3G

Nokia Launches Lifeblog 2.0
Nokia has launched Nokia Lifeblog 2.0, an updated version of their photo-blogging offering.
Designed for Nokia’s Nseries handsets, Lifeblog lets users create a multimedia diary, with photos, video clips, messages and text notes and store them on their phone and/or PCs.
The material is presented in a chronological manner, with the new version of Lifeblog offering the ability to add audio notes, calendar entries and location information, so that users can add some context to their pictures and video clips.
Well, that’s how we’d describe the process, but Nokia has a more flowery interpretation, insisting that adding the extra information is “rendering them as part of the rich tapestry of items that make up your personal Nokia Lifeblog timeline.”
The new Nokia Lifeblog can be set up to link photos to information about a user’s location, the time or calendar entries, so that any photos taken at, say, a wedding, would automatically be tagged with this information from the user’s calendar.
“With imaging becoming an integral part of mobile devices, the way people approach photography is changing. You are able to capture events and create memories in a spontaneous way as your device is always with you,” gushed Mikko Pilkama, whose job title is surely unpronounceable after five beers: Director, Nokia Nseries See New, Multimedia, Nokia.
Content from the NSeries phones can be transferred to a compatible PC, and photos and video clips can also be shared directly from PCs via email or by blogging to a compatible service.
The PC version of the software lets users import existing digital photo collection from their hard drive to their phone – this software can be downloaded for free from www.nokia.com/lifeblog.
8 March, 2006
BT Movio Partners With Virgin Mobile TV, Endemol: 3GSM
They’ve been busy boys at BT this week, with the UK telecoms giant making two major announcements.
On Monday, BT announced a content partnership with Big Brother producer Endemol to provide original shows and interactive content for BT’s new broadband television service.
Endemol now join a growing list of broadband content providers signed up by BT whose roster now includes recently bagged deals with BBC Worldwide, Paramount, Warner Music, National Geographic, HIT Entertainment and Nelvana.
BT/Virgin mobile TV deal
With the ink still drying on the Endemol deal, BT have also announced a new agreement with Virgin Mobile to offer TV services through its broadcast digital TV and radio service, BT Movio.
Virgin Mobile – Britain’s fourth-largest mobile operator – will use BT’s Movio mobile TV product to give their customers access to a wide range of digital TV content and more than 350 DAB digital radio stations.
Using the UK’s existing digital audio broadcasting (DAB) network, the broadcast service will be offered on a limited exclusive basis to virgin Mobile customers later this year. BT Movio will be available in the future to all mobile operators in the UK.
The announcement of the deal coincided with the unveiling of HTC’s new handset at the 3GSM World Congress 2006.
HTC Trilogy handset
The Trilogy TV handset, the world’s first DAB-IP enabled Smartphone, was developed jointly by BT, TTP and HTC and sports a 2.2″ screen for viewing video content and multimedia-focused features including a removable storage and an integrated 1.3 mega pixel camera.
Emma Lloyd, managing director, BT Movio said: “Bringing the world’s first DAB-IP enabled Smartphone to market is another huge achievement for BT and the beginning of a step change towards open standards in the area of TV broadcasting over DAB.”
“By working with Microsoft and HTC we have been able to develop a handset that provides an easy to view, high quality experience, wrapped into a hi-spec media driven mobile phone. This will be vital in attracting mobile operators to the BT Movio service,” she added.
Microsoft partnership
BT has developed a strategic relationship with Microsoft for delivering broadcast services on a mobile handset, with their Windows Media technologies enabling BT Movio to deliver high-quality audio and video content over a DAB network using minimal bandwidth.
The BT Movio service also comes with Windows Media Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology for the secure delivery of premium video and music content.
These are certainly interesting times for BT, with their recent activity seeing the company pushing ahead to create an alternative distribution network and channel for existing content to both broadband and mobile devices.
Although Orange, 3, and the Vodafone Group already offer streamed TV channels over their 3G mobile networks, this solution gobbles up precious bandwidth.
Phones on the BT Movio service, on the other hand, simply pick up broadcasted signals. As Virgin’s sales and marketing director Graeme Hutchinson explains: “It’s not downloaded; it’s not looped; it’s real TV just like you get at home.”
