Vodafone – Page 4 – Digital-Lifestyles

Tens of Thousands View World Cup On Vodafone Mobiles

Vodafone Netherlands got in touch with us to tell us how wildly popular the World Cup has been on mobile phones on their service – breaking previous records of simultaneous viewers.

They have two ways to access the football. Total World Cup, a bargain 5 Euro service that allows subscribers to access four minute packages for each of the matches as often as they like during the World Cup up to 9 July; and the Goal Alerts service that delivers edited highlights, not surprisingly the goals, direct to subscribers handsets via MMS.

The on-demand Total World Cup service is the one that really lit up at 5pm on the evening of last weeks match between Holland and Serbia Montenegro.

When we first asked, Vodafone Netherlands followed the now-normal approach of mobile operators of shyness of exact figures. We probed a little deeper for the actual viewing figures and found out that there were tens of thousands of people view it simultaneously.

Tens of Thousands View World Cup On Vodafone Mobiles This would have been a big test for their mobile network, delivering something as bandwidth hungry as video all at the same time. Without any reports to us to the contrary, we can only assume it all went smoothly.

Previous viewing peaks were the friendly match against Mexico on 1 June, the day of the London bombings in July 2005 and some undoubtedly dull rubbish about Big Brother.

Flush with the success, and no doubt in a way of trying to get subscribers hooked on MMS delivery, Vodafone are, as of today, offering the Goal Alerts service ‘without extra charge.’ Those without the handsets to handle video MMS will get a still photo delivered.

Mobile TV is now the 3rd most popular service on Vodafone Netherlands – behind voice and SMS – for those with capable handsets.

Vodafone Netherlands

Mobile Linux: Powerhouse Foundation Formed

We all know the mobile handset is totally fragmented. Sure there’s a standard – it’s called Nokia – but everyone who isn’t Nokia isn’t very happy about that.

Vodafone, Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic Mobile Communications and Samsung Electronics have today announced that they hope to change that. They’re getting together to embrace mobile Linux to “create world’s first globally adopted open mobile Linux platform.”

They’re intending to form an independent foundation whose primary focus is the joint development and marketing of an API specification, architecture, supporting source code-based reference implementation components and tools. Pretty comprehensive sounding, but only time will reveal the level of independence afforded to the foundation.

While we understand that they ‘intend to leverage the benefits of community-based’, we’re not really sure where their aims of proprietary development fit in to this. It is after all supposed to be an Open project.

Mobile Linux: Powerhouse Foundation Formed Who’s in? Who’s out?
It’s not surprising to see that Nokia _aren’t_ part of it. Vodafone have for a long time been concerned that, when asked, their subscribers say they have, for example, a Nokia handset rather than a Vodafone service. Nokia also dominate with Symbian.

Also coming in the ‘Obviously’ category, is the lack of Microsoft. They’ve been desperate for years to try and become accepted as the mobile platform of choice, but despite a few successes haven’t managed it. Today’s announcement combined with the strength of Symbian will give them a bit of a kicking.

The other major who’s missing is Sony Ericsson.

Beyond the handset makers, it’s interesting to include NTT DoCoMo. Vodafone and NTT DoCoMo were competitors in the Japanese market – up to the point that they sold Vodafone Japan to Softback back in April. Now that barrier is removed, we’re sure that they’ll love to get closer to DoCoMo to learn the lessons of how they’ve made content such a success in Japan.

Symbian supporters two-time them
Both Samsung and Motorola have in the past sold handsets that use the Symbian OS, but since Nokia have been tightening their clutched on Symbian, it’s likely that they’re becoming increasingly nervous of using it.

The idea of being in control of their own destiny – at least to the software platform – will be much more appealing.

