Wireless Federation

Hungary’s Magyar Telekom & E.ON AG sign power retail sales deal

On 05.06.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Hungary’s largest telecommunications company by market share, Magyar Telekom Nyrt has stepped its foot into the power retail sales market to retain existing customers and to gain new ones. The move has been described as a long-term strategic step and not a short-term revenue generator.

German utility giant E.ON AG and Magyar Telekom has entered in to a partnership as per which former will be Magyar’s strategic power supplier.

Deutsche Telekom AG owns majority of Magyar Telekom and the operator will offer smart metering services of natural gas and electricity both to households and small and medium-size companies. The new service will be offered in five cities in Hungary initially and will be expanded in the second half of this year.

According to Chief Executive Christopher Mattheisen, consumers opting for Magyar’s new services could save between 5% and 8% of their annual spending on natural gas and electricity.

Filed under:Mobile Tagged with: Deutsche Telekom • Europe • Hungary • Magyar Telekom • operator • Smart

Mobile Gaming destined for Growth: research

On 04.15.10, In Mobile Marketing, By Editor

A research agency has released the results of a study on mobile gaming highlighting the potential for growth in the mobile gaming market, despite a 13% decline in the number of US mobile gamers during the past year.

This overall decline was driven by a 35% decline in mobile gaming among feature phone subscribers, who represent approximately 80% of the market, which contrasted with a sizeable 60% increase in the number of gamers using Smartphones.

According to an official source, although the number of mobile gamers has declined in the past year, there is reason for significant optimism about the future of this market.

In his opinion, as the market transitions from feature phones to Smartphones, the dynamics of gameplay are also shifting towards a higher quality experience. As a result, they can expect to see a profound increase in adoption of this activity, both in terms of audience size and overall engagement.

Filed under:Mobile Marketing Tagged with: Mobile • On mobile • Smart • smartphone • smartphones • U.S

FLO TV to add social media

On 04.14.10, In Mobile Marketing, By Editor

FLO TV, Qualcomm subsidiary has announced that it is going to enhance its mobile TV service with new interactive applications that integrate video with Web-based content and social media tools.

According to FLO TV President, Bill Stone, with consumers’ mobile entertainment habits evolving rapidly, FLO TV will be integrating its current live linear video with relevant, on-demand content and interactive features that complement the programming viewers are watching in real-time.

In his opinion, their innovative, nationwide multicast network is at the heart of this solution and will allow them to distribute live mobile TV and rich mobile media services to a range of new devices from Smartbooks to e-readers and tablets.

The company has also declared that that in addition to integrated experiences, it will be having an expanded suite of Mobile TV services, including interactive capabilities, pay-per-day and event passes, and time-shifted viewing options by the second half of 2010.

With the new services, the users will be able to work upon interactive features that will enable them to interact with programming and advertising, allowing consumers to click for more information about a show or click to buy an advertised product.

Filed under:Mobile Marketing Tagged with: FLO TV • iDEN • India • Mobile TV • Qualcomm • Smart • Smartbooks

Nine Multimedia launches Mobile CRM Tool

On 04.08.10, In Mobile Marketing, By Editor

Nine Multimedia has announced the launch of its first ever Mobile Marketing CRM Solution, Nine Mobile.

This online tool is all set to enable marketers to send special offers, coupons, video, audio, text, alerts and notifications to consumers’ mobile phones. This is a platform which will allow companies to interact and manage their customers through their mobile phones.

With this app a user can also quickly and easily create and change a company’s mobile website apps and landing pages using the online Smartphone Web App builder. It is compatible with any mobile with a web browser.

Filed under:Mobile Marketing Tagged with: CRM • Mobile • Mobile Marketing • Mobile Web • Multimedia • Smart • smartphone • Video

Vodafone UK signs contract with British Gas

On 03.30.10, In Mobile Marketing, By Editor

Vodafone UK has signed a contract with British Gas on the rollout of smart metering in the UK. This multi-million pound contract will be providing nearly 1 million GPRS connections within household meters.

With this contract, the families will no longer need to wait in for someone to read their energy meter. Instead, they will be getting a bill automatically for exactly what they have used with the energy use data sent from the in-home smart meter back to British Gas over the Vodafone network

According to Peter Kelly, Vodafone’s Enterprise Director, the company is always improving services to make their customers’ lives easier. They are pleased to work with British Gas on this trial to accelerate the roll-out of smart meters into British homes.

Filed under:Mobile Marketing Tagged with: British • energy • GPRS • Smart • UK • Vodafone • Vodafone UK

Openwave launches Smart User Repository

On 03.29.10, In Mobile Marketing, By Editor

Openwave Systems, a global software innovator delivering context-aware mediation and messaging solutions, has announced the launch of its Openwave® Smart User Repository for operators which is highly scalable and offers high speed.