BT Movio
14 February, 2006
3GSM Preview: World GSM Congress 2006 in Barcelona
Anyone who’s anyone in the 3GSM world will be hot footing it to the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, which starts tomorrow.
Waving big shiny banners and shouting ‘look at me’ will be a slew of mobile and interactive entertainment companies who are keen to team up with telecom companies and grab a juicy slice of the growing mobile entertainment revenue stream.
In a reflection of where the market is headed, the summit will be stuffed full of speakers from big name entertainment companies like Disney, Electronic Arts, Nokia, Vodafone, Motorola, MTV, Sony BMG, Universal and EMI Music.
The mobile phone industry is desperate to come up with mass market services to entice consumers to use 3G networks, but they’ve got their work cut out, with a recent survey finding that almost 80 per cent of UK users said that mobile services are getting too complicated.
There are high hopes that Mobile TV will prove 3G’s salvation and lure in customers by the bucketful.
Keen to show off the technology’s potential, MTV Networks will be showcasing three mobile TV channels at the event, broadcasting MTV music and shows, Paramount Comedy, Nickelodeon and IFILM, a new MTV brand.
It’s all well and good having the ability to watch TV on the move, but consumers aren’t likely to enjoy trying to watch the big game on a squinty tiddler of a screen, so we can expect to see screen sizes on multimedia mobiles to grow rapidly over the coming year.
BT are also going to be at the show and are expected to launch their new broadcast digital TV to mobile service, BT Movio (formerly known as BT Livetime).
There’s certainly a lot of interest in the show, with record breaking pre-registrations and 962 companies signing up as exhibitors – a hefty 40% increase from last year.
The predicted 50,000 visitors can also be, err, thrilled by a performance from Craig David’s. Lucky them!
We’ll end with Bill Gajda, chief marketing officer for the GSM Association, in full PR mode: “As the world’s leading entertainment companies accelerate their plans to channel their content onto mobile devices, there is no better place to meet and forge partnerships with the world’s buyers of that content – the global operator community – than at the 3GSM World Congress.”
3GSM World Congress
13 February, 2006
BBC World Now On Australian And Norwegian Mobile Phones
BBC World have been busy bunnies of late, signing distribution deals all over the globe.
Two of the most recent, in the last week are Telenor Nordic Mobile and Hutchinson/3 Australia. Both have signed deals to deliver the BBC’s commercial news service, BBC World, to mobile handsets.
Mobile subscribers who have compatible 3G handsets will be able to watch live running 24-house news, streamed to their handsets.
The video streams include the adverts that would be shown if BBC World were being shown on the TV in the region. As yet, BBC World aren’t charging their advertisers any extra to splash them on mobile screens – they’re seeing it as added value for them
As far as who pays what to whom (BBC World) varies on the mobile company and if the mobile subscribers are being charged to receive the service to their mobile, on top of data fees. Some of the mobile operators currently provide the service for gratis, while others include it in content bundles.
In general, we’ve found that there’s not too many Mobile companies that are charging for video content currently, as they are ~~desperate~~ very keen to get people to sign up to receive video so they get in the habit of watching ~~and get addicted~~. Having said that, things are starting to change and you can expect the freebies to start drying up.
In the 3/Hutchinson Australia deal, the subscribers are being asked to pay Au$4/month for unlimited access, Au$2/day or Au$0.50/two minutes.
The management and delivery of the service for Telenor is being handled by Rubberduck Media Lab, a subsidiary of the Mobile Media Company.
BBC World is a separate entity to the UK license-funded BBC, and its normal commercial cousin, BBC Worldwide. They’re free to do deals, as long as they’re outside the UK. They now distribute their service to mobile in eight countries – Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, Bahrain, Malaysia and Australia.
BBC World
Mobile Media
2 February, 2006
WePay Service By 3 Pays Customers To Take Calls
Mobile operator 3 has launched an innovative service that, for the first time, pays customers to receive calls and texts.
Called ‘WePay’, the new pay-as-you-go price service rewards customers with cash credits for calls and texts they receive – and the payment is higher than you might expect too, with punters earning 5p per minute for received calls and 2p per text received.
