Wireless

Wireless connections

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
Nokia 6136 Serves Up Wi-Fi Mobile: 3GSM
Launched at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, Nokia’s new 6136 phone is being touted as the handset that brings GSM and wireless LANs together.
Claiming to be “unifying GSM and Wi-Fi connectivity”, the 6136 is a UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access) phone giving users the ability to roam seamlessly between GSM mobile and Wi-Fi networks.
Thanks to the wonders of UMA technology, network charges can be slashed as the phone automatically switches to a VoIP connection when one becomes available – so if you’re on the phone as you come home, your mobile will instantly transfer the call to your Wi-Fi network.
The quad-band Nokia 6136 will be able to connect to GSM networks at 850, 900, 1800, and 1900MHz (so no problems using it in the States as well as Europe) and comes with a built in 1.3 megapixel camera and FM radio.
There’s also a microSD memory card slot for expansion.
So far, there’s only UMA service in operation, the BT Fusion product, which we reported on in June last year.
The technology holds much promise for operators, offering the ability to deliver new voice and data services to subscribers over WLAN access networks.
Because of its limited bandwidth, GSM only supports basic data services, whereas super-fast Wi-Fi can deliver far richer content though support connections of speeds (theoretically) in excess of 50Mbps.
At a press conference on Monday, Jorma Ollila, Nokia’s chief executive said, “We want to help our customers complement their existing mobile services with mobile IP. UMA gives users an alternative to PC-based VoIP,”
He added that UMA devices would appeal to companies who wanted to reduce call costs by moving their voice and data to common IP networks.
The Nokia 6136 UMA phone is expected to be available in Q2 2006, priced around €275 (~$327, ~£188). The company will also release network operating equipment to support the new converged handset.
Orange customers are expected to be the first to get UMA’d up, and there should be plenty of Wi-Fi hotspots about after the company recently took over broadband outfit Wanadoo.
We’ve no idea how much the network charges are going to be, but they should certainly be cheaper than making calls via Orange’s normal network.
Glossary: UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access)
This specification enables the seamless hand-over of voice and data connections between GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) networks and WLANs.
Nokia
BT Fusion
14 February, 2006
XT9, Tegic’s T9 Followup On Samsung Mobiles: 3GSM
The news is coming out of 3GSM thick and fast. To keep up we’re planning to report is 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.
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What a coincidence, we’ve been wondering what’s happened to T9, the method that dominates the fast input of text into a ‘normal’ mobile numeric keypad. We thought that the founders must be sitting on a desert island somewhere, having bought it, living the life of Riley.
Well Tegic, who sell T9, is owned by AOL these days and they’re announcing the integration of their follow-on product, XT9, onto Samsung mobile phones.
XT9 been around since October 2005, but it’s the first time we’ve heard of it. and it appears that they’re making a splash at 3GSM. XT9 has expanded to encompass hard and soft QWERTY keyboard with handwriting recognition capabilities using a stylus as well.
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Samsung to Integrate XT9 Mobile Interface to Drive
New XT9 Debuts at 3GSM World Congress
3GSM World Congress (Barcelona, Spain) – February 13, 2006 – Tegic, a division of AOL, today announced that Samsung Electronics plans to be the first handset maker to integrate the XT9 Mobile Interface (formerly T9 Mobile Suite), a first of its kind, multi-modal user interface, into new handsets.
The XT9™ Mobile Interface, which launched in October 2005, seamlessly integrates popular T9® software for the phone keypad, as well as hard and soft QWERTY keyboard, with handwriting recognition capabilities using a stylus.
This pioneering user interface is designed to enable users to easily toggle between messaging modes, as well as numbers, letters, symbols and languages, and also allows for auto-accenting of words, a benefit for users of many European languages, including French, Spanish and Italian.
“Samsung is a long-standing partner for Tegic so we are pleased to work closely to integrate XT9 into a series of new devices,” said Bill Schwebel, president, Tegic Communications. “We share a common goal, which is to open up new revenue streams for handset makers and operators as voice revenues decline. Our new multi-modal user interface will help realize this potential.”