According to Openwave, the solution is an excellent candidate for operators’ 3GPP user profile repository (UPR) and user data repository (UDR) requirements because of its scalable and reliable architecture.

In the opinion of John Giere, Senior Vice President of Products and Marketing at Openwave, as operators continue to witness unprecedented data traffic volumes, it is incumbent upon them to consider integrated policy management tools that will help them rapidly access user profile and policy information as is common in the web world.

One of the longstanding Tier 1 North American operators has already deployed their repository and is currently processing in excess of 2.5 billion queries a day, Giere informed.

Filed under:Mobile Marketing Tagged with: North America • Novator • Openwave • Smart

Certified products to launch this year: HomeGrid Forum

On 03.24.10, In Mobile, By Editor

The HomeGrid Forum expects industry players to begin launching certified wired home networking products which are capable of turning any power socket into a network access point, before the end of 2010.

According to Matt Theal, president of the HomeGrid Forum, at first the company will see products that plug into the wall which then connect using Ethernet cable to the back of a device.

Then eventually the silicon will be integrated onto PCI-Express cards, the device’s motherboard, or into the power supplies themselves. He also added that other areas of the market will eventually include smart grid products and connected white goods.

For a number of years, devices that can send IP data through a home’s power cables have been around. However, according to Theal, until now there have been no industry-wide standards, meaning interoperability issues have been rife.

Filed under:Mobile Tagged with: Ethernet • HomeGrid • PCI-Express • Silicon • Smart

Smartphones Technologies launches Basketball iPhone Application

On 03.23.10, In Mobile Marketing, By Editor

Smartphones Technologies, Mobile application publisher has launched â€˜College Basketball Bracket Challenge’ for the iPhone. With this application, the college basketball bracket challenge allows fans to create their own tournament bracket compete against their friends, and see if their picks land them on the Leaderboard.

After each game, the scores will be automatically updated so that fans can see if their picks move on to the next round. Fans can easily switch from the List view to the Bracket view
College Basketball Bracket Challenge allows fans to create their own tournament bracket, compete against their friends, and see if their picks land them on the Leaderboard.

This will enable fans to follow their favorite teams all the way to the championship, whether they are at home or on the go. For people who buy a â€˜College SuperFans’ app get the College Basketball Bracket Challenge inside College SuperFans apps as a supplementary gift.

According to Mike Merrill, the company is giving fans features they expect in college sports apps by integrating the Bracket Challenge app functionality into the existing College SuperFans app.

Filed under:Mobile Marketing Tagged with: iPhone • Leaderboard • Smart • smartphone • smartphones

Mobile Web users rise to 69.9M: Study

On 03.19.10, In Mobile Marketing, By Editor

According to Millennial Media’s SMART report, there has been an increase in the number of mobile Web users by 4 percent to 69.9 million in the United States in January.

The increase took place up from 67 million users and Millennial Media’s unique audience reach increased by 6.88 percent in January, from 54.3 million to 58.1 million unique users month over month to an 83 percent reach of the mobile Web.

There was also a third-party study conducted on the growth of mobile fundraising and its audience’s demographic.

According to Mack McKelvey, senior vice president of marketing at Millennial Media, the company has seen data that indicates the Mobile Web is much larger than approximately 70 million users, but since they have been reporting Nielsen data for the past 11 months, they can at least watch the trendline.

As per the company the good news is that the mobile Web increased by nearly three million users month over month. The company watched user session times increase from 4:57 in Jannuary, to 5:14 in February. It is said to be the longest time the company has seen since June 299 SMART.

Millennial Media is a mobile advertising company. It has a SMART report which delivers monthly insights on the key factors in mobile advertising.

Filed under:Mobile Marketing Tagged with: Smart • United States

Apps revenue to increase manifold by 2012- GetJar

On 03.17.10, In Mobile Marketing, By Editor

A report has been released by independent app store GetJar predicting that the worth of the global mobile applications market will become as high as $17.5 billion (£11.5 billion) by 2012. The current value is a fourfold increase from its value of $4.1 billion in 2009. It has also been predicted that an increase from 7 billion in 2009 to almost 50 billion in 2012 will be noticed in the total number of mobile app downloads as well.

Off-deck paid-for apps will become the biggest revenue generator by 2012. In 2009, on-deck apps accounted for over 60% of all apps revenue but the percentage is expected to fall under 23% by 2012. Apart from apps, opportunities for both high end smartphones and feature phones have also been reflected in the report.

According to the report, revenue opportunities in Europe are set to soar from $1.5 billion in 2009 to $8.5 billion in 2012, while in North America, the figure will rise from around $2.1 billion to around $6.7 billion in 2012. Currently, Asia is the most popular country with applications having 37% of global downloads in 2009. However, North America accounts for the spending of maximum money for downloading these applications.

Filed under:Mobile Marketing Tagged with: ASIA • Europe • fourfold • GetJar • manifold • North America • Off-deck • Smart • smartphone • smartphones