Technology | Fone Arena

Bharti to spend $1 bn on 3G rollout

Bharti Televentures on Monday said it will invest one billion dollars on the rollout of third generation (3G) mobile phone networks across India. “We have committed one billion dollars for roll out of 3G networks across the country,” Bharti Televentures Managing Director Akhil Gupta said at a seminar on 3G technology.

NEW DELHI: Bharti Televentures on Monday said it will invest one billion dollars on the rollout of third generation (3G) mobile phone networks across India. "We have committed one billion dollars for roll out of 3G networks across the country," Bharti Televentures Managing Director Akhil Gupta said at a seminar on 3G technology. The company is already running tests of 3G technology at some places. "We have to ensure that 3G does not remain a niche technology. It must not be confined to a particular section or geography," he said adding it should be rolled out in each and every state so that it makes commercial sense. Gupta said when the frequency is allotted to operators for 3G services, they should come with stringent rollout obligations.

"It (the frequency) must not remain an asset in the locker (of operator). Strict rollout obligations backed by bank guarantees should be set for operators so that the technology spreads," he added.

Government-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited is also gearing up to rollout 3G networks.

"Our next rollout will have provision of 3G services throughout the country. We have the equipment and are waiting for the spectrum to start the tests," BSNL Chairman and Managing Director A K Sinha said.

He said by late 2005 or early 2006 the country would see the commercial rollout of 3G services.

SOURCE PTI

Six Apart to Bring Mobile Sharing to LiveJournal Users Through Nokia Lifeblog Compatibilityobile music experience

San Mateo, CA – Six Apart, the leader in weblogging software and services, and Nokia today announced that the users of Six Apart’s LiveJournal online community can easily post text to their diaries using Nokia Lifeblog, an application solution that effortlessly keeps an organized multimedia diary of items collected with your mobile phone. LiveJournal users with paid accounts can also enhance their diaries by uploading photos with text to their LiveJournal entries.

LiveJournal is an online community organized around personal journals. Built on open source software, LiveJournal has helped fuel the rapid growth of blogging by offering consumers both free and paid accounts on its easy-to-use personal publishing service. Every week, more than 1 million users update their LiveJournals.

Nokia Lifeblog software automatically organizes photos, videos, text messages and multimedia messages into a beautiful chronology you can easily browse, search and share. Lifebloggers can already share online, from the phone or PC, via Six Apart’s TypePad personal publishing service.

"The teamwork between Six Apart and Nokia continues to result in creative ways to improve our users’ blogging experience," said Barak Berkowitz, Six Apart’s CEO. "Nokia Lifeblog allows our users to create and seamlessly update a diary on LiveJournal or TypePad, easily sharing photos and memories with family and friends as events happen."

"With LiveJournal support, Nokia Lifeblog now has the potential to reach almost 7 million LiveJournal users," said Christian Lindholm, director of Multimedia Applications, Nokia Ventures Organization. "We are delighted to be working with Six Apart and believe this is an enormous advantage for operators and other service providers, who want to offer their customers the best mobile blogging experience available."

Nokia Lifeblog is compatible with a number of handsets, such as the, Nokia 6682 and Nokia 7610 phones in the Americas, and with the Nokia 3230, Nokia 6260, Nokia 6630, Nokia 6670, Nokia 6680, Nokia 6681 and Nokia 7610 handsets in Europe and Asia. The software is also available online at www.nokia.com/lifeblog. Other Nokia Series 60 based phones will be supported as they are released. The blogging capability of Nokia Lifeblog is based on the open ATOM standard.

About Nokia

Nokia is a world leader in mobile communications, driving the growth and sustainability of the broader mobility industry. Nokia connects people to each other and the information that matters to them with easy-to-use and innovative products like mobile phones, devices and solutions for imaging, games, media and businesses. Nokia provides equipment, solutions and services for network operators and corporations. www.nokia.com.

About Six Apart

Six Apart Ltd., based in San Francisco, CA, is the company behind the Movable Type publishing platform, the TypePad personal weblogging service and LiveJournal, an online community organized around personal journals. Founded by husband and wife team Ben Trott and Mena G. Trott in 2002, who were joined by LiveJournal founder Brad Fitzpatrick early this year, and funded by Neoteny Co., Ltd. and August Capital, Six Apart’s sole focus is to create tools that enable millions of individuals, organizations and corporations to participate in the Web’s full potential by publishing their ideas on the Internet with the simple, yet powerful software and services. For more information about Six Apart, TypePad, Movable Type and LiveJournal, visit the Six Apart corporate weblog at http://www.sixapart.com/.

