European Wireless Industry News

Nokia and Sony Ericsson cut R&D jobs

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:24:26 -0500

More than 300 R&D staff have been made redundant by Nokia as the company moves to developing fewer, but more popular, handsets. The company said 230 engineers at its Oulu, Finland, offices are to go, together with 100 based in Copenhagen, Denmark. This cull of R&D resource is part of Nokia's effort to trim costs at its handset division by more than €700 million.

Following Nokia's example, Sony Ericsson has announced it plans to close four of its smartphone centres, including the company's R&D centres in Sweden and India.

More than 130 R&D staff based at Kista, Sweden, will be cut, and around 100 consultants tied to the development centre are also in danger of losing their jobs. The Indian office will lose around 60 engineers as the company shifts from a focus on entry-level handsets toward smartphones.

Sony Ericsson said that it would also move its North American headquarters from North Carolina to Atlanta, and close down small operations in Miami, Seattle and San Diego.

For more on this story:
Reuters and The Local

Ovi Store sparks into life with 70% growth

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:22:41 -0500

Having been roundly slated since it was launched earlier this year, Nokia's Ovi Store would appear to be making headway following details that last month's downloads had increased by 70 per cent compared with September's.

According to Bill Perry, services marketing manager for Forum Nokia, there are more than 100 devices in 20 countries--with the N97 and the 5800 being the top devices--capable of accessing Ovi, with the average user downloading eight items.

Perry states that during the period from May until October of this year, the Ovi Store has hit these milestones:

Active users from more than 180 countries.
Developers from 65 countries are distributing content.
Eight countries today have local content, local language support and mobile billing: UK, Spain, France, Germany, Singapore, Australia, Italy and Russia. By the end of Q1 2010 there will be more than 20 countries.
Top 10 Ovi Store Markets by performance in alphabetic order: Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Russia and UK.
In almost all of the top 10 Ovi Store countries, 5800 XpressMusic and N97 are the #1 and #2 devices for Ovi Store activity and consumer engagement.

According to Perry, the much criticised ‘redownload' facility is now working, and Ovi Store will be embedded on most new compatible Nokia devices including Symbian S60 and Series 40 from Q4 2009.

For more on this story:
Into Mobile

Ovi Store sparks into life with 70% growth

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:22:41 -0500

According to Bill Perry, services marketing manager for Forum Nokia, there are over 100 devices in 20 countries - with the N97 and the 5800 being the top devices - capable of accessing Ovi, with the average user downloading eight items.

Perry states that during the period from May until October of this year, the Ovi Store has reached these milestones:

Active users from over 180 countries.
Developers from 65 countries are distributing content.
Eight countries today have local content, local language support and mobile billing: UK, Spain, France, Germany, Singapore, Australia, Italy and Russia. By the end of Q1 2010 there will be more than 20 countries.
Top 10 Ovi Store Markets by performance in alphabetic order: Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Russia and UK.
In almost all of the top 10 Ovi Store countries, 5800 XpressMusic and N97 are the #1 and #2 devices for Ovi Store activity and consumer engagement.

According to Perry, the much criticised ‘redownload' facility is now working, and Ovi Store will be embedded on most new compatible Nokia devices including Symbian S60 and Series 40 from Q4 2009.

For more on this story:
Into Mobile

Vodafone tags mobile internet services for revenue boost

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:20:48 -0500

As operators around Europe continue to report stagnant or declining voice revenues, Vodafone has revealed it will be looking closely at methods to capture more revenues from mobile internet services. The company said that top of the list was the development of premium services and micro-billing beyond what has already been launched or announced, such as Vodafone 360.

Vodafone Europe CEO, Michel Combes, believes that additional revenues are needed to continue investment in the data networks, but without simply becoming high-speed dumb pipes that would continue to benefit the main winners in the mobile internet space, such as Google and other big search engines.

According to Combes, ideas that could be considered to boost revenues include content providers paying operators to guarantee their content is carried over the network without disruption, and operators receiving a fee from micro-billing and providing location services. Vodafone is also offering its business customers the chance to pay a premium fee to guarantee a better service.

"This is about unlocking additional value all along the chain and making sure that all the players can see the benefit," said Combes. "Some customers may be ready to pay more for a differentiated quality of service depending on their need."

For more on this story:
Reuters

Deutsche Telekom searches for T-Mobile US partner

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:18:24 -0500

Having been forced to find a partner for its struggling UK mobile operations, Deutsche Telekom (DT) would now appear to on the hunt for a similar deal for its much larger, but equally troubled, US division.

While DT's head office has formally denied any such move, the well-founded rumours claim that the company is looking for a US partner to help finance billions of euros of investment in high-speed networks. Potential partners being suggested include MetroPCS, Clearwire and AT&T, although a financial investor from outside the telecoms industry is also a possibility. The company is said to be no longer considering a share sale and a takeover of rival Sprint-Nextel.

Hamid Akhavan, DT's COO, said that he expected the difficult business conditions in the US to improve: "We have had some heavy headwinds ... but we are quite optimistic that this trend can be reversed," he said, attributing the problems to a delay in the group securing 3G networks and the population of Apple's iPhone on AT&T's network.

Speculation that T-Mobile US would need to revamp its strategy is not new, but with the company stuck firmly in 4^th position - and continuing to lose ground, a solution has become now more pressing.

Separately, the merger between Orange UK and T-Mobile UK has seen Orange claim that the new company will not have to hand back spectrum in order to get regulatory approval.

For more on this story:
Reuters

E-Plus and O2 Germany cosy up

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:15:54 -0500

Being a distant 3^rd and 4^th in the German mobile market has prompted E-Plus and O2 Germany to discuss jointly bidding for forthcoming spectrum and even network sharing. The two companies believe they have been separately discriminated against in the spectrum process, and by combining their bids could up their chances of success.