What’s driving this?
Mobile operators are always looking at finding ways for more people to sign to their networks, so decreasing handset costs while maximising features is of the utmost importance for them. This is made clear by Kiyohito Nagata, Vice President and Managing Director of NTT DoCoMo’s Product Department

Open is the new proprietory
Clearly being ‘open’ (the interpretation of which is highly variable) is quite the trend in mobile, with Nokia open sourcing their s60 browser a couple of weeks back.

Much excitement is being generated by those companies already using Linux in their handsets. In a ‘don’t forget we’ve been doing this for ages’ way, Yoshiharu Tamura, Executive General Manager, Mobile Terminals Business Unit, NEC Corporation expounded , “As one of the leading pioneers with almost two years of experience shipping Linux-based mobile phones, we are delighted to participate in this initiative. We expect the foundation activities will accelerate further expansion of mobile Linux application developer participation, as well as global market growth of 3G mobile handsets.”

Not to be left out from showing off, Osamu Waki, Managing Director of Panasonic Mobile Communications, plugged like mad, “Linux sits at the core of Panasonic Group’s software strategy, and to date we have shipped nearly 8 million Linux based handsets in the highly competitive Japanese market.”

Vodafone Make Record £14.9bn Loss

Vodafone Make Record £14.9bn Loss In the normal world, if you’d just discovered that your business had lost £14.9bn ($27.9bn) in a single year, you’d be blubbering into your laptop or heading to the pub to down a vat of Old Scrote’s Badger ale.

But in the crazy world of uber-corporate business, such a loss – the biggest ever recorded for a UK firm – has been spun around to be grrrreat news, with Reuters reporting that Vodafone has gleefully, “unveiled plans to return an extra 3 billion pounds to shareholders.”

So how does the “the biggest annual loss in European corporate history on write-downs” turn out to be a cash feast for shareholders – who are already looking forward to a slice of the £6bn earmarked after the sale of its Japanese venture?

Well, it’s all down to corporate assets not matching their buying price – in this case, German business Mannesmann, which Vodafone bought for £112bn ($183bn) six years ago.

With the actual income generated by the company not living up to its mighty price tag, Vodafone has shunted the value of the Mannesmann subsidiary downwards on its books – a process known in the hip’n’exciting world of accounting as a write-down.

Conversely, Vodafone has been raking it in recently, scooping in monster £8.8bn operating profits last year, while adding 21 million new customers.

Vodafone Make Record £14.9bn Loss In the white-hot mobile phone segment, Vodafone continues to create growth in key markets such as Germany, Spain and the United States, despite being forced to scuttle out of Japan – selling the business for £8.9bn – after failing to make much of a mark in the country.

Vodafone insists that its business remains fundamentally healthy, despite the whopping losses, with CEO Arun Sarin purring, “Vodafone has met or exceeded expectations, outperforming its competitors in an increasingly challenging marketplace.”

“Vodafone is well positioned to deliver on its strategy,” he continued, thumping the table in a positively aligned, upbeat manner.

Vodafone

Vodafone Pre-Empts Viviane’s EC Rip-off Roaming Action

She’s got a mission to eliminate mobile phone roaming rip-off charges. She’s Commissioner Viviane Redding of the EC, and today, Vodafone took PR action to keep itself out of her sights, by promising to “cut roaming by 40%” by this time next year.

Vodafone’s announcement says: “Average European roaming costs for Vodafone customers will be cut by at least 40% by April 2007, when compared to last summer.”

This, it says, “will benefit over 30 million Vodafone customers who roam every year, and will see the average cost of roaming in Europe fall from over €0.90 to less than €0.55 per minute.”

Ironically, Vodafone is probably not highest on Commissioner Redding’s hit list. It’s certainly possible to pay over the odds for Voda phone calls when overseas – pick the wrong contract! – but amongst the giants, Voda actually scores quite well on fair use, especially if you’re a Passport subscriber.

Arun Sarin, Chief Executive, Vodafone, said: “Customers want simplicity and value for money when they’re travelling abroad. They get it with Vodafone Passport, which we launched last year, allowing customers to take their home tariff abroad with a small additional per call fee. Today Passport provides savings of at least 30% for more than 6 million Vodafone customers.”

