Wireless Federation

Vibo Telecom, Taiwan 3G mobile communication services, has launched the teleconferencing service for meetings among friends, families or company employees based on its 3G network.
With this service the Vibo subscribers can make 3G video phone call to up to 7 recievers. These calls will allow anyone to talk  only designated broadcasters to talk, or in which only the caller can talk.
The subscribers will have to pay either a fixed monthly fee of NT$80 (US$2.50) plus a video communication fee of NT$0.04/second per person, or a platform service fee of NT$0.08/second plus video communication fee.
The operator which has nearly 700,000 3G subscribers and aims at one million at the end of 2008. The 3G provider will be launching an HSDPA service at the end of September 2008.

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News

Hungary’s mobile market, like that of its Central European counterparts, has matured with penetration rates surpassing 100%. Services are offered by three mobile network operators, T-Mobile, Pannon (Telenor), and Vodafone all of which are majority or wholly owned by Western European operators. However, all is not well for the mobile operators, with ARPU levels in decline for some time although the latest data shows the end may be in sight, with falling ARPU levels showing signs of stabilisation. Mobile broadband usage is increasingly coming into focus, with a growing variety of affordable mobile broadband plans coupled with mobile content and applications available via EDGE, UMTS and HSDPA networks.
Notable highlights of the Hungary Mobile Forecast 2008 - 2010 are:

• Total subscribers in Hungary will increase from 11.8 million in 2008 to our forecasted 13 million in 2010.
• It is estimated that wireless penetration levels in Hungary will increase from 115% to 126.2% over the forecast period of 2008 - 2010.
• Market shares of major operators will remain roughly the same over the next several years in Hungary. T-Mobile, Pannon (Telenor), and Vodafone will continue to have approximately 43.7%, 36%, and 20.8% of total subscribers in the country.
• The three operators will continue to see similar ARPU levels. The ARPU levels in Hungary are generally increasing, and they will be in the range of US$ 30 - US$ 32 across operators in 2010.

Sony Ericsson has announced the slim and elegant T700. his flawless phone combines timeless design and premium
features for the mainstream market.

  * The perfect slim elegant phone - slick stick design with premium
    metal finish
  * 3.2 megapixel camera - snap a great shot and share with
    your friends via your blog or web page
  * High quality stereo speakers - share your music with friends
  * Colour matched headset - colour co-ordinate your accessorie with
    your phone
  * High speed sharing - via the operator network or Bluetooth(TM)
  * 512MB memory card memory in box - and even more to expand
  * 2″ TFT display - add more emotion when you’re in motion, download
    film clips and view in vivid colours

The T700 is a slim elegant phone for the mass market. The T700 is a GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 UMTS/HSDPA 2100 phone
that will be available in selected markets in the colours Black on Silver, Black on Red and Shining Silver from early Q4 of 2008.

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News

Orange UK has reportedly announced of upgrading its 3G network infrastructure across Scotland, Northern Ireland and the North-East of England, which will allow for a more reliable combined voice and data services and a 99% call set-up success rate. Orange will also come up with a faster alternative of HSPDA which will enable support for mobile broadband, targeting a speed of 7.2Mbps. Its agenda also includes expanded coverage across UK, and adding of 450 new 2G and 3G sites over the next twelve months.

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News

Samsung Electronics in collaboration with Symbian Limited has unveiled the Samsung INNOV8, i8510, an entertainment mobile. This phone is equipped with high-end features and multimedia including an 8 megapixel camera, internet browsing, audio playing, and ergonomics.This is Samsung’s eighth mobile phone based on Symbian OS. INNOV8 is based on Symbian OS v9.with  power efficiency, platform security and phone performance.

INNOV8 brings users a ‘cinema in your pocket’ experience through access to asuite of applications from the S60 applications library, they can watch videos, including DivX files, view pictures and play two exclusively free embedded 3D games on the 2.8” LCD display. With HSDPA connectivity at 7.2Mbps and seamless connection through Wi-Fi, Samsung INNOV8’s optical mouse and easy navigation enables users’ quick internet browsing, alongside GPS and geo-tagging. The smartphone can receive push e-mail and is Bluetooth-capable. The 2.8-inch LC screen has an accelerometer sensor.

