Wireless Asia articles from March 2003

Wireless Asia archives from March 2003

Do or die for Bluetooth. (Unwired).
March 15, 2003... An unintentional theme runs through this issue of Wireless Asia, concerning the ease of use and interoperability of new mobile tech. Given the extent to which this industry is relying on unproven technology to stir up fresh business, we should...

Samsung's Symbian play targets Nokia. (News Analysis).
March 15, 2003... South Korea's Samsung Electronics stole the show at this year's 3GSM World Congress in Cannes, France. The company started the week with the unveiling of a new Windows-based smartphone, the first Microsoft-powered device from a tier one handset...

WLAN shipments doubled. (Insight: one month's wireless research).
March 15, 2003... Asian WLAN shipments in 2002 grew 130% in volume and 58.2% in sales, says a Frost & Sullivan study. It forecast WLAN vendor revenues will rise from $421.2m in 2002 to 1.845b in 2009, at a compound growth rate of 30.4%. Growth drivers will...

Uplift in Asian WLAN services. (Insight: one month's wireless research).
March 15, 2003... WLAN services are finally picking up speed in the Asia-Pacific after two years of struggling to get off the ground, says Gartner Dataquest. It says Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan are seeing a wider choice of...

Bullish on UMTS. (Insight: one month's wireless research).(universal mobile telecommunications system)(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Contrarian US research house Shosteck proclaims that UMTS is too important to be allowed to fail. Right now, UMTS is tracking along the same undistinguished path as GSM in its early days, but eventually it will live up to its technology...

Wireless appliances. (Insight: one month's wireless research).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... The integration of wireless and consumer electronics businesses was the driving theme at the recent Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas, reports Rutberg Research. It notes current penetration by wireless of the CE space is limited, and it...

State-of-the-art W-CDMA from ZTE. (Advertorial).
March 15, 2003... Third generation cellular is bringing the future of mobile communications to us. Today, the construction of 3G networks around the globe is underway. ZTE, China's largest listed telecommunications equipment vendor, began its 3G research as...

EDGE's catch-22: handsets vs. rollouts. (News Analysis).
March 15, 2003... With North America seeing two massive EDGE rollouts in the second half of this year, Asia is also poised to be a potential market for EDGE as interest grows in the region. Hong Kong's Peoples Telephone, for example, is likely to be the...

Unicom tests the GSM 1x waters. (News Analysis).
March 15, 2003... Qualcomm has finally found someone to try out its controversial GSM 1x solution. Last month, China Unicom announced it will conduct a GSM 1x trial in the city of Suzhou in Jiangsu province starting sometime in the second quarter of this year....

Hutchison-backed 3 unveils its first two packages for 3G services, along with along with a pay-as-you go service with no monthly fee. (Movements).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Hutchison-backed 3 unveils its first two packages for 3G services, along with along with a pay-as-you go service with no monthly fee. Hutchison says its prices are cheaper than current mobile data offerings

France Telecom's Orange says it will make a decision on its 3G supply contracts by the end of the year. (Movements).(Orange France S.A.)(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... France Telecom's Orange says it will make a decision on its 3G supply contracts by the end of the year--one that will likely mean further deals with Orange subsidiaries in other markets.

Nokia unveils the N-Gage mobile gaming platform, a device that could chew up packets on a UMTS network, if only it weren't made with a GPRS receiver instead. (Movements).
March 15, 2003... Nokia unveils the N-Gage mobile gaming platform, a device that could chew up packets on a UMTS network, if only it weren't made with a GPRS receiver instead. The platform is a tri-band, with 4,096 colors, Bluetooth and J2ME. The platform will...

Samsung, the only leading phone vendor to have licensed Microsoft's smartphone platform. (Movements).
March 15, 2003... Samsung, the only leading phone vendor to have licensed Microsoft's smartphone platform, will take a 5% stake in the industry-backed Symbian for $27 million.

