AT&T's 700 MHz Acquisition Approved
By Teresa von Fuchs
Although AT&T could still be bidding in the FCC's current auction, it looks to have already won a nice chunk of 700 MHz licenses. The commission has approved AT&T's buyout of Aloha Partners, including its coveted spectrum holdings, which are estimated to cover 196 million people in 281 markets. AT&T offered to buy Aloha for $2.5 billion in cash.
Aloha owned 12 MHz within the 700 MHz band, acquired in a previous spectrum auction; it had two limited market trials but never used the licenses to build out a wireless network. Aloha bought the licenses at a deep discount, and as part of the FCC's approval, AT&T will have to make up for the discounted price, including interest, before it can complete the deal.
FCC Commissioner Michael Copps reportedly objected to the sale saying the commission's approval was "a rush to judgment," and that the transfer most likely will "reduce competition and diversity" within the wireless services market.
However, the commission's final approval declared that AT&T's acquisition would not "have an adverse effect on competition."
FCC Auction Adds New Twist
By Evan Koblentz
Round 31 brought a new twist in bidding for the FCC's 700 MHz spectrum auction this morning.
The high bid for the nationwide C block remains at $4,637,854,000, from Round 17 last week. But the combined bids of the 12 regional C Blocks now totals $4,748,030,000. FCC rules state that when the total regional bids exceed the bid for the nationwide block, then the regional bidders win, and the blocks are sold individually.
So, there could be back-and-forth bids now as nationwide bidders compete against regional bidders - many of whom are the same companies on both sides, such as the major telecomm carriers and outside Google.
The nationwide D Block remains stuck at $472 million, and some experts believe its emergency use requirement may change if the bids don't arrive soon.
Nokia Launches New Mobile Services
By Teresa von Fuchs
Nokia pushed further into the mobile services space with the launch of its social networking site "Share on Ovi," which went live today. Based on technology acquired from U.S. company Twango, users of Share can organize and manage multiple media formats and share uploaded content easily among contacts and other sites.
Nokia acquired Twango about six months ago.
On the new Share on Ovi blog, the Twango "team" wrote about recent changes to the service, including the "new look and feel" that will be common to all Ovi services and a "streamlined user interface." The blog post also cites improvements to the service infrastructure, which will allow it to scale to millions of users. The Share Online tool allows users to capture photos and videos and upload them to the service directly from their Nokia mobile phones. The new site also includes tools to let users view their content or content from contacts more easily on a mobile phone.
Nokia also rolled out its delayed online gaming service N-Gage today.
Samsung To Reveal Top-of-the-Line New Handset
By Teresa von Fuchs
Word is out about the Samsung G810, one of the most anticipated new handsets expected to be unveiled at the Mobile World Congress next week in Barcelona. Several blog sites have posted preview specs; it looks as though the G810, a followup to the G800, will be similar to Nokia's N95, including a 2.6-inch display, a host of connectivity acronyms GSM, HDSPA, GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Instead of running Windows Mobile, like the G800, the G810 will run Symbian's S60 platform.
Other highlights include a high-end 5-megapixel camera with 3x optical zoom and auto-focus, 150 MB of internal memory and a microSD slot.
The G810 is expected to retail for about $859.
Apple Releases 16GB iPhone
By Teresa von Fuchs
Apple has released its 16 GB iPhone. With a price tag of $499, the new double-your-storage version is available immediately from both Apple and AT&T in the United States. Apple also announced a 32 GB, Wi-Fi-enabled iPod Touch for $499.
"For some users, there's never enough memory," said Greg Joswiak, Apple's vice president of Worldwide iPod and iPhone Product Marketing, in a statement. "Now people can enjoy even more of their music, photos and videos on the most revolutionary mobile phone and best Wi-Fi mobile device in the world."
The 16 GB iPhone is good news, but there is still no sign of a 3G version.
LTE Test Group Says Technology On Track
By Wireless Week Staff
The LTE/SAE Trial Initiative (LSTI) has completed a second round of LTE tests, which show that the technology is on track to bring faster wireless broadband capabilities to the mass-market. LSTI, which consists of companies from across the global telecom industry, says it has verified that the technology standard is capable of achieving the high-speed downloads and fast network response times necessary to give a true broadband experience on mobile devices.
"Mobility is no longer just about being able to call somebody on their cell phone. People today want anywhere, anytime access to information, entertainment, and a broad range of communications," said Pekka Sarlund, vice president of wireless modems at Nokia, in a statement. "As this always-connected lifestyle becomes more popular and mobile applications become more advanced, it will drive an overall increase in network data traffic. Eventually, existing mobile technologies will reach their limits. In order to meet increased bandwidth demands in a cost-effective manner, networks need to evolve; they need to be faster and more efficient. LSTI is producing tangible test results proving that LTE can do all this."