E-Plus and O2 Germany have said they are at a disadvantage compared with market leaders T-Mobile and Vodafone, which entered the market much earlier and are already in possession of more spectrum than E-Plus and O2

"Telefonica and ourselves will look at this jointly, because we are in the same boat," said Ad Scheepbouwer, CEO of E-Plus's parent company, KPN. "We both are being discriminated in the [spectrum] process and we need to look at all of our options," he added.

Complaints have already been raised over whether Germany's mobile auction will be competitive, with the EC criticizing the process and Germany's Federal Network Agency defending the way the auction for the valuable 800MHz spectrum will be held.

E-Plus also revealed it may consider network sharing with O2 Germany to reduce costs, which provoked rumours that the two firms could merge their struggling mobile operations. However, Scheepbouwer said that the possibility would only make sense if the price was high enough.

For more on this story:
Total Telecom and Telegeography

Mobile backhaul equipment market to jump 60% in 2009 to US$5.9bn

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:13:19 -0500

Mobile backhaul equipment investments jumped a healthy 59 per cent in 2008 to US$3.7 billion worldwide, and Infonetics Research is forecasting another 60 per cent jump in 2009 to US$5.9 billion

"We see no letup in the mobile backhaul equipment market, as service providers around the world continue to upgrade their networks to handle the rapidly growing number of mobile broadband subscribers and their bandwidth-heavy habits. More than 100 operators are now deploying HSPA, with a coming wave of HSPA+ upgrades, WiMAX, and LTE, all to handle the skyrocketing mobile data traffic. And the most cost-effective way to do that is to transition from TDM to packet IP/Ethernet, which is driving the mobile backhaul equipment market," explains Michael Howard, principal analyst for carrier and data centre networks at Infonetics Research.

While Ericsson continues to lead the microwave mobile backhaul equipment market with about a quarter of worldwide revenue, there remains plenty of opportunity for smaller, more nimble players such as Harris-Stratex, Ceragon and DragonWave to drive innovation and eat into the market share of the larger players. Article

Vodafone draws Huawei into mobile core R&D lab

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:13:02 -0500

In a move that must have sent alarm bells ringing within the HQs of its established infrastructure suppliers, Vodafone has announced the opening of a new lab in Italy dedicated to mobile core networks, in association with Huawei.

While this R&D effort was reported to be focusing on IMS, mobile broadband support and FMC, observers have taken Huawei's move as a firm indication for further involvement within the evolved packet core sector, and to push its credentials higher up the LTE value chain.

Unstrung reported the news as Huawei manoeuvring for a position deeper in Vodafone's mobile network and which could be seen as muscling in on the operator's current mobile core suppliers, which are Ericsson, NSN and Starent Networks. Huawei already supplies Vodafone with circuit-switched mobile soft switches in Hungary, Romania and South Africa and, on the mobile core front, the vendor won a contract with T-Mobile International in December 2007 that was viewed as a European breakthrough deal.

Vodafone and Huawei have teamed up before to co-operate over mobile R&D, with the effort then being on RAN technologies which helped Huawei develop its SDR radio for base stations which Vodafone subsequently trialled.

Commenting on this latest move, Vodafone said: "We're planning our core network architecture evolution and making sure that Huawei's [roadmap] is aligned to match that."

While Vodafone has stated several times it has no plans to deploy LTE until 2011 or 2012, there is growing speculation that it may award some initial contracts as early as a year from now. This could open the doors to new suppliers if Vodafone is willing to adopt a new approach where the core and RAN vendors are more separated.

For more on this story:
Unstrung and Rethink-Wireless

Nokia considering dumping Symbian from flagship N-series

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:09:21 -0500

The enthusiastic response to Nokia's new N900 has provoked the company into reviewing whether the Symbian S60 OS is the right platform for future smartphones in its N-series consumer range.

Inside reports indicate Nokia will let Symbian go in 2012 and focus on the Maemo platform. All high-end N-series multimedia devices will then be running the Linux OS by 2012, even though X-series and E-series devices will continue to run the Symbian OS. However, this platform ‘roadmap' would appear not to have high-level sign-off and the switch away from Symbian is being heavily promoted from within the Maemo group.

Until the launch of the N900, Maemo had been used exclusively in Nokia's range of internet tablets--however, the processing power of the new N900 has been described as closer to a pocket PC than a mobile phone.

Observers have pointed to some of Maemo's present failings (as seen with the N900) as offering services and apps that cannot compare to the mature S60 platform regardless of Maemo 5's superior user experience.

For more on this story:
engadget

O2's network in meltdown from smartphone usage

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:06:01 -0500

Never seen as having the best UK network, O2 has admitted its data network is in need of serious investment. The company claims the pressure on the network is being felt in certain hotspot locations where there is a high concentration of smartphones.

The company has given the go ahead for an extra £100 million in additional network spend next year, while spending another £30 million prior to Christmas in London where users are currently experiencing calls going straight to voicemail, dropped calls or difficulty in establishing a data connection.

O2's CTO, Derek McManus, said: "The introduction of world-class smartphones, in combination with a wide variety of data applications, has brought about a dramatic change in customer behaviour and created an exponential demand on mobile data networks. Data on our network has increased 20-fold in the last year alone, and to put this in context, watching a YouTube video on a smartphone can use the same capacity on the network as sending 500,000 text messages simultaneously."

As an indication of the level of network congestion, the company has established a team of O2 technology senior managers and a board level steering committee to drive the upgrade plans. Apparently, the operator has already chosen vendors and suppliers.

Perhaps to help with this seemingly unplanned Capex, O2 has announced that it has placed its entire 220-strong marketing department into ‘consultation' in a process that aims to reduce the headcount by 10 per cent. The CEO, Ronan Dunne, denied that the redundancy programme was about cutting costs, but rather about "investing in areas of the business that the customers most value".

For more on this story:
Mobile Today

T-Mobile worker sold 100,000s customer names for 'substantial' amount

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:03:26 -0500

Having protested over being named, T-Mobile UK has now admitted to allowing its customer data to be stolen by an employee and sold for a substantial amount to a third party. Latest estimates claim that details of 100,000s of T-Mobile contract customers have been passed to agents or dealers, although pay-as-you-go users are apparently unaffected by the scam.