But like many of the giants, Vodafone is suffering from the cost of providing phones. All the European operators, traditionally, subsidise handsets; they give them away, or sell them for a fraction of their cost, in the expectation of making substantially more out of phone call charges – and it works.

Unfortunately, we’re changing our phones too often. It’s mostly the shops that do this, because they are incentivised to do it by the networks.

The networks all pay a premium to a phone shop who “steals” a customer from a rival network. At the same time, paradoxically, they’re trying to make contracts longer: 12 months minimum, 18 months or even longer, as standard.

So the trend is to pay as you go phones – which tend to be paid for. And it’s PAYG agreements which most heavily penalise you when roaming. That is, assuming that your PAYG phone even makes it possible to use it overseas; many don’t.

Sarin said: “The success of Passport shows the demand for simple, great value roaming in Europe and today we’re showing that Vodafone will continue to lead the industry in providing it.”

What he probably means, is that Passport needs to be able to compete with PAYG, and Vodafone sees no harm in ingratiating itself with the Commissioner for Information Society and Media while doing so.

Viviane Redding
Guy Kewney’s NewsWireless

Live Football And Cricket on Vodafone 3G Mobiles

Live Football And Cricket on Vodafone 3G Mobiles This weekend marks the start of Vodafone UK offering live coverage of international cricket and the Football League Playoffs from Sky Sports to their 3G customers.

They’re keen to point out that this is the first time in the UK, live football matches will be shown simultaneously live on mobile and on TV.

It’s not like this is going to be a trickle of content. There’s over 100 hours of coverage scheduled in the first month, with fifteen live football matches and three live Test matches. The cricket will continue with live coverage until the final Test against Pakistan in September.

Don’t think there’s going to an extra financial penalty to pay for this. The coverage will be available at no extra charge as a bonus service for subscribers to Sky Mobile TV’s News, Sports and Factual Pack.

Having said that the packages aren’t what you’d call cheap. Each Sky Mobile TV pack (detailed below) is and extra £5/month.

Sky has been actively putting its content over different platforms for quite some months now, following the announcement in January of Sky by Broadband which delivers some of Sky’s content to PC’s over a, you guess it, broadband connection.

Live Football And Cricket on Vodafone 3G Mobiles Bizarrely, Sky specify that the content is for Personal use only. Errr … it’s on a mobile phone Sky. It’s not like you’re going to get the throngs in the pub crowding around watching it on a tiny screen. That is until someone comes up with a huge magnifying glass that the phone sits behind.

The packs that are available are

News, Sport & Factual Pack: Sky News; CNN; Bloomberg; Sky Sports News; At The Races; Discovery Mobile Factual; National Geographic Channel; The History Channel.
Entertainment Pack: Sky One; Sky Movies; Living TV; Discovery Mobile Lifestyle; Nickelodeon; Paramount Comedy; Cartoon Network; Bravo; The Biography Channel and MTV Trax and MTV Snax.
Music Pack: MTV Trax, MTV Snax, The Box, Smash Hits, Kiss, Kerrang, B4, IMF and IMF 2.

Most of these don’t run live but are made up of dedicated ‘made for mobile’ channels, featuring regularly updated blocks of programming.

Google To Power Vodafone Mobile Search – Imagination Lacking: 3GSM

The news is coming out of 3GSM thick and fast, so we’re going to be reporting in a slightly different way. When we see a press release that we think it’s of interest to you, Dear Reader, we’ll put it up in full, with a brief comment at the top. Normal service will be resumed post 3GSM – unless you tell us you like this format.

We’re increasingly disappointed about the view of a couple of technologies by the wider market. The primary recipients of over-glowing acceptance in our view are Apple with their iPod and Google with search. OK, they’re good products, but really …. have some imagination. There are other products/services around that are equally good, and we’re sure that it’s only a matter of time before the alternatives exceed what is currently seen as the benchmark.

