Wireless Asia articles from March 2005

Wireless Asia archives from March 2005

The lure of low-cost handsets.(UNWIRED)
March 1, 2005... This year's annual GSM festival has come and gone with the usual palaver about 36 (this is the year, honest) and mobile content (the future!), and much bragging about the growing number of GSM phone users. So no change there. But for...

Wi-Fi takes off across India.(NEWS ANALYSIS)
March 1, 2005... When Intel CEO Craig Barret traveled to India last November and predicted that Wi-Fi was one trend that would change the Indian communications landscape, little would he have realized that it would happen so quickly. The government's move...

Mobile gambling to expand tenfold by 2009.(INSIGHT: ONE MONTH'S WIRELESS RESEARCH)
March 1, 2005... Worldwide revenues from mobile gambling are forecast to soar from just $2 billion this year to $19.3 billion by 2009, according to a report from Juniper Research. Lotteries are expected to be the largest money-spinners, with revenues of nearly...

Falling prices stunt Wi-Fi equipment sales growth.(INSIGHT: ONE MONTH'S WIRELESS RESEARCH)
March 1, 2005... Worldwide sates of Wi-Fi equipment rose 15% to $2.8 billion last year while unit sales jumped 51% to 36.1 million. Infonetics Research predicts continued growth through 2008, with turnover reaching 80.4 million units. But with the sharp drop in...

APAC handset sales forecast to rise 12% in 2004.(INSIGHT: ONE MONTH'S WIRELESS RESEARCH)
March 1, 2005... Sales of mobile handsets increased 19% last year in Asia Pacific and are forecast to rise a further 12% this year. Of the ten Asian countries surveyed by GfK Asia, China continues to dominate the market, accounting for 61% of all units sold and...

WiMAX to take share from 3G.(INSIGHT: ONE MONTH'S WIRELESS RESEARCH)
March 1, 2005... WiMAX and other new high-speed wireless technologies will capture more than 40% of the wireless broadband market, leaving 3G with less than 60% of the market in 2009, according to TelecomView. The firm says the business case and ROI for these...

GSMA targets 'next billion' with sub-$40 Motorola handset.(NEWS ANALYSIS)
March 1, 2005... The GSM Association has set its sights on signing up the next billion GSM users, and with help from Motorola and nine GSM operators plans to find them in emerging markets with handsets priced at $30 and under. With developed markets close...

Reliance plans massive network expansion.(METRICS)
March 1, 2005... Reliance Infocomm is spending an estimated 240 billion rupees ($5.5 billion) to expand its WLL CDMA network to 5,700 towns and 400,000 villages--almost two-thirds of India's rural population--by the end of this year. The expansion is aimed at...

Mini-metrics.(METRICS)
March 1, 2005... MINI-METRICS 1 billion US dollars expected to be earned from mobile adult services this year (Juniper Research) 674.2 million US dollars earned worldwide from mobile ...

CDMA sub base jumps by 70%.(METRICS)
March 1, 2005... The number of subscribers to cdma2000 networks worldwide jumped by 70% last year to 145 million from 85.4 million in 2003. According to the CDMA Development Group, 31 new cdma2000 networks were deployed in 2004, bringing the total number of...

Cabir, the world's first mobile phone virus, has traveled from the Philippines to the US.(Movements)
March 1, 2005... Cabir, the world's first mobile phone virus, has traveled from the Philippines to the US. The virus was discovered in Philippines last year and since then has spread slowly into 12 countries and marks the beginning of the mobile phone virus...

Verizon Wireless and an associate company buys 63 wireless licenses for about $697.4m.(Movements)
March 1, 2005... Verizon Wireless and an associate company buys 63 wireless licenses for about $697.4m. The licenses were bought during an auction by the US government, which earned $2.25b from the sale of 242 licenses.

Motorola and MTC complete the first UMTS point-to-point video and voice calls across a live air connection in Kuwait.(Movements)
March 1, 2005... Motorola and MTC complete the first UMTS point-to-point video and voice calls across a live air connection in Kuwait. The calls were made as part of the UMTS trial MTC is conducting using Motorola's system.