The group has more than 17 active participants, including telecom equipment innovators as well as network operators. This global initiative hopes to drive the seamless introduction of end-to-end LTE solutions - including infrastructure, devices and chipsets - through collaborative technology trials and proof-of-concept work.
The latest laboratory and early field tests on prototype LTE systems have confirmed that baseline devices can achieve download speeds exceeding 100 Mbps, and high performance systems using 4x4 MIMO antennas can push this to beyond 300 Mbps. LSTI members also said they have demonstrated substantial improvements to network response times.
Intelius Abandons Cell Phone Directory
By Teresa von Fuchs
Following complaints from consumer groups as well as Verizon Wireless, people search site Intelius has shut down its directory of cell-phone numbers. Intelius claims to have 90 million numbers in its database, and would sell info for $15 per report through its Website.
Last week, Verizon Wireless issued a statement calling Intelius's services an invasion of customer's privacy, and telling the company to "stop it."
In a statement, Intelius said the market was not ready for a cell phone directory and that was why it would discontinuing its efforts. However, the company still plans to offer reverse lookup, which will give the subscriber's name and the wireless carrier of an entered phone number.
The wireless industry attempted to create a similar directory a year ago; that was also shut down by consumer complaints.
T-Mobile USA Enhances Fraud Solution
By Rhonda Wickham
Looking for a simple way to address multiple risk management applications in a configurable package, T-Mobile USA recently contracted with risk management solutions provider Neural Technologies and systems integrator T-Systems North America to provide a new fraud management solution to protect its customer data.
T-Systems and Neural Technologies implemented the Minotaur risk management tool. T-Mobile plans to use it to automate many manual processes with state-of-the-art detection methods so it can react more quickly to potential fraud events.
"Minotaur has the flexibility to add new data feeds, rules, neural models and profiles as our business needs change," said Robert Strickland, senior vice president and CIO for T-Mobile, USA, in a statement.
Minotaur's risk management capability extends beyond fraud management into areas including credit risk, churn and collections optimization, according to Ian Gebbett, vice president of Worldwide Sales at Neural Technologies.
T-Systems will serve as prime contractor and integrator for hardware and software integration and services for the rollout of the fraud management system.
But Which Candidate Can Text Fastest?
By Evan Koblentz
A new trend will focus on the delicate juncture of politics and technology today, as advocates of wireless technology ride the coattails of Super Tuesday.
It's happening in all aspects of the process, from campaigns to voter registration to election security.
Limbo, a startup in Burlingame, Calif., which conducts mobile marketing for brands like Disney and Toyota, says it found in a test that mobile advertising to build candidate awareness works for elections no better or worse than for any other kind of advertising.
AT&T and the Rock the Vote organization are partnering to reach young voters. "Voters will be able to opt-in to get election and voter-registration news and reminders by text message, and will be able to download exclusive celebrity ringtones that promote the importance of voting. The campaign also will include text-polling, reports from student journalists and event sponsorships, among other initiatives. Content from the program will be made available to voters of all ages," AT&T explains in its media kit.
But there is a fine line between using wireless technology for good and bad, said Rebecca Mercuri, who is president of Notable Software and sits on an IEEE committee advising the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. For example, voters could use a mobile phone to photograph their completed ballot, and then e-mail that image to someone who has paid them for a vote - taking a photo of a ballot is already illegal in Italy, she said. Meanwhile, wireless technology in the actual voting machines is not illegal in most states, so that manufacturers can more easily update and maintain many systems at once.
Whether that same technology is used by pollsters, and whether it could be used by malicious hackers for voting fraud or for denial-of-service attacks is a highly controversial topic, she said.
Within the IEEE committee, "We had many arguments," she said. "Any of those [methods] could be going on at the Super Tuesday level."
TI To Unveil 4 Products
By Wireless Week Staff
At the upcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Texas Instruments (TI) plans to show off four new products. Each is designed in its own way to help TI customers with their complex wireless infrastructure application design needs for 3G and beyond. The products include a single-core DSP, an HSPA+ development platform, a single-chip wireless transmit processor and a 4-channel wideband digital repeater evaluation module.
The TMS320TCI6484 single-core DSP is the first baseband processor capable of supporting both MAC and PHY functions on a single chip. This can eliminate the need for a RISC co-processor. OEMs can either reduce their system cost through chip reduction or increase their system density supporting more carriers or channels per card. The DSP also includes high performance accelerators and peripheral interfaces that are optimized for cellular infrastructure products. This level of integration, packed into a 23x23mm chip, allows base station manufacturers to increase the channel or carrier capacity by 50%.
TI's HSPA+ development platform enables base station manufacturers to design a single product that spans HSPA, HSPA+ and LTE (Long Term Evolution). HSPA+ offers many benefits for wireless infrastructure base station manufacturers. Essentially, HSPA+, as defined by release 7 of the 3G mobile data protocol, introduces the concept of a flat architecture for cellular infrastructure. This new approach makes the base station into an IP router, connecting to the Internet with modern IP link layer technologies like Ethernet and eliminating expensive leased T1/E1 lines. With data speeds of up to 42 Mbps on the downlink and 11 Mbps on the uplink, HSPA+ is a significant step toward LTE.