To fit in with this trend, Vodafone (who for goodness sake should have more confidence and technical expertise) have signed with Google, to have them power search on the Vodafone network.

Vodafone and Google team to create innovative mobile search experience for mobile phone users

Vodafone today announced that it is collaborating with Google todevelop innovative mobile search services for its customers.

Vodafone will integrate Google’s search capability into its consumerservice, Vodafone live!, providing customers with the most relevantinformation, wherever they are and whatever time of day it is.

Google’s search results will be delivered through Vodafone’s high speeddata networks. Combining Vodafone’s mobile expertise with Google’ssearch capability will ensure that customers can quickly and easilyfind what’s relevant to them. The new service will offer simultaneoussearch both on Vodafone live! and the wider Web.

Vodafone’s integration of Google search will take the mobile internetto a new level. Vodafone live! was the first mobile service to makedata services easily accessible to mobile customers. Whether checkingthe weather, looking for a restaurant or getting the most up-to-datenews, consumers want search services that meet their everyday needs.

Alan Harper, Group Strategy Director, Vodafone, said: “Innovative mobile search will become increasingly important as fastand easy access to information and services are increasingly demandedby customers on the move. Together, Vodafone and Google will focus oncreating the best mobile search service in the market, helping to bringthe mobile internet to life. Our customers will be able to findrelevant information and services faster, making the Vodafone live!customer experience even better. Our intention is to develop ourrelationship with Google to ensure Vodafone customers continue to havethe very best in mobile services.”

Nikesh Arora, Vice President, European Operations, Google Inc., said: “As people become more mobile, it’s increasingly important that we canprovide them with access to information when on-the-go. Googleunderstands that mobile phone users are looking for more than a desktopreplacement – they want directly relevant content, quickly. Vodafonehas long been a pioneer in providing mobile data services to itscustomers and we believe that by working together we will ensure a userfriendly experience for mobile users.”

Vodafone Embrace SIP Internally. Nokia To Supply: 3GSM

The news is coming out of 3GSM thick and fast, so we’re going to be reporting in a slightly different way. When we see a press release that we thinks of interest to you, Dear Reader, we’ll put it up in full, with a brief comment at the top. Normal service will be resumed post 3GSM.

This _is_ an interesting one. Nokia and Vodafone have knocked heads a few times about Nokia and their domination of the handsets market – and Vodafone’s keenness for their relationship with the subscriber not to be lost.

Here Nokia IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) will go Worldwide for Vodafone. The real buzz is that Vodafone will be SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) enabling their core network.

This is the switch to IP for Vodafone and, we judge, an acceptance that they need to fit in to the significantly cheaper IP world, rather than just sticking to their expensive, proprietary cellular networks.

Vodafone awards global contract to Nokia for IMS

Espoo, Finland – Nokia has been selected by Vodafone Group as a preferred supplier, with a contract to begin deploying the Nokia IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) solution to Vodafone affiliates worldwide. The first deployments are expected during 2006.

Under the agreement, Nokia becomes a preferred supplier of Vodafone’s IMS network architecture and the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) technology that will enable Vodafone to pilot next generation services and start interoperability testing. Nokia is also deploying its OMA-compliant Presence and List Management solutions. IMS is an essential element of the Nokia Unified Core Network solution and a key enabler of multi-access methods.

“Vodafone is excited by the enormous possibilities that are emerging with IP Multimedia,” says Detlef Schultz, Head of Global Supply Chain Management at Vodafone. “IMS is going to play a strategic role in our future service delivery. We intend to pilot the next generation of services using this technology and will start interoperability testing with other operators as soon as possible. We have the utmost confidence in Nokia’s ability to deploy IMS on a world-wide scale.”