The company, which is now positioning itself as a victim of the crime, called in the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) after it identified the loss of contract customer data. Christopher Graham, the ICO Commissioner, said that it "appears that the information has been sold on to several brokers and that substantial amounts of money have changed hands". T-Mobile has not provided information on the quantity of data sold, who is involved or what level of money was involved.

However, the company is being lambasted for seemingly having lacked robust data protection processes. Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at security firm Sophos, said that technology does exist to help intercept and control the movement of personal data inside organisations, "but many firms have still not taken even the most basic steps to halt it dead in its tracks. The cheapness and availability of devices like USB thumb drives has just made it easier than ever to scoop up large databases and waltz out of the office without anyone suspecting a thing."

Mark Fullbrook, European director with Cyber-Ark, the secure collaborative working specialist, said that the T-Mobile data theft case highlighted the problem of rogue employees circumventing data protection systems designed to stop external hackers and electronic attacks. "Almost all data protection systems are designed to stop organisations' data leaking from an external attack. Internal defences are still quite new in terms of their development", he said.

The ICO is also having to defend itself against a growing tide of opinion that it is using the T-Mobile case to push for breaches of data protection law to be punishable with jail sentences, not just fines.

For more on this story:
The Register and The Guardian

JV to use femtocells to attack German enterprise market

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:59:58 -0500

KPN and Swedish OnePhone have launched a joint venture in the hope of breaking into the fiercely competitive German SME business telephony sector using femtocells.

The company, which will operate under the OnePhone brand, will target German businesses with between 30 and 1,500 employees that are looking for a more cost-effective and flexible telecoms solution. OnePhone said that installing femtocells within the office space of SME would make the use of conventional telephone systems and desk telephones obsolete. When outside the range of the femto users would automatically roam onto KPN's E-Plus network.

Brian Stout, KPN Belgium's CEO and OnePhone's supervisory board member, said that there were plans to offer the same service to SMEs in Belgium and Holland, but would not commit to launch dates.

For more on this story:
Total Telecom

UK begins consultation on white spaces spectrum

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:57:15 -0500

Harnessing the unused 'white spaces' in TV spectrum for wireless broadband has been mainly a US issue to date, but the UK regulator Ofcom has also started a consultation on plans to license these frequencies, particularly to help improve broadband coverage in rural areas.

The US FCC approved the use of white spaces for wireless last year, on a license-exempt basis, subject to various measures being adopted to prevent interference with broadcasters' signals. Fervent lobbyists for this spectrum option, such as Microsoft, Motorola and Google, have been working on various elements--such as device prototypes and geolocation databases--to make the technology commercially viable, though this is expected to be a three-year task at least.

Ofcom is several steps behind this, and may consider a licensed model, which - as so often with recent UK policies - could influence the rest of the European Union. The main applications in which it has expressed interest are rural broadband, with affordable coverage enabled by the low frequencies of the broadcast bands; and in-home monitoring systems. Article

VIDEO: Nokia timewarps to 2015

Jim O'Neill — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:40:42 -0500

Source: Nokia via YouTube

Nokia's vision: Smart devices that learn from consumer usage

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:53:20 -0500

With hardly any mention of technology or what future handsets might look like, Nokia has presented a short video of how it sees the world of mobile communications evolving over the next five years.

The key aspect of this vision is that all of the company's devices will be connected to the ‘Nokia cloud' that will then allow apps to learn from how consumers use these services and adapt accordingly. There is also a strong emphasis on synchronisation at almost every level that is far removed from the voice and text oriented world of today.

However, other companies have painted similar, albeit less ambitious, images of this sort of scenario and little would seem to have got much beyond the ‘slideware' stage. Nokia's take on the mid-term future would also appear to have made the assumption that it has become the dominant player in mobile cloud services - something other handset vendors and global operators might not accept willingly.

For more on this story:
3G

Femtocell shipment forecasts cut by 55% for 2009

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:51:18 -0500

Despite 2009 being positioned as ‘the year' when operators would start to deploy femtocells in their millions, a leading market research firm has dramatically reduced the expected number that it now believes will ship this year.

ABI Research had previously forecast that 790,000 femtocells would ship in 2009, but has now cut this number by over 50 per cent to about 350,000. The company blames this huge shortfall on mobile operators being slower to adopt the technology than anticipated.

ABI's Aditya Kaul said, "Even femtocell vendors are a bit surprised that the operators haven't pushed femtocells as much or as soon as expected. We expect that deployments in 2010 will pick up but will be slower than expected--our data suggests about a 40 per cent reduction on previous estimates."

Kaul also speculates that the slower uptake of femtocells has been due to ongoing doubts about the value proposition, the poor economic conditions and fears in some quarters that a rapid increase in femtocell numbers would cause interference in the macro network.

"Next year will be critical: if conditions don't improve by the end of 2010, some smaller vendors may find themselves in trouble," Kaul added.

While all the major US operators along with Vodafone in Europe offer femtocells, the US offerings have been criticised for being highly priced, and Vodafone's Access Gateway device has sunk into near total obscurity.

For more on this story:
Daily Tech

Vodafone look to tempt staff away from Orange/T-Mobile UK

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:49:05 -0500

Given that the agreed merger period is around 18 months before Orange UK and T-Mobile UK come together, staff working at the two firms will have plenty of time to review their likelihood of being offered a role within the new company.

This uncertainty has prompted Vodafone to launch an aggressive campaign to recruit staff from Orange and T-Mobile, which has seen Vodafone positioning advertising vans outside the headquarters of the two companies.

With little attempt at subtly, the advertising vans' hoardings showed a woman, roller brush in hand, pondering the colours orange and pink--the respective colours of Orange and T-Mobile. A slogan asked: ‘Need another option? See Red.'

Vodafone HR director, Matthew Brearley, said the operator decided to ‘seize the moment' and launch a targeted recruitment campaign after ‘an influx of applications' from both Orange and T-Mobile staff ‘at all levels of both organisations'. Brearley said the recruitment drive did not contradict Vodafone's wave of redundancies last year, or further huge cost-cutting announced last week.

