Vodafone Spain conducts HSPA trials
By Editor on February 19, 2010 · Leave a Comment
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Six months trial of HSPA-based broadband services as a fixed broadband has been conducted by Spanish mobile network operator Vodafone Spain as a fixed broadband substitute in the town of San Quirze del Valles, near Barcelona.
HSPA 3G modems and Wi-Fi base stations will be provided to more than 100 households under this pilot scheme in order to use them instead of traditional ADSL-based high speed internet services.
Ascertaining the level of customer satisfaction with mobile broadband compared to traditional fixed line services, as well as studying both downlink and uplink speeds and download volumes are the two main aim of this project. Studying the level of service and capacity its mobile network may need in order to offer such services in a medium-sized city is also the reason behind these tests.
MWC2010: Vodafone CEO suggests antitrust scrutiny of Google
By Editor on February 18, 2010 · Leave a Comment
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: According to Vodafone chief executive Vittorio Colao, who was in attendance at the Mobile World Congress at Barcelona, regulators should pay close attention to competition in the mobile telephone industry, and suggested that Google should be a focus of heightened scrutiny.
Google is trying to bulk up Vodafone’s mobile advertising capability with a $750 million bid for Ad Mob but the deal is currently being reviewed by the Federal Trade Commission. Apart from advertising, Google is also making inroads into other parts of the mobile industry, with its own operating system, Android, and its own phone, Nexus One.
The chief executive of one of the world’s largest mobile phone operators, Vodafone, also urged regulators to look at Google’s hold over search advertising on mobile phones, and to boost competition in the industry before it’s too late.
Filed under Mobile · Tagged with Android, Barcelona, Europe, Federal Trade Commission, Google, Mobile Advertising, Mobile World Congress, MWC2010, Nexus One, operator, Spain, Vodafone
MWC2010: Samsung unveils LTE netbook
By Editor on February 17, 2010 · Leave a Comment
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A netbook PC with embedded LTE has been demonstrated by Samsung Electronics at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. LTE modem chipset, Kalmia has been featured in the netbook and it is shown offering live video streaming over an LTE network connection based on Samsung infrastructure.
Netbook N150 of Samsung currently features HSPA and will be available with LTE commercially according to operators’ service schedules and market demand.
The dongle GT-B3710, which is being used on TeliaSonera’s LTE networks in Stockholm and Oslo has also been showcased by Samsung besides a line-up of netbook and note PCs at the show including the N210, N220 and NB30.
MWC2010: Microsoft calls AT&T & Orange “premier partnersâ€
By Editor on February 17, 2010 · Leave a Comment
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Even after the announcement of Microsoft at the Mobile World Congress that it is launching its Windows Phone 7 with all four U.S. carriers and several international ones, the company has made it clear that AT&T and Orange are “premier partners’ which means they may get first crack at devices.
According to Microsoft vice president Andy Lees, the company will be particularly deeply engaged with two mobile operators, providing differentiation through unique software and services on their networks.
However, it is still not clear what advantage AT&T would get over other carriers.
Filed under Mobile · Tagged with AT&T, Barcelona, Europe, Microsoft, Mobile World Congress, MWC2010, North America, Orange, Spain, USA, Windows phone 7
MWC2010: Verizon Wireless to launch Skype service
By Editor on February 17, 2010 · Leave a Comment
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Skype service has been offered by US mobile operator Verizon Wireless to its customers on mobile data plans. The deal between Skype and the mobile operator was announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as per which smartphone users would be able to use the VoIP service on the Verizon network starting in March.
Verizon data plan subscribers will be allowed to make and receive free Skype-to-Skype calls, call international numbers at Skype Out rates, use Skype instant messaging and remain online and check the online status of contacts through this deal.
BlackBerry Storm 9530, Storm2 9550, Curve 8330, Curve 8530, 8830 World Edition and Tour 9630 smartphones, as well as the Droid by Motorola, Droid Eris by HTC and Motorola Devour will have the Skype service initially.
