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GSA confirms 3071 mobile broadband device products launched

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The choice, range and data speeds of mobile broadband user devices continue to rapidly expand, according to new statistics published by the GSA (Global mobile Suppliers Association). The updated HSPA Devices survey confirms that 3,071 HSPA user devices have been announced in the market. A total of 722 products were launched over the past 12 months, confirming over 30% annual growth. The number of manufacturers increased by 14% to 262 companies in this period.

GSA recently confirmed that 398 HSPA networks are commercially launched in 160 countries. Migration to HSPA Evolution (HSPA+) is continuing as a major trend and 123 operators (30%) have also launched HSPA+ systems. Most operators entering the market today are launching immediately with HSPA+ and GSA forecasts there will be at least 150 commercial HSPA+ systems launched by end 2011. In step with this evolution, the HSPA Devices survey confirms 144 HSPA+ user devices have been launched, more than triple the number in the market in April 2010. More than 30% of these devices support 42 Mbps DC-HSPA+ networks ensuring a substantial product choice for customers of the growing number of operators who have launched, or are deploying DC-HSPA+ capability.

The huge success of mobile broadband enabled by 3G/HSPA and rapid data growth has fuelled demand for more spectrum. Re-farming of GSM spectrum, particularly 900 MHz, is an option favored by many operators where practical, and in the knowledge that there exists a mature devices ecosystem of HSPA-capable 900 MHz (UMTS900) user devices. The GSA survey confirms that 618 UMTS900 devices supporting HSPA (and in some cases HSPA+) have been launched in the market by 87 suppliers, almost double the number of products (321) available one year ago. Excluding notebooks and e-book readers, over 24% of HSPA devices can operate at 900 MHz. A related GSA report, UMTS900 Global Status, also just released, confirms that 30 UMTS900 networks are now commercially launched in 22 countries with at least another 18 networks planned, in deployment or in testing phase.

Almost 200 operators have also committed to commercial network deployments or trials of LTE, and many of them require service continuity which will usually mean fall back to current HSPA/HSPA+ and GSM/EDGE systems. Manufacturers are fully aligning their product developments with operator strategies. The HSPA Devices survey confirms that 53 dual-mode HSPA-LTE devices have already been launched.

Monaco Telecom launches 4G trial

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Monaco Telecom (MT), a Cable & Wireless Communications business in Monaco, has begun a trial of Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile technology. 

The 4G network is able to deliver much faster data download speeds (up to 100 megabits per second) which are necessary as an increasing number of mobile and computer tablet users access multimedia services such as video and online gaming. 
 
The 4G network will be available across the Principality for a group of test customers, supporting the growing use of internet and applications on mobile handsets within the Principality.  
 
If the trial in Monaco is a success a commercial launch is planned before the end of 2013. 
 
Martin Péronnet, CEO of Monaco Telecom, said:  “In Monaco 70% of mobile handsets sold are smartphones and in December 2010, one third of the contracts signed were for tablet computers and 3G dongles. This illustrates the growing demand for mobile data, which we are keen to support by investing in 4G.” 
 
MT is carrying out the trial with Ericsson.

New HSPA+ solution promises fifty percent increase in uplink capacity

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ZTE, a global provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions, has announced the launch of a new generation of dual-mode SDR (software defined radio) products which use HSUPA-based (high speed uplink packet access) interference cancellation technology to deliver ‘unsurpassed’ uplink capacity. The new SDR product is designed to meet a variety of scenario requirements, including indoor macro, outdoor macro, distributed, outdoor micro base stations, radio controllers and unified-management systems.

The solution allows operators to deploy high-capacity base stations and increase capacity without hardware platform changes or device upgrades. Its SDR products offer GSM/UMTS dual-mode networking to provide seamless evolution to HSPA+, making the solution future-proof.

The technology is also said to provide a significant increase of both the number of voice users and average cell throughput, with users benefiting across various radio conditions. ZTE expects its SDR solution to be commercially available later in 2011.

“Consumers are increasingly using mobile data services to upload content such as photos and videos to the cloud. This can create challenges for operators in maintaining uplink capacity and a good user experience for their subscribers,” said Zhang Jianguo, General Manager of ZTE’s UMTS products. “By using uplink interference cancellation, the SDR product can mitigate signal interference and increase operators’ cell uplink capacity by up to 50 percent, which enables them to use their spectrum resources much more efficiently.”

In recent years, ZTE has achieved breakthroughs in the wireless communications market across the world by leveraging the capabilities of the SDR platform. In Europe, ZTE has ensured the mass delivery of SDR base stations for KPN, Telenor, Telefonica, Optimus and H3G. In China, ZTE is ranked No.1 in terms of the newly added market share of UMTS and second in terms of total market share.

