Orange thinks to revive IPTV plans in UK
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: With clouds hovering over the launch of TV over broadband network, Orange has still revised its plans to offer the service. Earlier, it was reported that the company had agreed a deal to use BT’s fixed line network.
In late 2007, plans to launch IPTV had been postponed by Orange but now it has expressed its keen interest on bundling a number of services into one package.
Presently, Virgin Media is the sole UK telco to offer quad-play (mobile, fixed voice telephony, broadband and TV).
Sony Ericsson improves portfolio to recover market share
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Through an improved product portfolio, maintenance of 4% share of the global handset market is expected to be maintained by mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson. Increase in the profits is on the top of the list of the company and boosting market share in terms of both value and volume is second in the list.
Value and a volume segment is increasingly divided and the company is also aiming to launch high-end phones but won’t leave the volume segment altogether.
According to Chief Executive Bert Nordberg, Sony Ericsson aims to keep Android as the main operating system in its mobile phones and the company will for now keep working with Symbian, which has proved to work well in the newly launched Vivaz smartphone, and Windows Mobile, which powers the Aspen handset.
Leap wireless net loss widens, revenue increases (USA)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The first-quarter revenues of the USA based Leap Wireless has gone up by 14% to US$584.8 million but the net loss widened to US$65.4 million from US$47.4 million a year ago. Operating loss for the first quarter of 2010 was $1 million, compared to an operating income for the first quarter of 2010 was $5.1 million.
Increased depreciation and amortization expense in connection with the completion of the launch of new markets has been cited as the reason behind the year-over-year increase in net loss. Higher interest expense due to increased debt levels and the elimination of capitalized interest is also one of the reasons behind the loss.
Approximately 446,000 net customer additions has been made by the telco in the first quarter along withn249, 000 net voice additions and 197,000 net broadband additions. According to Doug Hutcheson, Leap’s president and CEO, the first quarter customer growth helped deliver a 27 percent annual increase in adjusted OIBDA, even as it absorbed higher acquisition costs related to the company’s strong customer additions during the quarter and approximately $4 million of expense relating to store and staffing adjustments.
AT&T rechristens U-verse Online video portal (USA)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The eight-month-old video entertainment site of telecom operator AT&T has been renamed as U-verse Online.†The move allows the operator to go ahead with its plan to offer a TV Everywhere authenticated-content service later in 2010 to U-verse TV subscribers.
AT&T Entertainment site was launched by the company in September 2009 providing free-to-consumer streaming TV shows, movies and video clips on computers. AT&T brings the site under the same branding umbrella with the new name as its triple play of U-verse TV, Internet and Voice services.
According to the company, it plans to offer U-verse TV customers the ability to log in to U-verse Online for access to even more TV content choices and features†at no extra charge.
IPad a big hit in Asian Grey Market
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The booming “gray market” trade in the world’s most talked-about high-tech gadget, iPad could not be stopped although its maker Apple didn’t launch it in Asia. Millions of pads have been sold by Apple within 28 days and about a thousand of them made it to Asia.
IPads are on sale for a substantial mark-up on the U.S. retail price from Singapore to Seoul, Bangkok to Beijing. In the stores in Hong Kong, one can get 15 of the basic 16-gigabyte models for HK$5,700 Hong Kong (about $733) each while the same model retails in the U.S. for $499.
In Low Yat Plaza, one of Kuala Lumpur’s centers for cheap electronics and gadgets, every other mobile phone stall had iPads for sale like 16GB, 32GB or 64GB version and the prices ranged from $750 to $1,100. According to most of the sellers they got their iPads from a few dealers with small retail shops in the U.S., and Apple’s failure to supply the device outside the country was fueling the unofficial trade
Telekom Austria to launch car charging stations
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A prototype telephone booth is planned to be launched by Telekom Austria with an integrated charging station for electric cars. Through charging stations, payment could be done via mobile phone using text messages, paybox or a RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) card with a RFID chip.