“We are extremely pleased to be cooperating with Vodafone in pioneering the benefits of IMS for consumers,” said Giuseppe Donagemma, Vice President, Networks, Nokia. “Vodafone clearly recognizes how important IMS is in providing next generation multimedia services that are rich in possibilities and independent of access.”

Nokia provides to the telecommunications market a complete, end-to-end solution for IMS-based multimedia, including the Nokia IP Multimedia Subsystem solution and application servers for services such as Presence, which are connected to the IMS via the open IMS Service Control (ISC) interface. Nokia is the leading vendor of IMS/SIP enabled terminals, with several models of video sharing and SIP enabled terminals already on the market.

With its IMS solution and wide range of IP multimedia capable devices, Nokia has taken the lead in making IP Multimedia commercial. Nokia has over 70 IMS references, including 48 commercial references for the fully IMS compatible Push to talk over Cellular (PoC) solution and 14 references for IMS Core with mobile and fixed operators globally. Commercial launches include over 20 PoC and several Video Sharing services.

Vodafone and Sony NetServices introduce “Vodafone Radio DJ” (News release)

Back in May 05 we did an interview with two senior Sony execs in Europe, Robert Ashcroft, Senior Vice-President of Network Services Europe and Gregory Kukolj, General Manager for Personal Audio Europe. We explored where Sony was, and where it was planning to go. With todays annoucment in mind, it’s probably worth a revisit – The Future of Sony Network Music and Players: Interview

Today, Vodafone and Sony NetServices are announcing a partnership for the global roll-out of the world’sfirst fully convergent music service – Vodafone Radio DJ – offering interactive, personalised radio channelsstreamed to both 3G mobile phones and personal computers.

With Vodafone Radio DJ, customers have access to hundreds of thousands of songs, both current popularhits and back catalogue, from the world’s largest record companies, and many smaller independent labels.Customers can access streamed radio channels, bespoke collections, and channels defined by customersthemselves.

The key feature of Vodafone Radio DJ is its easy-to-use personalization system, which enables customers to”train” the pre-programmed radio channels to their own personal tastes by simply pressing a button toindicate “like” or “dislike” while listening to a song. If a customer presses ‘dislike’, the music skips to the nextsong.

Through Sony NetServices’ detailed classification of each song in the catalogue – analysing beat andharmonies as well as genre and mood – the radio channels that individual customers receive will featuremore songs that have characteristics in common with songs that are liked, whilst avoiding songs withcharacteristics similar to those that the customer dislikes.

The Vodafone Radio DJ service consists of three elements:

Pre-defined channels. Customers can select a radio channel based on mood or genre. If the customerindicates that they don’t like the song, the channel skips to the next track within the channel. Customers can also buy any songs that they like and these will be automatically available for download to their phone andPC.
Personal Channels. By rating songs on the existing radio channels, the customer can create a number ofnew, personal channels corresponding to their desired genres, moods or specific themes.
Collections. Vodafone Radio DJ also presents programmed collections of songs to the customer on mobilephone or PC. These collections will be created by local music experts around a theme (eg Christmas Hits, orthe Best New Hip-Hop), be updated regularly, and will comprise about 15 songs.

Songs purchased on either mobile phone or PC will be available to download on both devices, with aseparate high quality stereo copy being delivered individually to each. Personal settings and personalchannels created on the mobile phone will also be accessible from the PC.

The Radio DJ service will be offered on the basis of a monthly subscription for unlimited listening to music onboth mobile phone and PC. There will be no extra charge to the consumer for the data traffic needed todeliver the music to the phone or PC.

Vodafone Radio DJ will be launched in six European countries in the coming months, namely UK, France,Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain. It will then be rolled out to more than 20 countries worldwide over thefollowing twelve months.

“This is the beginning of a new era in portable music. This partnership with Sony will drive Vodafone’sstrategy to become a leading global music provider. Vodafone Radio DJ is a revolutionary new way todiscover personal music, anytime and anywhere, and we anticipate it will have widespread consumer appealamongst our customers”, said Edward Kershaw, Vodafone’s Head of Music.