Today, Tegic also announced new XT9 Mobile Interface features. By making it simpler to type words and phrases, XT9 makes it easier to enjoy popular content and wireless services, driving widespread consumer adoption of mobile web browsing, search and messaging. This new product upgrade adds the following new features:
- Next Letter Prediction: When entering letters by scrolling through an alphabet (up-and-down or side-to-side), XT9 predicts the user’s next letter based on previous letters entered. For example, if a user inputs “l-o-v,” then XT9 will present the next letter as “e” for the word “love” rather than have the user scroll through the alphabet from “v” to “e.”
- * Regional Error Correction: For users of hard QWERTY keyboards (e.g., chiclet), XT9 helps ensure a better messaging experience by compensating for users tapping incorrect keys on the keyboard. For example, if a users inadvertently types in “m-o-o-b,” XT9 will present “moon” since the “b” is just one key away from the “n,” and the word “moon” is a more likely choice.
For handset makers, XT9 can help speed time-to-market for new mobile devices. Further, this new user interface makes it easier for consumers to access mobile content and services, enabling users to take advantage of all their phone has to offer. Samsung plans to integrate XT9’s full and reduced QWERTY capabilities into new devices to ship later this year.
The XT9 Mobile Interface is currently available in English, French, Spanish, German and Italian. Additional Latin- and script-based languages are also available upon request. Later this year, Tegic plans to release XT9 2.0, which will include advanced speech recognition capabilities, as well as Chinese handwriting recognition.
Tegic
13 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
Motorola Dis Apple, Expect More Microsoft Music Phones: 3GSM
The news is coming out of 3GSM thick and fast. To keep up we’re planning to report is 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.
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There’s been plenty of rumours about Motorola not being happy with Apple, following the iTunes Mobile launch. Today Mot announce that they are two-timing Apple with Microsoft. Interestingly they say they’ll have OTA (Over The Air) delivery of content by 2007.
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Motorola and Microsoft Plan to Bring More Choice to Mobile Music Fans
Seamless integration of Windows Media technologies will deliver complete music experience and redefine music discovery on Motorola handsets.
BARCELONA, Spain – 13 Feb 2006 – Today at 3GSM World Congress 2006, Motorola Inc and Microsoft Corp strengthened their existing relationship by announcing a collaboration to integrate Microsoft(r) Windows Media(r) technologies on a number of Motorola’s music handsets, which will allow users to access content from the broadest selection of online music stores from around the world.
Motorola’s music handsets will add support for Windows Media Digital Rights Management (DRM), Windows Media Audio (WMA), the enhanced Windows Media Audio Professional (WMA Pro) codec and Media Transfer Protocol (MTP). These technologies will give consumers the maximum flexibility and options when purchasing and playing back their digital music.
Forthcoming Motorola music handsets will enable seamless connectivity to Windows(r)-based PCs via the USB 2.0 high-speed protocol. By supporting MTP, Windows Media Player will automatically recognise Motorola handsets and enable users to quickly and easily sync their music from their PC to their phone. Music acquired from any pay-per-download or subscription store using Windows Media technology will transfer and play back on Motorola handsets.
In addition to making Motorola handsets interoperable with PCs, Motorola and Microsoft plan to provide mobile handset offerings that are tailored for discovering and acquiring music over an operator’s 3G network. Incorporating the efficient encoding capabilities of the WMA Pro codec, this rich music offering will provide operators with handsets optimised for efficient music downloads* over a 3G network. Consumers will also benefit from quick and easy access to high-quality music on the go.
“Our relationship with Microsoft is about making the mobile world seamless with the desktop world and allowing consumers to experience music wherever and whenever they want,” said Richard Chin, corporate vice president of Global Product Marketing at Motorola. “Building on our existing relationship, this expanded collaboration can further enrich the mobile music experience and expand the mobile music offering to our operator alliances and consumers.”
“Combining Motorola’s wireless handsets with Windows Media technologies will significantly advance the mobile music experience,” said Amir Majidimehr, corporate vice president of the Windows Digital Media Division at Microsoft. “Motorola’s upcoming handsets with Windows Media will offer consumers and operators worldwide the widest range of high-fidelity, no-compromise music choices.”
Motorola began shipping Microsoft technologies on select handsets in 2005, and plans to offer Windows Media-enabled music experiences on multiple handsets worldwide in the second half of 2006. Support for over-the-air delivery capabilities and WMA Pro is expected to follow suit in 2007.
