Vodafone is to trial HSPA+, an evolution of today's radio access HSPA technology, to assess its potential to deliver even higher data rates through the upgrade of existing network equipment.

Vodafone will work alongside Ericsson, Huawei and Qualcomm to trial Release 7 HSPA+ (also known as HSPA Evolution) which has the potential to handle data even more efficiently than today's HSPA technology.

The initiative will help to establish whether HSPA+ is capable of delivering data throughput rates of up to 28.8 Mbps compared to the 14.4 Mbps maximum offered by today's HSPA networks. If successful, the technology has the potential to extend the life of today's HSPA infrastructure still further.

HSPA+ technology is designed to offer higher throughput than HSPA through its use of multiple antennae on both base stations and handsets (Multiple Input Multiple Output) as well as the deployment of a complex modulation technique called 64-QAM HSDPA. Both features will require new advanced devices compliant to 3GPP Release7 standard.

The project builds on early technical assessments that Vodafone has already carried out where the MIMO version of HSPA+ recorded high data throughput rates for users in a simulated urban macrocellular network.

Last year Vodafone launched a 3G broadband service based on High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) with downlink peak rates of up to 7.2Mbps in selected hotspots within some key markets. Vodafone plans to carry out software upgrades to more of these selected hotspots to deliver up to14.4Mbps from the end of the year as part of the existing HSPA roadmap subject to device availability.

"These trials will help us to ascertain whether HSPA+ voice and data capacity enhancements will be able to leverage existing UMTS assets, including radio spectrum, to prolong the lifespan of current UMTS networks still further," said Steve Pusey, Global CTO of Vodafone. "It will complement the exploratory work we are carrying out into more long-term next generation wireless technologies such as LTE."

Mobile TV use is set to surge due to strong consumer demand, with the service ranked as the number one application users want on their phone, according to a consumer behaviour study conducted by Ericsson and international news broadcaster, CNN. The results show more than a third (34%) of respondents ranking  TV as  the most in-demand application and almost half (44%) of the respondents poised to adopt mobile TV in the next two years. 

Key findings also revealed that photo and video messaging look to be set for wide-scale adoption as consumer pricing and functionality improves. 57% of respondents use photo technology to send and receive images on a monthly basis, making it the most popular activity. This trend is mirrored by popularity of CNN International's user-generated content service iReport, which launched in 2006. The service garnered 50,000 submissions, including mobile phone footage and images, from 189 countries worldwide in its first twelve months, driving the worldwide trend for 'citizen journalism' and giving audiences a deeper connection to network news.

According to the report, nearly one in four (24%) current mobile TV users watch daily with around half (52%) tuning in on a weekly basis. At 77%, news leads genre viewing patterns, followed by scheduled television at 48%.

"The results of this research underscores CNN's commitment to lead the rapidly changing trends that influence the way our audience consumes content", commented Didier Mormesse, SVP CNN International Ad Sales Research, Development & Audience Insight. "We've enjoyed considerable growth in our mobile business over the past few years and continue to invest in industry-leading initiatives and new services. Research like this enables us to really get under the skin of what our consumers want, so our digital strategy satisfies our audience's appetite for top quality news content when they're on the move."

Jan Wäreby, Senior Vice President and Head of Business Unit Multimedia Ericsson, says: "Although still in its infancy, mobile TV is clearly set to emerge as a popular service within the next few years. Driven by consumer appetite for the service, together with new usage patterns, mobile TV represents one of the biggest networked multimedia opportunities for cable and telecoms operators."

In 2007, CNN International unveiled its new ad supported mobile service. CNN Mobile allows users to stay informed wherever they are and even access CNN's 'In The Field' blogs from the network's international correspondents. CNN International's investment in meeting the needs of changing audience consumption habits included the implementation of a digital research group in 2007 to measure how audiences are consuming CNN across non-linear devices such as the internet, mobile and IPTV.  CNN International's recent digital initiatives include content sharing partnerships with top tier web-TV programming portals and a re-branding of CNN.com. At a time when advertisers are looking for innovative multi-platform brand solutions, CNN International can provide insight into its global users, media and market trends, as well as providing accurate data to clients internationally. 