Ericsson names Carl-Henric Svanberg as its new chief executive. (Movements).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Ericsson names Carl-Henric Svanberg as its new chief executive. Svanberg, who heads the world's biggest lockmaker, Assa Abloy, replaces Kurt Hellstrom on 8 April.

Nokia Networks will cut 550 staff, or more than 3% of its workforce. (Movements).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Nokia Networks will cut 550 staff, or more than 3% of its workforce, due to falling market demand.

Qualcomm sets a first-ever quarterly dividend and announces a $1 billion stock buyback program. (Movements).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Qualcomm sets a first-ever quarterly dividend and announces a $1 billion stock buyback program effective until February 2005.

The mobile technology patent infringement trial between InterDigital and Ericsson is postponed until 15 May. (Movements).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... The mobile technology patent infringement trial between InterDigital and Ericsson is postponed until 15 May. The suit, in which InterDigital accuses Ericsson of infringing on its patents, is in its tenth year.

Norway's Transport and Communications Ministry will auction two more UMTS licenses and push back the deadline for 3G rollouts. (Movements).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Norway's Transport and Communications Ministry will auction two more UMTS licenses and push back the deadline for 3G rollouts for current license holders Telenor and NetCom by around 15 months.

Nortel Networks believes a price war in mobile network equipment could cause the market to fall by 10% in 2003, while Motorola is bracing for a fall in the average handset selling price by $4 or $5, down from last year's $155. (Movements).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Nortel Networks believes a price war in mobile network equipment could cause the market to fall by 10% in 2003, while Motorola is bracing for a fall in the average handset selling price by $4 or $5, down from last year's $155. The US handset...

Motorola and handset leader Nokia increased their share of the world cellphone market last year, despite falling sales overall, says Strategy Analytics. (Movements).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Motorola and handset leader Nokia increased their share of the world cellphone market last year, despite falling sales overall, says Strategy Analytics. Nokia's market share was 36.1%, up from 35.6% a year earlier, while Motorola's grew to...

Motorola is pressing ahead with its offer to purchase the 26% of Next Level Communications it does not already own and believes its $30 million offer is "fair". (Movements).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Motorola is pressing ahead with its offer to purchase the 26% of Next Level Communications it does not already own and believes its $30 million offer is "fair". Next Level files suit, alleging Motorola tried to coerce minority shareholders...

Siemens gets into the luxury handset business with its new brand, Xelibri. (Movements).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Siemens gets into the luxury handset business with its new brand, Xelibri. The company unveils four models, ranging in price from $217 to $434, during London Fashion Week. The Xelibri phones range from pendants to chain-belt accessories.

Beijing: Chinese mobile users hail the Year of the Goat by sending 7 billion text messages during the first week of the lunar new year. (News map: around Wireless Asia).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Beijing: Chinese mobile users hail the Year of the Goat by sending 7 billion text messages during the first week of the lunar new year, according to data released by China Mobile and China Unicom.

Beijing: Datang Mobile teams up with Philips and Samsung to design TD-SCDMA handset chips. (News map: around Wireless Asia).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Belling: Datang Mobile teams up with Philips and Samsung to design TD-SCDMA handset chips. The three form a new JV, T3G Technology, with Datang and Philips each owning about 40% of the new firm, while Samsung takes a 20% stake. The first...

Beijing: China Netcom plans to roll out its PAS-based mobile service in Beijing this month. (News map: around Wireless Asia).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Beijing: China Netcom plans to roll out its PAS-based mobile service in Beijing this month, after receiving approval for the controversial service.

Hong Kong: Hutchison Whampoa chairman Li Ka-shing says the company will wait until after the first quarter. (News map: around Wireless Asia).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Hong Kong: Hutchison Whampoa chairman Li Ka-shing says the company will wait until after the first quarter to launch 3G in Hong Kong.

Bangkok: Hutchison Whampoa launches its new CDMA mobile service. (News map: around Wireless Asia).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Bangkok: Hutchison Whampoa launches its new CDMA mobile service. The network--65% owned by Hutchison Wireless Multimedia Holding and 35% by CAT--covers Bangkok and 25 of Thailand's 76 provinces.

