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Wireless Federation » archive for 'HSDPA'

3 Mobile expands it’s 3G coverage to 96% by mid - 2009 (Australia)

  • August 19th, 2008
  • 8:04 am

3 Mobile, Australia’s orignal 3G provider, will be expanding it’s 56% coverage to a higher percentage, by mid 2009, of 96% population coverage.

3 Mobile announced it’s “network expansion plans” which include both the building of new coverage “where there is currently high roaming” and new 3G roaming on “parts” of Telstra’s 850MHz 3.5G HSDPA network.

This has come as a boon for 3 Mobile subscribers who travel outside of the current 56% 3 Mobile 3G coverage, and wish to access broadband data.

The expansion will also help 3 Mobile to compete in a better way with Optus and Vodafone, who are expnading as well. The two operators, Optus and Vodafone, are expanding their networks to 96% coverage by the end of 2008 and 98% coverage by the end of 2009, using 900MHz technology, respectively. Here Telstra leads the league with 99% coverage presently.

According to 3 Mobile its “new site build is commencing this year in areas of current high roaming for 3’s customers including Newcastle and the Central Coast in NSW and the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria” and that “around 50 sites will be complete by the end of the year.”

3 Mobile which operates a 2100MHz network and will only having roaming on “parts” of Telstra’s 850MHz network “by the second quarter of next year (2009)”.

   

Etisalat announces expansion of mobile business data service (UAE)

  • August 12th, 2008
  • 1:20 pm

Etisalat has announced a further expansion of its mobile business data service initiatives with Emirates NBD bank using Etisalat’s services to power its Point of Sale (POS) terminals for credit/debit card transactions through its Mobile Data network.

ProMonte expands the UMTS network (Montenegro)

  • August 12th, 2008
  • 12:50 pm

ProMonte, Montenegrin wireless network operator, announced it’s UMTS network expansion to six municipalities in the north, a year after launching 3G services  in the coastal resorts of Podgorica, Niksic and Cetinje. Berane, Bijelo Polje, Rozaje, Plav, Pljevlja and Zabljak are now covered by the W-CDMA/HSDPA network, with Kolasin, Mojkovac and Danilovgrad in line for an upgrade in the autumn.
In the next four years ProMonte has targeted to cover 97% of the inhabited territory in Montenegro.

   

T-Mobile Austria unveils BlackBerry Bold (Austria)

  • August 7th, 2008
  • 9:26 am

T-Mobile Austria and Research in Motion (RIMM) BlackBerry has unveiled the all new BlackBerry Bold smartphone. This smartphjone features premium design and unparallel performance for an extraodinary 3G experience. The BlackBerry Bold has integrated GPS and Wi-Fi and is the first BlackBerry to support tri-band HSDPA high-speed networks around the world. The consumer can surf the Web and download e-mail attachments over the T-Mobile UMTS web’n'walk network. The smartphone has rich display of half-VGA (480×320 resolution at 217 ppi), which offers stunning definition and clarity. The BlackBerry Bold is also crafted from premium materials, including a luxurious black exterior, satin chrome finished trim and leatherette backplate.

   

Nokia and Qualcomm: say “no” to disputes (World)

  • July 24th, 2008
  • 11:02 am

Nokia and Qualcomm after a long-running dispute over patent has finally reached a settlement where Nokia has been granted a 15-year license to various Qualcomm mobile technology for use in it’s handsets. The agreement includes standards like GSM, EDGE, CDMA, WCDMA, HSDPA, OFDM, WiMAX, LTE and others.

As a partr of the deal, both parties will have to withdraw all litigations and Nokia has to withdraw its complaints to the European Commission over Qualcomm. Nokia agrees not to useany patents against Qualcomm which in turn will enable Qualcomm to integrate Nokia’s technology into Qualcomm’s chipsets.

The financial structure of the settlement includes an up-front payment and on-going royalties payable to Qualcomm. Nokia has also agreed to assign ownership of a number of patents to Qualcomm, including patents declared as essential to WCDMA, GSM and OFDMA. The specific terms of the settlement were not disclosed. Nokia said the “positive financial impact” was within its previous expectations and it expects the deal will be positive for the entire industry.

   

Apple cuts iPhone 3G design costs to achieve market expansion (Asia)

  • July 23rd, 2008
  • 8:15 am

Apple, according to analysts, in order to achieve it’s goal of expanding it’s market and a worldwide presence for product has favoured cost reduction in terms of design instead of it’s cutting-edge features of its 3G iPhone.

