According to sources in the Taiwan handset industry, Intel will support the development of China’s mobile TV standard China mobile multimedia broadcasting (CMMB) by supporting mobile Internet device (MID) and ultra mobile PC (UMPC) platform products supporting CMMB technology.
In line with Intel’s move, a number of IT makers, including Asustek Computer, Lenovo, Haier, Samsung Electronics and Fujitsu, are reportedly planning to launch CMMB-compatible MID or UMPC products, the sources indicated.
The upcoming CMMB-compatible MID/UMPC devices will feature a display ranging from 6- to 10-inch sizes and run on either Windows Mobile or Linux operating systems, the sources noted.
The development of CMMB MID and UMPC products follows the steps that have taken by Dopod, Samsung and Motorola in the development of CMMB-compatible handsets, pointed out the sources.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
The WiMax Forum has issued its first long-awaited certifications for mobile 2.5GHz products.
The products comprise four base stations and six mobile station modules (also known as terminals) operating in the 2.5GHz frequency band from eight WiMax Forum member companies, including Intel, Motorola and Samsung.
Intel’s Wi-Fi and WiMax Link 5350 module is among the 10 products approved and is expected to be available in selective laptops in the US by the end of the year.
The Forum claimed that more than 100 Mobile WiMax products are due to be certified by the end of the year.
“With the successful completion of extensive 2.5GHz testing, we have laid the groundwork to speed up additional profile certifications and ultimately to continue advancing global WiMax deployments at a record pace,” said Ron Resnick, president of the WiMax Forum.
A WiMax Forum study predicts that there will be more than 133 million WiMax users globally by 2012, around 70 per cent of whom will use mobile and portable WiMax devices to access broadband internet services.
However, industry experts predicted recently that, while WiMax broadband services are likely to be taken up by consumers, they will be shunned by businesses.
Analyst firm In-Stat said earlier this month that WiMax has the “right balance” for consumers, but that businesses will provide more of a challenge to WiMax operators because of the need for ubiquitous coverage.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
- December 12th, 2007
- 2:38 pm
Russian operator Comstar-UTS has partnered with Intel to roll out a mobile WiMAX network in Russia. They will initially focus on the Moscow region, launching the network by the end of 2008 using the IEEE 802.16e standard for the 2.5-2.7 Ghz range. The network will cover the whole city. Intel will provide the client technical devices with embedded WiMAX technology. Intel is currently developing embedded mobile WiMAX components for notebook PCs and mobile devices. By mid-2008, the company expects to launch its first embedded mobile WiMAX/Wi-Fi module, codenamed Echo Peak, with its Centrino processor technology. A product optimised for mobile internet devices with low power consumption, codenamed Baxter Peak, is also expected to be available next year.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
- October 19th, 2007
- 2:05 pm
Mobile operator 3 UK has registered over 1 million customers for its free, advertising-supported mobile video services, run by Rhythm NewMedia. Six months since the start the service, over a quarter of 3’s customer base is registered for the service, which delivers targeted and personalised advertising alongside the videos. Brands that have already used the service include Microsoft for mobile, Cisco, Intel, Unilever Lynx, Nivea, Ministry of Sound, Paramount Pictures, Entertainment Film and Coty and the Gwen Stefani fragrance.
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- September 13th, 2007
- 1:12 pm
Intel Capital and MCI Management have announced that they have become investors in Nexcom Bulgaria, the alternative Bulgarian telecoms operator which is currently constructing a nationwide WiMAX network. ‘Nexcom was the first operator in Bulgaria to deliver WiMAX-based voice and Internet services’ said Chris Haller, co-founder and Chairman of Nexcom. ‘Over the next twelve months Nexcom plans to continue rapid deployment of its national WiMAX network, providing bundled voice and internet services in 24 Bulgarian cities and resort towns’.
