Wireless Federation

Data Roaming services by Celtel Nigeria in many hot spots of the world including the United States of America, United Kingdom, Ghana, and Kenya.

Others include South Africa, the United Arab Emirate, Sri Lanka, and Gabon, Senegal and Kuwait. Customers of Celtel can now do data roaming on a number of mobile networks in several countries of the world such as Cingular in the USA, Cincinnati Bell Wireless, USA, Orange in the United Kingdom, DU of UAE, Vodacom in South Africa, Tigo (Millicom) of Ghana, Celtel Gabon, Celtel Uganda and Celtel Kenya.

Celtel Nigeria LogoCeltel Nigeria is now offering DATA ROAMING SERVICES to its customers in many hot spots of the world including the United States of America, United Kingdom, Ghana, and Kenya.

Others includes South Africa, the United Arab Emirate, Sri Lanka, and Gabon, Senegal and Kuwait. Customers of Celtel can now do data roaming on a number of mobile networks in several countries of the world such as Cingular in the USA, Cincinnati Bell Wireless, USA, Orange in the United Kingdom, DU of UAE, Vodacom in South Africa, Tigo (Millicom) of Ghana, Celtel Gabon, Celtel Uganda and Celtel Kenya.

According to Celtel’s Chief Marketing Officer, Norman Moyo, the commencement of GPRS (General Packet for Radio Services) roaming opens Celtel customers to new realm of opportunities and possibilities even while away from their offices and home.

Things really do come in threes: Days after the exits of Sprint Nextel CEO Gary Forsee and Jamba/Fox Mobile Entertainment head Lucy Hood, AT&T’s president and CEO of wireless Stan Sigman announced his retirement Thursday, effective immediately. AT&T named COO Ralph de la Vega to fill Sigman’s vacancy–de la Vega had been considered a front runner to replace Forsee at the helm of Sprint. A 42-year AT&T veteran, Sigman exits months after negotiating exclusive U.S. rights to Apple’s iPhone–he was named president and CEO of the former Cingular Wireless in 2002 following the merger of SBC Communications and BellSouth.

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French personal mobile data management software company Voxmobili has been fully acquired by Indian VAS provider OnMobile for an undisclosed amount. The move enables OnMobile to strengthen its VAS data product offerings, boost its technical know-how and accelerate its position in the global telecommunication VAS industry. Through its purchase, OnMobile adds numerous international customers including Orange, Cingular-AT&, T-Mobile, Wanadoo and Turkcell. A definitive agreement has been signed between the two companies, and integration planning will start shortly.

Voxmobili has around 45 employees and has operations in Europe, North America, Middle East, Australia, and Eastern Europe. Its core products centre around synchronised address book and advanced phone backup onto secure network-based servers, and “mobile paparazzi”, allowing cell phone users to publish information, photographs and videos directly from their handsets to website and mobile sites. Voxmobili has deployed more than 21 platforms deployed worldwide, and has issued over 20 million licences for its products globally.

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AT&T Inc has stepped up its cellular rebranding strategy ahead of the launch of the new iPhone device next month. The firm has replaced all references to the Cingular Wireless brand with the AT&T name in its 1,800 retail outlets. AT&T is the exclusive US wireless partner for Apple’s iPhone device, which combines a mobile handset with a personal media player, and the firm is keen to see the AT&T brand introduced as widely as possible before its release. AT&T Inc took full control of Cingular Wireless in December 2006 when it completed its merger with its former partner in the venture, BellSouth. It is now the largest fixed line, internet and cellular operator in the US.

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The rumor mill is abuzz with speculation that a cabal of mobile operators including Vodafone, Deutsche Telecom and AT&T/Cingular will meet not-so-secretly at next week’s 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona to explore the creation of a mobile search engine poised to challenge U.S. search giants Google and Yahoo. British newspaper The Telegraph reports that operator representatives will discuss a series of alternatives that includes pooling their combined resources to acquire a majority stake in an existing search engine provider or creating a white-label service backed by a single advertising team and technical staff. “There is a big play in mobile search that we need to be part of, and we are exploring those options at a very high level,” an anonymous U.K. mobile executive told the paper.

For more on the mobile search rumors:
- read this Telegraph article

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MobileMag writes…Your phone is now a bank—or at least a debit card.

The Western Hemisphere sometimes comes late to the high-tech party. Such is the case with mobile banking, an established practice in Europe and Japan. Heck, you can pay by text in Belgium.

