Glenayre has completed its $25 million purchase of Glenayre’s messaging business. IP Unity hopes that by adding the messaging unit, a loss maker for the first three quarters in 2006, to its application server business, it will be better placed to offer  media rich, value added services to operators.

“Media rich applications are vital for mobile operators looking to monetize their 3G investments and reduce churn,” said ceo  Arun Sobt.

Telekom Austria Group is conducting a NFC (Near Field Communication) field trial, with a wide range of applications, in cooperation with the University of Applied Sciences in Upper Austria, NXP Semiconductors Austria and voestalpine Informationstechnologie.

One hundred triallists at the University campus in Hagenberg are currently participating in the trial, which will continue until summer 2007.
The trial is different to other because of the wide range of different applications being tested on NFC technology. These include peer-to-peer information terminals, payment solutions for vending machines or cafeterias and access to different buildings.
The hope for NFC is that  one device can  function as a key, electronic purse and mobile information terminal, as well as keeping track of all of the transactions carried out.
mobilkom austria is monitoring user acceptance of the services in every day life, and the user experience study will provide the basis for future application developments, product improvements and ultimately for future strategies.
Hannes Ametsreiter, Chief Marketing Officer at mobilkom austria said: “We are not NFC novices.We have over two years experience with this technology. We joined the NFC Forum in 2005, where we proactively co-shape its further development. On the basis of our market leadership in the Austrian mobile market and our international pioneering role in m-commerce, we are able to contribute to the project with both our expertise and the wide range of products and services we offer.”
Recently the GSMA launched its own programme to standardise NFC, and more handset vendors are starting to include the technology in their phones.

The world’s first global mobile Linux initiative has been formed to encourage the creation of an ecosystem spanning application and  middleware developer communities to support its goal of creating the world’s first globally competitive, Linux-based software platform for mobile devices.

Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic Mobile Communications, Samsung Electronics and Vodafone have announced  the official launch of the LiMo Foundation.
Missing from the launch was Access, which is developing a Linux based OS through its ALP (Access Linux Platform) division.
A statement from the LiMo Foundation said it aims to blend the benefits of community-based development with best development practices from the mobile community to create “an innovative new business model”.
The LiMo Foundation is looking for members interested in participating in the development of a set of APIs, architecture, and contributing source code for the common components of the Linux-based mobile platform. Potential members could come from device manufacturers, operators, chip set manufacturers, ISVs integrators and third party developers.
The idea is to focus primarily on the joint development of a competitive Linux-based mobile platform, built around a common source code tree that can adapt to market requirements around the world.
In addition, members will also work on the establishment of safeguards to minimize fragmentation; collaborate on a mobile Linux developer ecosystem; co-operate with existing industry organizations.
Several industry players have invested considerably in a mobile Linux based OS, most notably Motorola, which appears to be the driving force behind the LiMo alliance.
Access said at 2006′ 3GSM that it would hope to develop a Mobile Linux Ecosystm behid ALP. In 2005, several companies formed LiPS, Linux Phone Standards Forum, to standardise APIs, SDKs and certification.

Apple may be gunning for the top end of the music market, but the forthcoming W200 from Sony Ericsson is aimed at the mass user. Marketed almost as an entry phone to mobile music, it has a 128MB memory stick, with 27MB internal memory, and Sony Ericsson’s Disc2Phone software supplied.

” height=”<% height %>” align=”right” alt=”Sony Ericsson’s forthcoming W200″ class=”articleimage” />

Boris Nemsic is ceo of mobilkom austria and its 100% owner, Telekom Austria. mobilkom – which has had a commercial 3G network since 2003 and commercial HSDPA services since 2005 – is regarded as a technically innovative operator. It has around 3.6 million subscribers, as well as a further 5.5 million in its subsidiaries in Bulgaria (Mobiltel), Croatia (vipnet), Lichtenstein (mobikom liechtenstein) and Slovenia (si.mobil). Mobile Europe caught up with him as he prepared for 3GSM.

” height=”<% height %>” align=”right” alt=”Nemsic targets growth from data usage” class=”articleimage” />

• With 3GSM approaching, what do you expect to get out of the event?
3GSM is a meeting of the industry, operators and vendors and the service industry and I can’t imagine a year without it. It gives me a chance to see the plans for the industry. As an industry it is a good opportunity going forward to find a way to transform the growth we have. Europe is experiencing lower growth and I think one of the more interesting things will be to see how the next phase of growth will be achieved in Europe.

Other issues will be HSDPA – which is providing an excellent base for mobile broadband. Mobile TV will be an issue. Will there be previews of the iPhone ? And we’re going to see how the industry reacts to that.

• How do you think operators will react to Apple seeking exclusive deals for the iPhone?
In our industry, exclusivity is not a real issue. It’s more a question of which operator could take advantage of the characteristics of the iPhone. As the phone is EDGE enabled it would make sense to see deployment in EDGE networks before 3G.

• Do you think the mobile TV debate will move on this year from the technical issues to business issues, and how operators can make money from the service?
Mobile TV is a very specific service to which the operator is crucial. On our side we deliver a subsidy for the mobile phones, and billing and charging in a convenient way for the customer and content provider. So we are the natural partner.
I think it’s not only a question of how we will make money from mobile TV. We create added value for the customer and there needs to be a fair share to the content owner and the mobile operator.
One one side there is the critical issue of subsidising phones. Second, we can charge a flat fee or price on an authenticated user basis. Id and authentication is our business. So we can make different charging models

• You mentioned future strategies for growth. How do mobile operators extract further growth in the current market?
What we have in Austria is 115% penetration and still growing. Yet we have added 280,000 new subscribers this year, which is 7% of the customer base, despite that penetration. On the contract side we doubled growth to add 14%, so that’s great news. Also, the average usage per customer is 150 minutes per month, which is five minutes a day, so there’s a lot of possibilities there. Second, part of this growth is from mobile data, which is becoming more normal as we have 140,000 mobile data cards and USB modems under management.