In 2005 Nexcom won a tender for a national WiMAX frequency and is in the process of building out the first Bulgarian WiMAX-based wireless Internet and voice network. Earlier this year it launched commercial WiMAX-based voice and Internet services in Sofia, the rapidly expanding resort town of Bansko, and in a number of resort towns along the coastline of the Black Sea. As a result of Nexcom’s positive brand equity and the insufficient development of the telecommunications infrastructure in many underserved areas in Bulgaria, the company has already signed contracts with numerous large corporate accounts interested in receiving Nexcom’s services. By the end of 2007, Nexcom’s WiMAX network will provide coverage to more than 60% of the Bulgarian population.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
- August 28th, 2007
- 6:23 am
Stephen Bell is one of the few people who can justifiably claim to have seen the connected future. As head of Wimax device business unit of the US communication equipment makerMotorola Inc., Bell and his team, together with similar teams at Korean consumer electronics maker Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd and chip maker Intel Corp., will determine the time, shape and success of the next evolution in wireless personal communication: mobile Wimax.
Wimax is short for worldwide inter-operability for microwave access, a standard that is capable of data speeds of 10 megabits per second up to 2km away from a radio transmitter.
With such wide ranges, telecom design engineers believe that Wimax presents itself as not just a powerful alternative to the so-called third generation (or 3G) wireless telecom networks for data, but also as a cheap and efficient alternative to voice communications compared with current cellular networks.
Bell and his team of engineers and researchers at Motorola’s hand-held and chipset research centre in Florida are designing hand-held devices to be used on the first major Wimax initiative in the world—the $3 billion (Rs12,300 crore) Sprint-Nextel network, expected to be operational towards the year end.
Motorola is one of only three big consumer electronics companies building Wimax hand-held devices ground up from the chip level. While Samsung and Intel are also engaged in developing the chips, the other two big brands associated with the Sprint network, Nokia Oyj and LG Electronics, are expected to use third-party chipsets.
“It will look less like a phone (and) more like an MID,” said Bell, in India last week to participate in a conference on Wimax, giving a peek into the two instruments likely to be released by mid-next year.
MIDs or mobile Internet devices are hand-helds with a large screen—typically four-seven inches wide—and a hidden or detachable keypads, making them closer to a portable media player than a cellphone.
Motorola, Samsung, Intel and Nokia have commitments to bring out end-user devices as part of the Sprint-Nextel network roll-out. Wimax, though deployed by more than 50 operators and Internet service providers across the world, is yet to catch the mobile consumer’s fancy over the non-availability of hand-held devices that support the so-called fourth-generation communication protocol.
While Indian operators Reliance Communications Ltd, Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Aircel Cellular Ltd have launched Wimax-based services, they have so far focused only on the fixed standard aimed primarily at residential broadband customers. As a result, larger brands such as Nokia, Motorola, Samsung and Alcatel-Lucent, who junked the fixed version in favour of the mobile version at the outset, are conspicuous by their absence in the Indian market.
“We believe that it will be the mobile version, which can also support residential users (that) will ultimately gain acceptance,” said Bell, who expects Indian operators to switch over to the mobile version, once the hand-held devices start coming out by the year end. While the devices currently being designed by the five companies—Motorola, Intel, Samsung, Nokia and LG—will be customized for running on Sprint’s Wimax-CDMA dual network, Bell says the devices can be shipped to India, too, if the orders are placed in time. So far, only state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has plans to set up a mobile Wimax network in India.
During its year-long trials and testing, Motorola has already developed one device, based on its ultra-slim Razr platform, which supports both CDMA and Wimax, but Bell says the full-impact of the high-speed capabilities of the network is better appreciated on large-screen MIDs. (CDMA is short for code division multiple access, a cellular standard.)
“We have been doing trials of video-on-demand on the devices, at full 30 frames per second.. and when we connected the phone to a TV set, it looked absolutely brilliant,” said Bell, who expects the phone-TV combination to give the landline-PC combination a run for its money. “The experience you are going to get on your existing productivity and Internet applications is going to knock your socks off.”
In a break from the normal practice of using third-party chipsets (the microprocessors that control most of the activities of the device), Motorola and Samsung have joined a clutch of small semi-conductor manufacturers trying to make chips themselves. “We thought, since it is a new technology, we should not depend too much on any one company for the chips and designs,” Bell said. Motorola will get the chips fabricated by semiconductor firm Texas Instruments Inc. and later licence the chips to other handset makers to embed it in their devices.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
A WSJ story focuses on European mobile advertising launches, because it says “European phone technology is generally more advanced than American.” (Although the article then points out that the difference in 3G phone penetration between the US and Europe is 16% and 20% respectively…so not that big, really.)