Manila: the National Telecommunications Commission says the Philippines' mobile market is primed to grow by one to two percentage points in 2003. (News map: around Wireless Asia).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Manila: The National Telecommunications Commission says the Philippines' mobile market is primed to grow by one to two percentage points in 2003. The market's mobile subscriber count was 15 million at the end of 2002.

Manila: Digitel Mobile will launch its wireless service under the brand Sun Cellular in early April, with the aim of competing on price. (News map: around Wireless Asia).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Manila: Digitel Mobile will launch its wireless service under the brand Sun Cellular in early April, with the aim of competing on price. Digitel CEO Charles Lim says the company expects to acquire 1 million subscribers within the first two...

Seoul: the Korea Communications Commission approves a plan by the MIC to introduce number portability in stages from January 2004. (News map: around Wireless Asia).
March 15, 2003... Seoul: the Korea Communications Commission approves a plan by the MIC to introduce number portability in stages from January 2004. The plan allows SK Telecom subscribers to keep their number if they switch to KTF or LG Telecom.

Seoul: KT will conduct a field trial of a Flarion-built flash-OFDM wireless broadband system in Seoul. (News map: around Wireless Asia).(KT Corp.)(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Seoul: KT will conduct a field trial of a Flarion-built flash-OFDM wireless broadband system in Seoul. The trial will start in April, utilizing the 2.3 GHz frequency band.

Seoul: SK Telecom chief Pyo Moon-soo sticks by the cellco's controversial 2.5 trillion won ($2.1 billion) capex program for 2003 that calls for 30% more spending than 2002 to pay for 3G upgrades. (News map: around Wireless Asia).
March 15, 2003... Seoul: SK Telecom chief Pyo Moon-soo sticks by the cellco's controversial 2.5 trillion won ($2.1 billion) capex program for 2003 that calls for 30% more spending than 2002 to pay for 3G upgrades, but says the company will be "flexible" on 3G...

Tokyo: local cellcos object to plans by the telecoms ministry to give fixed line operators rather than cellcos the right to set rates for calls from fixed-line to mobile phones. (News map: around Wireless Asia).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Tokyo: Local cellcos object to plans by the telecoms ministry to give fixed line operators rather than cellcos the right to set rates for calls from fixed-line to mobile phones. NTT DoCoMo says the plan would cut its profit by more than 100...

Tokyo: NTT DoCoMo president Keiji Tachikawa admits the cellco will have a hard time meeting the company's target of 320,000 FOMA subscribers by the end of March due to handset delays. (News map: around Wireless Asia).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Tokyo: NTT DoCoMo president Keiji Tachikawa admits the cellco will have a hard time meeting the company's target of 320,000 FOMA subscribers by the end of March due to handset delays. DoCoMo had 152,000 FOMA users at the end of December.

Tokyo: after a number of postponements, J-Phone finally launches its W-CDMA service, but with only 150 handsets being available nationwide on launch day. (News map: around Wireless Asia).(J-Phone Communications Company Ltd.)(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Tokyo: after a number of postponements, J-Phone finally launches its W-CDMA service, but with only 250 handsets being available nationwide on launch day, while another 800 are shipped out the following week. J-Phone targets 2 million users for...

Sydney: SingTel Optus will start trialing 3G technology. (News map: around Wireless Asia).(SingTel Optus Proprietary Ltd.)(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Sydney: SingTel Optus will start trialing 3G technology to a limited number of customers in Sydney in July.

Sydney: the cost of a 3G buildout continues to take its toll on Hutchison Telecom Australia. (News map: around Wireless Asia).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Sydney: The cost of a 3G buildout continues to take its toll on Hutchison Telecom Australia, which posted a 44% wider full year loss of A$197.3 million ($116.4 million).

