RIM prepares new device to rival IPhone

On 06.17.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A slate of new devices and software is under preparation by Research in Motion as it looks to keep its BlackBerry smartphone from losing more ground to touch-screen devices like Apple Inc.’s iPhone and iPad.  A touch-screen smartphone with a slide-out keyboard is worked upon by RIM.

The phone will operate on a new version of the BlackBerry operating system, working much like an iPhone, letting users swipe through screens and expand images with their fingers besides having a universal search bar that lets users scour the entire phone’s data and some data online as well. Experiments are also carried on by RIM on a tablet device to serve as a larger-screen companion to its BlackBerry phone and it will be capable of connecting to cellular networks via a BlackBerry phone.

There are speculations that RIM will ship a phone running a new operating system and a new Web browser in the quarter ending September 30, but haven’t provided details of the device. Waterloo, Ontario, company, which has long led the U.S. market for smart-phones, has come up with new offerings after facing increased competition from devices built by Apple and those that run on the Android operating system from Google Inc.

RIM still sells more smartphones globally than any company besides Nokia Corp, but its share of the key North American market is slipping, as RIM has been slow to match Apple and Android’s touch-screen technology, smooth Internet-browsing capability and add-on software. RIM’s share of the North American smartphone market by shipments dropped to 38% in the March quarter from 54% in the year-ago quarter.

All of the complaints critics have leveled at the company’s devices will be addressed by RIM in its upcoming smartphone and operating system named BlackBerry OS 6.0. The new device will have a Qwerty keyboard that slides out from the bottom of the touch screen and the search may also be able to locate occurrences of the keyword on sites like Facebook or Twitter.

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Bharti, Cisco, and Servion sign contract to offer Hosted Contact Center Services

On 06.17.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A consortium of Bharti Airtel, Cisco, and Servion today announced their foray into the Indian hosted Contact Center services market valued at USD 50 Million with the launch of India’s first ‘customizable’ hosted Contact Center services. This hosted Contact Center solution for large, medium, and small enterprises offers freedom from technology obsolescence, capital investments, and continuity challenges while leveraging the capability to customize the solution based on business requirements. The consortium targets acquiring 5000 ports / seats in the first year.

Improving customer service and cutting costs are everlasting business goals, regardless of the economic climate. With capital expense budgets shrinking, organizations are seeking innovative approaches to achieve these goals. Hosted Contact Center solutions offer access to technology without having to buy software licenses, hardware, building infrastructure, and dedicating IT resources to implementing, maintaining, and upgrading the technologies. That can mean plenty of cost savings and flexibility. Hosted Contact Center solutions are faster and less expensive to implement than customer premise-based Contact Centers, and require no ongoing capital equipment or maintenance fee investment.

According to Milan Rao, CEO, Enterprise Services, Bharti Airtel, the company is very happy to partner with Servion and Cisco and this alliance is in line with its philosophy to partner with industry leader, besides the company is committed to offer state-of-the-art solutions that enhance productivity and minimize costs for our customers. There is a great potential for Call Center solutions over a hosted platform as it promises huge benefits for enterprises across different verticals”.

We understand that the business challenges each organization face are unique. A ‘one size fits all solution’ will not be effective under such circumstances. Hence we brought in the capability to customize these solutions”, explains Mr. K. Balakrishnan, Managing Director and CEO of Servion Global Solutions. The consortium combines the best of three worlds reach and brand of Bharti Airtel communication network, technology leadership of Cisco, and domain expertise and integration capabilities of Servion in offering a tailor made hosted Contact Center solution to the enterprise customer” he adds.

The tough economic climate has brought about the need for innovative solutions and consumption models and the hosted contact center model is a great example of one. Cisco, Bharti Airtel and Servion are coming together today to offer a truly transformational solution that factors in the vital business imperatives of agility and scale, in times like this,” said Vikram Sharma, Head Managed Services, Cisco India & SAARC. He added, In addition to bringing the benefits of converged voice, mobile and data services to every desktop in the organization, the offering allows businesses to dramatically reduce upfront investment, while accelerating the adoption of unified communications on a global scale”.

In addition to the features that are available for any high end premise based Contact Center solution self service, inbound, outbound, and international conferencing capabilities, the hosted Contact Center solution offers the domain expertise to customize applications, performance monitoring, infrastructure, skill sets, technology adoption and financial investments.

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Growth in Indian economy instigated wireless broadband auction

On 06.16.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A total of 257 billion rupees ($5.5 billion) has been paid by Infotel Broadband Services Pvt. and Aircel Ltd together to offer wireless broadband Internet services in India.  Infotel was the only company that managed to get the pan India license by winning in all 22 regions on sale, paying 128.5 billion rupees. Licenses in eight regions had been bought by Aircel for 34.38 billion rupees and Qualcomm Inc. and Bharti Airtel Ltd. each purchased four.

