3G
Car rental giants Avis have starting offering their Autonet Mobile-based Wi-Fi service – known as Avis Connect – in their rental vehicles.
The service – priced at an upmarket $10.95 (unlimited usage) a day in addition to the car rental fee – lets multiple users connect to each other and to the Internet via a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot device, powered by the car’s power adapter or cigarette lighter.
Continue reading Avis Offers In-Car Wi-Fi Service
As we saw on Friday, Richard isn’t too happy with his Nokia N95. Today he tackles the GPS function and tomorrow the day after will be connecting his N95 to a computer, the 5Mpx camera and making phone calls.
GPS – Come to my rescue
Obviously, the narrow West End street where I work wouldn’t be a fair test, so I take it over the road to Golden Square in Soho. It’s Friday, it’s hot and sunny, if a little bit hazy, but I’m in a clear open space with no buildings for 50 metres on all sides.
Okay, time to try out the device’s killer app – GPS and Nokia Maps. Having previously owned a Garmin Trek and an ill-fated Ipaq 6915, I’m familiar with the sluggishness of finding an initial navigating signal, so I’m giving the Nokia plenty of leeway to be a bit slow at first.
Continue reading GPS: Living With A Nokia N95: A Bug’s Life (2/3)
The BBC are going to start of a trial to syndicate a range of its television channels and radio networks via 3G to mobile phones within the month.
Three UK operators will be taking part, Orange, Vodafone and 3 giving subscribers to the trial the ability to watch BBC One, BBC News 24 and BBC Three streamed on their mobiles. Beyond some sports programmes and programmes where they don’t have the necessary rights.
As well as the TV channels, eight radio stations will also be included – Radio 1, 1Xtra, Radio 2, Radio 3, Radio 4, 6 Music, BBC 7 and Asian Network.
Appropriately enough the announcement by Richard Halton, BBC Controller of Business Strategy, was made at the Broadcast Mobile TV Congress.
The BBC haven’t done a great deal of content on mobiles, not that they’re not keen on it, as you’ll be able to tell from the comments of Richard Halton, “The BBC believes that mobile content is an important part of the broadcasting landscape and is looking at ways in which mobile devices will shape services of the future for licence fee payers.”
They hope to learn lots from this trial, as Ashley Highfield, Director of Future Media and Technology at the BBC said, “The findings, combined with quantitative and qualitative consumer research, will inform the BBC’s future mobile strategy.”
We’ll keep our eyes on this.
A cavalcade of new phones are continuing to spew forth from the 3GSM World Congress bash in Barcelona, and one that has especially warmed our toilet seats of desire is the ‘G900’ smartphone from Toshiba.
When it comes to the world of mobiles, Toshiba traditionally makes less noise than a mute mouse in a cotton wool box wearing marshmallow shoes, but their new G900 certainly looks like it might make a bit of a splash.
Sporting a horizontally sliding out QWERTY keyboard, the silver handset comes with a thumping great 3-inch WVGA screen serving up a huge 800 x 480 (WVGA) resolution – big enough to make web surfing a really practical proposition.
To ensure that the vast display is topped up with fast and fresh web pages there’s ultra-nippy HSDPA connectivity onboard (take that, iPhone!), with 64MB of internal memory and a miniSD card taking care of storage duties.
The main camera isn’t going to get mobile Muybridges salivating into their viewfinders at just 2 megapixels, but it should be good enough for general snapping duties, while the G900 also comes with a bog standard front mounted camera for video calls.
Extra security comes in the form of a rear biometric scanner, and there’s also Bluetooth with A2DP support, Wi-Fi, USB On-The-Go and Microsoft’s new Windows Mobile 6 OS.
We’re liking the cut of Toshiba’s jig here and reckon that the G900 may even be tough enough to take the iPhone around the back of the bike sheds for a bit of a duffing up, but we’ll be holding back the love until we know how big it is and how much it’s going to cost.
There may be controversy on the catwalks, but thin remains in with the design bods at Samsung, who have just unleashed a trio of anorexic handsets in their Ultra range, the U300, U600, U700 and ultra-thin U100.