Vodafone Turkey, Turkey's second largest mobile operator, has successfully launched End2End's fully outsourced Content Retailing Solution replacing Vodafone Turkey's previous platform service.

The Content Retailing Solution from End2End, Europe's leading provider of managed service solutions for mobile data, provides Vodafone Turkey with a fully outsourced gaming service including sourcing, deployments, hosting, retail management and settlement. This deal gives Vodafone Turkey access to over 100 content providers, including games from local developers in Turkey, as well as state-of-the-art content delivery functionalities and settlement services, which optimise profitability and content distribution.

Bernadette Lyons, Managing Director of End2End said "We are very happy with the extended cooperation, and we are working very actively with retail activities to be able to further increase the volumes for Vodafone Turkey."

End2End's Content Retailing Solution is already live in 20 countries, delivering retail and content management to leading operators across Europe and Asia Pacific. End2End's recent acquisition of Terraplay has strengthened its offering with the addition of in-game billing, cross operator community and multiplayer, and, combined with its content delivery system, takes End2End's mobile games retailing to a new level.

ZTE Corporation, a leading global provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions, has been selected by 3 Italia to produce MD2 and MD3 handsets, the technologically advanced devices adopting the stylish MOMODESIGN, the Italian Design Center well known across the World. The collaboration was made public during the Mobile World Congress.

MD2 is a fashionable UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication System) clamshell handset with a contemporary design and equipped with the latest generation technology, while MD3 is a DVB-H and HSDPA (Digital Video Broadcasting – Handheld) videophone, adopting chipset Qualcomm MSM 6280, with an innovative form factor featuring touch screen functions and with a screen that rotates 360, enabling all-rounded video viewing.

"We are delighted to be chosen by 3 Italia to develop their fashionable and stylish MOMODESIGN MD2 and MD3 mobile devices," said Fang Rong, Vice President of ZTE Corporation. "With our proven track record and capability in customizing terminals, we are confident that we can help 3 Italia to develop and manufacture new generation handsets that meet their specifications and allow them to wider their multimedia devices offer."

"The joint activity with a large manufacture like ZTE, which has a great expertise in handsets production, was very precious in being able to develop Videophones and TVphones tailored to our needs with fast response time", commented Mr. Massimiliano Zuco  Consumer Division Director at 3 Italia. "Let's not forget the important role played by MOMODESIGN in making our technologically advanced multimedia devices true cult objects", added Mr. Zuco.

"Technology, innovation, research and style are the core values that have been inspiring MOMODESIGN for more than twenty five years. The knowledge and expertise of the MOMODESIGN Style Center are further confirmed by the close collaboration with leading and cutting edge multinationals such as 3 Italia.", said Marco Cattaneo, CEO of MOMODESIGN.

Besides the production of MD2 and MD3 handsets, the companies are also in discussion to expand their partnership and collaborate to develop new projects that will be presented in the second half of this year.

Telenity, a leading provider of next generation converged services platforms and applications for communications networks, announced today that K'cell, the leading GSM mobile service provider in Kazakhstan with six million subscribers and an affiliate of Fintur Holding B.V., deployed Telenity's next generation IP-based Short Message Service Center, Canvas SMSC and Multimedia Messaging Service Center, Canvas MMSC in its GSM network.

Since its initial operation, K'cell has lead a key role in giving tone and direction to the rapid development and growth of the cellular market in Kazakhstan where mobile penetration is anticipated to grow 60% in the next three years. Through its visionary actions, K'cell was the first to launch GPRS/EDGE technologies, and millions of subscribers in Kazakhstan enjoyed such services as Mobile Internet, WAP, and MMS throughout the country. Currently K'cell is actively preparing for its 3G network implementation offering its subscribers revolutionary services such as Video-calls and Mobile Television. Within this project, K'cell carried out legacy and end-of-life replacements and installation of new equipment including higher capacity messaging servers, Canvas SMSC and Canvas MMSC, ready to support next generation services.

The success of SMS service is due to its very fast means of peer-to-peer communication and addition of new subscribers. Industry analysts estimate that by 2012, global SMS revenues will reach US$67 billion driven by 3.7 trillion messages. The ongoing growth of SMS requires wireless operators to continue to replace their legacy messaging network infrastructure and build out and upgrade to a more modular network environment.

