Mobile

Things that aren’t static

T-Mobile Use WiMax and WiFi on UK Trains and Double WiFi Coverage
T-Mobile has unveiled ambitious plans to further expand its global Wi-Fi footprint, aiming to install 20,000 hotspots across the world by the end of the year, including trains.
Clearly mindful of the huge growth in VoIP traffic and the corresponding loss of revenue, the network is hoping to ‘own’ a large slice of the WiFi action and keep raking in the profits, no matter how many consumers disconnect from its telephone and cellular networks.
Already a big cheese in the world of Wi-Fi, T-Mobile currently has over 5,300 hotspots in the US and over 7,000 hotpots across Europe.
As part of their uber-expansion meisterplan, T-Mobile (Deutche Telecom’s mobile brand if you didn’t know) is offering WiFi hotspots on trains and what they claim is the first “truly broadband Wi-Fi service” on trains in the UK. We learnt this with some surprise, as GNER have been running a Satellite-powered WiFi service on their trains since April 2004.
Currently trialing on the busy London to Brighton route run by Southern Trains in the UK, the T-Mobile commercial service will launch in Spring. The selection of the route makes perfect sense, with this train line being the physical embodiment of the Information Super Highway, taking Nuu Media types between the two UK centres of online culture.
Naturally, there’s some cunning technological shenanigans involved in keeping Internet connections open while trains plunge into long tunnels, and T Mobile has solved this problem by running a WiMax network running alongside the tracks.
WiMax is a fixed-wireless technology based on the 802.16 standard, and in this instance allows for high speed connectivity of up to 32 Mbps bi-directionally to and from the train. WiMax can run up to 70Mbps. Wi-Fi antennae are then used to distribute the signal within the carriages.
The service will allow commuters an additional 55 minutes of online time in each direction, letting them liven up their journey with remote office work, Web surfing and the ability to email their loved ones to say that they’re stuck in a tunnel somewhere near Gatwick.
If you’re fed up with five pounds an hour WiFi access, you’ll be pleased that T-Mobile is also bringing down its once-eye-wateringly expensive Wi-Fi tariffs to something comparable to US rates. A new “all you can eat” WiFi tariff in the UK offers unlimited wireless access for £20 + VAT per month. This includes train-based access.
Germany appear to get a rougher deal with a time-based, ‘all-bearer’ tariff in Germany priced at 35 Euros for 10 hours. With this customers can download or upload as much data as they like on these schemes via 2.5G, 3G or Wi-Fi over the 10 hours.
T-mobile
17 February, 2005
3 Exceed 10 million Mobile Video Plays
UK 3G operator 3, proudly trumpeted the fact that more than 10 million music videos have been watched by its customers on their mobiles since the launch of its Video Jukebox service only six months ago.
Cocking an industrial-sized snoot at all those naysayers who declared that people were more likely to poke their eyes out with a rusty nail than watch videos on phone, this represents a huge growth in the market.
Naturally, 3 are keen to build on their success and have announced a new agreement with SONY BMG Music Entertainment UK which will double the list of artists whose music videos are available for fans to download or stream onto their video mobiles.
Sony has a bumper pack of artists on its rosters, allowing 3 customers to shake their mobile booties to the likes of Destiny’s Child, Lemar, Manic Street Preachers, Natasha Bedingfield and the Zutons. And, err, Britney Spears.
Not all of these videos will be available concurrently, however, as 3 have an editorial team selecting popular content for their ‘Today on Three’ service. This normally gives users the choice of between 40-60 videos, with the video selections changing regularly. 3 told us they found customers are interested in videos that are “the latest, and then they move on”, only being interested in “what’s current.”
3’s Chief Operating Officer, Gareth Jones enthused: “Thanks to our innovative jukebox service, we’ve created a significant mobile audience for music videos in just six months. We’re offering the latest music videos, on demand, straight to your mobile, and our customers are lapping it up.”
Clive Rich, Senior Vice President, SONY BMG Music Entertainment UK also underlined their company’s support for mobile music downloads, “It’s clear now that there is huge consumer demand for mobile music and it is our policy to deliver our artists’ videos and music to their fans anyway, anyhow, anywhere – at any time. This market will continue to grow.”