13 February, 2006
Two Thirds Of Japanese 5-9 Year Olds To Have Mobiles
According to a new report, future growth in the Japanese mobile market is to be focused on the only market segment yet to reach 100% saturation: the under 14s and over 55s.
Research from the “Japan Mobile Market” report predicts that mobile phone ownership will soar amongst the (ridiculously young, in our opinion) 5 – 9 year-old age group.
The study estimates that mobile ownership amongst the young ‘uns is set to more than double from 29% in 2004 to nearly two thirds (64%) by 2007 – at this rate kids will soon be getting a mobile shoved in their hands as soon as they learn to talk!
The biggest growth, however, comes from the 55-65 age group, with 1.62 million new customers expected in 2006.
Despite falling Average Revenue Per Unit (that’s ARPU acronym fans!), Japanese operators DoCoMo and AU saw revenues and market share increase in 2005 due to increases in their subscriber bases.
Things haven’t been so rosy for Vodafone KK who have only secured 5.4% of the 3G market and are finding revenue being impacted by falling numbers of subscribers.
Blended ARPU is expected to continue sliding from $58 pcm in 2005 to $57 pcm by 2007 but this should be compensated by data ARPU which is predicted to rise from $15 pcm to $17 pcm over the same period, thanks to the growth of content market.
The games market is expected to keep growing – mainly fuelled by 20-30 year-olds – with the mobile music market worth $1.35bn by 2007.
Glossary:
Average Revenue Per Unit (ARPU): This measures the average monthly revenue generated for each customer unit (e.g. mobile phone) that a carrier has in operation.
Japan Mobile Market 2006 – Your Statistical Guide To Understanding The Mobile Opportunities in Japan 2006-2007
13 February, 2006
IP.District: The W In Watford Could Mean WiMAX – Exclusive
If you happen to be in Watford and are looking up at rooftops, you might see something resembling a inverted grey flowerpot stuck on some of the chimneys (see lovely pics). It’s highly lightly that these are basestations for a new wireless service that’s spreading through the town.
The service is called IP.District and is run by MCOM (MapesburyCommunications), who are themselves based in Watford. The pilot has been running a couple of months and we’ve been lucky enough to be the first publication to get the low down on it.
They have installed a couple of base-stations already, and are planning further to increase coverage to 3.5Km from the centre of town, and encompassing around 1,000 businesses.
It’s based on a pre-ratified WiMAX standard and uses mesh networking. Thebase-stations communicate with each other, as well as end-users, providing resilience in the core network. If the wired connectivity from a base-station fails, it can re-route through another base-station, without loss of service.
The base-stations also support quality of service (QoS) so that voiceand Internet services can co-exist without interfering with each other, so voice quality will not suffer if Internet traffic increases.
Each base-station currently supports a maximum of 50Mb/s totalbandwidth which can be shared between up to 1,000 users (though inreality MCOM say the number of users will be much lower).
To increase the area covered, more base-stations are added which caneither join the mesh with more bandwidth, or just act as nodes to servemore end-users.
Connection is simple
To connect on is a breeze.
A small aerial is attached to the roof and a single weatherproof Ethernet lead runs to the inside of the premises. Other installations usually require a power lead be run to the ariel aswell, but as a Power over Ethernet (PoE) lead is used the MCOM installation only needs one cable.
Once inside, the leads simply plugs into a PoE injector and can connect into the rest of the network.
Symmetric Service
One major advantage this wireless service has over ADSL is that it’s asymmetric service, meaning the upstream bandwidth is the same as thedownstream – ADSL receives more bandwidth than it can send. Symmetrical bandwidth may not mean much for casual Internetbrowsing, but is important for business and when offering voice services.
The initial service is being offered at 1.5Mb/s, 3M/bs and up, with the 3Mb/s costing £99 set-up and £79 per month. A significant saving on SDSL service offered at 2Mb/s by BT.
Voice
There’s an option for voice services, which can be bundled with the connectivity.
This is achieved by using VoIP to transport the calls to MCOM’s VoIP gateways over the wireless network. By keeping the voice traffic separate from the general IP traffic, the call quality is maintained.
Call pricing plans are competitive and varied. Customers can choose Pay per call, or a fix cost per line, with the latter including all landline calls.