Samsung Ultra Edition 5.9 (U100)
Making the phone in your pocket look like a pie-scoffing lardarse is the Samsung Ultra Edition 5.9 (U100), which claims to be the slimmest phone in the world.
Getting just a tad carried away with the hyperbole, Samsung reckon that the U100 employs some sort of Romulan cloaking device, insisting that it is, “thin enough to disappear if turned on its side.”
Back to the real world, there’s no denying that the U100 is an impressive piece of engineering – and purdy as a picture too – packing in a 3 mega-pixel camera, a 1.93″ color TFT screen and 11 hours of music play time into its 5.9mm wide frame.
Ultra Edition 12.1 (U700)
The second phone in the Ultra Edition II range is the U700 slider, a comparative porker at 12.1mm, offering HSDPA internet connectivity up to 3.6Mbps, video telephony and a 3 mega pixel digital camera with auto focus.
The phone comes with Bluetooth, a “cool wheel” for zipping around the menus, a bundled MP3 player and a rather stingy 20MB onboard memory, expandable to 1GB via a MicroSD card.
Samsung’s Ultra Edition 10.9 (U600)
Once again, we suspect the Samsung PR may have been dabbling with funny dust when they were writing the press release for the U600, insisting that the phone was “inspired by the shine and shimmer of the crown jewels.”
Adjusting the BS output to ‘stun,’ the press announcement tells us that the handset apparently exudes “elegance and modern style… for the ultimate sophistication” and comes in a suitably daftly-named set of colours, including sapphire blue, garnet red, platinum metal and copper gold casing.
The slider phone comes with a 3.2 megapixel camera, 2.22″ wide TFT LCD widescreen, 60MB internal storage, Bluetooth and Smart Messaging all packed in a slim 10.9mm case.
The Ultra Edition 9.6 (U300)
Wrapping up the new line-up is the U300, a 9.6-mm clamshell with a 3-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, TV-out capability and 70MB of onboard storage (but no MicroSD slot).
The 2.2-inch LCD comes with a large 240×320 resolution backed by an external 96×16 OLED.
The Ultra Edition II range should be taking up shelf space in UK and European stores during March/April 2007.
In an advanced Hedge-Betting exercise, i-mate has announced its new range of Windows Mobile devices, with a set of designs mirroring just about every handset currently available on the market.
Working on a “Oooh! Suits you sir”, philosophy, it looks like consumers will be hard-pressed to not find a form factor they feel comfortable with, although the gold metallic and black styling may not be to everyone’s taste (we have to say we’re not feeling the love).
Christened the “Ultimate” range, the WM6-powered devices – all five of ’em – are numbered 5150, 6150, 7150, 9150, and 8150 (clockwise from the upper left in the compilation photo) – if you’re bored, you can play “spot the inspiration” and see if you match i-mate’s new offerings to current designs by other manufacturers.
Back to the new phones, you can’t knock the i-mates for lacking in functionality, with the handsets sporting a minimum of 256MB of ROM, beefy 262k VGA displays (480×640 pixels), tri-band 3G radios, Bluetooth 2.0, FM radios and, we assume, Wi-Fi.
Full details of the whole range are still dribbling through, but we’ve learnt that the Ultimate 5150 slider comes with an Intel Bulverde 520MHz CPU, VGA screen, 256MB ROM and 128MB RAM, Wi-Fi, microSD memory card slot and a 2.0 megapixel camera.
[Via]
Nordic big-knobs Nokia have knocked out another two handsets for your delectation today.
First up is Nokia’s shiny new 3G N77 handset, packing DVB-H mobile broadcast technology in its boxy black and silver frame.
Running on the tried and trusted S60 3rd Edition OS, the handset is dominated by a beefy 2.4-inch, 16 million colour display, with what looks like a bit of a fiddly keypad below.
Lurking on the back is a 2 megapixel camera, with the N77 delivering on the multimedia front, offering visual radio and support for MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+ and WMA media.
For annoying bus passengers, there are integrated stereo speakers onboard as well as a standard 3.5-mm headphone jack for adding that extra “Tscch-tschh-tschh” sound to someone else’s journey on public transport.
The tri-band GSM / EDGE with UMTS 2100 MHz phone should start shipping to “countries were DVB-H services are available” in Q2 for around €370 ($481).