13,500 telephone booths are currently operated by the company countrywide out of which 700 are multimedia stations and in the first roll out phase, the focus will again be on multimedia stations offering on-street parking opportunities for electric vehicles.
More than one vehicle could be recharged at a time by the installation of additional charging points and by year-end 2010, a total of 30 charging stations will go on stream. According to Hannes Ametsreiter, CEO Telekom Austria Group, the company is bundling its strengths from different corporate segments to realize this highly innovative project and company’s fixed net infrastructure is combined with its long-standing expertise in the mobility area, for instance, with successful services such as mobile parking.
Telia’s LTE network changes mobile surfing habits of customers (Sweden)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Mobile surfing habits has been changed by a quarter of Telia’s LTE users because of gaining access to quicker mobile broadband. The result came out in survey conducted by Telia among its LTE customers during the 100 days after launching its LTE network.
26% of the total respondents said they work more on a mobile basis. 23 percent of the total said that they download larger files to a greater extent than previously, 19 percent watch online TV/stream movies, and 16 percent said they began surfing more after acquiring LTE. LTE has been adopted by those who are interested in technology.
Some of the other findings of the survey are- over 90 percent of LTE subscribers upgraded from an existing 3G subscription, 65 percent acquired LTE to complement their fixed broadband, and 43 percent have an iPhone. 54%of the subscribers are not in a mood to return to 3G currently.
LTE network was launched by Telia in Stockholm at the end of last year and 25 locations in Sweden will have LTE coverage by the end of the year.
Qatar telecom & GBI sign LPA agreement
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A Landing Party Agreement (LPA) agreement has been completed by Qatar Telecom (Qtel) and Middle Eastern submarine cable operator Gulf Bridge International (GBI) under which a landing station in Qatar for GBI’s Gulf regional undersea cable, which when completed will connect all the Gulf countries to each other and provide onward connectivity to Europe and Asia.
The GBI Cable System is scheduled to launch in 2011 and designed to operate for up to 25 years and will have a design capacity of up to 5Tbps on certain sections, aimed at meeting the rapid growth in demand that has been forecast for traffic originating and terminating in the Gulf.
According to Dr. Nasser Marafih, CEO of Qtel, by connecting Qatar to this new global cable system, the company is layering an additional level of resilience to the existing infrastructure to enable and maintain seamless and un-interrupted communication across the world.
ERCOM launches ‘Secure SMS’ service
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: ‘Secure SMS’ service has been launched by ERCOM, a telecom solution provider, dedicated to improving usage and confidence in telecommunication networks.
The service is a part of its Cryptosmart Mobile Suite, which it released in 2008. Both voice and data transmission is protected by the patent-based and certified solution. Besides it also encrypts data stored on the device, and blocks MMS, SMS and Internet attacks.
According to ERCOM, Secure SMS offers confidentiality, through the encryption of SMS messages; authenticity, since the sender’s identity cannot be falsified; and integrity, as users can be confident that messages have not been modified.
Vodafone unveils eight new own-brand mobiles
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Eight new own-brand mobile phones have been launched by Vodafone and it has also unveiled its first Android device. Vodafone 845 running on the Android 2.1 Eclair software will be launched in 12 Vodafone markets, including the UK.
Some of the features of Vodafone 845 are 2.8-inch touch screen, Wi-Fi connectivity and 3 megapixel camera and comes pre-loaded with Vodafone 360 services. A slim 2.5G entry-level full qwerty keyboard device for optimised internet browsing with Opera Mini, e-mail and SMS chat has also been introduced by the telco for the customers in the emerging markets under the brand name Vodafone 546.
For low-end, touch-screen market, Vodafone 543 and Vodafone 547 has been introduced. 2 .4-inch screen, the Opera Mini browser and Vodafone’s pre-pay balance indicator for an on-screen display of how much credit is available to use. Vodafone 350 and 345 are the two other variants of a low-cost handset. The Vodafone 247 offers similar features as that of Vodafone 547 plus a colour display and includes a solar panel for recharging.
