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January’s ten most viewed

Yahoo makes mobile move

Nokia slashes 2,300 jobs, closes German factory

Hackers get Google’s Android to run on hardware

Intel looks to ultra mobile future

Sprint to launch WiMAX end-April

Jobs catches Air at Macworld; updates iPhone

iRiver preparing to intro media phone

Sony wheels out own wireless transfer tech

Android debuts on HTC device

Nokia faces backlash over German plant closure

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picoChip unveils TD-SCDMA femtocellUK-based chip shop, picoChip, has unveiled a femtocell reference design supporting China’s homegrown TD- SCDMA standard.

The PC8808 TD-SCDMA femtocell reference design supports HSDPA and can integrate both Node B and protocol stack, integrating back into the core network using a number of different architectures including SIP, UMA or Iu, the company said.

Yang Hua, secretary general of TD-SCDMA Industry Alliance, said, “Femtocells are an important part of the TD-SCDMA ecosystem, and an essential part of operator strategy, particularly as we evolve to TD-SCDMA LTE. picoChip’s achievement significantly pushes the TD-SCDMA industry forward.”

picoChip itself expects TD-SCDMA, as

the third 3G standard, is to launch in the Olympic cities this summer.

Stuart Carlaw, research director for ABI Research, said, “Femtocells help carriers solve problems of both coverage and capacity which are applicable to all standards, including TD-SCDMA. Given how good coverage already is in China for mobile services, consumers will expect excellent indoor services too: something that is particularly important for data, which is already in high use in the region.

“For both these reasons, I’d expect TD-SCDMA femtocells to be later in deployment, but to ramp as fast if not faster than those for WCDMA. picoChip is the leading provider of femtocell chips, and once more demonstrates this position of leadership with its software-defined architecture.”

NEWS February2008

Oi looking to buy Brasil TelecomBrazilian carrier Tele Norte Leste Participacoes, which operates under the Oi brand, is in discussions to acquire fixed line rival Brasil Telecom.

Local media have valued the deal at around $2.7bn.

“Regarding possible investments in other fixed and mobile telecom companies, specifically in relation to Brasil Telecom Participacoes, we inform that we are currently engaged in conversations with its controlling shareholders,” read a statement from Oi.

“Such conversations

have been intensified in the last hours, but no document of whatever nature has been executed so far.”

The move could have a knock on effect on the long running speculation that Portugal Telecom is seeking to offload its 50 per cent share in Brazilian operator Vivo. It is believed that Portugal Telecom intends to substitute its half of Vivo for another investment in the Brazilian telecoms market where cellular penetration is 61.7 per cent.

Nokia Siemens wins $1bn Saudi Arabian contract

The year started brightly for Nokia, as the Finnish vendor signed a $1bn contract to deliver kit and services to Saudi Arabian operator Zain.

Nokia Siemens Networks said it has been tapped to supply a full turnkey 2G

and 3G mobile network, including core and radio networks, operations and business support systems, applications and managed services to Zain.

Zain, formerly known as the MTC Group, has services in 22 countries across the

Middle East and Africa and was recently awarded the third mobile telecoms licence for Saudi Arabia.

Late last year, a group of mobile operators announced a substantial investment drive in the continent’s sub-Saharan region. Carriers including MTN, Orange, Vodacom and Zain are to plough more than $580bn into the region over the next five years in a bid to extend mobile coverage to more than 90 per cent of the area’s population. The project will focus on pushing 2.5 and 3G services into the region, boosting internet access as well as voice and messaging coverage.

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Following its failure to secure a chunk of WiMAX spectrum in December, leading Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo has dissolved its wireless broadband partnership with ACCA Wireless.

Network technology fi rm ACCA had entered into a strategic partnership

with DoCoMo last summer, for the purpose of securing a licence to provide broadband wireless services based on mobile WiMAX technology.

But Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications granted the two available broadband wireless service

licences to rival operator KDDI and PHS operator Willcom, rendering the DoCoMo partnership no longer relevant.

KDDI and WIllcom are set to launch WiMAX services in 2009 and may also lease out spectrum to other parties interested in offering WiMAX services.