500 million people worldwide to use their mobiles as metro and bus tickets by 2015, says new report

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Half a billion people worldwide will use their mobile devices as travel tickets on metros, subways and buses by 2015, according to new forecasts from Juniper Research. This is over five times the number generated last year but crucially Juniper is expecting usage to spread widely from the current concentration in Japan and several European countries. Outside Japan, systems in operation typically use SMS or bar codes.

Whilst SMS ticketing has been in operation for several years in large cities in Scandinavia and Central & Eastern Europe such as Stockholm and Prague, Juniper believes that recent momentum in Near Field Communications (NFC) will only add to market growth. As metro authorities begin the transition to open contactless payment systems, NFC ticket usage is forecast to grow significantly beginning in 2013.  

According to Mobile Ticketing for Transport Markets report author Howard Wilcox: “Whether by expansion of SMS and bar code delivery or by NFC, at Juniper we see convenience and choice for users as key advantages of mobile ticketing.  It will be 2013 before large numbers of NFC enabled devices are in peoples’ pockets and our new report forecasts the impact on transaction volumes.”

Furthermore, mobile ticketing also has potential across train and air travel, the latter driven by mobile delivered bar coded boarding passes, says Juniper.

Juniper’s new report contains comprehensive and detailed five year forecasting for all the key market parameters including users, transactions and values for airline, rail and metro/bus ticketing. Additionally the report highlights the conclusions from Juniper’s analysis of 23 vendors addressing the market, which culminates in a new Transport Mobile Ticketing vendor strategy positioning matrix.

Further key findings from the report include:

• Western Europe and the Far East & China will be the leading transport mobile ticketing regions by volume in 2015.

• Poor user experience is an implementation risk – such as bar code reading issues.

Shipments of GPS-enabled GSM/WCDMA handsets grew 97 percent in 2010, says report

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According to a new research report by Berg Insight, global shipments of GPS-enabled GSM/WCDMA handsets increased almost 97 percent in 2010 to 295 million units. Growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28.8 percent, shipments are forecasted to reach 940 million units in 2015. The attach rates for wireless connectivity technologies in handsets including GPS, Bluetooth and WLAN are increasing steadily as the adoption of smartphones accelerates. These connectivity technologies are already a standard feature on high-end smartphones. Adoption of GPS and WLAN will also increase rapidly in the medium- and low-end smartphone segments, says Berg.

The attach rate for WLAN connectivity in handsets reached 20 percent in 2010. Berg Insight forecasts shipments of WLAN-enabled handsets to reach 900 million in 2015. “There are numerous compelling use cases for WLAN in mobile phones, ranging from offloading data traffic from increasingly congested mobile networks to media synchronisation and hybrid navigation services”, said André Malm, Senior Analyst, Berg Insight. “Hybrid navigation technologies are necessary to enable reliable positioning indoors. New multi-mode GPS receivers that also support the Russian GLONASS satellite system are already available in handsets. When using the two systems in combination, more visible satellites will increase the chance to receive sufficiently strong signals to get a fix in urban canyons”.

He adds that further performance increases will come from hybrid location technologies that fuse signal measurements from multiple satellite systems, cellular networks and WLAN, together with data from various forms of sensors such as accelerometers, gyroscopes and altimeters.

Starting in the second half of 2011, more handsets supporting the Near Field Communication (NFC) standard for short-range wireless point-to-point communication will also become available. When deployed in mobile phones, NFC can be used for countless applications such as information exchange, electronic ticketing and mobile payments. Shipments of NFC-enabled handsets are forecasted to increase from less than two million units in 2010 to 400 million units in 2015.

Relief ahead for mobile data networks as 63% of traffic to move onto fixed networks via WiFi and femtocells by 2015, says research

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A new study from Juniper Research is said to have found that the majority of traffic (63%) generated by smartphones, tablets and feature phones will transfer onto the fixed network via Wi-Fi and Femtocells by 2015. This means that the annual mobile data traffic offloaded from operators’ networks via WiFi and Femtocells is forecast to reach nearly 9000 petabytes (PB) by 2015, which equates to some 11 billion movie downloads.

Juniper found that the percentage of traffic offloaded in developed markets will actually diminish towards the end of the forecast period, and will begin to plateau in several other regions due to the accelerating take-up of LTE.  Despite this, however, the volume of data traffic offloaded from mobile networks will continue to grow strongly throughout the next five years as the total volume of data traffic delivered to mobile devices accelerates.

