MTN and Bharti now rivals in a bid for Zain.

On 10.07.09, In Mobile, By Editor

What was to be a merger is now likely to turn into a battle to acquire Zain.  Reliable sources have revealed that a dialogue between Airtel and Zain has now been initiated via intermediaries. With this Bharti will now take on MTN in a bid to acquire Zain.

Last month, MTN CEO Phutuma Nhleko had stated that it would consider buying the African assets of Zain Telecom if the deal with Bharti did not go through.

Bharti Airtel is trying its hardest best to get a foothold in Africa, which is where the growth story is playing out as well.

Zain is considered a valuable asset because it has over 69 million customers and operations in 24 countries across West Asia and Africa, and a market capitalisation in excess of $19 billion. In Africa alone, it has 41 million customers and is the number one mobile operator in 12 of the 16 countries it operates in. As a comparison, MTN has over 103 million customers and operates in 21 countries.

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Grameenphone selects Huawei to deploy solar-powered BTSs in Bangladesh

On 08.17.09, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Huawei, a leader in providing next-generation telecommunications network solutions for operators around the world, today announced that it has been selected by Grameenphone (GP), a subsidiary of Telenor, to deploy Bangladesh’ s first solar-powered base transceiver stations (BTS).

Huawei will install its fourth-generation base stations, using a solar and diesel generator hybrid power solution to provide mobile connectivity in rural areas. The base stations will primarily be powered by harnessing solar energy without having to be linked to an electricity grid. The diesel generator will be used as a backup. (more…)

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GSMA advances Embedded Mobile Initiative with launch of competition (UK)

On 07.01.09, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The GSMA today announced new developments in its Embedded Mobile Initiative, including work to establish standard design guidelines for embedded mobile applications and the kick-off of a competition to drive development in the embedded mobile market. The goal of the Embedded Mobile programme, which was launched in November 2008, is to foster new business opportunities by bringing the benefits of continuous mobile connectivity to embedded devices in the clean energy, education, healthcare, transport, consumer electronics and smart utilities sectors.

“The benefits of embedded mobile to businesses and consumers are nearly endless, from enabling a travelling family to easily transmit holiday photos to relatives at home, to helping a vending company automatically track stocking levels and operating status of its machines, to allowing power companies to remotely collect data from across meter and power grids,” commented Michael O’Hara, Chief Marketing Officer for the GSMA. “As the programmes announced today demonstrate, we are keenly focused on reducing industry fragmentation in the delivery of embedded mobile solutions, facilitating economies of scale in design and production and driving cross-industry awareness of module designs.”

To further promote the development of the embedded mobile market, the GSMA has kicked off a competition whose goal is to identify best-in-class embedded modules across a number of categories, as well as mobile service applications and solutions. The first stage of the competition, which will focus on leading embedded modules, will be held at the Mobile Asia Congress in November 2009. The second stage of the competition will showcase innovative service applications and solutions at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February 2010.

(more…)

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RIM launches BlackBerry Tour smartphone

On 06.16.09, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Research In Motion (RIM) today introduced the BlackBerry® Tour™ – a powerful new 3G BlackBerry® smartphone for CDMA customers in North America. The new BlackBerry Tour smartphone offers state-of-the-art communications and multimedia capabilities with outstanding mobile performance and consummate styling. It is a feature-packed and highly refined world phone that keeps you connected and lets you tour the world in style.

“BlackBerry continues to be the top selling smartphone brand in North America and we are proud to add this powerful new 3G world phone to our successful product portfolio,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at Research In Motion. “With its striking design and exceptional performance, the new BlackBerry Tour will offer a compelling choice for the growing number of wireless customers looking to upgrade their existing cell phone to a smartphone.”

The BlackBerry Tour smartphone allows customers to stay seamlessly connected – across town and around the world. It supports high-speed 3G EV-DO Rev. A networks in North America, as well as 3G UMTS/HSPA (2100Mhz) and quad-band EDGE/GPRS/GSM networks abroad. (more…)

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Taiwan Mobile & RIM launch BlackBerry Storm in Taiwan

On 06.10.09, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Taiwan Mobile and Research In Motion (RIM) (Nasdaq: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today announced that the highly anticipated BlackBerry® Storm™ – the first touch-screen BlackBerry® smartphone – will be available in Taiwan tomorrow.   The BlackBerry Storm smartphone features the world’s first “clickable” touch-screen and delivers the renowned usability and
performance of the BlackBerry solution with powerful communications and multimedia features.
Honoured with the GSMA’s Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough award at Mobile World Congress 2009, the BlackBerry Storm smartphone’s unique SurePress™ touch-screen depresses ever so slightly when the screen is pressed, dramatically enhancing the touch interface for both typing and navigation and giving users an experience they can actually feel. The BlackBerry Storm offers a large and stunning display together with a first class phone and the industry’s leading email and messaging capabilities, as well as many other powerful features including 3G (HSPA) network support, desktop-style web pages, advanced multimedia capabilities, 3.2 megapixel camera and built-in GPS – all designed to give users a fast and intuitive mobile experience. (more…)

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Telefonica to introduce Message Talk service

On 04.27.09, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Telefonica is planning to commercially bring its Message Talk service in 2009. This service is offered under the partnership of South Korean mobile operator KT Freetel (KTF) and the GSM Association (GSMA). The service groups text messages by sender as if it were a usual conversation, so the experience for the customer is close to instant messaging, according the source from Telefonica.