DoCoMo disbandsWiMAX partnership

NEWS February2008

Reding turns attention to SMS, data roaming

It looks like EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding is turning her regulatory eye onto SMS and data roaming services, following the fi rst benchmark report on international roaming by the European Regulators’ Group.

The report confi rms that implementation of the roaming regulations has generally gone smoothly and consumers are paying less for calls made and received overseas.

However, Reding said that the report also highlights that prices for SMS and data roaming services, which are currently not regulated,

“remain high with a very diverse pattern across Member States.”

The Commissioner said that a decision would be made by the end of this year on whether the charges for these services also need to be regulated.

Perhaps in anticipation of

regulation, Spanish carrier Telefonica, which owns the O2 group of companies, proposed to cut the cost of mobile data services when roaming by as much as 40 per cent.

Consumers in Spain, the UK, Germany, the Czech Republic will benefi t from a range of new data roaming tariffs aimed at those travelling within Europe ahead of the summer holiday season in July.

“This initial ERG report published today confi rms the general trend towards lower roaming prices but it would be premature to

draw fi rm conclusions at this stage,” said Reding. “However, on the basis of the fi gures in the report, I remain concerned about prices for SMS and data roaming services. We will watch developments very closely and respond appropriately by the end of 2008.”

The ERG Report covers the six months from April to September 2007 and includes data from 150 mobile providers in all Member States. But while the Commission welcomes the fact that operators have not tried to compensate for the effects of the Roaming Regulation by increasing prices for non-regulated roaming calls, the authority expressed concern that customers are being charged on a per minute basis instead of for the actual time of the call.

This is an element that will also be considered for regulation by year end.

Sprint cuts 4,000 staffUS carrier Sprint is to cut 4,000 jobs as fi nancial pressure and subscriber losses continued through the fourth quarter of 2007.

The headcount reduction is expected to be completed in the fi rst half of the year and will include management and non-management positions.

Sprint aims to save around $700m-$800m per year by the end of 2008 because of the cuts.

The company is also planning to close more than 4,000 third party distribution points and to close approximately 125, or eight per cent, of its company-owned retail spots.

In mid-January Sprint reported a net gain of 500,000 subscribers through wholesale channels, growth of 256,000 Boost Unlimited users and net additions of 20,000 subscribers within affi liate channels. But these gains were decimated by net losses of 683,000 postpaid subscribers and 202,000 prepaid users.

At the end of 2007, Sprint served a total subscriber base of 53.8 million subscribers including 40.8 million postpaid, 4.1 million prepaid, 500,000 Boost Unlimited, 7.7 million wholesale and 850,000 subscribers through affi liates.

Despite the cuts, the carrier says it is on track to launch WiMAX services to consumers and businesses at the end of April.

Barry West, president

of Sprint’s Xohm business unit, also revealed that the company would be making its wireless broadband network available on a daily, weekly or monthly subscription basis.

A soft launch of the Xohm-branded mobile internet service is already underway with Sprint employees in Chicago, Baltimore and Washington, DC.

“Sprint is delivering on its Open Internet vision with exciting and differentiated WiMAX services,” said West. “The new service agreements and device commitments will help Xohm subscribers access, enjoy, store and secure personal digital and user-generated content while experiencing new device innovation.”

Customer management and billing systems fi rm Amdocs has been awarded a multi-year agreement for software and services in support of the launch Xohm. While US storage fi rm SwapDrive is providing a hosted storage offering for Xohm subscribers to secure, organise, manage and access all their user-generated digital content though the Xohm portal from any device with a supported browser.

Gadget makers OQO and ASUSTek are set to produce a line of WiMAX-embedded devices for availability during 2008, while Zyxel will release a WiMAX modem subscriber device for mobile internet data and voice services, which will launch with the service.

Viviane Reding

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NEWS February2008

Orange UK hires three more Virgin execs

Tom Alexander, the founder and former head of Virgin Mobile, who joined Orange in October, has hired three of his

former colleagues to help turn France Telecom’s UK business around.

