Wireless Federation

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: 3 UK announces the availability of the Nokia N97 along with which the operator is also offering free Skype-to-Skype calls. The N series handset will be offered for free of charge on contracts more than £35 per month, or for £319.99 (€375 or $527) on PAYG.

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: 3 UK announces that from 17 June the UK’s first £0 a month contract service will be available for its subscribers. The offer dubbed as SIM ZERO, is hoped to make money from the calls made by the subscribers without them paying any upfront fees for the connection.
In order to attract new subscribers, 3 is also offering free Skype-to-Skype calls and IM without paying any amount in the hope that they will make the odd “real” phone call.
The subscribers who opt for the contract will also be offered free voicemails in UK for a one month of minimum contract.
Calls will be charged at 20p per minute for all standard calls, 10p per text, and 30p per MB of data within the UK. The contract will not offer any handset.

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: 3 has come up with a new way to woo prepay subscribers. The firm has set monthly line rental prices with a new £9-per-month tariff and is combined with a new six-month contract. A 3 spokesman said: ‘You see prices turn to cashback, which does not necessarily return to the customer. High prices don’t necessarily work for the industry.’ The tariff plan is dubbed as ‘the first single-digit mobile tariff in Britain’, offers 100 cross-network minutes, or 100 texts and 300 3-to-3 calls per month, free voicemail, Windows Live Messenger and Skype access. The subscribers signing up for the 18 month contract will also receive a free 3G Sony Ericsson K660i.

3 sales and Marketing Director Marc Allera said: ‘Delivering value to consumers has always been a priority, that’s why we’re the first and only mobile network to try to take the worry out of at least one bill a month with 3’s first-ever £9 tariff. The current economic climate means that we’re more committed than ever to finding ways to pass savings onto customers.’

The operator said while the move is about acquisition, it is also about retaining customers who are looking to cut their monthly expenditure.

Day 3 of Mobile World Congress 2009 being held at Barcelona was an eventful one as Verizon Wireless, the USA based mobile operator, made announcement on its 4G LTE network. The operator will work in collaboration with Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent to deploy this next-gen network in USA and is likely to commence the services by 2010. Starent Networks has also been selected as a packet core vendor for the deployment of the next-generation network. Field trials conducted by Verizon Wireless have demonstrated download rates of 50 to 60 Mbps peak speeds. Verizon will also set up an LTE Innovation Center to foster the ecosystem.

Google Latitude, a Google Maps application, has reported a user base of 1 Million, whereas, Twitter, the social networking site has recorded between 5,000 and 10,000 new user registrations each day in 2008.

IMIMobile, the mobile VAS firm, acquired NSN’s Music2You service. This service offers mobile operators and media firms the full-track music download subscription services. Some clients include Vodafone in India, AOL in Germany and Akado in Russia.

The Indian site, Babajob.com was selected as one of the five finalist for the Mobile Peer Awards. Other finalists include Fring, Unkasoft Advergaming, Orbster and Popcatcher. Over 160 mobile startups participated in the awards of which these five were the chosen ones.
Skype proclaimed a record 3billion downloads of its VoIP application till date. It has 400 million users, and adds nearly 350k new users each day. The company says 100 billion call minutes have been clocked using Skype across the globe, accounting to 8% of worlds call minutes.

Vihaan Network, promoted by Rajiv Mehrotra of the Shyam Group, unleashed the world’s first solar-powered GSM network on Day 3 of MWC’09. On the other hand, Digicel group, the Carribean mobile operator, showcased its solar powered handset Coral-200-Solar.

NAVTEQ announced the winners for its Global LBS Challenge, won by skobbler and City Guide, Carbon Diem, NaviGenie became the runners up.

Sybase 365 launched a geo-location service for mobile handsets dubbed as SMS Locator, enabling the users obtain turn-by-turn directions of locations closest to their current position. The service prompts users and supports abbreviations, acronyms, nicknames and common misspellings.

Jinny Software, an advertising network for mobile network operators, launched its mobile marketing and ad service.

Synchronica launched Mobile Gateway 4.0, a ‘push SMS/MMS/IM/email’ service that sends social networking and news updates to any mass-market mobile phone.

Telefonica Europe selected Amdocs ChangingWorlds to deploy a new Internet-like portal and a browser bar that provides intuitive navigation support, enabling the  users to browse the new Mobile Internet service. The browser bar guides and provides links to both on- and off-portal content that matches their content preferences and behavioral profiles.

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News

The main focus of GSMA at the Mobile World Congress was based on the expansion of MMTP’s (Mobile Money Transfer Programme) scope. It enters in a strategic partnership with Belgacom International Carrier Services and the Royal Bank of Scotland Group.

Acer is anticipated to launch two Android based devices in 2009.

HTC, at MWC showcased the dream mobile phone, dubbed as ‘Magic’. This mobile phone is Google Android based handset is launched in collaboration with Vodafone. HTC Magic adornes an Android-optimized Webkit browser, as well as Google applications, Google Maps and Google Search, YouTube, reports Tech Fragments.