An Orange spokesman said of Vodafone antics: ‘It is a cheap tactic but we are not surprised.'

For more on this story:
Mobile Today

Mobile data growth is recession proof, claims Orange exec

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:46:54 -0500

The seemingly unstoppable demand for mobile internet access and data services appears to be recession proof, said the global head of France Telecom's Orange mobile business, Olaf Swantee.

He has stated that 24 per cent of its mobile customers were using 30Mb of data per month, compared with just 17 per cent of the customer base who were using 25Mb in February this year, and it includes customers who took pay-as-you-go and pay monthly contracts. It does not include mobile broadband customers.

While Swantee admitted that voice traffic in mature markets was reaching ‘stabilisation', "non-voice revenues seem to be quite recession proof, with music services very successful, and have exceeded expectations."

However, Swantee accepted that the growth of mobile data and the recent trialling of high definition voice services would put pressure on their network, but said they had invested in their 3G infrastructure accordingly.

Of note were comments made by the FT Orange exec concerning network sharing and mergers. Swantee claimed that FT would look for such deals where it made sense in other markets - hinting that the group was looking at potential in-country consolidation opportunities.

For more on this story:
Reuters

Vodafone pushes for iPhone to carry 360 service

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:44:35 -0500

In an effort to enhance the appeal of its 360 service, Vodafone has confirmed that it will be submitting its application portal for use on the iPhone and Android platforms.

According to Bobby Rao, marketing director for Vodafone internet services, the company plans to submit elements to the iPhone App Store, such as Maps, People "and whatever else they choose to accept." However, this move would seemingly conflict with the strictly Apple-only software environment of the handset, with its carefully policed App Store and vendor-defined look and feel.

Rao said that Vodafone would submit elements of 360 to the Apple store and planned to run the platform on branded smartphones such as Android handsets, not just on its own-brand, midrange phones. The first 360 cell phones run the LiMo operating system.

Rao also pointed out that other manufacturers already working with the company were keen to take 360 and Vodafone Shop on board. "We already have agreements in place with several handset manufacturers [to offer 360 services], which are data compatible but not all on an open OS. Plus being able to access the Shop on things like S60 devices extends the reach of the portal."

Whether to accept applications like 360 Maps and People will be a key challenge for Apple. Rejecting them would offend a major channel to market, at a time when it is seeking greater volume for the iPhone, and could even attract antitrust attention as with its Google Voice dispute. Accepting them would be a significant step along the way to dual-branding and a greater influence for the operator over the user's mobile web experience.

For more on this story:
Rethink Wireless and Techradar

Transactions of mobile money rise in Europe, says new report

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:42:06 -0500

Both mobile operators and banks are turning to mobile transactions to foster loyalty and drive revenues, according to a new report from Frost & Sullivan. Ranging from vouchers and bank balance checks to remittance and top-up payments, mobile money is finally coming to fruition in both the banked and unbanked sector, while near field communication (NFC) promises to be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, claims F&S.

The report--Money in Mobile - European Transactions--estimates the mobile money market in Western Europe to grow to €4 to €5 billion by 2013. The research examines both the banked and unbanked sectors and segments mobile money into four areas, namely: non-NFC based m-payments, mobile banking, remittance, and NFC based m-payments.

"Solutions targeting the developed world require a long-term strategy, even as providers will need to find a viable solution for retail payments (B2C)," notes Frost & Sullivan principal analyst Sharifah Amirah. "NFC is potentially a solution, but hardware costs and mass market availability still remain key challenges for its widespread adoption. In the mean time, SMS-based services will drive growth." Article

LTE can wait; HSPA+ is good for next 2 years, says Voda CEO

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:48:20 -0500

Having revealed better than expected financial results, helped by completing a £1 billion cost cutting programme one year early, Vodafone CEO, Vittorio Colao, let slip that the company saw HSPA+ as meeting its needs over the next two to three years and would focus its investment in further deploying the technology. Under these conditions, the CEO admitted that LTE was unlikely to be needed until late 2011 or possibly 2012.

Despite confirming that it was continuing to work closely with its LTE partners, Verizon Wireless and China Mobile--both of which are rapidly pushing forward with LTE--Vodafone seems content to rely on HSPA+ on meeting its mid-term data requirements.

As reported by Unstrung, Colao indicated that the company was in the process of enhancing its data speeds from the present 3Mbps to 7Mbps, and then on to 21Mbps and perhaps eventually 56Mbps before LTE is needed.

While the launch of the iPhone on Vodafone's UK network might impact network loadings--as O2 has seen in London with its data network nearing meltdown at times, the company is presently relaxed given the spare 3G capacity it has across wide segments of its network. In Europe, while data traffic volume is 2.5 times that of voice traffic, network utilisation was around 30 per cent in Q2 of the operator's 2009/2010 financial year, and only 5 per cent of Vodafone's European sites have more than 90 per cent network utilisation during busy hours.

This cautious approach to adopting LTE could also be due to the announcement from Vodafone that its plans to increase its cost-cutting by a further £1 billion by 2012.

For more on this story:
Unstrung

Symbian loses key customer as Samsung walks

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:45:27 -0500

With the smartphone sector undergoing rapid growth, for Symbian to lose Samsung as a customer will come as a hammer blow to the company as it struggles to establish itself as a mass-market open OS provider.

The Korean company has announced that it will no longer use the Symbian OS in its smartphones from next year, believing that its own upcoming platform, Samsung bada, would be a better fit to the wide range of popular mass market touchscreen phones in its portfolio.

The move away from Symbian, according to Samsung's senior VP, Don Joo Lee, was part of a strategy rethink whereby the company wants to boost its handset shipments between 10 to 20 per cent from its 2009 target of about 200 million. While Samsung has confirmed it would continue to use Android and Windows Mobile, analysts have predicted the use of Windows Mobile would drop significantly next year.