Nokia E90 Communicator
Nokia has also announced the official specs for their S60-series E90 Communicator.
As befits such a pocket bulging beast, there’s a ton of functionality onboard for sharp suit-clad corporate schmoozers, with this latest version of the Communicator range getting a mean, business-like, all-black retread.
Globe trotters will heart the quad-band GSM, WiFi, and HSDPA connectivity, and there’s a 3.2 megapixel camera (with flash) and a more basic camera upfront taking care of photo/video duties.
There’s also integrated GPS and Nokia Maps wedged into the chunky handset, but all those features are going to come at a wallet-whipping price, with the E90 expected to be priced at around a stratospheric €750.
Nokia, the undisputed heavyweight champs of the mobile phone world, have taken the wraps off their new 6110 Navigator smartphone.
Jostling for some elbow room amongst the potentially cash-raking real-time positioning services market, the phone comes with high speed data connections, maps and full navigation software.
Expected to begin shipping in the second quarter with an upmarket price hovering around the €450 ($585) mark, the 6110 Navigator will use Nokia’s new smart2go navigation and mapping software.
smart2go
The software lets users put maps and route-finding services onto their phones for nowt, but Nokia would force users to creak open their wallets for more advanced services like voice commands and turn-by-turn car navigation.
The basic application lets users view where they are on a map, search for points-of-interest around them and then create a route to shuffle over to the marked interesting places.
According to Nokia, they will be offering the smart2go on Nokia S60 and Windows Mobile 5.0 devices, and then rolling out support for most of the major mobile OS platforms including Nokia S60/S40, PocketPC, Linux and other Windows Mobile devices.
Super G
Keeping the data hurtling down the line faster than an amphetamine fuelled ferret down a greased drainpipe will be HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) technology (otherwise known as ‘Super 3G’).
There’s no sign of any pictures of the Nokia 6110 Navigator yet, so here’s a link to some pretty bunny rabbit pictures instead.
UPDATE: Image through now …. der dah!
[From: Reuters]
WCDMA 3G/HSDPA trials in France
Elsewhere, Nokia and French operator SFR have successfully carried out a series of tests on WCDMA 3G/HSDPA voice calls on the 900 MHz band in SFR’s network.
What this means in English is that the increased coverage of the 900 MHz band will reduce network deployment costs significantly, improve indoor reception and help rural French farmers plan their next country-stopping protest.
[via]
Vodafone has made three days of surprising announcements. Three of them for Web services soon to be accessible over their mobile network (MySpace, eBay and YouTube) and the other relating to the building out of their 3G networks in the future (analysis).
We thought it would be worthwhile taking a look as to why this might be happening and why it’s come at this time.
Why the push?
Well, lots of other companies are moving in to tread on Vodafone’s toes – example – Virgin Mobile now with NTL/Telewest TV/broadband/telephone service – as all forms of communication converge.
Vodafone is pretty much a mobile only company. They’re trying to change this, through deals with BT to offer fixed-line broadband and similar offerings in Italy and Germany. In the converged game, they’re pretty weak.
This weakness is leaving their previous highly-profitable dominance of the mobile space threatened.
They’ve been aware of the benefit of differentiating their service through providing access to content for a while, but these recent moves mark a serious step forward.
Previously it’s been about them providing the means of accessing content from third parties, games, music, etc. These most recent deals are about access to services.
I know content is being accessed, a la YouTube, but they’re actually providing access to the service … one that happens to be providing content.
What’s the benefit?
There’s many advantages to Vodafone on this.
Short term it’s about making people associate Vodafone with being on the leading-edge – “Wow, they’ve got MySpace and YouTube!”
It’s unclear how far this benefit will extend into the future, as more phones become easier to browse the Web, where these services live.
eBay, MySpace and YouTube all have fanatical following. When people become embroiled in them, they _must_ find out what has _just_ happened. They’re a modern day replacement for TV soap-operas.
Obsessions like these drive people to choose mobile phones that enable them to get access – and Vodafone will be shouting this from the roof tops to encourage people to switch to them.
