NetOne to offer mobile money transfers (Zimbabwe)
NetOne has signed a deal with Gemalto to offer a mobile money service. Expanding the possibilities of Mobile Money Transfer, it also enables NetOne’s customers to have their salaries paid directly onto their phones.
According to Philippe Vallee, Executive Vice President, Gemalto, NetOne, with its excellent network coverage and evenly spread agent distribution structure, will bring banking services to even the most remote areas in Zimbabwe. They look forward to supporting NetOne in their efforts to revolutionize Zimbabweans’ everyday lives in this and other future innovative projects.
NetOne also intends to work with the Government of Zimbabwe and Pension Fund schemes to allow the OneWallet to be used for pension payments and thus remove the need for traveling long distances for the purpose of collecting pension payments.
Radcom wins MTN Subsidiary contract (South Africa)
Radcom, a provider of service assurance solutions has won a contract from South Africa based MTN for its Omni-Q Service Assurance solution to monitor one of MTN’s mobile networks in East Africa.
According to Gal Haselkorn, Radcom’s Executive Vice President, Sales and the President , they are very satisfied that MTN has decided that Radcom’s excellent technological know-how and wide experience in the field of mobile data monitoring could provide MTN with an ideal solution. They hope that this deal will be the first of many deals with the MTN group in addition to the African countries, thus enabling Radcom to significantly expand its business in this fast developing market.
Details about the network, country or the size of the contract were not provided by the company.
ERICSSON: Achieves three HSPA world firsts
Today, three important steps were taken in the evolution of HSPA. A representative from leading operator SingTel was in attendance when Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) recorded three new HSPA world-first achievements in Stockholm, Sweden.
The first demonstration showcased multi-carrier HSPA with 168Mbps on the downlink and 24Mbps on the uplink using a prototype consumer device and commercial network equipment. This is a world record for the highest HSPA speed achieved on commercial network equipment. This demonstration will also be shown by Ericsson during the GSMA Mobile World Congress later this month.
Tay Soo Meng, Executive Vice President of SingTel Networks says: ” SingTel has been driving the growth of mobile data services with the introduction of new smartphones, tablet devices and rich multimedia applications. We expect to see greater demand for higher speeds and bandwidth in the near future. We have been in continuous collaborations with Ericsson on opportunities in the HSPA evolution and its relevance and timing for implementation in our networks. In 2010, we were one of the first in the world to demonstrate 42Mbps “live” on our networks, and it is a natural progression to continue improvements in HSPA with 84Mbps and beyond.”
Dual-carrier HSPA with 84Mbps was also demonstrated for the first time ever, using commercial network products. By using two 5MHz carriers in the connection to the same consumer, peak speeds of 84Mbps are reached, doubling the maximum speed that is offered today by the fastest commercial HSPA networks.
The third world-first achievement was the demonstration of single-carrier HSPA with 42Mbps using end-to-end commercial products including a consumer device. With this new technology, it is possible to reach 42Mbps on a single WCDMA frequency carrier of 5MHz by using multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) technology. Compared with the currently-used dual-carrier HSPA with 42Mbps technology (that Ericsson, as the first vendor, already implemented at the end of 2009), operators can be much more efficient with their valuable radio spectrum.
Ulf Ewaldsson, Vice President and Head of Product Area Radio at Ericsson, says: “These three achievements are the latest additions to our long list of world firsts in HSPA, demonstrating our technology leadership. Operators like Singtel, want to offer their customers the highest HSPA speeds and network capacity needed to fulfill the ever-increasing demand for mobile broadband services on any device. For many years we have focused on the evolution of HSPA and it is rewarding to see that the industry-wide support for HSPA Evolution is now stronger than ever Ericsson’s Evo RAN brings EDGE, HSPA and LTE together into one strong, industry-leading offering. The potential for HSPA is even larger and 3GPP is already looking at even higher HSPA speeds.”
The first commercial network implementations of single-carrier HSPA with 42Mbps and dual-carrier HSPA with 84Mbps can be expected during 2011, followed by higher HSPA speed implementations in later on.
The speeds referred to are peak network speeds. Actual customer speeds will be lower, and can vary owing to congestion, distance from the base station, local conditions, hardware, software and other factors.
Nokia appoints Jerri DeVard as the new Executive VP and CMO
Nokia has appointed Ms Jerri DeVard as Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), a new role that will be effective from January 1, 2011.
The newly formed Marketing and Communications organization under the CMO will bring together all of Nokia’s Marketing, Brand Management, Communications and selected Industry collaboration activities.
According to Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, he is delighted to welcome Jerri to the Nokia team. Her experience and proven track record from a wide range of consumer businesses will be a great boost to increasing consumer focus and will bring fresh thinking as they strive for a clearer value proposition for their consumers and continue to build the Nokia brand.
According to Niklas Savander head of Nokia’s Markets unit, with Jerri at the helm, the company expects the integrated marketing and communications activities to increase the impact of their communications and engagement with consumers and other stakeholders across the industry and across the globe.
DeVard brings with her more than 25 years of marketing experience across leading consumer brands, including Verizon, Citigroup, Revlon, Harrah’s Entertainment and the Pillsbury Company. Her expertise encompasses brand management and multi- cultural marketing, with a strong foundation on direct marketing and e- commerce. She has provided counsel not only to blue-chip companies, but also applied her experience in fund-raising efforts as part of the Barack Obama presidential campaign. More recently, DeVard has founded her own marketing group that provides advice and counsel to major consumer product companies.
Samsung bags LTE Deployment Contract in USA
Samsung Electronics wins LTE deployment contract in USA based Cellular South. The agreement also calls for Samsung to design and launch two LTE-enabled smartphone handsets available in 2011 in Cellular South’s 700 MHz footprint.
Samsung and Cellular South will launch LTE service by the end of 2011 using voice-over LTE (VoLTE) and continue to expand availability across its 700 MHz footprint in 2012. Financial details were not disclosed.
According to Woonsub Kim, Executive Vice President and Head of the Telecommunication Systems Business of Samsung Electronics, Samsung is excited to work with Cellular South to bring the speed and connectivity of LTE infrastructure and devices to consumers in the Southeastern United States, along with two LTE-enabled handsets by the fourth quarter of 2011.
Cellular South is based in Mississippi and has approximately 900,000 customers in Mississippi, the Memphis Metropolitan Area, the Florida Panhandle, parts of Alabama including Mobile, and Rome, Georgia.
The company also holds 700 MHz licenses covering most of Tennessee and Alabama, though it has not yet extended service to these areas. Cellular South is owned by the holding company Telapex.