So a customer who manages to keep a caller nattering for a full five minutes will earn enough credit to send two texts, or a picture message or watch the highlights from two episodes of Coronation Street.
Cash credits can be claimed whenever customers purchase a new WePay Top-up voucher, but there is a small catch: the credits have to be generated over 30 days and the money can only be used to purchase more 3 services.
Designed to boost usage of data services, 3 also hopes that the cash-back scheme will prove attractive to new punters and tempt customers from other networks to switch.
However, the slow speed in which numbers can be ported in the UK is causing concern to Graeme Oxby, 3’s Marketing Director.
He claims that it can take at least seven days to port your number in the UK, compared to countries like Ireland and Pakistan, where it only takes “just a couple of hours”.
Oxby continued: “Because the process can be slow, only a fraction of people on PAYG port their number when they get a new phone. Our new reward for picking up calls and texts makes it worthwhile for consumers to move their number.”
The WePay top-ups come as all-cash vouchers available in £10, £15 and £20 denominations, with no expiry date. However, the WePay cash credits are only valid for 30 days.
Graeme Oxby, 3’s Marketing Director, commented, “The introduction of WePay means we’ve raised the bar on rewarding loyal PAYG customers and at the same time created a way for everyone to enjoy music and TV on their mobile.”
The WePay tariff is available from 1 February 2006.
3
24 January, 2006
UK Mobile TV Trials Get Mixed Response
Two recent studies into mobile TV on 3G mobile phones have managed to produce rather inconclusive results concerning the willingness of the great British public to use the service and how much they’d be prepared to pay for it.
The preliminary findings of a trial by UK mobile phone operator O2 in Oxford revealed that the majority of users were overwhelmingly in favour of the service and would consider taking it up.
Around the clock live access to 16 TV channels was offered to 375 O2 users from a “wide range of demographics” in the 18-44 age band, in a trial carried out in partnership with broadcast technology company Arqiva.
The feedback seemed back-slappingly reassuring, with 83 per cent of the triallists “satisfied” with the service, and 76 per cent indicating they’d be keen to take up the service within 12 months.
Users were given specially adapted Nokia 7710 smartphones to view the DVB-H service in late September 2005.
Most users averaged around three hours TV a week, with some square eyed viewers clocking up as much as five hours a week.
Predictably, demand was highest in the mornings, lunchtimes and early evenings.
“This trial is further illustration that we are moving from a verbal only to a verbal and visual world in mobile communications,” said David Williams, O2’s technology chief.
“Broadcast TV for mobile can be a powerful new service that further enables users to personalise their mobile handset so that they can always have the content they want,”>Mixed results for BT and Virgin Mobile
The findings weren’t so rosy from BT and Virgin Mobile’s six month mobile TV trial.
Their 1,000 London-based users reported that they preferred to listen to digital radio rather than watch TV on their mobiles.
Moreover, they didn’t value the service particularly highly either, stating that they were only willing to shell out £5 a month for broadcasts, far short of the £10 monthly charge that operators were hoping to levy.
The BT/Virgin trial found that although people liked mobile TV – 59 per cent found it appealing or very appealing – there was more enthusiasm for digital radio (65 per cent.)
Moreover, triallists used the radio more (95 minutes a week, compared to 66 minutes of TV viewing) – a figure also reflected in the 02 trials, where 7 out of 10 users wanted digital radio channels to be included in a commercial service.
BT also discovered that news clips and favourite shows proved far more popular with viewers than mobile versions of shows.
The companies concerned will be keen to learn the lessons of these trials, as mobile multimedia services are vitally important to telecom operators looking to generate income and recoup their vast investments.
18 January, 2006
Vodafone Launches Global Mobile TV
Vodafone has started to roll out its global Mobile TV channels, serving up a feast of “world-class TV brands, pan-European sports coverage and leading entertainment and documentary programmes”.
The global Mobile TV channels will be widely available across Vodafone markets from this month and will include big hitting series like HBO’s “Sex and the City”, “Six Feet Under” and special mobile editions of the old favourite, ’24’ from Fox.