ZTE and Alcatel sign an OEM agreement for the integration of ZTE's CDMA radio access portfolio into Alcatel's end-to-end CDMA solutions.(Movements)
March 1, 2005... ZTE and Alcatel sign an OEM agreement for the integration of ZTE's CDMA radio access portfolio into Alcatel's end-to-end CDMA solutions. The agreement covers ZTE's complete portfolio of CDMA radio access solutions, including 1xRTT, EV-DO, EV-DV...

Shipments of phones based on the Symbian OS increased 115% last year to 14.38 million, bringing the total number sold to just under 25 million.(Movements)
March 1, 2005... Shipments of phones based on the Symbian OS increased 115% last year to 14.38 million, bringing the total number sold to just under 25 million. Symbian says that there are now 41 Symbian phone models-nine of which are W-CDMA handsets--and over...

LG retains the top spot in the US CDMA handset market in 2004.(Movements)
March 1, 2005... LG retains the top spot in the US CDMA handset market in 2004, selling nearly 16 million units for a 27% market share, according to research firm IDC.

Globe Telecom picks up the first-ever GSMA award for mobile messaging at the tenth annual GSM Association Awards in Cannes.(Movements)
March 1, 2005... Globe Telecom picks up the first-ever GSMA award for mobile messaging at the tenth annual GSM Association Awards in Cannes. Globe won the award for its G-Cash m-commerce service that allows its customers--even those without bank accounts or...

Ericsson is closing a Swedish plant.(Movements)
March 1, 2005... Ericsson is closing a Swedish plant that makes radio base station modules and retrenching 463 people.

Hutchison Telecommunication International makes a bid for one of the four mobile licenses.(Movements)
March 1, 2005... Hutchison Telecommunication International makes a bid for one of the four mobile licenses in Poland.

Alcatel and Intel expand their strategic alliance on WiMAX.(Movements)
March 1, 2005... Alcatel and Intel expand their strategic alliance on WiMAX by entering into a new joint agreement to accelerate development of 802.16e nomadic and mobile WiMAX solutions.

Lucent Technologies and eAccess plan to collaborate on the development of a W-CDMA trial network to enable eAccess to evaluate mobile voice, high-speed data and multimedia services.(Movements)
March 1, 2005... Lucent Technologies and eAccess plan to collaborate on the development of a W-CDMA trial network to enable eAccess to evaluate mobile voice, high-speed data and multimedia services. The network will incorporate HSDPA technology and Lucent's IMS...

France Telecom.(Movements)
March 1, 2005... France Telecom names Didier Lombard its new chief executive to replace Thierry Breton, who was appointed France's finance minister last month.

Beijing: China's mobile phone production capacity is set to rise from 300m handsets in 2004 to 500m this year as some 40 new producers begin manufacturing.(NEWS MAP: around wireless Asia)
March 1, 2005... BEIJING: China's mobile phone production capacity is set to rise from 300m handsets in 2004 to 500m this year as some 40 new producers begin manufacturing, according to the National Development and Reform Commission. The TD-SCDMA Alliance...

Hong Kong: OFTA plans to auction off up to seven licenses for companies planning to offer services using WiMax broadband wireless access technologies.(NEWS MAP: around wireless Asia)
March 1, 2005... HONG KONG: OFTA plans to auction off up to seven licenses for companies planning to offer services using WiMax broadband wireless access technologies. The auction will be held in late 2005 or early-2006. The regulator will reserve the 3.4- to...

Bangkok: the national telecom regulator selects the consortium of Ericsson Thailand-Baker and McKenzie as its consultant.(NEWS MAP: around wireless Asia)
March 1, 2005... BANGKOK: The national telecom regulator selects the consortium of Ericsson Thailand-Baker and McKenzie as its consultant to draw up guidelines for writing new telecom licensing rules. Starting next year AIS plans to boost its annual...

Hanoi: the Vietnamese subsidiary of Hutchison wins approval to build a $650m 3G network.(NEWS MAP: around wireless Asia)
March 1, 2005... HANOI: The Vietnamese subsidiary of Hutchison wins approval to build a $650m 3G network, which it will run jointly with Hanoi Telecom.

Islamabad: Telenor will invest $1b in Pakistan's mobile network over the next five or so years.(NEWS MAP: around wireless Asia)
March 1, 2005... ISLAMABAD: Telenor will invest $1b in Pakistan's mobile network over the next five or so years. The company also plans to build nearly a 100 or more satellite offices in the country.

