets On the Beam

Cellular carriers and other technology companies have come up with numerous ways to deliver video and even live TV to cellphones over wireless networks in recent years. So far, the results have been a limited success.

Samsung Electronics announced the development of a new mobile television standard that essentially enables portable devices to receive digital signals from local TV broadcasters. Developed by the South Korean company's Samsung Information Systems America subsidiary, the technology--dubbed Advanced-Vestigial Side-Band--does not rely on wireless network bandwidth, effectively freeing capacity for other data-heavy mobile content services.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the technology operates via existing television infrastructures, including spectrum and transmitting towers, enabling broadcasters to sidestep investments in separate network buildouts or carrier partnerships. The Samsung service does require broadcasters to transmit separate signals to mobile handsets and related devices outfitted with Samsung chipsets, but the company said that hurdle is already being addressed. Among the business models Samsung is reportedly exploring is an ad-supported free service as well as a more traditional premium service.

Samsung will demonstrate the standard for the first time at next week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, employing content contributed by Sinclair Broadcasting Group. Sinclair, which operates 58 local stations across the U.S., is currently trialing Advanced-Vestigial Side-Band services in the Baltimore, Buffalo and Las Vegas markets.

Source

Read more!

Manufacturers sued over Bluetooth wireless technology

A foundation named the Washington Research Institute (WRI) has filed a lawsuit against Matsushita, Samsung and Nokia, alleging that Bluetooth technology infringes on its patented work carried out at the University of Washington. WRI filed the suit in December and seeks unspecified damages. The WRI's lawyer, Michael Lisa claimed that the foundation "will not refuse reasonable settlements, but if we don't get an offer to do so, we are going to trial." The lawsuit claims that computers, mobile phones and headsets made by the three companies violate four patents held by WRI. Each of the defendants use chipsets made by U.K. firm CSR, which WRI claims has not licensed the technology.
Source

Read more!

HP Brings Mobile Device Management to Enterprise Customers with Acquisition of Bitfone Corp

Hewlett-Packard has announced plans to acquire firmware-over-the-air (FOTA) technology developer Bitfone for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition will strengthen HP's enterprise offerings with mobile device management, which highlights the increasing importance of mobile devices in the core IT infrastructure of the enterprise. HP says Bitfone's technology will help its enterprise clients reduce device support costs and smooth device deployments, migration and replacement. Bitfone will be integrated into the Handheld Business Unit of HP's Personal Systems Group.

Source

Read more!

Viacom's MTV targets mobile phone content

In a move that proves MTV is increasingly slow in responding to the kinds of youth culture phenomena it once ignited, the Viacom-owned cable network announced the launch of its Mobile Media Group division, which will develop MTV content and brands for wireless games, ringtones and video clips. The group will administrate mobile activities within MTV Networks' various cable channels (e.g. Nickelodeon, VH1 and Comedy Central) and among its domestic and foreign operations. Among its responsibilities: Mobile Junk 2.0, a new user-generated content service launching in conjunction with Sprint Nextel.

"Connecting with our consumers on every platform they love is at the heart of our digital strategy," MTV Networks CEO Judy McGrath said in a prepared statement.

Source Read more!

BT to re-enter mobile market with license bid - report

BT is ready to re-enter the UK mobile market five years after it hived off its O2 wireless unit, according to a report in the Independent.

The former monopoly operator is expected to bid in a forthcoming spectrum auction, details of which were announced yesterday by telecoms industry watchdog Ofcom.

It will be the largest ever sale of spectrum in the UK, although the UK government is unlikely to generate anything near the 23 bln stg it earned from the 2000 3G auction.

Source

Read more!

China to issue phone charger standard

According to a report in the People's Daily Online, China is developing a national standard for mobile phone chargers "to avoid waste and lower costs for users." The standard should be approved before year-end. The standard expects all mobile phones, regardless of brand, to provide a USB access port for a universal charger, which will also allow for charging via laptops. The report claims the standard will not be compulsory, but the director of a lab in charge of the program, He Guili said, "We believe that the home-brands makers will give positive response to it." He said the standard may take effect during the first half of 2007.

Read More Read more!

EU: Let consumers pick telecom standards

The EU's commissioner for information society and media, Vivian Reding, said regulators should not be the main force in charge of mandating standards: "I think it should be left to businesses to find the business models that attract consumers to opt for the services they like (most)... The GSM standard was a landmark decision... today the picture is more complex. For governments to make a viable case for choosing any standard is much more difficult." Reding also added that for WiMAX to be successful, a new degree of flexibility must be introduced to regulation: "We are a long way off this, however ...barriers are bureaucratic, not technical. It is governments' duty to get it right."

Source Read more!

Wireless: The battle of the standards

The International Herald Tribune has an article on the GSM vs CDMA battle, although at the end it concludes that they’re basically equivalent.

Most cellphone users do not know what kind of network their service provider runs, nor whether it is 2G or 3G. Yet behind the scenes, industry lobbies and makers of network equipment and cellphone chips jockey for position as they struggle to make their technology dominant.