Sports fans will be kept amused on the move with Eurosport, UEFA Champions League and, err, Chilli TV (who?) channels, with the Vodafone service also carrying popular channels like MTV and Discovery.
“With a wide range of ‘good for TV’ handsets, an intuitive, easy to use service and a portfolio of instantly recognisable television brands and programming, the launch of global Mobile TV is a compelling proposition for our customers”, purred Peter Bamford, Chief Marketing Officer at Vodafone.
“Attracting world class content providers, such as Twentieth Century Fox Television and HBO, ensures the premium quality of this product and underpins our confidence in its widespread adoption,” he continued.
Vodafone say that their research into the market revealed that Mobile TV complemented television viewing habits at home and thus demonstrated a hearty appetite for the product amongst consumers.
Their study found that consumers want well-known TV brands and channels and like to “dip” in and out of television as a way of filling up free time (or skiving from work).
Sourced globally, the TV content will work with any 3G enabled handset and will complement existing domestic Mobile TV offerings in eight of Vodafone’s operating countries (namely, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain and the UK) as well as associate and partner networks in Belgium, France, Switzerland and Austria.
Vodafone
6 December, 2005
NTL Bids For Virgin Mobile: 1st Mobile Quad Play?
NTL is currently in talks to merge with Virgin Mobile in a deal that would create a potential rival to the now broadband-enabled BSkyB.
Virgin Mobile’s official word?
The Board of Virgin Mobile Holdings plc confirms that it has received an approach from NTL Incorporated that may or may not lead to a formal offer being made for the Company.
Shares of Virgin Mobile immediately climbed to a record high after NTL/Telewest announced its £835m ($1.44 billion) takeover bid.
If the bid is successful, it will create the first media group to serve up mobile and fixed-line telephony, broadband Internet access and pay-TV.
(Ed: It has a similar resonance as the deal between 3 Italia and Canale 7)
We’ve found that getting straight numbers of subscribers for each separate business is difficult. The figures that the Guardian are quoting for the merged Virgin/NTL/Telewest uber-company are impressive too, accounting for 10m customers, 3.3m television customers, over 5m mobile phone users, 2.5m broadband Internet customers and 4.4m fixed-line telephone accounts.
NTL/Telewest do have to do something pretty radical as they feel the pressure from other previously unrelated business getting in on their main business areas.
The new company will go under the Virgin brand, and would become the biggest Virgin-branded business in the world, outstripping the music retail business which launched Branson’s career and the Virgin Atlantic airline business.
In a fiercely competitive market, cable companies on both sides of the Atlantic are looking to outflank their satellite and phone company rivals by adding mobile phone services to their portfolio of voice, Internet and TV services.
NTL is the UK’s number two pay-TV operator after BSkyB’s Sky and is also the second-largest residential telephony provider after BT Group.
Long seen as a juicy takeover candidate, Virgin Mobile is the fifth-largest UK mobile phone carrier. The company operates on rented capacity on T-Mobile’s UK network.
Virgin Mobile current 4 million users (source Virgin Mobile) in the UK, puts them at less than a third of the UK market leader, o2’s, who have 15 million users.
NTL and Telewest have notched up around 5 million subscribers combined, next to BSkyB’s 7.8 million digital television viewers.
If the deal goes through, it won’t be the first time the two companies have worked together – in 1996 they launched the Internet service provider Virgin Net, which had an original owner ship of NTL with 49% and Virgin, 51%. The enterprise was fully taken over by NTL in 2000 but still trades under the powerful Virgin brand name.
Virgin Mobile
NTL
5 December, 2005
3 Italia Buys TV Broadcaster: Now First Euro Hybrid Mobile TV Co
In a sure sign that TV to the mobile is the new European media battleground, 3G mobile operator 3 Italia have announced its plans to purchase the Italian national broadcaster, Canale 7. Reports have put the price of the acquisition at between €30-35m.
The addition of Canale 7, Italy’s fourth largest broadcaster, gives the company access to the country’s existing home TV business. Canale 7 currently broadcasts in analogue to around 40% of Italy, predominantly its north. More interestingly, it also has a terrestrial digital TV nationwide network operator’s license. This should provide coverage for over 70% of the country.