Jakarta: Telkom Indonesia pushes back the launch date of its telecom satellite.(NEWS MAP: around wireless Asia)
March 1, 2005... JAKARTA: Telkom Indonesia pushes back the launch date of its telecom satellite Telkom-2 to April 15 from February 14.

Seoul: the Korea Communication Commission orders KT Corp and its wireless unit KTF to pay fines totaling 8.5b won ($8.4m) for providing illegal handset subsidies to sign up new mobile subscribers.(NEWS MAP: around wireless Asia)
March 1, 2005... SEOUL: The Korea Communication Commission orders KT Corp and its wireless unit KTF to pay fines totaling 8.5b won ($8.4m) for providing illegal handset subsidies to sign up new mobile subscribers. KTF is fined 5b won and its parent KT faced...

Taipe: Taiwan Cellular plans to launch its 3G service in the second half.(NEWS MAP: around wireless Asia)
March 1, 2005... TAIPE: Taiwan Cellular plans to launch its 3G service in the second half of this year. FarEasTone says its application to provide 3G services has been approved by the regulator.

Tokyo: NTT DoCoMo sees its FOMA brand 3G services.(NEWS MAP: around wireless Asia)
March 1, 2005... TOKYO: NTT DoCoMo sees its FOMA brand 3G services pass pass the 10-million subscriber threshold on February 21. DoCoMo plans to close its money-losing PHS service to focus more resources on its core mobile business. The company will stop...

Sydney: Optus will roll out the first of its high-speed 3G network services.(NEWS MAP: around wireless Asia)
March 1, 2005... SYDNEY: Optus will roll out the first of its high-speed 3G network services in Canberra in April.

Wellington: Telecom New Zealand launches push-to-talk service, with the aim of maintaining its recent subscriber growth.(NEWS MAP: around wireless Asia)
March 1, 2005... WELLINGTON: Telecom New Zealand launches push-to-talk service, with the aim of maintaining its recent subscriber growth. The service allows users to talk with up to five other push-to-talk users simultaneously.

Singapore: MobileOne launches its 3G service and introduces 3G handsets in the market.(NEWS MAP: around wireless Asia)
March 1, 2005... SINGAPORE: MobileOne launches its 3G service and introduces 3G handsets in the market, following the end of a trial using 200 high-usage subscribers.

Kuala Lumpur: Telekom Malaysia will retire 10% of its 30,500 workforce in a government campaign to make its companies leaner, more efficient and more profit-oriented.(NEWS MAP: around wireless Asia)
March 1, 2005... KUALA LUMPUR: Telekom Malaysia will retire 10% of its 30,500 workforce in a government campaign to make its companies leaner, more efficient and more profit-oriented. Employees at all levels will be offered voluntary retirement in exchange for...

New Delhi: MTNL plans to invest up to 20b rupees ($456.4m) to expand its GSM network.(NEWS MAP: around wireless Asia)
March 1, 2005... NEW DELHI: MTNL plans to invest up to 20b rupees ($456.4m) to expand its GSM network this financial year. CDMA networks in India have a 25% market share--up from just 2% in 2002, according to the CDMA Development Group. Between December...

Reversal of fortune: will Asia give MVNOs another go?(Cover Story)
March 1, 2005... MVNOs have a dismal track record in Asia, but in Europe they're all the rage, and profitable besides. While this doesn't necessarily herald a dawn of an MVNO renaissance in the Asia Pacific, market watchers believe the potential is there for...

Tuning in on video call management: video telephony may be 3G's chief differentiator, but like all things video, QoS is crucial and difficult to guarantee. And there's more to delivering high-quality video than just throwing more bandwidth at it.(WIRELESS TECH)
March 1, 2005... Here's a true story. Your reporter was recently having Lunch in Hong Kong with a group of people employed in the financial planning sector. One of them--call her "Marge", since she declined to be named in print--took a call on her mobile, which...

Rising up the charts.(1_2_1)
March 1, 2005... LG Electronics has worked its way up to become the planet's fifth biggest handset maker, thanks in part to its dominance in CDMA and getting an early start in the UMTS handset race. Dr Choi Jin-Sung, senior VP and head of LG's Mobile...

Turn your phone into a mouse.(tools)
March 1, 2005... V-Enable releases its Motion Interface Engine, a software application designed to turn any camera-equipped mobile phone into a mouse. The software uses the camera lens on the phone to register a change in physical position coordinates of the...