Filed under Mobile · Tagged with VoIP, Barcelona, Blackberry, Devour, HTC, Instant Messaging, Mobile World Congress, Motorola, MWC2010, operator, Skype, Verizon Wireless
MWC2010: Google has no plans to compete with mobile operators
By Editor on February 17, 2010 · Leave a Comment
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: With the test of gigabit-to-the-home technology and selling 60,000 Android smartphones a day, Google has started investing in the wireless network but has no plans to compete with network operators. The announcement was made by Google CEO Eric Schmidt at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona
However, the investments made in the network infrastructure, and the trials of FTTH (fiber-to-the-home) do not indicate that it wants to become the network operator. Instead the focus of the company is on its search advertising and enterprise software businesses.
According to Schmidt, as the company rolls out new applications, its engineers are increasingly developing for mobile first because they are more excited by its greater potential, although the goal is still to develop for all platforms and not to favor Android, the mobile OS that the company helped develop.
MWC2010: Mobile tech to reshape society in economic crisis, says Vodafone CEO
By Editor on February 17, 2010 · Leave a Comment
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The role the technology to overcome the global financial crisis became the topic of discussion at the Mobile World Congress for Vodafone Group chief executive Vittorio Colao expressed that mobile technology has the ability to reshape society in the wake of the economic crisis.
According to Colao, machine-to-machine technology which is the ability for devices, in healthcare for example, to connect over the mobile network deployed in a “massive way” in Europe could save 40 billion Euros and 110 million tonnes of CO2 emissions, equivalent to the emissions from the country of Belgium.
In Barcelona, along with 15 other mobile operators Vodafone too supported a wholesale platform for mobile applications that allows developers a single point of access to more than $3 billion mobile customers. The move is a challenge to Apple’s dominance in the application space which has seen mobile operators lose control of the content pumped across their networks.
According to Alcatel Lucent chief executive Ben Verwaayen, consumers will need retraining from the expectations of the all-you-can-eat model to different prices for quality of service.
Filed under Mobile · Tagged with Alcatel-Lucent, Apple, Barcelona, Belgium, Economic Crisis, Europe, Mobile Application, Mobile World Congress, MWC2010, Vodafone
MWC2010: Microsoft gets serious about mobile with Windows Phone 7
By Editor on February 17, 2010 · Leave a Comment
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: It’s now official- Microsoft’s next mobile phone platform, Windows Phone 7 is a phone and not a PC. However, the technical details and the changes made to the operating system kernel have not been revealed by the company.
According to Steve Balmer, Microsoft CEO, who hosted the press conference at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Microsoft wanted to do things that were out of the box, that were clearly differentiated from its past and hopefully from other [offerings] in the market.
Microsoft has made it clear that new set of software development tools and resources, and presumably a software development kit, will be forthcoming but put off details until the company’s MIX10 Web developer conference next month in Las Vegas.
Filed under Mobile · Tagged with Barcelona, Europe, Las Vegas, Microsoft, Mobile World Congress, MWC2010, Operating System, Spain, Windows phone 7
Nokia & Intel launch linux-based mobile OS
By Editor on February 16, 2010 · Leave a Comment
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A mobile operating system will be launched by Finland’s Nokia Corp. and U.S.-based Intel Corp which can run on a number of electronic devices including smart phones, laptops and TV sets. The announcement was made by Kai Oistamo, head of devices at Nokia Oyj at the Mobile World Congress at Barcelona.
The Linux-based platform, called MeeGo, will be openly available to developers from the second quarter of this year and it will allow for a massive expansion of new applications, provided developers find the platform exciting.
In June 2009, Nokia and Intel announced that they would work together on device and chip architectures, aiming to define a new platform for mobile products beyond existing smartphones and netbook computers.
Filed under Mobile · Tagged with Barcelona, Europe, Finland, Intel, Linux-based, MeeGo, Mobile Operating System, Mobile World Congress, MWC2010, Nokia, North America
Apple hailed valuable partner by Google at MWC2010
By Editor on February 16, 2010 · Leave a Comment
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Hailing Apple as a very close and valuable partner, Google made it clear that the company sees no reason behind the rumors that Microsoft’s Bing search engine may replace Google on the iPhone.
According to Vic Gundotra, who leads Google’s mobile engineering and who was present at a roundtable at industry trade fair Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the relationship between the two companies is stable and as far as the Nexus Two is concerned, no decisions had been made yet about how many Google phones there would be or who would manufacture them.
Nexus One was made by Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC and it was for the first time that Google has lent its brand to a consumer hardware product.