We asked 3 for a breakdown of how many people were paying each time they played a video, and how many had taken advantage of the fixed price, “all you can eat”, five pounds a month deal. Surprisingly they didn’t have that information yet.
We have to admit that we were surprised by this enthusiastic uptake, but questions remain as to how many of these downloads were simply people taking advantage of the free video deals currently offered to new subscribers. We’ll have to see if they continue to download at such an enthusiastic rate once they have to start paying for it.
3
16 February, 2005
PacketVideo Ships on 17m Mobile Phones in 2004
In their 2005 “State of the Company” address just made public, PacketVideo bigged up their successes in 2004 and mulled about the future of mobile multimedia.
Clearly, 2004 was a time of happiness and joy for PacketVideo, with the company announcing that 17 million phones embedded with PacketVideo media software were shipped by top handset OEMs worldwide in 2004.
PacketVideo also helped launch five 2.5G and 3G multimedia services, including the recent Verizon V CAST video-on-demand (VOD) service in the US, and the OrangeWorld service on Orange Signature phones in 2004 and early 2005.
PacketVideo is the numero uno supplier of embedded multimedia communications software for mobile phones with more than 60 ‘design wins’ and 17 million handsets shipped in 2004.
The company’s software enables mobile phones to take digital pictures, record home movies, play back digital music and videos, and make two-way videophone calls.
PacketVideo specialises in building and ‘commercializing’ (we think that’s American for “selling”) multimedia capabilities such as VOD, music on demand (MOD) and two-way video communication and messaging.
“These much-anticipated multimedia services, made possible by the growing availability of 3G networks, are finally a reality for millions of people around the globe,” trumpeted Dr Jim Brailean, CEO of PacketVideo. He continued, “PacketVideo’s software is at the heart of delivering these new and innovative services that let customers download, play, and share streaming audio, video and live broadcasts on their mobile phones.”
Looking to the future, PacketVideo expects continued growth and technology innovation, and anticipates an increase in both lovely lolly and market share.
“We believe 2005 will be the year of multimedia services such as VOD, MOD (Movies On Demand) and two-way video telephony. We will see the multimedia technologies permeate all levels of handsets, allowing more and more consumers to take advantage of the multimedia capabilities,” enthused Brailean.
PacketVideo
16 February, 2005
Nokia Series 60 Update, Smartphones to the Masses
Mindful of the advance of Linux as an OS for mobile handsets, Nokia is giving their updated Series 60 Platform 3rd Edition, the loud fanfare treatment at 3GSM Cannes.
Although the Series 60 Platform is currently the leading smart phone platform in the world (licensed by mobile phone heavyweights such as LG Electronics, Lenovo, Nokia, Panasonic, Samsung, Sendo and Siemens), things are hotting up in the smartphone market with increased competition from Linux and Microsoft’s just-announced ‘Peabody’ phone.
Running on Symbian OS v9.0, the updated software will enable Series 60 handset manufacturers to create smartphones for various user segments, device formats and better target high volume consumer markets. And – they hope – beat off Linux.
The Series 60 3rd Edition will be available for licensees in mid-2005 and comes stuffed full of groovy new features including enhanced multimedia and enterprise functionality, sustainable application business support, customisation tools and improved platform architecture.
But what does that mean in English? Allow us to explain!
The software will include all the features and functions of the previous editions – including multiradio, extensive application suite, scalable UI and high-resolution support – and bolt on lots of new refinements for business and consumer users.
Let’s look at multimedia first: the new software will offer a new music player, more functionality for rich media content, USB mass memory storage and high-quality multimedia rendering.
The music player will come with all the bells and whistles demanded by the youth market (and hipster execs!), including “seamless and easy-to-use music downloading” with personalised themes and skins.
USB support means that it’ll be easier to exchange music files from mobile to PC, although we suspect that some of their target audience may not be quite so excited by the inclusion of OMA Digital Rights Management (DRM) v2.0.