Six Apart is a trademark of Six Apart Ltd. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Bharti plans to begin 3G trial runs by month-end

BHARTI Tele-Ventures is set to begin trial runs of 3G mobile services by April-end. The company has sought spectrum from the Department of Telecom (DoT) to conduct the trial runs.

The company has told the DoT that it has set in place the equipment and the network required to conduct trial runs but is awaiting the release of spectrum in the 1900 Mhz, which has been earmarked for 3G services.

New Delhi: Bharti Tele-Ventures is set to begin trial runs of 3G mobile services by April-end. The company has sought spectrum from the Department of Telecom (DoT) to conduct the trial runs.

In a letter to the DoT Secretary, Brijesh Kumar, the company has said, “Bharti Cellular has planned actively to start the trials of 3G networks in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad. It is also relevant to mention that the vendors have also been identified for trials and had many rounds of detailed discussions to carry out the trails by April-end, 2005.”

The company had earlier said that it was lining up investments of $1 billion for rolling out 3G mobile services across the country.

Maran asks cellular industry to reduce mobile roaming charges

The Communication and IT Minister, Mr Dayanidhi Maran, on Tuesday said the roaming charges of private cellular operators are ‘very high’ and the industry must look into it to bring them down.

NEW DELHI: The Communication and IT Minister, Mr Dayanidhi Maran, on Tuesday said the roaming charges of private cellular operators are ‘very high’ and the industry must look into it to bring them down.

“Mobile charges for roaming are very, very high… I think they should be much lower than the existing rates. BSNL does not charge roaming, why can’t the private operators also take this initiative to bring them down,” Mr Maran said at the cellular summ it organised by Cellular Operators Association of India.

The Government, on its part, will do everything to remove all the hurdles coming in the way of growth of telecommunication, the Minister said adding ‘but the operators also must reciprocate from their side.’

Replying to industry’s demand that the Government should reduce the licence fee and allow BSNL to share the infrastructure especially for the rural areas, Mr Maran said, “Don’t waste your time in Delhi making rounds to the ministry… Go to the rural are as and connect India. We, on our part, will do everything to see that all hurdles are removed one by one.”

Maran also launched low price cellular handset of Motorola costing about Rs 1,500. – PTI

iTunes Mobile Coming Soon in June

Think Secret is reporting that Apple is finishing up a version of iTunes music software for Mobile Phones. The software currently carries the name of iTunes Mobile 1.0 which has been in development since last year when Motorola and Apple teamed..

MSN Video Service offers Video Downloads to Mobile Devices

Microsoft has launched a video download service primarily targeted for use on mobile devices. The MSN Video Downloads service offers daily television programming, entertainment clips, music videos, and other digital video content for viewing on Smartphones, Pocket PCs, and Portable Media Centers.
ms mobile video
The service first appeared at CES this past January in Las Vegas, users were able to downloaded mobile formatted content to their PCs and then transfer it to their Windows Mobile software powered device.

The service is only available to US customers for a fee of $19.95 for one year. You must be using Windows XP, Internet Explorer 5.0+, and Windows Media Player 10 to get access to all MSN Video content available, including The Food Network, DIY Network, Home & Garden TV, Fox Sports, and MTV Networks to name a few.

SOURCE:mobilemag.com

Skype Coming To Mobile Phones

At the Voice On the Net (VON) conference in Toronto, Skype Technologies co-founder and CEO Niklas Zennstrom reported that a mobile version of Skype will be available this year…

At the Voice On the Net (VON) conference in Toronto, Skype Technologies co-founder and CEO Niklas Zennstrom reported that a mobile version of Skype will be available this year.

Skype is a free global telephony application that allows for VoIP communications, it currently runs on Mac OSX, Windows and Pocket PC, Skype plans to release a version for Embedded Linux, Symbian or Windows Mobile devices later this year.
Skype
�We will encourage hardware manufacturers to deploy Skype on their devices.?? said Zennstrom. SkypeMobile for mobile devices (our unofficial name for the new Skype) will be targeted to hardware manufacturers for integration into new dual-mode (GPRS + WiFi) mobile devices once made available to carriers. Our guess is that whichever manufacturer will adopt Skype first is the platform SkypeMobile will be released for.

Regulatory issues may slow Skypes deployment down, large telecommunication companies have huge pull when it comes to communication regulations. They earn billions of dollars each year from long distance calls, they also pay the government millions more in taxes each year. According to Zennstrom these companies will be the last ones to continue charging for long distance communications on a per call basis while other companies have started offering flat-rate services.

It may be hard convincing a manufacturer to allow Skype to be put on their device and be available right out of the box, the carriers will bitch and complain that it will cut their airtime revenues. Besides, what will stop them from removing the software once its in their hands? We know sneaky stuff like this has happened before.