“Subscribers to Vodafone Radio DJ can listen to all the music they like, and discover new music to love.Vodafone Radio DJ opens a world of music discovery and listening pleasure on both the mobile phone andon the PC”>

Vodafone Licenses Intertrust DRM

Intertrust must have though that all of the xmases came at once on the day Vodafone confirmed their licensing deal. It’s not every day that the World’s largest mobile operator signs a deal like that with you.

The Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) specified DRM (Digital Rights Management)contains what they refer to as, the essential patents – the minimum required to run the very basics of the content/rights protection.

Vodafone Licenses Intertrust's DRM The Vodafone deal goes well beyond these basics and licenses all of the technologies and patent that Intertrust have available.

When we asked which of the Intertrust pieces of technology they were planning to use, Vodafone became unusually very shy, explaining that they didn’t have definitive plans as to which parts would and wouldn’t be used.

Vodafone Licenses Intertrust's DRM Both Vodafone and Intertrust declined to reveal the value of the transaction, but given the need for separate deals with the handset companies, it may be here that Intertrust make most of their money. This will not be optional if the handset manufacturers want to be on the Vodafone service and offer content.

The length of the deal has been loosely described as ‘Long-term licensing’, but Vodafone didn’t reveal how long this was by the time we went to press.

Intertrust
Vodafone

Guba; Guidepoint; Mobile Vending: Teenage Tech Roundup

GUBA Usenet screenshot I like this … Guba
In these times, there are many options available to us when we choose how we want to consume media. Sometimes, however, it’s the oldest choices that are the best: A company called Guba has developed a superb Usenet interface, with which it is possible to download music videos, MP3s as well as TV shows. The ease of use of this terrific application blew me straight out of the water, and I immediately signed up to it. Great service, just what I had been looking for and well worth my $15 (£8.50 or there abouts).

Now where did I park…
ISS International Space Station Guidepoint, a company that make navigation and location soft- and hardware, have released a new product, that allows car owners to track their four-wheeled pride and joy using their mobile phone. Although this technology is cool, you might be wondering what appeal it may have to someone of my age, who, at least in the UK, isn’t legally allowed to drive yet.

Well I’ll tell you why this got me a teensy bit excited: I’m a teenager. Teenagers are forgetful, and as such I am forever losing things. Imagine if I could attach small locator tags to items I lose often, and then find these tags using my mobile phone. This sort of technology would stop me losing anything, ever, and would save me countless hours of looking for my keys when they fall down the back of my desk again.

Here’s another examples. Can’t find my graphics folder for school? No problem, just whip out my mobile phone, and I would get a map with a little cross-hair on, telling me exactly where it’s located. If it was closer than, say, 10 metres, I would instead get a small arrow with a distance reading next to it, which would guide me towards the item that I had lost.

I’m not sure how such a technology would work, but a mixture of a flavour of 802.x and bluetooth would be cool, with maybe some GPS thrown in for the maps. Now if only Father Christmas read Digital-Lifestyles, he might bring me one… Sigh…

By the way, Guidepoint has now expanded their mobile service to include remote car starting and door-unlocking. Could come in handy next time I’m planning a bank robbery ;-)

Mobile Phone Vending Machine Hope it gives change!
This one just about qualifies as part of the weekly round up. Engadget covered the news that mobile phone giant Vodafone are to start selling mobile phones in vending machines. Interesting idea, but I can’t really imagine it taking off to be honest: When I go phone shopping, I value the expertise of specially trained staff and the advice they have to give.

On the other hand though, a lot of staff in shops seem to lack any knowledge of mobile phones… Maybe it’s just a cost-saving measure, but sometimes I think when I walk into certain phone shops that they might as well be employing monkeys half the time!

Still though, although I personally wouldn’t buy a phone from a vending machine I can see a lot of kids who don’t care what they get as long as it’s a phone buying these.