Alexander, who officially became chief

executive of Orange at the start of this year, is to be joined by Andrew Ralston, Gerry McQuade and Steven Day, all ex-Virgin

Mobile employees.Andrew Ralston,

former customer relations director at Virgin is to join Orange as chief operations officer. Ex-Virgin Mobile operations director Gerry McQuade will move to Orange as chief development officer, while Steven Day, Virgin’s former head of corporate affairs, will become Orange’s chief of staff and communications.

Alexander was the launch CEO of Virgin Mobile and stayed until

the firm’s merger with NTL last year. Prior to joining Virgin, he was deputy commercial director of BT Cellnet—the former brand of O2’s UK operation.

Alexander reports directly to Olaf Swantee, head of mobile operations for Europe and the Middle East at France Telecom. It is believed that Swantee has been reviewing all divisions of the company, and there have been suggestions that the UK arm has been underperforming.

The market for subscription-based music rental services is estimated to reach $3.3bn by 2012, eclipsing the market for paid-for original recordings, according to industry analyst Juniper Research.

Juniper said that mobile subscriptions which offer unlimited music downloads on a rental basis are expected to surge in popularity over the next few years, and will provide the majority of mobile revenues derived from original recordings.

Late last year, Nokia

announced its Comes With Music platform, that enables consumers to buy a Nokia device with a year of unlimited access to millions of tracks. And Omnifone launched its subscription-based MusicStation platform.

“Music rental services such as those offered by Omnifone are incredibly ‘sticky’, in that once consumers have taken the time and effort to build up an extensive playlist, they will be increasingly reluctant to unsubscribe from that service and from the operator, thereby providing a significant boost to ARPU levels,” said Juniper analyst Windsor Holden.

However, the analyst also expects that as 3G services are rolled out in emerging markets, then full track download sales will mushroom, with the volume of downloads in the Indian sub-continent alone rising from

less than two million in 2007 to nearly 480 million in 2012.

“India and China represent a tremendous opportunity for the mobile music industry,” said Holden. “Both have experienced quite remarkable levels of ringtone and ring-back tone adoption, and as more full-track services are deployed, then it is likely that the mobile handset will become the most popular personal music player in these and other emerging markets.”

Total revenues from original recordings delivered to the handset—on both a paid for and rental basis—are estimated to increase from $960m in 2007 to $6.1bn in 2012.

Interestingly, the analyst firm also predicts that the global market for end-user generated mobile music revenues will rise from $8.9bn in 2007 to nearly $17.6bn in 2012.

Music rental market to outpace ownership model

Andrew Ralston Steven Day Gerry McQuade

700MHz set to raise billionsAuction 73, the 700MHz spectrum sale, which kicked off in the US in January, raked in over $2.8bn in bids within the first two rounds.

The much sought after C-block of spectrum drew an offer of $1.24bn, although the FCC has not revealed details of any of the bidders.

A total of 266 companies entered the auction, which is expected to last for around a month and has a total reserve of $10.4bn.

Among those companies expected to be spending big bucks are Google Airwaves, Alltel, AT&T, MetroPCS, Qualcomm, Verizon and investment company Vulcan Spectrum.

Google has said that it is prepared to spend up to $4.6bn to secure itself a chunk of the spectrum. The web giant is one of the biggest backers of open access and is calling

for more competition in the broadband space.

It is understood that at least one bid has also come in for the nationwide 10MHz D-block of spectrum, which is listed as significant item for the auction, but also has the most aggressive build out requirements of all the blocks. The winner of the D-block is required to build out a nationwide public safety network, which can also be shared with commercial carriers.

Frontline Wireless, which had on its board former FCC chairman Reed Hundt, and was seen as the frontrunner for the public safety block, shut up shop a couple of weeks ago. The development raise concerns about whether any other company would bid for the D-block, but those fears seem to have been allayed for the time being at least.

Windsor Holden

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“Once again we see a big vendor heralding an ‘open’ mobile platform, which is in fact propri-etary technology that

does not support standards such as push

IMAP and SyncML...”

Carsten Brinkschulte, on Yahoo’s mobile

aspirations

“If you go to Sprint’s career website, and search for xohm, it

doesn’t appear that they are hiring the amount of employees they would need to do anything but trial ‘soft’ launch in small

parts of these cities...”