The forecast of 8.5% rise in the Indian economy has been the driving force behind the company’s investment as the growth will spur consumers to spend more on wireless products and services. The government raised 677.2 billion rupees from last month’s auction of mobile-phone permits and the broadband auctions money add to this giving Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh more room to cut the fiscal deficit.

Analysts feel that this is their chance to deploy a wireless broadband network across the country as Wireless broadband penetration is very low and there’s huge scope for that market. Eleven companies battled for two bandwidth slots in each of 22 regional zones in the auction for BWA, or broadband wireless access. Wimax, a wireless broadband technology can be used by the companies through this spectrum.

33.1 billion rupees for the permits will be paid by Bharti, India’s largest mobile-phone operator. Anil’s Reliance Communications Ltd on the other hand dropped out of the bidding for the permits after securing third- generation mobile-phone licenses in an earlier auction. 49.1 billion rupees for the rights has been paid by Qualcomm, the world’s biggest maker of mobile-phone chips, to buy licenses in areas including Delhi and Mumbai.

Customers will initially be computer owners because of the lack of WiMax mobile phones and according to analysts the presence of low-cost alternatives such as digital subscriber lines, or DSL, may be a barrier to recouping the funds spent on wireless broadband spectrum.

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Vodafone unveils 360 shop for Android

On 06.16.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news:? Vodafone has announced that it is to extend the reach of the Vodafone 360 services with the launch of a 360 Shop for Android. The announcement highlights Vodafone’s commitment to bringing the 360 Shop to popular, market-leading handsets and, in so doing, offering developers a highly attractive native or cross-platform proposition.

The 360 Shop on Android has been designed specifically to ensure that customers can easily search for and browse the applications most suited to their needs and interests.  This is achieved through a sophisticated personalised recommendations tool and dynamically changing promotional areas such as best rated, top downloads categories and filtered lists. Feature content promotions will be run by local market editorial experts to further showcase locally relevant apps. All paid-for content is charged to the customer through operator billing, with funds regularly transferred into the developer’s bank account, making it simple for developers to keep track of revenue.

Through the 360 Shop on Android, Vodafone is giving apps developers the ability to publish either JIL or native Android apps in the 360 Shop.  Developers can also take advantage of existing Vodafone features such as clear pricing, a transparent review process and in-depth reporting.

According to Lee Epting, Director of Content Services at Vodafone Group, developers want to know that their app will be seen by consumers, and the 360 Shop on Android has been designed to maximise opportunities for content promotion and initial data shows that up to a third of the catalogue gets exposed in a single day. This is a market-leading approach which will allow both customers and developers to get great value out of the 360 Shop.

Designed for the Android operating system and directly accessible from the handset home screen, the 360 Shop on Android will launch this summer on the HTC Wildfire and Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro. The 360 Shop is a single destination for all digital content, integrating music, video, ringtones and apps, ensuring it will continue to serve the millions of existing Vodafone live customers. Furthermore, the handsets will come with 360 Music services embedded and Vodafone People soon available as a download.

To date, over 8,500 apps have been published to the 360 Shop. Eight European markets range over 100 different handsets capable of accessing the Vodafone 360 services. With further handsets due to launch throughout the year with the 360 Shop pre-loaded, Vodafone 360 will continue to provide the developer community with greater access to more customers.

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Telefonica proposes to pay extra dividend to Portugal Telecom

On 06.16.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news:? An additional item is requested to be included by Telefonica on the agenda of Portugal Telecom’s shareholders meeting scheduled for June 30. 8.51 percent of PT’s share capital is owned by the telco. PT shareholders are expected to discuss and vote on Telefonica’s revised offer of EUR 6.5 billion for Brazilian joint venture Vivo at the shareholders meeting on June 30.

It has been proposed by Telefonica that PT pay a special dividend if the Portuguese operator’s shareholders accept Telefonica’s bid for full control of the Brazilian mobile operator Vivo. The aim of the operator is now to reinforce PT’s current shareholder remuneration policy through the distribution of a supplemental and extraordinary dividend in the amount of EUR 1 per share, or superior for the financial year 2010.

The dividend will be added to an annual payout of 57.5 eurocents per share that Portugal Telecom has committed to give to investors through 2011.

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Nokia unveils X5 music phone

On 06.16.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news:?Two new phones have been launched by Nokia in its Xseries range at the Nokia Connection event in Singapore. The music market has been targeted by the new Nokia X5 with high sound quality, dedicated music keys and loud speakers, as well as access to Ovi Music and the Comes with Music service in some regions.