Reinventing the phone: the need to build a better platform: today's phones aren't built to cope with the heavy lifting required by color screens, camera phones, Java games and 3G apps. Chip vendors like Texas Instruments, Philips and Intel are on the case with rival new architectures. (Cover Story).
March 15, 2003... For consumers, 2003 is the year that mobile phones become seriously cool--outside of Japan and South Korea, of course, where handsets have been really cool for a couple of years. Color screens, polyphonic sound and digital cameras are standard...

J2ME's battle to meet the standard; Java is on course to be the standard of choice to support downloadable games and other apps to the handset. Right now, though, it's a developer's nightmare. (Wireless Tech).
March 15, 2003... The mobile industry has turned to new technologies for salvation in recent years--WAP, location-based, MMS, GPRS, to name a few. Yet none has yet been a worthy follow--up hit to mobile voice. Even the value of SMS is debatable; in some markets...

SingTel's Australian play: there's growth yet in the Australian market, says Allen Lew, Optus' managing director of mobile services. He discusses 3G's prospects and life under SingTel with Wireless Asia correspondent Lachlan Colquhoun. (1_2_1).
March 15, 2003... Wireless Asia: The Optus results for the six months to November show a 19% increase in revenue, and I've seen forecasts of 15% growth for the year to the end of March. Are those forecasts near the mark? Allen Lew: Based on the trend and...

Smartphones point to way out of the jungle. (Wheel Of Industry).
March 15, 2003... Confronted by the array of smartphones at the ITU's biennial ASIA TELECOM 2002 event in Hong Kong last December, the casual observer may find it hard to believe that sales of these devices have, to date, hardly begun to take off. While the use...

Yao Ming fever. (deals).(Sorrent to develop new basketball game based on Yao Ming)(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Wireless games developer Sorrent is working with Chinese basketball star Yao Ming to develop a Yao Ming-branded basketball game. The game is expected to be available in Greater China and Singapore in the first half of 2003.

Compal selects magic4 MMS. (deals).(Compai Electronics)(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Taipei-based mobile phone manufacturer Compal Electronics has deployed EMS and MMS clients from messaging solutions vendor magic4 into its top-end mobile products.

eZiText in legend phones. (deals).(Zi Corp.)(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Zi Corporation's eZiText predictive text input technology is now embedded in a new line of GSM handsets to be launched in China during the first quarter of 2003 by PC maker, the Legend Group.

Secure billing partnership. (deals).(Mobileway, Samsung MPEON Asia and Hong Kong)(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Mobileway, Samsung MPEON Asia and Hong Kong mobile operators will provide a secure billing mechanism for content such as polyphonic ringtones and animated pictures from the Samsung Fun Club Web site. Users will be able to access services and be...

Streaming music for Sprint. (deals).(Warner Music Group and Sprint Spectrum L.P.)(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Warner Music Group has announced a deal with US carrier Sprint PCS to offer a streaming music clip subscription service on Sprint mobile phones. Sprint customers will be able download ringtone and animated ringtone versions of songs, have an...

LBS platform. (tools).(OpenLS compliant SmartZone Geospatial Platform 3.0)(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Webraska has launched the OpenLS compliant SmartZone Geospatial Platform 3.0. (SGP3.0), which enables the provision of location-based services through navigation, route optimization, mapping, geocoding and reverse geocoding via XML and Java...

Mobile payment solution I. (tools).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... ADC and Network365 have kicked off a joint initiative to co-market an end-to-end mobile payment solution for mobile operators. The solution enables always-on, secure m-commerce transactions between operators, banks and service providers. It...

Mobile payment solution II. (tools).(Bluefish Technologies and Zaryba)(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Bluefish Technologies and Zaryba are jointly offering a new payment solution for postpaid subscribers that allows them to view bills and settle them directly from the handset in real time. The solution is enabled through the SIM card using...

Developer kit for J2ME/Linux. (tools).(Nokia Corp.)(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Nokia has introduced its Developer's Suite for J2ME, Version 1.1 for Linux, which provides developers with tools to create, test and deploy downloadable applications that are designed for J2ME. The suite supports development of MIDP...