According to Mobile Data Offload & Onload report author Nitin Bhas, “As a high percentage of mobile data consumption occurs while indoors or in motion, operators have an opportunity to offload data traffic onto complementary fixed networks via WiFi and Femtocells. Offloading also has the potential for creating new services and applications and enhancing the usage of existing services.”

Although currently WiFi accounts for over 98% of the traffic offloaded, Femtocells will account for a steadily increasing proportion over the forecast period.  The highest penetration of femtocells for Data Offload will occur in North America.

The report recommends that operators view offloading solutions as being complementary to their 3G/4G network investments providing opportunities to seize market share and revenues from fixed line operators, extending their reach beyond mobile and making their 3G/4G business case profitable.

Other key findings include:

·         Total mobile data traffic generated by smartphones, featurephones and tablets to exceed 14,000 PB by 2015.

·         Mobile data offloaded via WiFi from operators’ networks expected to reach almost 90% of total data offloaded.

Russian operators move to converged IP backhaul

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Tellabs chosen as part of two Russian upgrade contracts

Two Russian operators have announced technology partners for mobile backhaul upgrade projects.

MegaFon is working with Nokia Siemens Networks to build out a country-wide IP backhaul network. NSN will be deploying equipment from Tellabs and from its partner Juniper Networks.

NSN will be integrating Tellabs’s 8600 Managed Edge System, 8800 Multiservice Router Series and 8000 Intelligent Network Manager, along with Juniper Networks’ MX Series 3D Universal Edge Routers and EX Series Ethernet Switches.

“We aim to build a unified mobile backhaul to facilitate faster rollout of 3G services such as HSPA and prepare a converged IP transport network for fixed and mobile services for millions of people in Russia,” said Valery Ermakov, first deputy to general director for operations (Chief Operations Officer), OJSC MegaFon.

Just under a year ago, MegaFon subsidiary MegaFon Far East announced it would move to all-IP backhaul with the deployment of Celtro switches.

MTS is also working to upgrade its backhaul capacity and IP/Ethernet capability, working with systems integrator Intracom Svyaz. Like NSN, Intracom will be deploying Tellabs’ 8600 Managed Edge System.

MTS’ deployment will start later in 2011.

“High-speed wireless data services are vital to our growth strategy,” said Oleg Larionov, Director of Transport Networks Department at MTS Group. “The Tellabs 8600 series offers a proven backhaul solution that cost-effectively delivers network capacity that can scale to our future needs. We can now meet the challenge of today’s growing traffic whilst providing high quality mobile data services.”

 

“The Tellabs 8600 series is ideal for the high-growth Russian market,” said Tarcisio Ribeiro, Vice President, Europe, Middle East & Africa at Tellabs. “It enables MTS to migrate to Ethernet/IP technology. Tellabs offers a cost-effective way to deliver mobile broadband, and supports the launch of new data services.”

Android tops OS share in France, Germany and UK

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Android tops OS share in France, Germany and UK

Consumer panels: Android top, Symbian still popular in Italy, Blackberry lags in Germany

Kantar Worldpanel ComTech claims that Android is now the number one OS in France, Germany and the UK, the first time it has achieved number one position in all three countries.

Android achieved 35.9% smartphone OS market share in France, 35.5% in Germany and 38% in the UK for the three months to 20 March, 2011, according to Kantar’s consumer panel research.

Despite Android taking number one position in each territory, Kantar’s panels still showed up specific differences between in each country.

Dominic Sunnebo, Consumer Insight Director – Global, Kantar Worldpanel ComTech said, “In the UK, BlackBerry is responsible for nearly 25% of all Smartphone sales with its customer base increasingly dominated by under 25s and females; while in Germany BlackBerry’s market share is just 3.4%, as the brand is still primarily seen as a business-based device.”

In Germany Symbian accounted for over 25% of all sales in the latest 12 weeks. In Italy Symbian continues to be the leading OS, down on the previous period but still holding 46.9% market share, with Nokia Symbian models making up four out of the five top selling models.  

UK panel has 15,000 panel members giving c290,000 interviews per annumKantar Worldpanel ComTech claims that ComTech is the largest continuous research consumer mobile phone tracking panel of its kind in the world, conducting over 1 million interviews per year in Europe. The research company said its. In France 11,000 panel members give c.142,000 interviews per annum and in Italy 10,000 panel members give 130,000 interviews per annum

 

Blyk appointed as media sales partner for Orange Shots

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Blyk, a mobile messaging media company, today announced it has extended its relationship with Orange UK, by being appointed to manage all elements of the operator’s media sales program, and support the company’s commercial ambitions in developing advertising revenues from its “Orange Shots” service.

