Motorola has been selected to receive the WiMAX World Europe 2007 Award for the Motorola CPEi 200/300 series WiMAX desktop unit in the Devices Category. The awards recognize leaders in the development and deployment of WiMAX technologies. Nominations were open to exhibitors and sponsors of the WiMAX World Europe Conference, held May 29-31, in Vienna, Austria, and selected by a judging panel of experts from the WiMAX community.
The Motorola CPEi 200/300 series desktop Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) offers a WiMAX solution that delivers fast, reliable, high-speed wireless Internet connectivity. Customer benefit from easy installation with “plug-and-play” functionality and the CPE employs multiple antenna technology, which delivers increased range, and higher throughput, when compared to products with single antenna solutions. In addition, the CPEi 300 series offers customers the ability to make Voice over IP (VoIP) calls enabling the CPE to be used for both data and voice connectivity, hence providing a new revenue stream.
The award was received by Motorola’s director of WiMAX global marketing, Hossein Parandeh, who commented: “We are delighted to be honored in these prestigious awards. It is testament to the innovative design, high quality and feature-rich CPEi 200/300 series of WiMAX desktop units. As a leader in WiMAX, Motorola is pioneering the end-to-end WiMAX experience, from the radio and core network infrastructure through to the end-user devices.”
Motorola received the award at the WiMAX World Europe Conference at a reception following the close of the first day’s convention sessions. Eliot Weinman, president of Trendsmedia, the events and publishing division of Yankee Group that produces WiMAX World Conferences & Expos, and Mike Saxby, group publisher of xchange magazine, presented the awards in six categories.
The winners were selected by an independent judging panel, including Craig Mathias, principal, Farpoint Group; Will Strauss, principal analyst, Forward Concepts; Adlane Fellah, CEO and founder, Maravedis Inc.; Caroline Gabriel, lead research analyst, Rethink Research; Philip Marshall, vice president of enabling technologies, Yankee Group; James Farstadt, founder and president, rClient LLC; and representatives from xchange and Trendsmedia.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
Deutsche Telekom, the parent of T-Mobile, said it has invested in Jajah, an upstart firm that lets customers bypass long-distance fees by connecting their calls over the Internet.
The venture funding arm of Deutsche Telekom joined computer-chip maker Intel in leading an investment round totaling $20 million. Intel’s participation was announced earlier this month. The specific amount invested by each participant in the round was not revealed.
Founded in Austria in 2005, Jajah has emerged as the third model of VoIP.
Other VoIP businesses, like eBay ’s Skype service and Vonage Holdings, generally don’t involve the user’s wired or wireless phone, relying on a broadband connection to carry the call to the outside world.
“We see ourselves as a carrier-friendly company,” said Jajah CEO Trevor Healy.
In contrast to Skype and Vonage-type applications, the existence of Jajah encourages people to keep their fixed lines, he said. In addition, Jajah pays carriers to terminate calls on their networks.
When Jajah is used with mobile phones, the carrier may miss long-distance fees, but at least the user is consuming mobile phone minutes.
For a carrier, “the best company to invest in is one that doesn’t attack their fixed-line business,” Healy said.
As part of the investment deal, Jajah will pay reduced fees to connect calls to Deutsche Telekom subscribers.
The investment by Intel’s venture arm “will be used to accelerate the development of next-generation communication solutions on a global scale,” according to Intel.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
Deutsche Telekom has become the latest investor in Jajah - joining, among others, Intel and Sequoia Capital - as I reported today.
The [Austrian founders], who have since moved to America to develop their product, welcomed the latest addition to their third round of funding. [Daniel] Mattes said he aimed to follow Skype, the start-up bought by eBay in 2005 for $2.6bn (£1.4bn). “Our goal was to have 1 million users after a year, because that was what Skype had,” he said. “In fact, we had 2 million users in a year. We’re very excited.”
The premise of Jajah is pretty simple: log on to the website, enter your phone number and the one you want to call and it makes the connection over the internet. The point? Well, if you are both JaJah users on landline phones then it’s free. If you are on mobile phones, then it can turn an international call into two local calls - therefore drastically reducing the cost, particularly if you get lots of minutes free in your calling plan.
But, as I point out in the article, Jajah is far from being alone. Aside from Skype’s mobile VoIP offerings, there are a host of other companies trying to work out how to profit from internet calling and the huge mobile phone market - and many of them are developing complex systems which merge instant messaging and presence-based information with traditional internet telephony.
The rub, of course, comes in ease of use: everybody’s still trying to find the killer way to make mobile internet calling as easy as normal dialling. So would you use one of these services? What would convince you to?
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
Motorola wins WiMAX world Europe Award In Devices category