Rudy McGrudy, on Sprint’s plans to launch

WiMAX in April

“The text was “Merry Chrisma”. The mes-

sage should have read “Merry Christmas” but there was a bug in the

encoding mechanism in the SMSC...”

Chris Horn, on the 25th birthday of the SMS

“Yahoo’s Beta needs major repairs. Google, however, has by far

advanced into mobile applications and even the Beta products are usually

better than Yahoo final products...”

Asaad Alnajjar, on test-ing Google and Yahoo’s

mobile web service

Blog watch

NEWS February2008

T-Mobile UK gives away wifi accessUK mobile operator T-Mobile UK has bundled unlimited wifi access in with its Web‘n’Walk Plus and Max plans.

Starting at £12.50 per month, when connecting with a Flext mobile contract, the service gives users access to the internet using their

laptops over 3G HSDPA and wifi.

T-Mobile UK has around 1,000 wifi hotspots in the UK in locations like Starbucks coffee shops, airports, main line train stations and service stations.

Without T-Mobile’s Web‘n’Walk price plan,

access to wifi costs from £5 for 60 minutes, £10 per month for subscription or £20 per month for those without a T-Mobile phone.

In December, 3 UK and T-Mobile said they have signed an agreement to combine their 3G access networks leading to almost complete

population coverage for 3G services across the country.

The operators claim the deal is the world’s largest known active 3G network sharing agreement and will give both carriers an improvement to urban in building coverage over the next two years.

Telefonica raises interest in China

Spanish carrier Telefonica has raised its holding in Chinese fixed line operator, China Netcom, from five per cent to 7.22 per cent, at a cost of €309m.

Reports suggest that in the future, Telefonica intends to raise its stake to 10 per cent or more.

A number of overseas carriers, Telefonica and Vodafone included, are taking a strong interest in

China—one of the world’s fastest growing mobile markets—ahead of the allocation of 3G licences in the country.

In December the Chinese government lifted geographic restrictions on foreign investment and increased the ceiling on asset ownership by overseas companies from 35 per cent to 49 per cent.

The opening up of China’s domestic and international

basic telecoms service was part of the country’s commitment to the World Trade Organisation, but also comes ahead of an expected change in the Chinese telecoms landscape this year.

The Chinese government is planning to shake up the local telecoms market as part of the licensing of 3G in country. One of the most likely scenarios would see second placed mobile operator, China Unicom, split up and sold to fixed-line giants China Telecom and China Netcom.

Unicom’s operates a GSM and CDMA network and has dedicated engineering teams for each. So a separation of operations could make it easier for Unicom to find strategic investors for each of the businesses.

Speculation is rife that a merged Unicom CDMA and Netcom network will roll out CDMA2000, while China Telecom will launch WCDMA or TD-SCDMA using Unicom’s GSM network.

Leading carrier China Mobile is widely expected to commercially introduce the homegrown Chinese-air-interface TD-SCDMA, but analysts are not ruling out the possibility that China Mobile will also pursue WCDMA.

However, it is likely that the allocation of 3G licences in China, whenever that happens, will be the only thing to put an end to the rumours, as it will likely be the catalyst for restructuring. The Beijing Olympics in August of 2008 are seen to be an attractive event to launch 3G services around.

Bharti Airtel snags NSN IVRNokia Siemens Networks has won a pan-India contract from Bharti Airtel for the deployment of an interactive voice response (IVR) platform.

The platforms are HP Open Call Management Platform, Video Gateway, Televoting Application and ASR/TTS (Automatic Speech Recognition / Text-to-Speech)

Engine. It will be ready commercially by April 2008 and is expected to scale up to one billion minutes of usage per month in three years.

“Our decision to select

Nokia Siemens Networks as our partner in this programme is based on their project delivery record,” said Manoj Kohli, president and CEO, Bharti Airtel Limited.

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NEWS February2008

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New Sprint boss shakes up management

The newly installed chief executive at US carrier Sprint Nextel appears keen to put his own stamp on the company. Dan Hesse, the former head of Sprint’s fi xed line spin off, Embarq, took over the reins as president

and CEO of Sprint at the start of this year, replacing Gary Forsee, who stepped down in October.