Blyk has worked with Orange since 2007 and extended that relationship by exclusively providing its Blyk media service in 2009. More recently Blyk has secured its position as a commercial partner of Orange providing strategic support for the creation, deployment and on-going management of the operators media and advertising messaging propositions. With immediate effect Blyk will build a media sales function in the UK dedicated to the operators mobile advertising service – ‘Orange Shots’.

Orange Shots is a service that uses Blyk’s messaging media format, enabling brands to engage and interact directly with targeted segments of the Orange customer base.

In support of its ongoing work with Orange, Blyk has hired Shaun Jordan from Ids who joined the business as Sales Director on April 1, 2011. Shaun brings over 18 years advertising experience to the Blyk team from both agency and media sales. In that time Shaun has developed an extensive network that will help Blyk build a presence in the market quickly. Eoghan Blake and Ryan Carter also join the sales team and will be followed by more hires in the coming weeks.

Alex Franks, Country Manager for Blyk UK, said: “I am delighted that Orange has invited us to bring our media experience in mobile advertising into the already strong partnership that has grown between our two organizations over the last four years. We believe that a commercial approach to the advertising market that is solely focused on messaging will reap significant ROI for advertisers. I’m equally pleased to welcome Shaun, Ryan and Eoghan to our growing UK business.”

GlobalPlatform delivers new TSM communication framework for mobile NFC ecosystem

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GlobalPlatform, an organization that standardizes the management of applications on secure chip technology, has released a standard language which uses web services to facilitate secure and interoperable communication between trusted service managers (TSMs) and the rest of the mobile near field communication (NFC) ecosystem.

Free to download from the GlobalPlatform website, two new specifications released by the organization address the communication needs of TSMs, which are independent and trusted third parties that facilitate the provisioning and secure management of mobile contactless services. These specifications align with, and meet the requirements of key industry associations including the European Payments Council (EPC), GSMA, and use cases from the Association Française pour le ‘Sans Contact’ Mobile (AFSCM). 

TSMs must be capable of interacting with all mobile network operators and service providers in an interoperable and secure manner. The combined usage of both documents will assist the mobile NFC service community in building a sustainable, scalable and open messaging framework that leverages available web services tools. This will ensure that all parties deploying and managing mobile NFC applications can transport messages efficiently using web services.

The first release is the Web Services Profile for GlobalPlatform Messaging Specification v1.0, which provides guidance on how OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards), and W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Web Services Standards should be implemented in a GlobalPlatform systems deployment to achieve industry interoperability. The document details how to apply IT infrastructures and industry standard components and tools to ease integration and build web services without the need to design a complete business solution. Publication of this work further aligns GlobalPlatform’s technology with current internet capabilities, and aims to encourage confidence in using this medium to communicate when managing the lifecycle of an NFC application deployed on the secure chip of a mobile device. 

The web services profile is complemented by GlobalPlatform’s Specification for Management of Mobile NFC Services v1.0. This technical specification defines how messages can be exchanged between all actors in a NFC deployment in an interoperable, secure and reliable web services format. For example, a TSM request on behalf of a bank to a mobile network operator to deploy a payment application (NFC service), or a mobile network operator to notify all parties involved in the delivery of a NFC service that a mobile device has been lost and services to the handset must be terminated.

Eric Le Saint, Chair of the GlobalPlatform Systems Committee and Senior Director of Security, IP and Research at ActivIdentity, comments: “Defining a common language is vital to ensuring interoperable communication exchanges between the actors of the mobile NFC ecosystem. GlobalPlatform Specifications provide the NFC community with the building blocks to create a trusted end-to-end solution which serves multiple actors and supports several business models.”

“We applaud the members of GlobalPlatform for building their specifications on SAML, WS-Security, and other OASIS standards,” said Laurent Liscia, executive director of OASIS. “The implementation of these widely adopted, foundational standards clearly demonstrates GlobalPlatform’s commitment to interoperability for TSMs.”

Mr. Dag-Inge Flatraaker, the Chair of the EPC Mobile Working Group, comments: “We welcome the documents as a first step towards interoperability for TSMs which is a crucial factor for the market take up of these services in the NFC ecosystem. The EPC appreciates that the document Specification for Management of Mobile NFC Services v1.0 covers the processes defined in the TSM /MNO space as specified in the joint EPC-GSMA document and is looking forward to further GlobalPlatform work in the TSM /service provider domain.”

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