For business users, the Series 60 3rd Edition also includes significant improvements in many areas, including a new security framework and calendar, synchronisation and device management enhancements.
The new functionality on a platform architecture level will allow manufacturers to target devices for specific segments, with increased support for different hardware configurations, including single and dual-chip hardware architectures and improved performance.
The global smartphone market is expanding at a huge rate – Nokia will have shipped approximately 20 million Series 60 based devices by the end of February and estimates the overall smartphone market in 2005 to exceed 50 million units. In 2008, Nokia expects the smartphone market to be around 25 percent of the total mobile device market.
Series60.com
Series 60 Developer Platform 2.0 and Feature Packs (PDF)
15 February, 2005
Smart2Go , Maps and Local Guides to your Mobile Phone
The Smart2Go Personal Navigator is claiming to be the first mobile navigation system to combine satellite navigation with an extensive travel guide. For travellers who don’t know their A-Z from their GPS, the Personal Navigator promises to make finding your way around town a breeze, with routes, directions and 3D maps being generated at a click of a button on your PDA/smartphone.
Initially running on Series-60 Nokia phones, the package is supplied with a separate GPS location device that uses Bluetooth to find its precise location. Instead of just serving up a boring old route from A to B, the Personal Navigator digs into its database (compiled by Tele Atlas) to dish up a load of useful local information to guide users to petrol stations, banks, car parks, etc.
Hard drinking, wild-living road warriors will be pleased to learn that the program can serve up details of nearby pubs and nightclubs, while more cultured types will enjoy looking up museums, tourist sights, shopping information.
Additionally, Personal Navigator can also provide recommendations, updated daily, for events in culture, sports and more – and if you fancy meeting up with your friends, smart2go can send them route details by sms or e-mail.
Although Smart2Go is a fully fledged satellite navigation system, it can speed up route calculations by utilising its own maps, stored in memory, rather than making the user wait (and pay) for a connection to an external server.
Maps of many European countries and the United States are already available. Locations can be entered through the keypad and the resulting navigation directions are spoken loudly and clearly (available in four languages).
Smart2Go are clearly going for the mass market with this application, as it runs on all Nokia Series60-Standard smartphones with Bluetooth and SD/MMC slot. The company is also promising versions of smart2go for MS Windows Smartphone, PocketPC, Nokia Series 80 and Palm OS in the near future.
Smart2Go Personal Navigator
Gate5
Tele Atlas
15 February, 2005
‘Ultra Low Cost’ Mobile Handsets Announced by GSM Association
In response to demand from emerging markets the GSM Association (GSMA) is forging the way toward for a new ‘Ultra-Low Cost’ mobile handset market, producing sub-US$40 (Euro 31, £21) handsets. Some of the more cynical observers are wondering if this is an attempt to create a demand, or an early move to ensure a toehold in the potentially lucrative emerging market.
This initiative was kick-started by GSMA-commissioned research that identified handset cost as the single biggest barrier to mobile communications affordability in emerging markets.
Although we can’t help questioning the need to commission an entire study just to discover that ‘poor people can’t afford handsets’, the GSM Association aims to use the economies of scale of GSM to drive a new ‘Ultra-Low Cost’ market segment.
The GSMA brought together a group of its operator members that serve emerging markets to create critical mass through a special procurement initiative.
“One of our key goals as a global trade association is to help connect the ‘unconnected’ people of the World, a mission that is critical to the social and economic development of many emerging market countries,” said Craig Ehrlich, Chairman of the GSM Association. “By directly addressing the cost of handset ownership, we believe that we can unlock the new ‘Ultra-Low Cost’ market segment.”
The operators participating in this stage of the initiative are: AIS Telecom, Bharti Televentures, Globe Telecom, Maxis Mobile, Orascom, SingTel Mobile, Smart Communications, Telenor Mobile and Turkcell. Together, they represent significant presence in Eurasia, the Arab World and Latin America.
A handset specification and tender was issued to 18 different handset vendors, with Motorola’s family of products (built on its new, ultra-low cost C114 platform) being selected.