Since the service uses VoIP, lines can be added as needed. The basic services can be plugged into existing an PBX/Keysystem, this can be extended all the way to a hosted IP PBX runand maintained by MCOM.
Questions of interference
There has been some bad press about WiMAX due to the limitedavailability of spectrum in the UK.
The MCOM system is potentially prone to interference from users of 802.11a kit as they operate around the 5GHz frequency band.
Don’t worry too much as this isn’t too common in the UK, primarily because its usage has been deemed by Ofcom to be illegal in the UK – but that doesn’t always stop people installing it.
So far this hasn’t been a problem but may in large cities wheremore people do already use 5.8GHz, with London coming to mind.
If interference does occur then Ofcom have the power to intervene,especially if the interference comes from unlicensed users.
Future
Watford is being used as a pilot and if successful, it’s likely you’llsee IP.Districts start appearing all over the UK. Other connectivityoptions are likely to be WiFi, so there’ll be a WiMAX core with localWiFi hotzones.
Bandwidth options will also increase as the technology improve.
We think this is an interesting service and will be keeping an eye on it.
Mapesbury Communications
10 February, 2006
DS Lite: New official Nintendo photos
This just in … New official photos of the Nintendo DS Lite. Since the end of January, there’s been mockups and photoshop’d images appearing on gadgets sites all over the Web.
Well, you know that good things come to those that wait and we’re here to deliver to you – witness the very latest, hot off the wires images of the DS Lite.
Nintendo top man Satoru Iwata announced it on 26 Jan, telling the world the Nintendo DS Lite would be less than two-thirds the size of the original DS and more than 20 percent lighter. He also revealed, to the relief of many, that it would also have a brighter screen too.
It’s expected to hit Japan in March – the start is rurmoured. Europe and elsewhere sometime after.
Nintendo Japan DS Lite site
10 February, 2006
Bluetooth’d Films On London Underground
The easy way of getting “content” into a mobile phone, would be just to print 2D barcodes. However, Viacom Outdoor has started a rather more challenging experiment, fitting London Underground posters with Bluetooth transmitters.
The main reason Viacom has to do this, is that there’s no cellphone coverage in London’s deep-level underground railways – the Bakerloo, Victoria, Northern, Piccadilly and Central lines.
The network is said to be permanent, and was promoted as “Meet today’s underground filmmakers” with FourDocs on Channel 4 television. The initial posters are in the inner city, and there are fifteen Bluetooth “jacks” built by Wideray.
Anybody within range can request a download of a four minute documentary.
The project was put together by PosterScope and we understand that Viacom has opened up the project to advertisers.
Guy Kewney write extensively, and quite brilliantly, in lots of places, including NewsWireless.net
9 February, 2006
Sony VAIO VA1 Series Wireless Home Entertainment PC
Sony has announced the new VAIO VA1 Series, a wireless home entertainment desktop computer.
Looking like it was knocked out by designers in a hurry to get home, the chunky machine seems to lack Sony’s usual flair for design, but underneath the less-than-glamorous exterior lurks a novel hybrid machine, boasting analogue and digital TV tuners, a DVD rewriter and capacious hard drive.
The display is a big Sony 20″ screen with true 16:9 aspect ratio, X-black technology and double lamp illumination, with a nippy 2.8GHz Pentium D 820 processor powering the PC.
Graphics are taken care of courtesy of an ATI Mobility Radeon X700 with 128MB RAM, with the integrated TV tuner offering both analogue and digital channels, with built in Freeview.
Running on Microsoft Windows XP Media Centre Edition, there’s a high capacity 250GB hard drive inside and a dual layer DVD DVD±RW rewriter, capable of recording up to four hours of DVD-quality TV in one go.
High definition audio is provided by Sony’s Direct Stream Digital (DSD), a technology developed by Sony in conjunction with Philips.
Despite its all-in construction, some expandability options are provided with space for a second hard disk and slots for more RAM.
In line with its home entertainment pretensions, the machine includes a wireless keyboard with built in touchpad, a wireless mouse and remote control.And to keep things neat and tidy, the whole caboodle uses a single plug. Nice.
Full details, comprehensive specs and product photos are (as you can see) somewhat thin on the ground as we went to press, but we’ve heard that the Sony VA1 should be available from February, priced at around £1,500 ($2,620, €2.185).
8 February, 2006