Nokia unleashed its 8 mega-pixel handset named as N86 whereas Garmin and Asus together unveiled location based ‘phoning’ with the Nuviphone.

LG demonstrated the X120, a 3G supporting netbook that marks its way into the netbook market. LG also unveiled its wrist watch mobile phone with features like touchscreen interface, HSDPA capabilities and video calling. It comes with a curved tempered glass face, metal casing and is 13.9mm thick. Orange announced that it will be the first operator to offer the LG Touch Watch phone (LG-G910) in Europe.

Yahoo comes up with a new ‘Yahoo Mobile‘ carrying all its services in one device, which is likely to be available by the end of Q1′09. The phone is festooned with features like Discover - consisting of OneSearch and Today; Connect with email, IM and social networking and Stay Informed with News and OnePlace, which lets consumers add their favorite news topics and sources, RSS feeds, weather conditions, sports scores, stock quotes, websites/blogs, horoscopes and movie theaters on their mobile.

Navteq is in partnership with weather service firm Foreca to provide the API & RSS feed.

i-mate’s showcased credit card sized Windows Mobile Standard Smartphone and SIM cards with Motion detection sensor.

Palringo in collaboration with Gigafone’s Ochre to tackle market fragmentation in the digital media campaigning domain. These two companies are likely to introduce four major components of the mobile advertising ecosystem - campaign creation, planning, distribution and result measurement - together.

An iPhone application dubbed as Documents To Go was instigated by DataViz, which enables iPhone users to modify Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint document from their handsets.

MySpace introduced a new mobile version that widens branding and advertisement opportunities.

Nokia and Qualcomm together will launch UMTS mobile devices in mid-2010.

GSMA and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation teamed up to Expand Availability of Financial Services through Mobile Phones

Skype proclaimed that Nokia N series will soon have VoIP pre-loaded.

OgilvyOne will ink a dealwith Mobixell to deliver a complete commercial and technological package which includes: advertising, brand management, consumer profiling, campaign planning and execution, ad serving and rich media delivery

A voice to text service was launched by SpinVox for Italian and Portugese.

The Airtel-T9 India Consumer Vernacular Messaging Campaign has won the GSMA MWC award for the “Best Use of Mobile for Social and Economic Development”

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News

Auction site’s CEO says VoIP unit must show strong synergies to justify its place in eBay’s portfolio.
eBay this week said it may sell Skype at the end of the year if it fails to find the best way to position the Internet telephony business within its core operations.

“What we’re testing this year are the synergies… If the synergies are strong we’ll keep it in our portfolio. If not, we’ll reassess it,” eBay’s new CEO John Donahoe told the newspaper.

Donahoe hinted that this could lead to a sale of the business.

The online auction site’s $2.6 billion acquisition of Skype in 2005 was met at the time with some scepticism.

eBay justified the purchase, claiming Skype would make communication between buyers and sellers easier, however, scepticism turned into ignominy for eBay last October when it wrote down the value of the VoIP unit by $1.4 billion, after it failed to live up to expectations.

However, on Wednesday eBay reported that Skype’s first-quarter revenues rose 61% year-on-year to $126 million, with membership increasing by 33 million during the last three months bringing its total number of customers up to 309 million – more than any other user base in eBay’s portfolio.

The online auction site’s VoIP division also achieved 100 billion cumulative Skype-to-Skype minutes.

“What we know is, Skype is a great stand-alone business,” said Donahoe.

A great stand-alone business it may be, but the $126 million in revenue Skype generated in the first quarter is a small proportion of the $2.19 billion in revenues that eBay generated as a whole.

What’s more, Skype’s growth weighed on eBay’s first-quarter operating margin, which declined on year from to 32% from 33.6%.

“The decrease in operating margins was caused primarily by our faster growing lower-margin businesses, such as PayPal and Skype,” said eBay in a statement.

However, Donahoe said he expects Skype to turn a profit in 2008, with revenues topping $500 million.

Meanwhile Skype is also ramping up its push into the mobile space through its on-going work with 3 UK.

The operator said Tuesday that it plans to release an enhanced HSPA version of the co-branded Skypephone it launched in 2007 in the next two to three months.

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
 

Sony has confirmed that it is adding Skype features to its PlayStation portable gaming device. Registered Skype users will be able to make free voice calls to other Skype subscribers over the PSP, view and manage contacts, see which friends are online, make SkypeOut calls to landlines and mobiles and use their SkypeIn number to receive calls. PSP users worldwide will be able to start using Skype features and services through a system software update scheduled in late January. After updating the PSP system software, a Skype icon will be added to the Network category in the home menu. PSP users who do not yet have a Skype username can register by clicking the icon and following the instructions. PSP users who already have a Skype user name can immediately sign in by clicking the Skype icon and entering their user name and password.