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Visa works with GSMA to extend access to secure mobile financial services globally

On 02.19.09, In Mobile, By Editor

Visa Europe and Visa Inc., the world’s largest retail electronic payments network1, announced plans to work with the GSMA to advance the delivery of mobile financial services around the world.

As part of the continuing collaboration between the two organizations, the GSMA has selected Visa as a provider for mobile money transfer solutions globally, and is working to execute an agreement to formalize participation terms. Visa is already a leading provider of money transfer solutions with active programs in 14 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

This announcement was made at the GSMA Mobile World Congress, the leading event for the mobile communications industry, where Visa is showcasing a range of mobile payment innovations.

“By combining the world’s largest retail electronic payments network and the world’s most popular wireless technology, we can take Visa beyond the card to mobile handsets, a move that can help accelerate the deployment of mobile payment services,” said Elizabeth Buse, Global Head of Product for Visa Inc. “Beyond growing our business, enabling money transfer and payments on mobile handsets has the potential to make a profound difference in the lives of hundreds of millions of people worldwide.”
(more…)

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dotMobi Collaborates with GSMA for New Options with Award-Winning DeviceAtlas Product

On 02.19.09, In Mobile, By Editor

dotMobi today announced its collaboration with the GSM Association (GSMA: 66.05, 0, 0%) to make the award-winning DeviceAtlas(TM: 15.1299, 0, 0%) database available with an option for Type Allocation Codes (TAC: undefined, undefined, undefined%). This will allow network operators to offer a host of new, innovative content and services tailored to users’ handsets. For instance, operators could send a welcome MMS to roaming customers with media-rich weather reports and links to local mobile Web sites rather than a static SMS network welcome message.

“The technology is simple but powerful,” said Paul Nerger, dotMobi’s VP of Advanced Services and Applications. “Every mobile phone has a unique International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI: 15.1299, 0, 0%) number. And the IMEI numbers contain a Type Allocation Code (TAC: 2.88, 0, 0%), which the GSMA allocates to each make and model of mobile phone. When users turn on their handsets, the IMEI number is instantly recognized by the network operator. That means operators can identify the make and model of a user’s handset and — when combined with DeviceAtlas — the phone’s exact capabilities. This allows custom content and messages tailored for the phones capabilities to be pushed to the subscriber.”

DeviceAtlas is a superset of existing mobile device databases and contains attribute information for more than 5,500 devices around the world, including leading-edge mobile devices like the Apple iPhone, RIM Blackberry, Nintendo DS Lite and Amazon Kindle.

Trey Harvin, CEO of dotMobi, said, “This is an exciting step forward in the development of advanced ‘value-added’ services. It represents the missing puzzle piece that allows media-rich content to be pushed to all phones, tailored to match a phone’s capabilities. Combining our award-wining DeviceAtlas product with the GSMA’s TAC database offers great opportunities for operators, advertisers and subscribers to provide sophisticated mobile content across the widest possible range of handsets.”

More information on DeviceAtlas — including a free Web-based version and free, fully licensed version for developers — is available at http://deviceatlas.com. Additionally, dotMobi offers other popular content creation tools on the free http://mobiForge.com developer forum to help businesses and brands more easily create device-aware mobile content.

About dotMobi

Headquartered in Dublin, dotMobi is a worldwide leader in enabling the development & discovery of quality mobile content through innovative services, helping businesses and individuals reach the world’s billions of mobile phone users. dotMobi spurs mobile industry innovation by giving content providers the tools they need to ensure the Web will work on mobile phones with speed, accuracy and relevant content.

dotMobi is backed by leading mobile operators, network & device manufacturers, and Internet content providers, including Ericsson, GSM Association, Hutchison 3, Microsoft, Nokia, Orascom Telecom, Samsung Electronics, Syniverse, T-Mobile, Telefonica Moviles, Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM), Visa and Vodafone.

Visit http://dotMobi.mobi for information

   

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GSMA expands reach of Mobile Money Transfer Programme

On 02.18.09, In Mobile, By Editor

The GSMA  announced new developments in its Mobile Money Transfer (MMT) programme, an initiative that leverages mobile to facilitate access to money transfer services. Complementing the successful alliance that has been in place with The Western Union Company for the past eighteen months, the GSMA has selected Belgacom International Carrier Services (Belgacom ICS) and its technology partner eServGlobal as a new remittance provider in the MMT programme. To add further flexibility for operators, the GSMA has also chosen the RBS Group, a global bank, as a remittance partner and is working with them to finalise the offering.