The iPhone 3G uses an Infineon Technologies AG baseband chip that supports the HSDPA, WCDMA and EDGE air standards, plus the integration of three separate TriQuint Semiconductor Inc. tri-band WCDMA Power Amplifier Modules (PAMs). 

Analysts’ cost estimate for the new iPhone is at $174.33, significantly less than the $227 for the first-generation, 8Gbyte 2G iPhone in June 2007. 

Analysts believe Apple aimed for a more cost-effective design for the 3G iPhone compared to the 2G, in order to lower the retail price, which will allow the company to seed adoption and to capture maximum market share. 

   

Nawras upgrades HSPDA network in Oman (Oman)

  • July 21st, 2008
  • 12:46 pm

Nawras, Oman operator, has upgraded its mobile internet service to support 7.2Mb/s. Nawras 3G+ Network currently covers the main areas of Muscat, Nizwa, Sur, Salalah and Sohar with the network being quickly expanded to cover the rest of the Sultanate.

The download speeds will be up to seven times faster than currently available coupled with the fact that there are no waiting lists at Nawras, customers can reap the benefits of this service being not only fast to use but fast to get started too.

According to the Nawras Head of Direct Sales, Al-Lawati, customers do need to be in the 3G+ coverage areas to benefit from this high speed internet service and speeds can sometimes vary when many Nawras Internet users are active in the same area at the same time.

   

Nokia Siemens Networks wins Germany Network Contracts

  • July 16th, 2008
  • 12:52 pm

Nokia Siemen Networks has grabbed the three-year contract with Telefonica O2 Germany to enhance the capability of it’s 2G and 3G networks by upgrading some 200 base stations. The company revealed that it has also won a separate “modernization project” with O2.

Along with upgrading base station, NSN will also upgrade the 3G network with HSDPA software functionality to cover all Germany. EDGE software will be upgraded by Nokia Siemen Network in order to bring high-speed data capability to the GSM network.

For maximized network performance and maintainence services NSN will provide the NetAct network management and service management.Under the separate service contract, Nokia Siemens Networks Services Deutschland will provide O2 in Germany with on demand system repair and maintenance services at all operator’s locations.

“We are very pleased to extend our long-term relationship with this agreement and by doing so, to strengthen O2’s competitive position in the market,” said Thomas Riedel, Customer Business Team Head for Telefonica Europe.

AIS wants 3G in capital by June (Thailand)

  • April 24th, 2008
  • 2:01 pm

Thailand’s mobile market leader Advanced Info Service (AIS) says it wants to launch commercial 3G services in Chiang Mai next month and in Bangkok in June, reports the Bangkok Post. The firm’s president Wichian Mektrakarn said that the launch of W-CDMA/HSDPA services over a 900MHz network would take place first in Chiang Mai after his company had prepared 30 base stations for a ‘commercial trial’ with state-run telco TOT, the owner of AIS’s build-transfer-operate (BTO) telecoms licence. But he said that AIS was awaiting clarification from the regulator the NTC, expected within 30 days, to determine whether the rollout could encompass a full commercial launch. For the planned Chiang Mai service, Mektrakarn said that users needed to register or replace their existing SIM cards with compatible ones. AIS, together with TOT, has reportedly received permission from the NTC to import 3G/3.5G equipment for an initial launch of 900MHz services, and is in the process of seeking the watchdog’s consent to expand the network to Bangkok. That the strategy was hatched out of frustration at the long delays in issuing 2100MHz UMTS licences in Thailand, which are now hoped for later this year, and the licensing malaise has also led to rival cellco DTAC proposing to partner its BTO network host CAT Telecom in a rollout of 800MHz/850MHz 3G services, using frequencies re-farmed from a legacy analogue network.

   

 

 

O2 UK launches HSDPA

  • April 19th, 2008
  • 8:59 am

O2 UK has announced the launch of an HSDPA option for residential customers, making it the last of the British wireless network operators to launch the 3.5G mobile broadband offering. The high speed service is being offered to all existing customers for GBP20 (USD40) per month which includes 3GB of mobile data. O2 has offered mobile data cards to business customers for over a year, but this latest move sees it enter the burgeoning consumer ‘dongle’ market. Customers choosing to sign an 18-month contract will be given a dongle, a USD modem device, free of charge, while those preferring to pay the monthly charge on a rolling month-by-month basis will have spend GBP120. Mobile Broadband customers will also be given free access to 7,500 Wi-Fi hotspots on The Cloud network. Speeds of up to 1.8Mbps are currently available over the 3.5G infrastructure, although this will be upgraded to 3.6Mbps in June.