The square-shaped handset gives the look of an MP3 player and it has QWERTY keypad. Major IM and webmail services are supported by the mobile and offers quick access to major social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and Hi5). The device is also loaded with a 5 megapixel camera with 4X digital zoom and an LED flash, and the 200MB on-board memory can be topped up with up to 32GB via microSD cards.

There are possibilities of changing track by spinning the phone and access to unread messages by shaking the phone. According to the company, the phone will launch initially in Indonesia in Q3 for a retail price of EUR 165 before taxes and subsidies and the event’s second launch was the Nokia X6 8GB, a smaller version of the X6 which originally launched in 32GB and later in 16GB.

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MTN reports network stability opening of World Cup

On 06.16.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Network stability has been reported by mobile operator MTN South Africa and it also reported that its network will be 100 percent operational in the days leading up to and during the opening match of the 2010 FIFA World between South Africa and Mexico on June 11.

The MTN network did not experience any congestion whatsoever even after extreme demands has been placed on its network over the three days leading up to the opening match. According to the firm’s CTO Sameer Dave, the network was very stable and able to accommodate the high demand while from June 9 to June 12, there was a massive increase in data usage driven by 3G/HSPA and the subscriber-generated SMS volumes reached a total of 25 million over the four-day period, peaking at 6.46 million on June 11 at an average of 6.26 million SMS sent over the four days.

Network coverage has been enhanced at all ten of the FIFA-approved stadiums and the spectators are provided with the best possible coverage in terms of voice and data, but it also ring-fences each stadium so that it does not impact on the rest of the network.

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Mukesh Amabani’s Reliance Industries to enter wireless industry (India)

On 06.16.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: $3.8 billion will be paid by Reliance Industries Ltd. to enter India’s wireless Internet market. By this move, the big brother Mukesh Ambani will stand against younger brother Anil Ambani for the first time since they ended a non-compete accord a month ago. 48 billion rupees ($1 billion) has been agreed to be paid by for control of Infotel Broadband Services Ltd., which hours earlier bid 128.5 billion rupees for wireless broadband Internet licenses.

Anil’s Reliance Communications Ltd on the other hand dropped out of the bidding for the permits after securing third- generation mobile-phone licenses in an earlier auction. Mukesh Ambani is making his comeback in the communication industry almost after five years when he was forced to hand over the business to Anil when they broke up India’s second-biggest industrial group.

According to a fund manager in Mumbai, considering the under-penetration of broadband services in India, this deal gives Reliance a huge amount of scope and the business area is a good one, besides telecom isn’t a new business for Mukesh Ambani as he has been there before.

Infotel is the only company to win pan- India licenses in all 22 regions in the auction of wireless broadband Internet services that ended today. Reliance Communications, India’s second-largest mobile phone company offers high- speed wireless connections for phones and computers bowed out of the broadband auction after the prices exceeded its business case estimates. Reliance Communications, which recently paid 85.9 billion rupees for permits to offer high speed wireless phone services, has plans to sell a 26 percent stake.

95 percent stake in Infotel was agreed to be bought by Reliance Industries and it is said that the company is in talks with banks to borrow $1 billion. According to analysts, revenue in the nation’s mobile-phone services industry is poised to fall 22 percent for the year after declining 25 percent in 2009.

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German mobile market consolidation unlikely

On 06.14.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Consolidation in the German mobile market seems to be unlikely as all mobile operators have been able to double their spectrum during the frequency auction which ended on May 20. No welcome gesture is expected as the regulator is not happy with the prospect of fewer mobile operators as the German market is balanced.

T-Mobile Germany, Vodafone Germany, O2 Germany and E-Plus are the four mobile operators currently working in the German market. According to the president of the German telecommunications regulator BNA, Matthias Kurth, a joint-venture similar to that of T-Mobile and Orange in the UK would also come under the regulator’s definition of consolidation, as it would reduce the number of operators competing against each other.

Speculation grew about possible cooperation between E-Plus after the auction ended as E-Plus missed out on 800 MHz spectrum, and the other operators for using the latter’s 800 MHz-based networks.

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Vimpelcom changes corporate structure (Russia)

On 06.14.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The corporate structure of Vimpelcom has been changed by the company. As per the new structure, Russian mobile operator will divide its reporting structure into four business units, namely Russia, Ukraine, CIS and International, which will report to the company’s headquarters.

Elena Shmatova has been appointed as the general director and she will lead the Russia business unit. Igor Lytovchenko, Kyivstar president will continue to look after the Ukraine business. Dmitry Kromsky will continue to lead the CIS business unit.

Meanwhile, Vimpelcom CEO Boris Nemsic and Vimpelcom general director Alexander Torbakhov have decided to leave the company, effective immediately.

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