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News

Telecom Italia Mobile presented its new offers for the summer at its 2007 dealer convention, collecting orders for 3.1 million mobile telephones, of which over 40 percent UMTS and exceeding the results of the May 2006 Convention when 2.5 million mobile phones were ordered. Starting from June, Telecom Italia is further simplifying the pricing of its mobile internet service by launching “Tutto Compreso Internet”, which, for EUR 20 per month and no additional costs, offers free and unlimited mobile internet access. In addition, the EUR 20 fee entitles users to 2 GB per month of mobile and PC websurfing, without the government concession tax charge, which is being refunded to customers as a bonus in traffic. With the new price list of handsets, TIM offers 34 UMTS models of which 16 are HSPDA-enabled. TIM is also revamping a “virtual” telephone token. Following a EUR 7 one-off activation fee, this virtual token is available exclusively to TIM Tribù customers. It lasts all day, and allows the customer who has chosen this option to make callsto other TIM Tribù users for just EUR 0.25 (including VAT) without any additional costs.

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News

Ok, so enough about my bickering towards the carriers. Time to get into what I want this site to be about: the mobile youth and what it is we want to see. I hope for enough comments to shed light on what the masses think but I’ll start off by describing what I hope the market to offer in the next year or less.

First off I love my iPod and the digital music revolution that is has started. Most people don’t know that their phone can play mp3’s (if you’ve bought a phone in the last year it most likely does) but the problem here is memory. It’s great that my RAZR plays MP3’s and I can use that ability for ring tones but I’m looking for a full library of most of my music. Although I now have over 100 Gigabytes (GB) of music I really only need about 40GB, but 60 would be nice. Everyone in the mobile press has been rumoring about the iPhone for over a year now and it’s about time for it to come around. I’ll expect that by summer ‘07 we’ll see a 20GB (and hopefully 40GB) iPhone.

I also touched on my preference for digital photography in a previous post. People always talk to me about how 3 Mega Pixel (MP) is their minimum quality because that’s the quality you need to create good physical photos. I’ll agree with that if print was what you were taking pictures for. I used Ofoto (to create physical prints) a couple times because I was also attached to that medium of sharing pictures. Now I’ve moved onto a combination of mobile devices (a little bit) and (mostly) viewing them and sharing them on my laptop. My laptop has a nice GeForce graphics card which scales up to 1600×1200. To support these sizes I’ve found that a really good lens at 4MP or a decent 5MP camera does the trick.

We’re currently at the 2MP quality in high end phones, with 3MP cropping up here and there. By the end of the year most the VCAST phones will have 3MP quality and (hopefully) the very specialized camera centric phones will have 4MP by the summer of ‘07.

The last requirement for my perfect device is a decent network connection. The standard GPRS connections of late have been virtually unacceptable for any kind of real data traffic. The recent 3G service offered by Verizon’s VCAST is decent but certainly not enough for full web integration. I keep reading about the exciting combination of HSPDA (a high bandwidth, cell reach network) and city wide WiFi (San Francisco is coming…) If a phone is capable of one or both of these technologies, then we’ll finally be able to have the internet while mobile! This is extremely exciting and I’m not even going to try and guess the implications. Even Google, who is a partner in the SF deal, has said they would rather get the technology up, look at the traffic where possible and figure out how this is used.

If a device like this existed by next summer I’m sure it would run into the several hundreds, if not $1,000. Would I buy it? Probably not. But in reality I would expect that a device with at least two of the above and a part of the third to exist at a reasonable price by the Christmas of next year. Please feel free to use the comments page and tell me what I’m missing from your perfect device.

Wireless Mobile Telecom

Vodacom Tanzania says that it has switched on its 3G HSPDA network in Dar-es-Salaam. With the installation of a 3G HSDPA network, Tanzania is only the second country in Africa with such technology, the first being South Africa.

“Vodacom is the first in East Africa with such technology and we believe that 3G HSDPA will give us a major competitive advantage,” Vodacom Tanzania Managing Director Romeo Kumalo, said from his office in Dar-es-Salaam.

“3G technology is an important step forward for Vodacom, as the telecommunications industry enters a new era in mobile communications. Vodacom is rapidly and dramatically changing the way its customers experience their wireless communications. It is also shaping the future of mobile and broadband internet communications through its continued leadership in wireless technology,” he added.

The 3G HSDPA network commercial launch is scheduled for the first quarter of 2007.

Wireless Mobile Telecom