"We were looking for a messaging solution that would resolve our traffic peak, maintenance cost, flexible routing and revenue assurance issues," stated Veysel Aral, CEO at K'cell. "Telenity's Canvas SMSC and Canvas MMSC met both our technical and business requirements and they are allowing us to get ready for our 3G network implementation with a sound IP-based architecture."

"K'cell is a great example of a leading operator with the right vision and successful execution for the next generation mobile world," says Dilip Singh, CEO at Telenity. "K'cell has rapidly grown to over six million subscribers and by aggressively expanding and replacing multiple legacy messaging platforms with the next generation converged integrated messaging platform, it's ensuring that its customers experience the highest quality always-on messaging and innovative value added services".

"With K'cell as our customer where nearly 100% of its SMS traffic goes through our Canvas SMSC, Telenity is now providing all affiliate companies of Fintur Holdings with it's Canvas portfolio of next generation solutions, such as converged messaging, ringback tones, and value added services including video services," said Serif Beykoz, General Manager, Telenity EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa). "We are proud to have Fintur affiliates' trust in and endorsement of our products."

Canvas SMSC and Canvas MMSC are an integral part of Telenity's converged messaging solutions that are all built on a common operating environment that avoids the silo nature of point solutions, while providing a common architecture and administrative environment for all value added services for current (2G/3G) and future IMS networks. Canvas SMSC and Canvas MMSC are high performance systems with a fault tolerant real time charging capability. They enhance revenues from person-to-person (P2P) and application-to-person (A2P) messaging with a modular, scalable next generation IP based architecture designed to save operators both CAPEX and OPEX.

Canvas SMSC and Canvas MMSC help operators to:

• Gracefully handle traffic peaks to assure additional/no lost revenues
• Increase ARPU by enabling more applications without system overload or service outage
• Reduce their maintenance costs with open standards based system infrastructure
• Ensure future network agnostic solution supporting both legacy and nextgen networks
• Add on to their current infrastructure yet grow thus preserving their investment
• Maximize their revenue assurance and minimize fraud with real time charging

Starhome, the provider of roaming and service mobility solutions is showcasing its new IP-Mobile Gateway platform at Mobile World Congress.  The new platform bridges the gap between the GSM and IP worlds and provides a seamless experience between different networks and devices.  The latest applications running on the Gateway include both consumer and enterprise solutions, which have been conceived to enable mobile operators to embrace the IP world whilst maintaining customer loyalty and extending usage of mobile data. 

The new IP-Mobile Gateway integrates with the mobile network as a standard MSC/VLR and uses existing mobile network components including HLR, with a leg in the IP world. An important component of this new technology is the Service Broker which enables multiple triggers for IN networks and also converts protocols between CAMEL/IN legacy systems and IMS. The Gateway is based on Starhome's field-proven IntelliGate Service Mobility Platform, deployed at over 130 mobile operator networks worldwide.

The consumer solution running on the platform, Mobile2IP, offers users a seamless experience between mobile phones and PCs/dual mode handsets, according to their current presence and devices (IP or Mobile). Users can enjoy the advantage of a single mobile identity with the same number, address book, call log and billing, along with a virtual mobile phone in the form of a branded soft client which offers voice, presence, SMS/MMS, IMS, video and various internet and sharing applications.

The enterprise solution, PBX Anywhere, extends PBX switching capabilities from fixed or IP devices, to any mobile device. These features include call hunting, VPN tunnelling, call screening, intelligent call routing and cost cutting plus the option for split billing between private and business usage. 

For existing Starhome customers already equipped with the field-proven IntelliGate platform for their roaming needs, the new IP features will be offered as a modular upgrade.  Moreover, the solutions are also available as a managed or hosted service.  According to Starhome COO Shlomo Wolfman, "Unlike the rest of the industry which seems intent on shoe-horning the Internet into the mobile phone, the approach laid out by Starhome allows mobile operators to fight back with a strategy which empowers operators to maintain customer loyalty by extending the mobile phone environment onto other IP devices and solutions. Operators can also gain new, off-net customers by providing non-mobile applications."  He continued, "Mobile operators cannot wait for IMS to come of age while IP service providers take control of their customers.  We believe that the approach we have depicted allows operators to offer their customers valuable converged services today which are IMS-ready. 