Now chief fi nancial offi cer Paul Saleh, who had been acting as CEO since Forsee’s departure, will leave the company, accompanied by chief marketing offi cer, Tim Kelly, and Mark Angelino, president of sales and distribution.

The management shake up comes in the wake of shareholder discord as Sprint fails to keep up with rivals Verizon Wireless and AT&T in

terms of subscriber growth, following the 2005 merger of Sprint and Nextel.

William Arendt, currently senior vice president and controller of Sprint, will serve as acting CFO, while John Garcia, currently senior vice president for product development and management, will serve as acting marketing offi cer. Paget Alves, Sprint’s regional president for sales and distribution, will serve as acting president for sales and all will report directly to Hesse.

India takes Soma to realise WiMAX dream

State-owned Indian operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam, Ltd (BSNL) has signed up US WiMAX kit vendor Soma Networks to deploy what it claims is the largest WiMAX network in India.

The 802.16e-2005 mobile WiMAX network will be rolled out across three circles, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Goa, and Andhra Pradesh and will provide broadband data and voice services to an

area reaching more than 200 million people over the next three years.

“India has an immense need for connectivity across a varied and wide-ranging demographic population,” said Kuldeep Goyal, chairman and managing director of BSNL. “After testing, we found Soma Networks’ solution qualifi ed to meet the requirements of our Vision 2010 mandate.”

DoCoMo working on Android handsetLeading Japanese mobile carrier NTT DoCoMo has revealed that it is working with Google on Android-based handsets for the Japanese market.

At a press conference in Tokyo, the Japanese giant announced a partnership agreement with the web fi rm to deliver search services, mobile advertising and potential i-mode applications to DoCoMo’s customers.

There was also a fairly guarded revelation that the two fi rms studying the possibility of bringing Android-based handsets to the Japanese market.

The two companies intend to making Google services easier to access through i-mode handsets, and DoCoMo is to pre-load Google Maps onto upcoming handsets.

Google Search will also be embedded within the i-mode search application with search results accompanied by key word based advertisements using Google’s AdWords platform.

The i-mode service will also get an overhaul to better feature Gmail, YouTube and Picasa, with Google set to appear as the default start-page on the full browser.

Wateen’s WiMAX winnerMotorola has announced a contract with Wateen Telecom-Pakistan for the supply of 198,000 end-user WiMAX customer premises equipment (CPE) devices for both indoor and outdoor use.

Complementing Wateen Telecom’s nationwide WiMAX network which is built using Motorola’s mobile 802.16e WiMAX and IMS solutions, the CPE units will provide consumers, small

businesses and Pakistan’s largest enterprises access to wireless services, from basic telephony and fast internet access to high-end data services such as virtual private networks (VPN) for banks and other organizations.

“Motorola’s capabilities to deliver WiMAX 802.16e solutions and CPEs ahead of the industry and our early adoption of this technology

has given us the opportunity to be the fi rst to offer WiMAX 802.16e-based broadband voice and data services in Pakistan,” said Tariq Malik, chief executive offi cer, Wateen Telecom.

Wateen Telecom-Pakistan anticipates a rapid demand for residential connections for its Motorola-based WiMAX broadband services during its fi rst year of operation.

Record breaker ZainMiddle Eastern carrier Zain has announced that in the fi scal year 2007 it recorded the highest ever net profi ts in the history of Kuwait’s private sector history.

The operator, formerly known as MTC, recorded consolidated revenues of $5.91bn (KD1.677bn) for

2007, an increase of 32 per cent compared to 2006.

The consolidated EBITDA increased by 25 per cent compared to last year and reached $2.56bn (KD 725.34 million).

Active Customers grew impressively and reached 42.4 million (inclusive of three

million Iraqna customers, acquired on December 31st, 2007), an increase of 56 per cent on 2006.

MTC made the headlines last year when it paid $6.1bn for the third licence in Saudi Arabia. The bid was a world record-breaking bid represented $225 per person.

Dan Hesse

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