At the moment, 21% of our revenues come from all data services, and 8-9% of revenues come from SMS, so we are now generating much more revenue from data other than SMS.

• You are ceo of Telekom Austria as well as mobilkom. Do you anticipate joining the trend to converge fixed and mobile services?
No. With convergence, I don’t feel this as a given in itself. The regulatory environment is  a hurdle because the fixed line area is fully regulated, and if you bundle and mix the two then you are completely regulated. I believe more that pieces of service will substitute each other.

Take voice: mobile voice is substituting fixed voice, so there’s no convergence in the sense of putting the two together, there’s no convergence in the understood sense of the word. Users need a simple terminal and one device –you don’t need dual mode services and devices. I’m sceptical about that.

Kenneth Karlberg, President and Head of Business Area Mobility Services, TeliaSonera, has said the industry still has a long way to go to work out business models that recognise the contributions of the telcos, as well as the IP service providers.

” height=”<% height %>” align=”right” alt=”IP business models need work” class=”articleimage” />

Speaking to Mobile Europe, Karlberg said that the debate needed to move on from discussions about who would win and lose, and into how the players involved can work together.

One area Karlberg identified was in interoperability.

“IP development and the new players are pushing us into new business models, and new ideas about the business models. We are in a world where the telcos have worked so hard for interoperability it is unthinkable that you can’t make a call from one operator to another. But if you are in the IP world it is a necessity to chat from MSN to MSN, so that’s a closed society in that sense.

“To that extent the more closed companies have to meet the open infrastructure of the telecoms world, its interconnection fees and how to handle traffic in this environment.”

Yet Karlberg agreed that the telcos too are being challenged by the introduction of new services from IP service providers.
“There’s a new business case that has to be developed and so far there have been more efforts made to protect versus new ways forward in my mind.”

“It’s a real hen and egg question. Google/ Yahoo.MSN, can they distribute their services without access? No. Can the telcos develop all these services themselves? No. So it’s obvious that these two parts have to find a business model to work together. The Yahoos need more speed in the network to distribute their services, and the telcos are dependent on more services to stay attractive. We have to leave the idea of who will win and find a way to live together.”

Karlberg also questioned whether the accepted view of convergence would really be valid.
 
“Customers want to get all kinds of service regardless of device. But then when you look at the businesses involved you don’t really see these layers together fixed, broadband, mobile and cable. I see an evolution where each technology broadens its scope, for example fixed line going from telephony to internet and now IPTV. But at the upper end you are seeing customers with a fragmented service.”

Test and measurement company, JDSU, has said it intends to buy mobile service quality monitoring specialist Casabyte. Casabyte will be integrated with JDSU’s Communications Test and Measurement division, which is strong in residential broadband testing.

Casabyte’s service quality monitoring solutions are aimed at ensuring quality of service and reducing operating expenses and customer churn as mobile network operators deploy next generation networks and content-rich data and video services.
Patrick Kelly, founder and analyst at OSS Observer, said, “Casabyte’s solutions should help JDSU provide a broader offering of products to support customers deploying fixed-mobile networks and services. Casabyte’s product set is very complementary with JDSU’s NetComplete service assurance product portfolio.”
“The convergence of fixed-mobile networks and services requires communications test solutions for any service at any point in the network – from the head end to the handset,” said John Peeler, president of JDSU’s Communications Test and Measurement division. “With the addition of Casabyte’s product portfolio, JDSU offers the industry’s broadest set of service assurance solutions for the deployment of ‘quad-play’ broadband services.”
“In a fiercely competitive market, the simple expansion of services alone will not enable service and content providers to meet their business objectives,” said John Read, president of Casabyte. “Quality of service is a key success factor, and we will continue to help our customers achieve their QoS goals as a part of the JDSU family.”

BT has announced a range of Wi-Fi handsets which, it says, will use the company’s growing network of hotspots and proposed Wireless Cities to offer customers thousands of extra sites to use its Fusion service.

” height=”<% height %>” align=”right” alt=”Fusion goes to public WLAN” class=”articleimage” />

The operator is also putting the phones into high street retailer Phones4U, which has 400 UK stores nationwide.
The company’s plan is to build 12 Wireless Cities (meaning widespread WiFi coverage in city centres) by March 2008.
BT says that the Nokia 6136, Motorola A910 and the Samsung P200, all dual mode phones, will boost sales and drive demand for its fixed mobile convergence product. And if the promise of VoIP calls from WiFi hotspots is not enough, the carrier is throwing in free internet access.
Steve Andrews, BT chief, Mobility and Convergence, said, “Today, Fusion takes another huge step forward with an exciting new evolution offering even more places to get great value mobile calls.
“These latest free handsets will allow customers the freedom to just make the calls and surf the web via BT broadband without having to think twice.”

Mobile ticketing company Mobiqa is providing a mobile train ticket service to UK rail company Chiltern Rail for a three month pilot system. Under the pilot system customers receive their ticket via SMS, and on-train staff scan the bar code. The next step is to install scanning gates at London’s Marylebone Station.

” height=”<% height %>” align=”right” alt=”Just the ticket?” class=”articleimage” />

Hitachi Displays has developed a 2.9-inch, high definition IPS liquid crystal (LC) display module for mobile phones. The whole screen can be viewed without scrolling laterally, using a full-browser function when browsing websites for PC or VGA video image

” height=”<% height %>” align=”right” alt=”It’s a vision thing” class=”articleimage” />