Symbian has depended primarily on Nokia for support and this still seems secure, although there are indications that the company will place its bet on Maemo 6 for high-end smartphones in the years ahead. Sony Ericsson and multiple Japanese manufacturers building for NTT DoCoMo are Symbian's other major customers.

For more on this story:
Info Syncworld

'The Cloud' will not lead to dumb handsets, claims Nokia

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:43:35 -0500

With much being speculated about the impact of Cloud Computing on the wireless industry - particularly handsets, Nokia has batted back the concept by stating that mobile devices will not become ‘dumb clients' relying on the Cloud for the majority of intelligence.

The company's chief development officer, Mary McDowell, has stepped forward by accepting that the Cloud will grow, "we don't think the cloud is the total answer. Mobile devices are becoming more personalised and increasingly part of an individual's life. We think it will not be either/or," she said. "There will be a lot of intelligence in the Cloud and in the device, and the ability to exchange data with the Cloud will not pave the way for thinner devices, but increasingly powerful ones."

This rejection of dominance by the Cloud was supported by Heikki Norta, the company's head of corporate strategy, by claiming that Nokia was eyeing the opportunity beyond selling devices, and intends to connect "intelligent devices" to Cloud-hosted data. Norta revealed that the company was setting itself the target of 300 million users of its core service offerings, which will include messaging, map navigation, music and the Nokia Ovi Store.

McDowell added that the company was also investing in a ‘mixed reality', citing augmentative reality concepts such as "point and find" - a location-based service using GPS and camera technology that is already being provided on Nokia N-series phones.

For more on this story:
Total Telecom

New femtocell aims at the enterprise

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:41:29 -0500

As residential femtocells enter a deployment low-point, developers are ramping up the opportunities open to mobile operators for these low-powered base stations within the enterprise.

Making the case for these beefed up femtos is Airvana with its new HubBub High-Capacity 3G femtocell which aims to improve voice coverage and data capacity in the work place. The device, says the company, can support up to 16 simultaneous users making voice calls within a range of up to 600m, or up to 40 people at the same time using low-bandwidth applications such as push email.

"It's not a consumer femtocell on steroids. This is purpose built for the enterprise market," said Paul Callahan, Airvana's VP of business development. "We developed HubBub because of requests from mobile operators for just such a product. You'll find companies have employees on plans with different networks, and this is an opportunity for operators to convert the whole firm to one single plan."

Airvana said that, as well as supporting over three times the bandwidth of femtocells aimed at the consumer market with a maximum throughput of 21.6Mbps downstream and up to 5.7Mbps upstream, the HubBub also has the power to penetrate through multiple floors in an office block.

"We learned a lot from the consumer picocell market. I think future products will be available at a much lower cost and will be plug-and-play," Callahan said.

For more on this story:
V3

UK iPhone price war opens with free add-ons

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:39:16 -0500

While Orange and O2 UK have made high profile statements that there will be no price war in the UK over the iPhone, O2 has opened up doors by cutting the price of the tethering option and giving free landline ADSL broadband to its existing iPhone customers.

This move follows the announcement that Orange had sold 30,000 iPhones on the first day it became available in the UK, which the company is claiming as a record for a handset launch. The company also included its Orange Wednesdays app that provides Orange iPhone and iPod touch users a two-for-one cinema voucher that can be used at screenings every Wednesday night.

However, O2 has responded with the incentives of offering a free trial of the Sky Sports TV package for the first 90 days, hoping to lure people in with a bumper package of festive sport and entertainment.

Meanwhile, in an attempt to recover from the confusion surrounding ‘unlimited data limits', Orange has come clean and stated that it won't cut off users breaching the 750Mb 'fair use' data limit on the iPhone. "We don't restrict the service, and we don't charge subscribers any more if they go over 750Mb. It's just an indication of where we'd prefer people to be," said the company.

"When people reach 750Mb they're free to use as much as they want after that. If we see customers using loads more than that though, then we'll send them alerts by SMS or phone call, to tell them they're using more than they should be."

For more on this story:
IT Proportal

Trust vital to mobile marketing, says DMA

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:36:28 -0500

Winning consumer trust is vital if mobile marketing is to be successful, according to research from the Direct Marketing Association. In its UK Spam Study, with mobile ad agency Txt4ever, found more than half of respondents didn't feel the opt-in process for receiving promotional SMS messages was clear enough.

Two-thirds wanted to choose the time of day they receive messages, while a further two-thirds believed they would be charged for receiving or opening a spam message. However, 70% of consumers are happy to receive marketing messages via mobile, with more than 50% welcoming promotions from trusted brands. Mark Brill, chair of the DMA Mobile Marketing Council, said trust and clarity were vital to effective mobile communications. Article

Mobile advertising: Europe remains behind the curve

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:28:35 -0500

The past 18 months have been tough for the advertising industry as the major brands implemented savage cost cuts to preserve their financial status. This retrenchment has seen severe curtailments in TV, radio and print advertising in Western Europe, and has driven mobile-based ad campaigns off the agenda.

Despite the lack of mobile advertising budgets--although there are rumours that funds are beginning to trickle through again, the industry within Europe seems unable to move forward. The ad agencies still complain that the major brands have only shifted from knowing nothing about mobile advertising, to knowing very little--and perhaps caring less.

Operators, meanwhile, maintain they can provide sophisticated data breakdowns of their subscriber bases, but remain extremely hesitant about providing access to advertisers which could see their subscribers bombarded with unwanted promotional material.

The discussion could be complicated further with the likelihood of legislation being imposed on the number of unsolicited messages sent to mobile customers limited to a small few each month.

While there have been some successful mobile advertising campaigns in Europe--with BMW's text alert to their customer base on extreme driving conditions being frequently quoted, there is a growing admission among software developers that the mobile advertising business environment in Europe is stagnant.

However, these firms are increasingly looking towards Asia/Pacific as a region where brands and mobile operators seem keen to exploit the advertising potential. ‘Europe is lacking the will and initiative to make mobile advertising work', is a common complaint, while Asia/Pac, the Middle East and South Africa are noted for their ambitions to experiment.