UbiNetics to support HSUPA testing.(tools)
March 1, 2005... UbiNetics says it will add support for high-speed uplink packet access (HSUPA) to its TM500 Test Mobile product in the second half of 2005. HSUPA is the uplink equivalent to HSDPA, and will provide similar improvements in uplink efficiency,...

Nokia location platform.(tools)
March 1, 2005... Nokia introduces the intelligent Gateway Mobile Location Center (iGMLC) 4.0, a new platform for location-based services as part of the Nokia mPosition System. The platform supports a variety of positioning technologies for both GSM and W-CDMA,...

Third-party management.(tools)
March 1, 2005... Mobile Cohesion announces the commercial availability of its HYDRA 2.0 product, an automated third-party relationship management solution that enables service providers to implement a service exposure layer on top of their existing service...

ID 3G service problems.(tools)
March 1, 2005... Tektronix announces the Network and Service Analyzer (NSA) for UTRAN--a new 3G software application for the K15 monitoring platform that enables 3G operators to quickly identify service problems and map them to root causes in the underlying...

Qualcomm to integrate Openwave browser.(deals)
March 1, 2005... Qualcomm and Openwave Systems enter into a licensing agreement to port Openwave mobile browser and messaging software to select Qualcomm Mobile Station Modem (MSM) chipsets, starting with Qualcomm's MSM6250 chipset, enabling a phone solution...

Curitel deploys InnoPath FOTA solution.(deals)
March 1, 2005... InnoPath Software says that Korean handset maker Curitel Communications will deploy InnoPath's DeltaUpgrade Plus firmware over-the-air (FOTA) update solution to manage and send firmware updates to Curitel's mobile handsets.

Ringtone downloads via voice command.(deals)
March 1, 2005... V-Enable strikes a deal with MusicMatch that will enable mobile phone users to select ringtones from a database through spoken commands. MusicMatch Tonebox will allow consumers to search for their chosen ringtone option purely by speaking the...

Hutch Alive expands to northern India.(deals)
March 1, 2005... Celltick Technologies signs an expansion agreement with Hutchison India to deliver the Hutch Alive personalized interactive broadcast service to subscribers of Hutchison's newly affiliated mobile network operations in Northern India. Under the...

Full-song downloads.(out now)
March 1, 2005... One2Free, the youth brand for Hong Kong CSL, launches its "Full Song" download service for its music channel. Customers can now download and listen to entire songs by accessing "Music FreeR" through WAP with a Nokia 663o or Motorola E1000 3G...

MMS interworking trial.(out now)
March 1, 2005... Aicent starts its MMS interworking service trial with members of the Starmap Mobile Alliance. Starmap members will use the Aicent MMS Gateway as the central hub to establish MMS interconnection with one another, as well as with other...

MMS eXchange extension.(out now)
March 1, 2005... Comfone extends its MMS exchange service to content providers and content aggregators, which it says will simplify the provision of content to mobile operators, utilizing existing infrastructure at no extra cost.

Start your own mobile casino.(out now)
March 1, 2005... Spin3 and Microgaming launch the first complete mobile casino system, which allows casino operators, mobile network providers and any company with an Internet presence to offer a trusted and secure mobile casino. The Spin3 wireless casino...

Inter-operator MMS upgrade.(out now)
March 1, 2005... Mobile 365 announces upgrades to its inter-operator MMS service, including improved inter-operator transcoding, multi-lingual, legacy-style delivery support, enhanced international routing and reporting capabilities.

Celcom and MS alliance.(deals)
March 1, 2005... Celcom Malaysia and Microsoft announce a mutual alliance to develop and implement a software-powered service network through the Microsoft Connected Services Framework, which will allow Celcom to offer new multimedia services and apps.

Comverse and RIM integration deal.(deals)
March 1, 2005... Comverse and Research In Motion announce plans to integrate Comverse's Visual Voicemail with the BlackBerry. Comverse's Visual Voicemail is a service offered as part of Comverse's InSight open services environment.

HP scores win with SKT.(deals)
March 1, 2005... SK Telecom deploys the HP Mobile E-services Server, a key component of the HP Service Delivery Platform, which helps providers create and deliver services for mobile, fixed and broadband networks, enabling them to introduce new services...