Synchronica, international provider of mobile email and synchronization solutions, has announced that the latest version of its mobile email middleware Mobile Gateway 3.5 now incorporates an email-to-SMS gateway expanding support for push email to more than 3 billion phones including the most basic handsets on the market.

The new email-to-SMS gateway adds to the mobile email and synchronization standards already supported (OMA DS (SyncML), OMA EMN, and IMAP Idle) and enables Mobile Gateway 3.5 to deliver push email to virtually every handset on the market today. Mobile Gateway combines the email-to-SMS gateway for basic phones such as the Nokia 1110 with an IMAP gateway delivering push email to the built-in email clients on feature phones such as the Sony Ericsson W880 and a SyncML gateway for synchronization of calendar and contact data with more than 1.5 billion SyncML-enabled handsets such as the Nokia NSeries.

As a key advantage, unmatched by other products, Mobile Gateway 3.5 features a zero footprint architecture that supports all of the major back-end systems used for consumer and business mailbox services without requiring additional software to be installed on the device or behind the firewall.

According to mobile industry analyst Strategy Analytics, the open industry standards Push IMAP (LEMONADE) and OMA DS (SyncML) are crucial for the growth of mobile email in the mass market because consumers prefer the low-cost feature phones that support these. Owners of even the most basic handsets will now be able to use Mobile Gateway 3.5 to receive and send email messages, with the subject, header, and body of the mobile email message contained in SMS format.

Informa projections predict 4.81 billion mobile phone subscribers by 2012, with the next billion subscribers coming from India, Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe. Mobile Gateway 3.5 is well suited for these emerging markets because it supports mobile email and PIM synchronization on mass market and low-cost devices which represent the vast majority of all handsets shipped.

To facilitate service activation and boost consumer adoption rates, Synchronica has also added WAP signup to Mobile Gateway 3.5, enabling users to subscribe to the service directly from their device. This will greatly benefit operators in emerging markets where PC and fixed-line penetration is very low, but mobile phones are increasingly ubiquitous.

"Consumers are not going to buy an expensive phone to get mobile email. Instead, we have to find ways to enable email on the more than 3 billion handsets that are already in use", comments Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO of Synchronica. "By supporting all of the standard message delivery systems, we have now made mobile email accessible on virtually every mobile phone on the planet."

Synchronica Mobile Gateway 3.5 provides carrier-grade scalability and supports Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, and any ISP mailbox using IMAP or POP3 for consumers and Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino, and the Sun Java Communications Suite for business PIM and email synchronization. An OMA CP provisioning module enables automatic over-the-air configuration of all mobile phones.

"Once consumers realise that they can easily setup email on their existing phone, we will see a significant increase in the take-up of mobile email services, particularly in emerging markets. This heralds an attractive source of data revenue for operators around the world as millions of consumers swap the internet cafe for their trusty mobile", concludes Brinkschulte.

Telegent Systems, the company which makes television mobile with its high-performance single-chip mobile TV solutions, and Konka Group, a leading Chinese manufacturer of mobile phones and television sets, announced that they have teamed to deliver mobile handsets with free-to-air TV.  Konka's handsets are set to ship globally during the second quarter of 2008 and will allow consumers to receive the live, familiar television programming that they normally view at home while they are on the go.

Konka's mobile TV handset feature is powered by the TLG1100, a high-performance single-chip mobile TV receiver from Telegent Systems.  The TLG1100 supports NTSC, PAL and worldwide FM broadcast standards and is designed specifically for mobile environments, delivering a high quality picture that remains stable at high speeds of up to 430 km/h.  The chip also achieves ultra-low power consumption, enabling multiple hours of continuous viewing time. 

"We are impressed with the performance and fast time to market of the free-to-air mobile TV feature," said Hongtao Li, CEO of Konka's Mobile Phone Division.  "The picture quality and long battery lifetime provide consumers with a positive viewing experience and allow us to differentiate our handsets and meet consumer demand."

"We have seen strong consumer interest in free-to-air mobile TV around the world, especially in emerging markets," said Weijie Yun, president & CEO of Telegent Systems.  "We are delighted to partner with an internationally recognized handset and television brand such as Konka to bring these solutions to market."