Wi-Fi music server. (out now).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Yamaha has unveiled MusicCast, a server that can provide music wirelessly to as many as five locations at a distance of 150 feet. The MusicCast server broadcasts music to up to five receiver stations via 802.11b. Since each receiver station has...

i-mode content. (out now).(Bandai Networks)(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Bandai Networks and its European sister unit have launched "Charappa", its first content service for the European mobile market, which is available as an official i-mode service for Germany's E-Plus Mobilfunk. Charappa offers character-themed...

Dial another Coke. (out now).(Telstra Mobile and Coca-Cola Amatil)(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Telstra and Coca-Cola Amatil have announced stage two of the "Dial a Coke" trial service, which enables Telstra's postpaid GSM customers to use their mobile phones to buy drinks from selected Coca-Cola vending machines in major cities.

Browser for PDAs. (out now).(ACCESS selling products online)(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... ACCESS has commenced online sales of its NetFront v3.0 for Pocket PC, a browser software package enabling PDA handsets installed with Pocket PC or Pocket PC2002 to browse the internet. The move is a departure for ACCESS, whose mobile browser...

3G car. (out now).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Mercedes-Benz, NEC, Siemens Mobile and SingTel Mobile are jointly showcasing the first car with integrated UMTS services in Asia. The Mercedes-Benz S-Class car is specially fitted for mobility and infotainment services, including live...

Nokia gets game. (out now).(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... Nokia has launched its new mobile game device, the Nokia N-Gage game deck, which allows users to play multiplayer games connected locally via Bluetooth or over-the-air games via mobile networks. Nokia is also working with game publishers such...

i-mode gets Flash. (out now).(NTT DoCoMo uses Flash in handsets)(Brief Article)
March 15, 2003... NTT DoCoMo will embed Macromedia's Flash technology into i-mode handsets, starting with 505i series later this year. DoCoMo says that because Macromedia has achieved 98% of the Internet, content providers are already familiar with the...

Picture perfect for 3G. (Street Wise).
March 15, 2003... Few in the industry have noticed that while the shortcomings of W-CDMA are evident, and technical glitches are real, there are plenty of examples that show users do want enhanced features, and are happy to pay for new phones even if it means...

Wi-Fi a natural fit for Asia's mobile operators. (Lynch).
March 15, 2003... For all the many columns inches have been devoted to Wi-Fi in recent months, what is most surprising is the relatively few Asian operators who have embraced this remarkable technology. What seven more surprising is that it is the broadband...

More trouble with Microsoft. (Short message: around the wireless industry).
March 15, 2003... The last-minute collapse of the Sendo-Microsoft partnership has ended up in court, with the UK phone maker claiming the software giant tried to push it into bankruptcy. Sendo was due to be the first company to produce a phone using...

Over-exposed. (Short message: around the wireless industry).
March 15, 2003... The arrival of camera-equipped handsets has prompted privacy concerns from unexpected quarters. A Hong Kong gym has but the cord on camera-phones from its locker rooms, while casinos in gambling haven Macau are considering a ban. The health...

Mobile users behaving even worse. (Short message: around the wireless industry).
March 15, 2003... Loud ringtones top the list of annoying mobile phone features, according to a new Australian study. The Telstra-backed survey of 300 mobile and non-mobile customers found 62% believe mobile users had become less considerate in social settings...

Falling sparrows. (Short message: around the wireless industry).
March 15, 2003... The mobile phone has been blamed for a lot of things. Now it is being held to account for the declining population of British sparrows. The sparrow population has fallen from 24 million to 14 million in the last 30 years, with the numbers...

Another Microsoft hack. (Short Message).
March 15, 2003... Microsoft did promise the same experience on its Smartphone platform as on the desktop, so the hacking of the mobile phone OS should come as no surprise. Microsoft issued a warning in mid-January about its new SPV terminal, sold solely by...