Interestingly, those three services are also used by a great deal of people who don’t have a strong technical understanding. People who don’t know that the whole Internet is available through the Web Browser on their mobile phone. This changing is just a matter of time.
Another short-term benefit for them is the amount of revenue they’ll end up generating. We imagine that it’s cost Vodafone a pretty penny to get exclusives from all three services, but this will be made up by the seriously boosted data charges that they’ll be clawing in.
MySpace is pretty rich with bandwidth hungry media – lots of photos, and many many pages to check. Same for eBay.
The real earner for them will be YouTube. You’ll struggle to find an application that uses as much data as video and with the ability to pass links to favourite videos, subscribers will be helping their friends run up big data charges too.
As has been mentioned on Digital-Lifestyles, Orange and Vodafone have entered into an agreement to share their 3G Radio Access Network (or RAN). We thought you’d appreciate some more depth … and who better to give it than Steve Kennedy, our telco guru.
Currently Vodafone have a bigger network than Orange, so Orange would gain more than Vodafone from the deal, but in future it means that new cell sites will be used by both operators.
The agreement could have covered 2G (GSM) too, but as Vodafone use 900MHz systems and Orange use different systems operating in the 1800MHz band, it just not possible. That said, it’s likely future technology would allow both sets of frequencies to operate within the same radio equipment.
There will still be interesting problems to sort out for 3G sharing, as Vodafone exclusively use equipment from Ericsson, while Orange use equipment from Nortel, Siemens, Nokia and Alcatel.
Once the network is in place, each network will be responsible for enabling their own network services and ensuring quality of service, etc. As competition for customers increases this is a sensible way for operators to reduce cost, share the infrastructure and compete on service. It’s a shame the fixed networks don’t take this view, as has been pointed out before, the LLU operators could join forces and build a joint LLU network and then compete on service. This might give them a larger network, which would be of a size and scale to compete with BT’s upcoming 21CN.
Why the rush to build?
With a 3G license comes obligations and one of these was to reach 80% of the population by the 1st Dec, 2007. Though the GSM network coverage hit that a while ago, 3G expansion has been slower with few customers really wanting 3G services so the operators have built 3G networks in densely populated areas where they can make revenue from those customers. That means big cities have been covered, but elsewhere 3G coverage is patchy to say the least.
Hutchinson 3G (or 3 the new entrant into the mobile world) has been rapidly building its customer base and building a network to match. In June 2004, Ofcom tried rules that 3 had SMP (significant market power) in the 3G world, which meant it would be regulated by Ofcom much in the same way BT is for fixed networks. The other 3G operators happily supported Ofcom in this view. 3 didn’t want the increased regulatory burden and disagreed with Ofcom’s ruling, so appealed to the Competition Appeal Tribunal. They won their appeal in November 2005. This was the first time any network has successfully appealed against a SMP designation.
3 wasn’t happy about having SMP forced upon it and therefore made noises to Ofcom about coverage obligations, which the other networks weren’t meeting. They’ve got 10 months to hit that 80% figure.
Though city centres might have a demand for 3G (for data services, no one cares about 3G voice – a voice call sounds the same whether it’s 3G or GSM), as you leave dense urban areas the appeal of 3G is less. Well maybe not less, but there are less people to use it and less of a reason for the networks to install 3G infrastructure and sites.
The cost of a 3G cell is probably not much different in terms of equipment from that of a 2G cell, one major difference is the amount of bandwidth needed for the cell, as data volumes are significantly higher (maybe 40Kb/s using GPRS data compared to maybe 2Mb/s for 3G, multiply that by 10 users and it’s 400Kb/s compared to 200Mb/s).
UK backhaul (i.e. the pipes used to connect cells) are expensive. The more rural the cell site is. the less chance there is that anyone (except maybe BT) has got any kind of high bandwidth connectivity. Therefore, the costs of the backhaul may well exceed that of the cell site itself.
Sharing makes economic sense
Orange and Vodafone have to hit that 80% figure or Ofcom can impose fines which could be significant. Therefore the build out of a shared new network makes economic sense. It’s half of what they’d each have to pay.
In this climate of everyone’s customers wanting everything for nothing, being able to reduce your build costs may well be the straw that doesn’t break the camel’s back.