3G Adoption and Faster Handset Replacement in Asia-Pacific Are Inevitable

Asia-Pacific will remain the largest and fastest growing regional handset market during the next 5 years and should be prioritized.

Asia-Pacific will remain the largest and fastest growing regional handset market during the next 5 years and should be prioritized. 3G devices will dominate through natural replacement and supply-side product lifecycles.

Blocking stolen phones in South Africa

South Africa’s three mobile phone operators have agreed to co-operate on sharing databases of stolen phones and baring them from use on all three networks. This agreement will make it easier for the companies – Cell C, MTN and Vodacom – to blacklist and disable stolen, lost and destroyed cell phones and for the police to trace and arrest those who steal cell phones or use them to further their criminal activities.

Until now stolen phones have been “grey” listed by MTN and Vodacom, which means that the sim cards were blocked but not the cell phone instruments. Criminals could simply change sim cards and continue using the phones. On the other hand Cell C has been blacklisting stolen or lost cellphones since its inception.
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PalmOne goes for flash with new Tungsten

PalmOne’s latest Tungsten handheld comes with a Bluetooth wireless connection and nonvolatile flash memory.

cnet
The new Tungsten E2 can connect to desktops and compatible phones via Bluetooth, a short-range wireless specification, and features a brighter color screen and longer battery life than the Tungsten E, the company said .

Wireless: Only a matter of time until VOIP goes mobile

PARIS With the global spread of voice over Internet protocol, or VOIP, cheaper Internet calling options are reaching a growing number of fixed-line customers.

Nokia Tests TV on 7710

Nokia has started mobile TV pilots, testing the technology, mobile TV services and consumer experiences with around 500 users in Helsinki, the capital of Finland.

7710 MTV and the Finnish broadcasting company YLE are among the partners in the project.
The first mobile TV service experiences in Finland happened via a friendly user test carried out in late 2004. The test showed that people liked to watch mobile TV in cars and other means of transport and in public places such as cafes. Watching mobile TV at home and in the workplace was also found to be common. The most usual time was in the mornings and afternoons and early evening.

The test users were found to be interested in news, weather, sports, current issues, entertainment and drama and comedy series. Mobile TV was also considered as a complement to the traditional television. What appealed most to test users was the fact that you can watch mobile TV anywhere you like. According to Nokia, the results showed that most of the test users were prepared to continue using mobile TV services.

The test users were able to view real-time TV and radio programs on a Nokia 7710 smartphone equipped with a special accessory to receive mobile TV broadcasts. The Nokia smartphone also enables direct links to the Internet for access to background information on TV programs or sports results. Test users have access to MTV and YLE programs as well as international channels such as CNN, BBC World, Euronews, Eurosport, ViVa Plus and Fashion TV. The pilot continues until 20 June 2005.

The mobile TV test uses IP Datacasting (IPDC), which conforms with the DVB-H standard. At the end of 2004, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) adopted DVB-H as the standard for European mobile television services, enabling the simultaneous transmission of several television, radio and video channels to mobile devices.

Sony Ericsson showcases new automotive grade, Quad-Band GSM/GPRS radio device at Commercial Vehicle Telematics Conference

APRIL 7, 2005, The Commercial Vehicle Telematics Conference, Birmingham UK � Sony Ericsson, a leading provider of wireless machine to machine technology, will showcase the GA64 at the Commercial Vehicle Telematics Conference. The GA64 is a stand out product that meets the very specific regulatory and rugged industrial requirements for automotive, fleet and industrial devices. The device is part of a line-up of Quad-Band, GSM/GPRS radio devices based on the GX64 Family Core, announced last month at CeBIT, Hannover Germany. Three distinct advantages of the GA64 are meeting a parts per million quality metric, assured long term product availability for five years, and adherence to lead-free regulatory requirements

First Cell Phone Was a Brick

“The brick” weighed 2 pounds, offered just a half-hour of talk time for every recharging and sold for $3,995. Clunky and overpriced? Not in 1984.

brick

April 13, 2005 2:35PM

This brick took over a decade to get to market. Rudy Krolopp, lead designer of the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, was assigned the project by Martin Cooper, who ran Motorola’s research and development effort in wireless and was ultimately dubbed the father of the cell phone by then-CEO Robert Galvin.
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Here Comes E-Mail for Mobile Phones, Finally

According to industry observers, the turning point for wireless e-mail will happen when carriers let go of the revenue they currently get from data transfer long enough to allow e-mail to establish itself as a ubiquitous activity everybody uses.

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