But fear not, American mobile phone users. Cingular is on the case. That would be AT&T, actually, for those keeping track of all the mergers and buyouts all across the land. AT&T has linked up with Wachovia, Regions Financial, BancorpSouth, SunTrust, and a host of other U.S. banks in what looks to be a giant program allowing mobile phone customers to use their phones instead of credit or debit cards. (If you think this sounds like something that Helio has already done, you’re right.

Cingular (which it was back then) has already done this, too, in a deal with Nokia in New York with Citi MasterCard. That was a preliminary exercise. This latest deal will expand on that experience considerably.

AT&T aims to continue to sign up banks and continue to improve on its existing software, which will soon be available for download for existing phones and which will be included on future phones.

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Telegeography writes…Sprint Nextel has posted increases in fourth-quarter revenues and profits, but the results mask a worrying decline in its post-paid subscriber base. The firm said sales for the final three months of 2006 reached USD10.44 billion, up from USD9.79 billion a year earlier. Net income increased from USD197 million to USD261 million. Although the cellco’s overall customer base rose to just over 53 million, from 51.9 million at the end of September, 830,000 of the net new additions were wholesale customers who have signed up with resellers such as Virgin Mobile, while another 440,000 were acquired from affiliate operations. Pre-paid retail customer numbers rose by 171,000 over the quarter, while the most lucrative segment – post-paid contract users – saw a net fall of 306,000 customers. The iDEN network, which was operated by Nextel before its merger with Sprint, is accounting for the bulk of the customer losses, as users move to either to Sprint’s CDMA-based systems or competing networks. Sprint Nextel’s closest rivals in the US wireless market, Verizon and AT&T/Cingular, both posted strong customer gains in the fourth quarter, while smaller operators such as T-Mobile and Alltel have also been taking market share.

Wireless Mobile Telecom

Hollywoodreporter writes…CBS Corp. is creating a new mobile division within CBS Interactive, the company said Wednesday.

Cyriac Roeding, who has served as vp of CBS Wireless since 2005, has been promoted to executive vp for the new division, called CBS Mobile. He will report to Quincy Smith, president of CBS Interactive, who made the announcement.

CBS Mobile will be dedicated to increasing the mobile operations across the company’s properties including CBS Entertainment, CBS Sports and CBS News.

“The creation of CBS Mobile within CBS Interactive further positions us to occupy the audience and advertiser interfaces of the future,” Smith said, calling the mobile space a huge opportunity for CBS. He added that Roeding’s tenure with the company and his experience as an international mobile entrepreneur makes him uniquely qualified to run the new entity.

“He and his team have already put CBS on the mobile map, forging relationships with key technologies and services both domestically and abroad,” Smith said.
During his time at CBS, Roeding has secured deals with QualComm’s MediaFlo mobile television, Verizon’s V-Cast, AT&T/Cingular and Amp’d Mobile to make select content available on cell phones and overseen the CW’s mobile operation.

Before joining CBS, he headed European mobile company 12snap.

Roeding, meanwhile, also unveiled the promotion of Jeff Sellinger to vp CBS Mobile. He was director of CBS Wireless.

In other wireless-related news Wednesday, MySpace announced a partnership with mobile telecommunications group Vodafone allowing Vodafone’s customers to access MySpace Mobile. The service, which first launches in the U.K. and marks the initial extension of Fox Interactive Media’s network of sites into the European market, allows users to edit their MySpace profiles, find and add friends, post photos and blogs and send and receive MySpace messages while on the go.

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Indiatimes writes…Some of the Europe’s biggest telecommunications groups are joining hands to create a mobile phone search engine that could challenge the internet giant Yahoo and Google, according to a report in Sunday Telegraph.

Vodafone, France Telecom, Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, Hutchison Whampoa, Telecom Italia and one American network, Cingular, are among the companies that will come together for secret, high-level talks at the mobile industry’s biggest annual trade show in Barcelona next week said the report.

Faced with declining revenues as calls become cheaper, network operators are determined to secure a large slice of the lucrative search advertising market, the report said.

In the UK alone, more than 20% of subscribers are expected to have access to mobile Internet at broadband speeds by the end of 2007, which should prompt a dramatic increase in the use of search engines via mobile phones, the report said.

The initiative may surprise the two internet companies, Google and Yahoo, which deals with mobile operators and handset makers, the report said.

However, the mobile industry has increasingly started to feel that it can retain a greater share of advertising revenues by developing its own service. A joint approach is essential, because mobile networks will need to offer advertisers a large audience if they are to challenge the US search giants.

The four big operators in Britain, Orange, owned by France Telecom, O2, part of Spain’s Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom’s
T-Mobile and Vodafone will all be represented at the meeting next week, the report said.

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