Though the front line of the battle is shifting to 3G - or so-called third- generation - technologies, which offer more capacity on their networks and faster data transmission speeds, the previous generation of networks may ultimately determine who comes out on top, because service providers tend to use the same family of technology when they migrate to faster networks.

GSM, the global system for mobile communications, is the dominant mobile phone standard in the world, with a market share of 83 percent. But GSM networks have been slow to move to 3G, allowing CDMA, which is widely used in North and South America, a window that it has quickly exploited.

"It's probably too early to call the death of CDMA," said Martin Garner, the director of Wireless Intelligence.

While the growth of CDMA will not match that of GSM, Wireless Intelligence is forecasting that there will be nearly 500 million people using CDMA technologies by 2010, compared with 340 million today. Those using the 2G and 3G GSM networks are forecast to increase to 3.5 billion in 2010 from 2.1 billion today.

"CDMA is certainly going to remain small when compared to GSM," Garner said, "but they have a decent chunk of the market, a reasonable niche that they will be able to defend."

While companies have staked their future on the continued success of one technology versus another, for people who just want to use their cellphone to make a call, send e-mail or browse the Internet, it may all be academic.

"People make outlandish claims about what one cellular technology is capable of compared with another, but they offer broadly similar performances," Garner said. "One of the technologies will make a move before the other and then have an advantage for a while, but they are basically moving in the same direction at the same speed."

Read more!

Fully Ad-supported Free Mobile Phone Service to Launch in '07

Blyk, is an advertising-funded mobile phone service scheduled to launch in the United Kingdom in mid-2007, followed by other markets, the company said Thursday. The service will be aimed at consumers between the ages 16 and 24. The company hopes to go live in the U.K. by next year. Whether it actually makes this goal remains to be seen.
Blyk isn’t the first company to offer free mobile service in exchange for advertising rights, Harris said. Similar advertising-supported services were launched a few years ago for fixed-line phones, but "you really don’t hear anything about them anymore," Harris said.
Spotcast Communications launched an advertising-supported service in Hong Kong in 1999 but shut it down a year later.

Source Read more!

YouTube wants to go mobile

YouTube founder and CEO Chad Hurley told attendees at an advertising conference that it is planning a mobile version of the site for next year.
Currently, YouTube members can upload videos to the video-sharing site from their mobile phones. The new service would allow them to browse and view videos from the site as well.
Already many of the clips seen on YouTube are captured by users with their cellphones. A new mobile service could enable users to share videos with others in the YouTube community directly via their phones.

Source Read more!

Location, not TV, tops mobile content wish lists

According to an In-Stat study, mobile users are more interested in getting directions and location-based information on their mobile phones than they are receiving mobile TV. A survey of 1,000 mobile early adopters and businessmen, only 15 percent expressed a strong interest in mobile video, while local directions and navigation services garnered 53 percent. Third-generation networks, the study found, are enhancing the utility of existing mobile Web services by making them faster to load, rather than generating interest in multimedia services.

Source Read more!

TV still best place for viewing video

A study commissioned by the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau found that-- surprise!--people still like watching TV. The report found that 60 percent of the population prefer watching TV on the TV over on the Internet and mobile phones. Yet 26 percent say the Internet has affected how they watch TV and that mobile devices simply expand viewing options.

Of course the cable industry is fighting to keep ad dollars on the TV so they won't lose them to mobile phones or the Internet. The study pointed out that respondents say they will tolerate ads 10 seconds or less and only with the promise of free content. Keep the source of the study in mind, of course. The Internet and mobile won't replace watching the good ol' Tube, but traffic on both is increasing. And where there is traffic, ad dollars will follow.

Source Read more!

US, UK Team on Mobile Research

The United States and the United Kingdom today announced the formation of the International Technology Alliance (ITA) in Network and Information Sciences, a team of 25 high-profile vendors and universities that will study new capabilities in wireless technology. The alliance will be headed by IBM and given $135.8 million during the next 10 years to develop long- and short-range battlefield communications.

Source

Read more!

The Orange 3G/ HSDPA data card

Data cards that let laptop users connect to the internet over the mobile network have been one of the quiet successes of 3G, with business people being able to work from almost anywhere there is a mobile signal.

Orange's latest data card brings the added promise of connections that, at up to 1.8mbps, approach the speed of fixed broadband, using a technology known as HSDPA. Just as importantly for UK-based mobile workers, the card also supports the Edge network. This is not quite 3G, with a maximum speed of around 0.2mbps, but it is significantly faster than conventional 2.5G or GPRS data.

Source Read more!

Reality check on mobile search

Despite recent data suggesting mobile search is taking off, the current reality is less-than-thrilling, says AdAge. Citing Forrester Research, the article points out that 80 percent of marketers say they either use or plan to employ Internet-based search marketing, yet less than one-third of retail marketers and one-half of consumer goods marketers expect to use mobile search as part of that plan. The reason? Traffic. Only about 5 percent of the nation's 190 million mobile phone subscribers have ever used mobile search, according to M:Metrics. The reason: (wait for it….) bad user experience.

Read more Read more!