Perhaps the issue revolves around advertising infrastructure.

Within Europe there are highly developed routes for brands to communicate their messages to potential customers using TV, radio or print mediums. Those involved are skilled at understanding the strengths, weaknesses and complexities of these long-established advertising channels, with mobile presently remaining outside of any strategic thinking.

Where this level of ‘sophistication' is absent, then newer and more ubiquitous channels, such as mobile, have a far greater opportunity to flourish. So, we could see Europe being educated by developing markets into how mobile advertising can be made acceptable and relevant to the mobile subscriber--a situation that is already underway with mobile banking.-Paul

Telenor picks Huawei for 4G upgrade, rejects Ericsson and NSN

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:27:33 -0500

In a move that will be closely watched across Europe, Norway's Telenor has given its incumbent infrastructure providers, Ericsson and NSN, a bloody nose by selecting Huawei to construct its 4G network.

The deal, valued at around €170 million over the next six years, is the largest LTE in Europe to date and calls for Telenor's existing Ericsson and NSN network equipment to be merged into the new infrastructure provided by Huawei. The contract will see the delivery of equipment across technology generations and frequency bands, as well as base stations for 2G, 3G/UMTS and 4G/LTE. The change of providers will also entail digitisation, with the entire wireless network and core network being migrated to an IP-based platform supplied by Starent Networks, which was acquired by Cisco Systems last month in a US$2.9 billion deal.

Commenting on the contract award, Ragnar Kaarhus, head of Telenor Norway, said that it would involve the biggest upgrade of the mobile network in Norway that has ever been carried out. He attributed the choice of Huawei to "a combination of technical quality, reliability ... and commercial terms"--which some might speculate as Huawei pricing the offer to win.

Market analysts said that the three per cent fall in Ericsson's share price last week was in part attributable to the contract loss, although the significance was more symbolic than material for the Swedish company.

For more on this story:
Financial Times and Telegeography

LTE 'One Voice' initiative gains wide support

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:25:27 -0500

A powerful grouping of major operators and equipment vendors have put their combined weight behind an initiative to agree a common method for handling voice and SMS traffic over LTE. Labelled One Voice, the group is looking to promote its preferred specifications for providing interoperable voice over LTE with the intention of convincing the GSMA and 3GPP to formally recommend its adoption.

Notably absent from the One Voice group - which includes AT&T, Orange, Telefonica, TeliaSonera, Verizon, Vodafone, Alca-Lu, Ericsson, NSN, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson, is T-Mobile. The operator has been a firm advocate for VoLGA (Voice over LTE via Generic Access) which was proposing an interim LTE voice concept that tunnelled circuit-switched voice traffic through the packet-based LTE network.

However, while VoLGA supporters still maintain that the concept will fulfil a useful role, the weight behind the One Voice initiative seems set to dictate the future direction to ensure voice over LTE interworking and roaming using 3GPP specifications for IMS. The specification includes E-UTRAN, evolved packet core, user equipment and IMS core features that the group considers essential to interoperable IMS voice.

However, One Voice assumes that operators and vendors have taken it as read that moving to LTE and SAE in the RAN and core network will also mean moving to IMS in the control plane. According to Sandro Tavares, converged core marketing manager at NSN, operators could migrate by using a method such as NSN's Fast Track, which introduces IMS functionality to non-IMS elements. Tavares said that Fast Track was completely compliant with the One Voice profile, while operators who wish to use LTE purely as a data network could still use CS Fallback to handle voice and SMS traffic to LTE devices.

For more on this story:
Mobile Europe

T-Mobile and Orange agree JV terms, huge costs savings promised

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:23:42 -0500

Two months after entering exclusive negotiations, terms have been agreed to between Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom over the merging of their mobile operations in the UK. The companies said that the 50:50 joint-venture should produce savings in excess of €4 billion, generate revenues of €9.4 billion and EBITDA of €2.1 billion.

However, these costs savings are seemingly based on some far-reaching assumptions. The merger statement claimed that the Opex savings of €490 million per year from 2014 onwards were dependent on up to €880 million in integration costs over the period from 2010 to 2014, which relate mainly to the decommissioning of mobile sites, the rationalisation of the network of retail stores and the streamlining of operations.

The JV anticipates large scale Capex saving over the first five years due to the integration and unification of the networks and from jointly expanding 3G coverage. The potential for Capex savings, net of integration Capex, is estimated by the JV at €680 million on a cumulative basis over 2010-2014, prior to stabilising at approximately €110million a year from 2015 onwards.

The leadership of the new company, which will have over 28 million customers, has been fudged by having Tom Alexander, currently CEO of Orange UK, as CEO and Richard Moat, currently CEO of T-Mobile UK, as COO. The two brands will continue to operate separately for 18 months after which branding alternatives for the JV will be developed.

For more on this story:
Cellular News and Mobile News

Ericsson enters app store debate; calls for 'horizontal' platform

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:21:39 -0500

Having announced an app store framework this summer, Ericsson has now got itself further involved by calling for the cellular industry to build its own ‘horizontal' mobile app stores that span operating systems (OS) and devices.

While recognising that Google's increasingly successful Android OS was a leap forward, Ericsson senior VP, Jan Uddenfeldt, has urged operators to move beyond Android's handset-spanning app marketplace. "[Android] is a step in the right direction, but we think that we have to go even further to get applications across different devices," he said.

"We think it's very important when it comes to the app store, operators need to launch their own - and this is happening all over the world. We need to scale it beyond vertical stores...If the operators are involved, we can really scale it."

Ericsson said its app store framework, which it claims is already in use with unnamed operators, can be customised to suit numerous devices and OSs, and is also available as a hosted service.

For more on this story:
The Register

Nokia continues to lead smartphone market; outpacing rivals

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:19:15 -0500

Much has been made of the rocketing growth of Apple, RIM and HTC in the smartphone market, while Nokia has been lambasted for failing to recognise the trend and has missed out on this fast growing handset segment.