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News

Advertising is an enormous U.S. economic force; in 2006, it was estimated to be worth $296 billion. In old media, it funds terrestrial network TV, radio and Yellow Pages while paying half or more the cost of most newspapers and magazines. Online digital content is also largely free to consumers, with e-mail, social networking, popular information and listings paid for by $20 billion in banners and sponsored search. Virtually anyone with a computer is online, most have broadband and use is unconstrained by price.

Access to content at no incremental cost to consumers stokes up demand by orders of magnitude. Un-metered dial-up and flat-rate broadband Internet access make online usage free. Google, Yahoo!, eBay, MySpace, YouTube, Skype and Sling Media ride for free on the carriers’ pipes, but among others, these destinations are why most households pay $20-$45 per month for fast Internet access. Advertising charges underpin these Web players’ business models, whereas monthly recurring charges have made large and healthy new business for telcos with DSL and for cable companies’ with Internet modem services.

NO SUCH THING AS FREE
In mobile, there is no such thing as free for most subscribers, where uptake and usage is significantly constrained by pricing. Additional phones can be added to my AT&T family plan for $10 per month. My bucket of 1,400 voice minutes can be shared among them, but data plans are on a
per-phone basis with unlimited Web starting at $20 per month and rising to $40 with video and text. Without a data plan, usage charges are a whopping $10 per megabyte.

Mobile Internet uptake and usage will increase dramatically as unlimited data plans become more widely adopted and cheaper with increasing competition. Not many users are willing to pay a subscription or variable charges to access weather information on a phone when they can get it so many other ways for free. New data users are even less inclined to pay monthly subscription fees for premium content and will have less need to do so with increasing availability of free content. Leap has recently undercut the leading carriers by 40% with its Cricket unlimited EV-DO PC data card plan at $35.

Intensifying price competition in handset data plans is also inevitable. Information providers will provide much of what we want with advertising support and with “free” generating massively increased demand. Carriers also benefit – as they did with online – with substantially increased subscriber uptake for mobile data.

MORE ROOM TO GROW
Potential abounds. Several pioneers with ad-supported business models are jumping in with the same entrepreneurial drive as in online. So far, for example, only around 13% of mobile subscribers access news and information each month and less than half that percentage use search. Only a small proportion of content pages viewed on the mobile Web or via rich clients such as Java or BREW include any advertising. Nevertheless, approximately 1 billion ads are served by Admob and Third Screen Media each month in the United States, and the number is growing rapidly. Mobile advertising is at bargain prices. Display ad cost per thousand (CPM) and search cost per click (CPC) are substantially less than their online equivalents, where in search, for example, clicks average more than a dollar and frequently fetch $25 or more for hot key words with high priced purchases such as mortgages or insurance.

Mobile search providers Medio, JumpTap, Microsoft (MotionBridge) and Google have the additional capability of click-to-call. With location-based capabilities, local search and advertising has unique potential in comparison to its 15% share of online. For example, location-based click-to-calls from Saturday night revelers who fall on the wrong side of the law would be worth a lot to attorneys who specialize in these matters.

There are still significant challenges in this nascent marketplace. Advertisers want national reach across all major carriers. Whereas consumers frequently switch TV channels, consumers tend to have just one phone and one on-deck carrier experience. Advertisers also need systems to make buying and formulating campaigns easy, the workflow capabilities to target and match advertisements with Web page inventory and the measurement tools to measure effectiveness.

Mobile advertising revenues are less than 1% of wireless carriers’ $20 billion in data service fees which are growing at double-digit rates. Advertising revenues in support of the content subscribers consume will surely grow to a significant proportion of these figures over the next few years.

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News

US-based software services provider Noise Free Wireless has announced that a beta version of its NoiseFree VoIP application is now available for user trial. NoiseFree VoIP provides mobile professionals and VoIP clients with software that cancels distracting and call disabling background noise regardless of the environment. NoiseFree VoIP offers receive and transmit signal-to-noise ratio enhancement in excess of 15dB, ensuring that callers can be heard clearly regardless of background noise environments. Noise Free products provide, receive and transmit noise cancellation and require no additional hardware devices, DSP chips, or other additions to support laptop or VoIP handset usage. NoiseFree VoIP supports a wide variety of VoIP software including Skype, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk and softphones. NoiseFree VoIP Beta is being offered in a free trial version and is available now for download from the Noise Free website. The general availability release is planned for Q4.

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News

Social networking site MySpace has agreed to integrate Skype into its website, allowing users to call each other over the VoIP service. Starting in November, MySpace users will get free calls to other MySpace and Skype users and be able to buy Skype prepaid credit for calling fixed and mobile lines. The service will be added to the existing MySpace instant messaging platform, with no software download required. MySpaceIM with Skype will be available in 20 countries with local MySpace sites. No financial details were released. MySpace has around 110 million active users each month, while over 25 million people use its instant messaging platform.

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News