Sanyo licenses IXI OS.(deals)
March 1, 2005... IXI Mobile licenses its feature phone operating system, IXI-Connect OS, to Sanyo and its Wi Mobile Technologies Group for a range of new mobile devices called WiPOQ. The first device, scheduled to be released in Q2, is a multimedia messenger...

Teleglobe to sell ClearMode.(deals)
March 1, 2005... Teleglobe GBRM, an indirect subsidiary of Teleglobe International obtains exclusive rights to market and sell Wmode's ClearMode mobile content distribution solution worldwide. ClearMode is a fully integrated end-to-end mobile content...

Swapcom and ORGA provide automatic detection.(deals)
March 1, 2005... Swapcom and ORGA Systems join forces to provide mobile operators with a software package that combines the automatic detection of mobiles attached to an operator network with their subsequent profiled updating for MMS, WAP, GPRS, email or...

Enhanced GPS for GSM and W-CDMA.(out now)
March 1, 2005... Cambridge Positioning Systems (CPS) launches its new E-GPS (Enhanced Global Positioning System) technology, which combines GPS with CPS' software-only Matrix solution that uses synchronization signals from GSM and W-CDMA base stations. E-GPS...

ASP-based ringback.(out now)
March 1, 2005... LogicaCMG launches a ringback tone ASP (application service provisioning) solution in conjunction with NMS Communications. By offering ringback tones through an ASP model, LogicaCMG says it is helping operators to reduce not only the overall...

Streaming TV added to Brand-n-Go.(out now)
March 1, 2005... Action Engine says it plans to integrate live streaming television into its Brand-n-Go turnkey mobile applications pack.

SyncML DM client.(out now)
March 1, 2005... Jataayu Software launches its jSync DM client, an open standards-based SyncML DM client for feature phones, smartphones and other PDA platforms.

Zi learns seven new languages.(out now)
March 1, 2005... Zi Corp adds seven languages to its predictive texting solutions: Bulgarian, Estonian, Farsi, Icelandic, Latvian, Lithuanian and Urdu.

Least-cost routing for cellcos.(this month's model)
March 1, 2005... Bandwidth exchange operator Arbinet-thexchange has launched a new managed solution for mobile interconnectivity that lets mobile operators employ least-cost routing to bring down termination costs. The service, "mobile on thexchange,"...

i-mode gathers momentum.(WIRELESS FORUM)
March 1, 2005... When Masao Nakamura took over as CEO and president of NTT DoCoMo in May 2004 there was a change of tack. Gone was Keiji Tachikawa's policy of buying minority equity stakes in overseas players to further DoCoMo's aim of becoming a global...

Can you hear the music? The biggest problem for mobile operators of course is that iPods or Walkmans don't rely on the mobile network to download content.(STREETWISE)
March 1, 2005... Perhaps the most successful branding exercise in the consumer electronics market has been Sony's Walkman line of portable music players. Like Coca-Cola and Big Mac, the term "Walkman" went far beyond being associated with the particular...

3G? What 3G?(SHORT MESSAGE: Around the wireless industry)
March 1, 2005... Lambasting a Reuters report passing on the "30 is here" message, Newswireless.net's Guy Kewney argued in a comment posted on The Register Web site last month that 3G isn't here at all--unless "here" means that "networks have found new ways to...

More megapixels = less quality.(SHORT MESSAGE: Around the wireless industry)
March 1, 2005... Handset makers have been working hard to make sure cam-phones can compete on a megapixel level with standalone digital cameras. However, claims a white paper, cam-phone image quality is becoming worse instead of better as a result. The...

Betting on adult content.(SHORT MESSAGE: Around the wireless industry)
March 1, 2005... How times change. Two years ago, few market analysts would even bother to research trends in "adult content" services on the Internet. With 3G coming into its own, however, everyone seems interested in the prospects of such content for mobile....

Ollila waxes philosophical.(SHORT MESSAGE: Around the wireless industry)
March 1, 2005... Handset market shares and 36 rollouts aren't the only things weighing heavily on the mind of Nokia chief Jorma Ollila. He's also concerned about the "era of selfishness" the world lives in today and the resurgence of religious conservatism in...

Mobile spam? Blame the operator.(SHORT MESSAGE: Around the wireless industry)
March 1, 2005... If you haven't received mobile spam yet, you either don't have a mobile phone or you're in the vast minority of mobile users, according to an international survey. The study, released last month by the University of St. Gallen,...