It is expected that 3 Italia will work to develop a Pay-TV and interactive services proposition for handhelds. We also understand their intention would be for Canale 7’s nationwide digital project to be integrated with 3 Italia’s UMTS mobile network to create a DVB-H network.
The company intends to offer a DVB-H mobile TV service from the second half of 2006. Indications are that there will be a minimum of 20 channels, although no line up has yet been decided. 3 Italia already carries Playboy adult entertainment and football via existing technology, and has worked with Mediaset and News Corp’s Sky Italia pay-TV operator.
Italy is already one of Europe’s leaders in mobile consumption and is considered to be a prime market for such services. Reports we’ve seen rather puzzlingly mention a “standard of video quality comparable to DVD” perhaps somewhat unlikely on the small screens that will be deployed for this sector – but we’re sure the picture will be absolutely bella.
3 Italia, which is owned by Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa, has so far invested €9bn in its 3G network since obtaining a license from the Italian government in 2000. It currently has around 4.8 million Italian subscribers. Hutchison Whampoa also own 3G licenses in other countries including the UK.
3 Italia
Canale 7
29 November, 2005
Nokia Unveils L’Amour Collection
Mobile phone giants Nokia have announced three new phone models aimed at the “style-conscious” market.
The new models, the 7360, 7370 and 7380, are to form part of Nokia’s ludicrously named “L’Amour Collection,” expected on the market in the first quarter of 2006.
Alastair Curtis, Vice President of Design at Nokia’s Mobile Phones division was on hand to trot out the airy-fairy waffle, “For many consumers, the mobile phone has truly become an extension of their personal style – it is a fashion statement as well as an advanced communications device.”
Like Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen on steroids, Curtis continued, “Every detail of these products, from the nature-inspired graphics to the velvet-lined pouches, has been carefully considered with the style-conscious individual in mind. We are very confident that consumers who appreciate design and attention to detail will fall in love with the L’Amour Collection.”
The PR team were clearly caught up in the general arty-fartiness, trotting out a load of tosh about how the Nokia 7380 was a “reflection of discerning taste”, the Nokia 7370 “designed to make heads ‘turn’ and the Nokia 7360 somehow managing to exhibit “charming, graceful and compact” qualities.
Trying our best to avoid the loud klaxon noise emanating from our nearby BS Detector, here’s the phones in more detail:
Nokia 7380
Desperately described as a phone for “trend-setting men and women who enjoy being the centre of attention,” the highly distinctive 7380 looks like it’s come from the same bonkers design studio as the 7280.
Sporting a keypad-less form and clad in leather with a mirrored display, the slimline fashion phone packs in a 2-megapixel camera with 4x zoom, an MP3 player and intuitive voice dialing.
Fashionistas can expect to fork out around €500 (~£340, ~$600) for the 7380 and should be able to start strutting around and making dramatic mobile fashion statements in Q1, 2006.
Nokia 7370
Employing a sliding keypad, the Nokia 7370 comes with a 2-inch QVGA colour screen (320 x 240 pixels), stereo speakers with 3D sound effects and a 1.3 megapixel camera (8x zoom) onboard.
The designers have gone to town on the fascia, emblazoning it with “beautiful patterns, etched into the elegant metal trims” which are contrasted by “leather-inspired faceplates” which, somehow, add a “romantic appeal and an element of the exotic.”
To be honest, we’d be a bit worried if we met someone who found their mobile phone romantic, but I guess it takes all sorts.
The Nokia 7370 comes in two colour schemes, coffee brown and warm amber, each with matching graphics and screensavers.
The phone should be knocking out for around €300 and available in Q1, 2006.
Nokia 7360
Looking somewhat more conventional but still, apparently, a phone for “trend-conscious men and women” (albeit cheapskate ones), the bottom of the range Nokia 7360 comes with an integrated VGA camera, stereo FM radio and MP3 ring tones.
It also sports the same silly ‘designer tag’ sticking out the side of the phone as the rest of the range, and is available in the two “signature L’Amour Collection colour schemes”, i.e. brown and amber.
The phone will cost around €200 and gyrating down the nearest catwalk in Q1, 2006.
Nokia
20 October, 2005