The handsets are optimised for their durability, long talk time, and design preferences of emerging markets and Motorola has committed to start delivering these products during the second quarter at a price point below $40 (ex factory) – with a strategic intent to work with GSMA members to develop follow-on products at sub $30 (Euro23.10, £15.89) price points.
Once shipments begin, the initial unit volume target for the first six months is a massive 6 million handsets, which equates to around 1 percent of the global handset market.
As economies of scale kick-in, this new market segment has the potential to add more than a 100 million new connections per year.
Motorola’s Chief Executive Officer, Ed Zander comes over all touchy-feely in the announcement:
“Connecting the unconnected with new Ultra-Low Cost, high quality, beautifully-designed handsets is a critical component of Motorola’s growth strategy – and it is the right thing for us to do as a good global citizen. We are delighted to have won the opportunity to seamlessly partner with the GSMA and member operators to deliver the magic of mobile communications to those who have never experienced it.”
(Note: Motorola had sales of US $31.3 billion (Euro24.1 billion, £16.5 billion), in 2004). The next stage of the project will see the project extended to other emerging market operators, while more vendors will be encouraged to supply terminals for this sizable segment.
According to GSMA estimates, in the region of 80 percent of the world’s population have wireless coverage but only 25 percent use mobile services.
By bridging the gap between supply and demand, the GSMA hopes to accelerate mobile penetration into a user segment currently seen as financially unrewarding.
“This announcement is just the beginning,” enthuses Conway, Chief Executive Officer of the GSMA .
“We also believe that the creation of the ‘Ultra-Low Cost’ market segment represents a significant step towards a sustainable business case for all players in the supply chain. Our mission is to aid economic and social development, by ensuring more people than ever before benefit from mobile communications.”
The mobile usage equation has three major elements: handset, service provision and regulatory / tax requirements.
While the GSMA is working with operators and vendors to address the first two, the third requires serious government support to lower taxes and regulatory requirements.
The GSMA will be reaching out to governments and regulators across emerging markets towards this goal.
GSM Association (GSMA)
Industry Comment (GSMWorld)
15 February, 2005
Nokia, Microsoft Music shock: 3GSM
Much to everyone’s surprise, Nokia has just announced at 3GSM that they are to put Microsoft’s Media player software on their handsets.
Prior to this, Nokia has had a long running, and seemingly-solid relationship with Real Networks.
Music bought in either format will be invisibly exchangeable between mobile phones and Microsoft’s media player.
Microsoft Digital Media big gun, Amir Majidimehr was brought on stage to explain that Microsoft would be creating a software ‘bridge’ between their digital music format/DRM and OMA, the mobile worlds chosen DRM.
In return Microsoft will also be supporting OMA DRM and AAC music format in their Windows Media player, via a plug in.
When asked about how this would affect the relationship with Real, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Executive Vice President & General Manager, Mobile Phones said that as an open platform, Nokia was happy to work with all audio players. Quite if Real will be as casual and off-hand about it, is highly doubtful.
We suspect there will be much shouting and screaming at Real Networks.
14 February, 2005
Nokia mPosition System Brings in Cambridge Positioning Systems Matrix
There’s a big future in locations-based services and Nokia are making their move to provide technology for it. As part of the Nokia mPosition System, Nokia is rolling out the Nokia intelligent Gateway Mobile Location Center (iGMLC) 4.0.
Billed as a new, cost-efficient platform for location-based services (LBS), the Nokia iGMLC platform is highly flexible and simultaneously supports both GSM and WCDMA 3G location based services. “The new platform offers our customer a cost-efficient means of deploying location based services, as well as excellent scalability and flexibility in terms of capacity and choice of positioning technologies,” says Heikki Hemmi, General Manager, Location Business Program, Networks, Nokia
Nokia are hoping that this system will provide operators with a future-proof and cost-effective solution for providing mobile services based on the location of the user, as Hemmi says “The platform supports the entire range of complementing positioning methods, from low-accuracy to high-accuracy technologies.”
Teaming up with Cambridge Positioning Systems (CPS), Nokia aims to provide a comprehensive state-of-the-art solution, with the platform supporting a variety of positioning technologies for both GSM and WCDMA 3G.