However, IDC's worldwide quarterly mobile phone tracker continues to position Nokia as the overall leader in converged or smartphone shipments with the popular flagship device, the N97, driving its market share to 37.9 per cent in Q3/09, compared to 37.1 per cent a year ago.

RIM has overtaken Apple to gain 2^nd place, albeit that its shipment volumes were largely North American-based. However, the company also posted significant improvement internationally, with some regions recording triple digit growth year over year.

Apple recorded its highest volume yet in a single quarter, driven by the near worldwide availability of the iPhone 3G S which triggered another round of annual replacements for Apple loyalists. However, while the iPhone has struggled within emerging markets, its arrival at China Unicom this year could foreshadow greater shipment volumes (although early reports would seem to indicate otherwise).

HTC retained 4^th position, excluding phones sold under another company's brand, and remains the largest provider of Windows Mobile-powered devices. Samsung returned to the top five vendors during Q3/09, although volumes were flat from a year ago. The company saw marked improvement in Asia/Pacific, Latin America and EMEA, and has been a big supporter of Windows Mobile.

For more on this story:
Evertiq

Ericsson's services strategy

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:17:18 -0500

Throughout 2009 Ovum has commented on the growing importance of network services and managed network services in the telecoms vertical. Ericsson Global Services is the market leader and currently sees over 30 per cent of its 2008 group revenues generated by professional services and network rollout services. At a recent service briefing, Ericsson's Business Unit Global Services clarified its ambitions and showcased its most comprehensive managed services contract to date.

Ericsson's Business Unit Global Services, known as BUGS internally, is at the sharp end of Ericsson's future business aspirations. The company claims to manage networks supporting a total of 350 million subscribers, and it is aiming to increase that to 1 billion. It currently has 300 managed services contracts covering field maintenance, operations (up to the BSS stack), operational readiness and shared solutions (hosted and managed backhaul). The most comprehensive contract is with MBNL in the UK. Article

NSN staggers into 'last chance saloon'

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:31:26 -0500

The drastic surgery about to take place across the Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) business empire is being judged by industry observers as too little, too late. By only cutting around 10 per cent of its 64,000 workforce, the company is gambling that the infrastructure market will experience an upturn over the next 18 months enabling NSN to return to profitability, albeit small scale, sometime in 2011.

The cuts are the latest blow for the joint venture, which started operations in April 2007 by unveiling a €2 billion cost-saving programme including the loss of some 9,000 jobs. This time NSN has said that the cost saving could be around €500 million, or more, by substantially lowering procurement costs and reducing headcount.

However, according to CCS Insight analyst Paolo Pescatore, the recent consolidation among operators and moves towards network-sharing agreements will place greater pressure on equipment manufacturers, such as NSN, to secure new business. "'We are bound to see further casualties in the network infrastructure space as operators rethink their business models and reconsider additional network investments," he said.

NSN has also announced plans to reduce from five to three the number of business units, and looks to establish more partnerships and acquisitions to boost growth. The software developer Bridgewater Systems is being rumoured as a potential target.

Copying Ericsson's spotlight on services, NSN's new CEO, Rajeev Suri, said the revamp was designed to focus mostly on providing more services to operators in emerging markets who were increasingly looking at outsourcing. "I think Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe play an important role in managed services," Suri said. "So far only a few operators in these regions have started to outsource operations."

But the idea of workforce reductions has, predictably, triggered an angry response from unions in Finland and Germany, claiming that this drastic restructuring would not stimulate orders and would reduce the overall power of the company. Nokia fought protracted battles with unions over the closure last year of a handset manufacturing plant in Bochum, Germany.

For more on this story:
Forbes

Alca-Lu calls time on Austrian WiMAX operator

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:29:34 -0500

Failure to reach agreement over unpaid bills has seen the Austrian-based WiMAX Telecom file for bankruptcy after Alcatel-Lucent demanded payment the wireless operator could not come up with.

WiMAX Telecom, which started to deploy its network in 2005 using equipment supplied by Alca-Lu, has been struggling to find new investors having only attracted 2,600 subscribers. The company initially offered WiMAX coverage in Burgenland and Steiermark, but more recently expanded this by regional deployments in Lower Austria, Higher Austria and Vorarlberg. The company claims it has sufficient funds to continue operating for between three and four months, during which time it will continue to search for new investors.

Meanwhile, WiMAX's biggest supporter, Intel, has indicated an interest in participating in the auction for India's broadband wireless spectrum. However, it has denied any intention of becoming a WiMAX service provider, but could partner with other companies for a spectrum partnership. Google has also registered an interest in bidding for spectrum.

For more on this story:
Telegeography

3 slashes MiFi costs, as vendor warns of poor sales volumes

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:26:39 -0500

Hailed for its innovation at launch, the UK operator 3 has now announced big price cuts to its MiFi (mobile Wi-Fi) offering. The MiFi package, which enables users to share their mobile broadband between multiple devices by creating a personal Wi-Fi network, has been reduced in price by around 33 per cent for one month contracts as well as pay as you go.

This move comes as Novatel, one of the pioneers of MiFi devices, saw its share price crash by nearly 30 per cent when it warned that MiFi sales were likely to be flat or slightly down in Q4, compared to Q3.

Some industry analysts have previously warned that the MiFi device was too expensive and was vulnerable to threats from manufacturing giants such as Huawei. Also, Marvell, which makes the MiFi chipset, has already shown it integrated into a handset, suggesting that the market for dedicated personal WLAN products could be a short lived one, before the capability is incorporated into other units.

Regardless of the likelihood of Chinese vendors entering the market, Novatel's old rival Sierra Wireless recently announced plans to expand into the personal Wi-Fi sector. This promoted Nick Agostino of Research Capital, to comment: "With slower uptake and increasing competition in this category from Huawei and soon Sierra, our concerns for the longevity of the category are raised, as well as near term implications for Novatel."

For more on this story:
Rethink Wireless

Cheap touchscreen phones drive down ARPUs, claims report

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:24:04 -0500

While much is said about high-end smartphones boosting ARPUs, a new study claims that the emergence of cheaper touchscreen handsets is doing the opposite, driving down ARPUs by 23 per cent.