UK operator 3 is singled out for its old-school TV approach to advertising: its video clips are entirely ad-supported in pre-roll and post-roll formats (other operators in Europe typically charge extra for TV services). Some of the big-ticket advertisers that have come onto the platform include Cisco, Microsoft, Intel, and Unilever—the latter is actually experimenting with targeted marketing strategies, sending its ads for a male antiperspirant only to young men.
The 3 ads are more expensive based on the audience size…it charges $141 CPM, compared to $20 average CPM on Britain’s TV channels, says Ujjal Kohli, CEO of Rhythm NewMedia, the U.S.-based mobile ad firm that runs the service for 3.
But the service is causing a stink with at least some of 3’s users: some 25 percent of subscribers said they were put off by the ad-supported service. Nevertheless, as a new entrant in the market 3 has consistently tried to break mobile business models–most significantly it was the first 3G operator to offer users a flat-rate data service to encourage usage, something that other operators are finally starting to roll out.
All of the other major mobile operators with 3G networks are also starting to offer video ads: Vodafone, T-Mobile and Telecom Italia among them.
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Intel, Google, Dell, HP and a range of other computing, environmental and research groups have started the Climate Savers Computing Initiative. The goal of the project is to save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by setting aggressive new targets for energy-efficient computers and components, and promoting the adoption of energy-efficient computers and power management tools worldwide. The main target is 90 percent efficiency for power supplies by 2010, which if achieved, would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 54 million tons per year and save more than USD 5.5 billion in energy costs. Initial companies who intend to participate in the initiative represent both the demand and supply side of the computer industry, including computer manufacturers and chipmakers, as well as environmental groups, energy companies, retailers and government agencies. The Climate Savers Computing Initiative licensed its name from the WWF Climate Savers program, which involves several companies working to reduce their carbon footprint. The initiative’s energy efficiency benchmarks will initially follow the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star guidelines, but with increasing requirements during the next several years. Other initial members of the initiative are Advanced Micro Devices, Canonical, Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society, Coldwatt, Delta Electronics, eBay, EDS, EMC, Fujitsu, Hipro Technology, Hitachi, IBM, LANDesk Software, Lenovo, Linux Foundation, MIT, Microsoft, Natural Resources Defense Council, NEC, One Laptop Per Child, PG&E, Power-One, Quanta Computer, Rackable Systems, Red Hat, Starbucks, Sun Microsystems, Supermicro Computer, Ubuntu, Unisys, University of Michigan, Verdiem, World Resources Institute, World Wildlife Fund and Yahoo!.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
Nokia and Intel Corp. have joined together in an effort to accelerate the development, adoption and deployment of WiMAX technology, the companies have announced. The agreement calls for the companies to collaborate on several areas to support mobile WiMAX technology including mobile clients, network infrastructure, and market development.
“Broadband technologies – of all types – represent an enormous opportunity for businesses and individuals around the world,” said Sean Maloney, executive VP and general manager of Intel’s mobility group, in a statement “Even though we and the industry as a whole are at the early stages of discovery and development, the industry momentum is remarkable. To have innovators like Nokia working to bring WiMAX and other broadband wireless technologies to the masses is very encouraging.”
The companies’ mobile and note Book platforms work will focus on power and performance requirements. Network infrastructure efforts will concentrate on adequate and reliable coverage, the companies said in a statement.
Intel and Nokia plan to target service providers for their market development efforts, looking to demonstrate enhanced data service capabilities that can be available with WiMAX while also complementing those carriers’ 3G network efforts.
Intel and Nokia will also collaborate to ensure finalization of the WiMAX 802.16e standard in IEEE and related work in the WiMAX Forum.
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The US wireless ISP Clearwire says it has completed the first phase of its field trials of 802.16e mobile WiMAX technology. The trials, which covered a 15 square mile area in the suburbs of Portland in Oregon, were carried out in conjunction with Intel and Motorola. The firms will now expand the tests, with the second phase covering 145 square miles. Clearwire is currently using its 2.5GHz spectrum to provide pre-WiMAX wireless broadband services in more than 30 US markets. It expects to upgrade its networks and launch its first mobile WiMAX services next year. More information on WiMAX deployments can be found in TeleGeography’s WiMAX Market Tracking Service.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
Intel to support development of China’s mobile TV standard CMMB (Taiwan)