This includes new support for enhanced Cell Identity and Mobile Station-based A-GPS (based on the Secure User Plane (SUPL) protocol) and support for Cambridge Positioning Systems’ SUPL Matrix for 2G.
Secure User Plane Location (SUPL), works on any network and doesn’t require additional investments in the core and radio network, as Chris Wade, CPS Chief Executive Officer explains, “CPS believes SUPL is the simplest and most cost-effective route to high accuracy. Matrix is particularly suited to this new open standard due to its ability to offer high and robust accuracy, all-area coverage and fast location fixes in a software-only implementation.”
With the Nokia mPosition System allowing mobile operators to build complete end-to-end systems for Location Based Services (while supporting both legacy and LBS enabled handsets), we think this is a significant development.
The Nokia iGMLC 4.0 platform will be available in the second quarter. Support for MS-based SUPL A-GPS and CPS’ SUPL Matrix for 2G will be available as a software upgrade in the third quarter.
Cambridge Positioning Systems
Nokia
Nokia Location Services
14 February, 2005
Skype and Motorola Form Partnership
Motorola and Skype Technologies have announced their intention to jump into bed together on a saucy co-marketing collaboration that will provide greater connectivity options and access for Skype’s 25+ million registered worldwide users.
Both companies are hoping that this technological romp will explore exciting opportunities for both companies.
Motorola’s strength in advanced mobile technology, mobile devices and accessories, should prove to be the perfect love match for Skype’s rapidly-growing global user base and rich voice and messaging communication tools.
The first baby born out of this union, will be the co-marketing of freshly optimised Motorola ‘Skype Ready’ companion products, such as Bluetooth headsets, dongles, and speakerphones, as well as delivery of the Skype Internet Telephony on selected Motorola mobile devices.
Liz Altman, vice president of business development, Motorola Mobile Devices, was clearly happy with the relationship:
“By making Voice over IP truly mobile and easily accessible, we can make communications seamless for consumers as they travel throughout the environments of their day – at work, at home, in the car, or out in the world.
“With over 68 million downloads of their client in the last 18 months, we believe Skype is a natural fit with our vision of simple and seamless connectivity for our consumer customers around the globe.”
And Niklas Zennström, Skype CEO and co-founder was also enjoying the experience: “Our alliance with Motorola is a major step forward in delivering the Skype experience to a whole new base of mobile device and accessory users”
Motorola ‘Skype Ready’ companion products are expected to be available in the first half of 2005.
14 February, 2005
MobileKeeper: Mobile Phone Data Backup ‘Over The Air’
If you’ve ever had your phone stolen, left it in a cab or, like a colleague of ours, managed to send it spinning down the u-bend whilst attempting a tricky feat of toilet-based multi-tasking, you’ll know the pain of unexpectedly parting company with your phone.
Although losing a phone is not only an inconvenience, losing the stored messages, photos and personal data stored on it can be irreplaceable – so forgetful, crime-attracting drunks should be delighted by the release of media is generated on mobile phones, this type of application will become even more useful.
Created by MobiComp, a leading mobile computing and wireless solutions provider, the Symbian-signed, MobileKeeper client-server solution enables operators to guarantee safekeeping of increasing volumes of valuable information stored on subscribers’ phones.
Working as extended storage for the mobile device, the application offers “over the air” data backup for the mobile device allows storage and recovery of contacts, calendar, tasks, SMS, MMS, ring tones, images, videos, J2ME applications and anything else you can fit on your phone.
MobileKeeper’s main functions include ‘ Keep It’ (replicates all/defined information), ‘Get It’ (recovers all/part of stored data), ‘Explore It’ (works as a File Explorer allowing to keep, get, move, delete items) and Profiles (allows the user to define several profiles for storing/recovering/scheduled backups).
The application relies on open standard technologies, with a client-server architecture, and Web services layer for integration with the mobile operator infrastructure.
MobileKeeper is currently on trial with a number of European mobile communications operators.
With the advent of longer pub licensing laws in the UK, we suspect there may be a growing demand for this kind of product.
Mobile Keeper
11 February, 2005