According to TNS Comtech, which carried out a consumer survey of 240,000 interviews over the course of one year, consumer misunderstanding is to blame. The study claims that consumers are not aware of the difference between a phone with an advanced OS and a touchscreen phone with a basic OS. While this may mean operators are able to grow their customer base, by offering cheap touchscreen handsets, they will be doing so at the expense of their margins.

Paul Moore, director at TNS ComTech, said that, although it was all too easy to attract value driven customers with non-smart touchscreen phones, "operators and manufacturers alike need to think long and hard about their handset portfolio and the effect that handset types are having on customer value. They should take care to educate consumers about the differences between operating systems and not simply push phones that drive volume sales but contribute negatively to value."

To worry operators further, the growth in the global smartphone market slowed to four per cent in the July-to-September quarter as sales of more advanced handsets fell in Europe and Latin America, said the research firm Canalys this week. The firm said much of the recent growth in the smartphone market has come from the most expensive models--iPhone, Nokia's N97 and the BlackBerry Bold--but vendors are increasingly focusing on offering cheaper models.

For more on this story:
Telecoms.com and Reuters

Orange causes confusion with iPhone data download limit

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:21:52 -0500

Even though Orange has not yet launched the iPhone in the UK, it has hit trouble by offering an ‘unlimited' data service with a 750Mb per month limit, and implied that subscribers will not be able to use mobile internet applications like Spotify, AudioBoo, Ustream, Facebook and YouTube.

The company has attempted to quell the rising level of concern by claiming its T&Cs state that the handset is "not to be used for other activities (eg using your handset as a modem, non-Orange internet based streaming services, voice or video over the internet, instant messaging, peer to peer file sharing", a spokesman has stated that "popular streaming services will not be banned for iPhone users."

"As a result," said the Orange exec, "we do not intend to apply network protection controls to anyone, as long as they are within their usage allowance. The T&Cs are in place to reserve the right to restrict access should they continue to exceed our Fair Usage policy."

Orange said that its research in other European countries found that the average user downloaded less than 200Mb per month. Defending the 750Mb limit, the company maintained this would provide a user with either five hours of video downloaded from YouTube, 75,000 mobile web pages, 30,000 normal web pages, around 250 full music tracks or 1,500 mobile games.

Interestingly, the present sole UK distributor of iPhones in the UK, O2, has kept its download offers far more vague without putting a figure on the data limit. There has been evidence of some people receiving a text warning them of their usage and 'suggesting' better plans.

For more on this story:
MacWorld and Network World

Mobile broadband to overtake fixed-line internet connections in the UK in 2011

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:17:28 -0500

Mobile broadband connections will exceed fixed-line broadband connections in 2011, according to a report to be released by mobileSquared. By 2011 the number of active 3G devices in the UK will be 36.3 million, as well as 6.4 million dongles/embedded devices, taking the total number of mobile broadband connections to 42.7 million versus expected broadband internet users of 42.5 million.

While the analyst house predicts internet usage over the mobile phone will remain below traditional fixed-line usage during the forecast period of 2009-2014, the company's research has revealed that between one per cent and 10 per cent of a company's internet traffic is already being generated from a mobile device.

"Mobile will become the primary access point for brands and businesses communicating with its consumers within two years," said Nick Lane, chief analyst at mobileSquared, and author of the report. "Mobile is always on, and the average user carries their device for an average of 16 hours a day. So if a company or brand is not already considering how to use mobile, then they need to because their customers are." Article

One bid doesn't make an auction - the fourth French 3G licence

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:35:25 -0400

You have to go back almost 10 years to when the French government said it intended to issue four 3G wireless licences, setting the price at €4.95 billion--a mind-boggling number by any comparison. Perhaps understandably, only France Telecom (FT) and SFR applied, and were awarded their licences in late 2001.

The government then set May 2002 as a fresh deadline for the two remaining 3G licences, with the only applicant being Bouygues Telecom. This licence was issued in December 2002 for €619 million, with FT and SFR also being given this discounted price.

We now wait until 2006 when the French telecom regulator, ARCEP, said it would move ahead with auctioning the fourth licence after multiple parties had expressed an interest. The sole bidder by the deadline of July 2007 was Iliad--the bid was rejected because the company proposed paying the €619 million licence fee in instalments over several years instead of up front.

For the next couple of years FT, SFR and Bouygues Telecom protested to anyone that would listen about the tough market conditions and what damage a fourth operator would do, etc. They also lobbied the French President and filed a complaint with the EU to contest the lower price ARCEP was now offering as the opening bid.

Having set a deadline of last Thursday (29^th October), ARCEP had, despite much delicate footwork from potential bidders, received only one bid--again from Iliad for the set price of €240 million. This time the bid was accepted.

Having clearly established that ARCEP should not consider making a career move into become an auctioneer, the determination of Iliad to enter the French mobile market does make for examination.

Firstly, Xavier Neils--the owner of Iliad--is a self-made entrepreneur and one of the country's richest men making his name offering adult entertainment services on France's forerunner of the internet, Minitel.

Neils then disrupted the fixed internet market by offering bundles of high speed internet, fixed-line phone and TV services for less than €30 a month--a move that has seen France become one of the lowest priced European countries for broadband services.

What observers believe Neils will now attempt is to do the same to the over-priced French mobile market--which possibly explains the loud protests from the existing providers. The 3G licence will enable Iliad to become a quadruple play operator offering low-cost packages combining high-speed internet, fixed phone, TV services and mobile phones as well.

However, Neils will need to offer something special given that Bouygues Telecom has recently launched such a package, and FT and SFR are unlikely to be far behind--and have the financial muscle to fight a war of attrition.

Regardless of how the fourth licence auction was managed, the French mobile market will undergo change--and it'll be consumers that benefit. So perhaps, more by chance, ARCEP did achieve its objective of providing a more competitive mobile marketplace.-Paul