“Since the launch of the MMT programme in 2007, we’ve made significant progress to catalyse the mobile money market,” said Bill Gajda, Chief Commercial Officer for the GSMA. “We’ve delivered live commercial deployments of mobile remittances and established five active corridors with Western Union, we’ve increased the number of markets served from three to 54, and we’ve moved the market from one wholesale remittance provider in 2007 to 12 providers today. In addition, we’ve established price points that enable mobile operators to offer affordable services to consumers, which will make remittances much more accessible to a larger addressable market. The partnerships we’re announcing today will serve to further accelerate the availability of money transfer and other financial services to a wider section of the global community.”

The GSMA and its MMT partners have established a commercial and technical framework that enables mobile operators to deploy services that allow consumers to send and receive low-denomination, high frequency money transfers using their mobile phones. With the alliances with Western Union, Belgacom ICS and the RBS Group, the MMT programme offers a variety of solutions to mobile operators. The GSMA will continue to build partnerships that will enable it to support the four remittance provider models that have been identified through the programme: Global Processing Company, Wholesale Bank, New Company and Wholesale Remittance Provider.

Each of the partners announced offers a unique proposition in the mobile money transfer value chain, further expanding the scope of the programme and its services. For instance, in addition to being a mobile remittance platform, Belgacom ICS’ HomeSend solution, which was built in partnership with eServ Global, is capable of providing international air time transfer and top up. Beyond RBS’ market-leading foreign exchange trade system, the Group brings in-market regulatory compliance and banking operations expertise to operators through a co-branded (‘Powered by RBS’) joint offering in relevant markets.

About the GSMA

The GSMA represents the interests of the worldwide mobile communications industry. Spanning 219 countries, the GSMA unites more than 750 of the world’s mobile operators, as well as 200 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, including handset makers, software companies, equipment providers, Internet companies, and media and entertainment organisations. The GSMA is focused on innovating, incubating and creating new opportunities for its membership, all with the end goal of driving the growth of the mobile communications industry.

For more information, please visit www.gsmworld.com

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Toshiba develops USIM Card compatible with NFC Mobile Phones (Japan)

On 02.09.09, In Mobile, By Editor

Toshiba Corporation announced the development of a new USIM card for use in mobile phones supporting the NFC (Near Field Communication) function, in anticipation of the worldwide rollout of mobile contactless services forecast for 2010 and 2011. Toshiba plans to release samples of the new card in the third quarter of 2009, and will exhibit the card and provide full details at the GSMA Mobile World Congress 2009, to be held in Barcelona, Spain, from February 16 through 19.

Toshiba’s newly developed USIM card meets the latest specifications of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute-Smart Card Platform (ETSI SCP) and the GSM Association (GSMA). It is also compatible with the GSMA’s Pay-Buy-Mobile programme, and offers full support for mobile contactless services, and meets all the security levels required for international payment applications.

Toshiba is able to draw on capabilities in mobile phone handsets, semiconductors and systems to deliver a lineup of newly developed USIM cards offering high value-added solutions.

Toshiharu Watanabe, Toshiba Corporate Senior Vice President and President and CEO of the Social Infrastructure Systems Company, said: “The introduction of a USIM card is a significant development for Toshiba, and with our company’s advanced mobile technology and USIM, we would like to provide new solutions to the customer. We are also excited to support the advance of the Pay-Buy-Mobile programme promoted by GSMA, based on our technological achievements in the financial Smart Card sector.”

Moving forward, Toshiba plans to complete final development of the new card by 3Q 2009, when it expects to begin provision of samples to Mobile Network Operators worldwide. With the introduction of the USIM card to the mobile market, Toshiba looks to support mobile phone users with enhanced convenience and full security, and to facilitate the successful development of NFC worldwide.

About Toshiba

Toshiba is a world leader and innovator in pioneering high technology, a diversified manufacturer and marketer of advanced electronic and electrical products spanning information & communications equipment and systems; digital consumer products; electronic devices and components; power systems, including nuclear energy; industrial and social infrastructure systems; and home appliances.

The Smart Card Systems Sales & Marketing Department, is part of the Security & Automation Systems Division in Toshiba’s Social Infrastructure Systems Company. The department has operated for over 20 years and, in addition to development of the USIM card, its achievements include Japan’s first Smart Card. Solutions provided by the department include high-security credit cards; the CAS card, which controls network scrambling of broadcast transmissions; and ID cards used in insurance cards and drivers licenses. Toshiba continues to work on behalf of its customers through overseas subsidiaries and business partners around the world.

For more information, please visit  http://www.toshiba.co.jp/index.htm

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