On the analog front, the GC5322 is a single-chip wireless transmit processor that combines digital upconverter, crest factor reduction and digital pre-distortion linearization functions. The GC5322 device increases the efficiency of multicarrier power amplifiers (PAs) in the RF transmit signal chain and eliminates the need for high-performance RF power amplifier components. This enables base station OEMs to achieve power efficiencies of 25% or more for Class AB PAs and reach 40% or more for Doherty PAs.
Finally, the TSW4100 is a 4-channel wideband digital repeater evaluation module (EVM). TI claims it reduces time-to-market by up to 80%.
News Briefs For February 05, 2008
Companies in today's briefs include: Juniper Networks, Millennial Media, InnoPath Software, dotMobi Advisory Group, BroadcomCeragon, Cisco, Harris Stratex, Nortel, RAD Data Communications, Tektronix Communications, Qualcomm, Huawei Technologies, Exalt Communications, Eastman Kodak, Continuous Computing, Ortiva Wireless, picoChip, mimoOn, ExteNet Systems, Opera Software, Accedian Networks...
• Juniper Networks has joined the Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Alliance, a global initiative made up of mobile operators to accelerate the delivery of the next generation of mobile broadband networks. The alliance was created to provide a vision for technology evolution beyond 3G for the competitive delivery of broadband wireless services, by establishing clear performance targets, recommendations and deployment scenarios for a future wide area mobile broadband network, as well as to ensure that the cost-effectiveness of this network is competitive with alternative technologies.
• Millennial Media, a cross-platform mobile advertising company, has announced that MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM), the interactive media and Internet company of Major League Baseball, has become the latest top-tier content publisher to join its mobile advertising network platform. Through this agreement, marketers can reach, activate and engage baseball enthusiasts who visit MLB.com's mobile Website for complete coverage, including up-to-the-minute news, live scores, complete game schedules, player and team stats.
• InnoPath Software plans to introduce three major mobile device management (MDM) initiatives at the upcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Initiatives include InnoPath's new customer care portal, a Web-based MDM interface for subscribers and front-line customer care personnel that allows subscribers to manage their own devices and the Open Mobile Alliance-Device Management (OMA-DM) Software Component Management Object (SCoMO) standard for application management.
• The dotMobi Advisory Group (MAG) has announced the results of recent elections for seats to the MAG Steering Committee. The new MAG Steering Committee consists of key industry executives nominated and elected from the following 13 global MAG member companies: Akmin Technologies, Boomcast Entertainment Corporation, Carlson Marketing Worldwide, GoDaddy, iLoop mobile, Millennial Media, Mobility.mobi, Nokia, QuickPlay Media, SinglePoint, Smaato, Sony and The Weather Channel.
• Broadcom has announced the BCM2940, which it bills as the first 65 nm digital TV single-chip receiver that supports the DVB-T (Digital Video Broadcast- Terrestrial) and DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast-Handheld) standards.
• During this week's MPLS and Ethernet World Congress in Paris, 15 vendors are participating in the first multivendor mobile backhaul interoperability showcase. The event was organized by the European Advanced Networking Test Center (EANTC) and supported by the IP/MPLS Forum and the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) to demonstrate the viability of mobile backhaul over Carrier Ethernet and Provider Backbone Bridge-Traffic Engineering (PBB-TE) technologies. Among the companies participating in the showcase are Ceragon, Cisco, Harris Stratex, Nortel and RAD Data Communications. The applications demonstrated the simultaneous aggregation of 2G TDM and 3G ATM cellular backhaul traffic over Metro Ethernet and MPLS networks, as well as Ethernet Operations, Administration and Maintenance (OAM), which enables operators to monitor and control their service end-to-end over multivendor, multiaccess technology backhaul networks.
• Tektronix Communications has added the 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) protocol to its existing series of communications testing systems. Adding the LTE option to the current G35 system allows for function and load testing. Adding it to the current network /service analyzer systems allows for monitoring and optimization, officials in Richardson, Texas, said. Both versions are applicable to worldwide use in 3G, mobile WiMAX and HSDPA networks. The LTE option is available now. The option starts at $100,000 for testing between base stations and core networks, using Gigabit Ethernet, and starts at $350,000 for testing using radio frequency with an air interface probe.
• Qualcomm and Huawei Technologies have signed a technology transfer agreement for advanced Node B (base station) receiver design. The agreement covers new technology that can boost the data throughput performance of High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) networks by up to 60%. Technology transferred by Qualcomm under this agreement will enable Huawei to deploy highly advanced 3G networks in markets using any UMTS-based technologies.
• Wireless backhaul company Exalt Communications has launched the split-mount EX-s series of licensed wireless backhaul solutions. The EX-s series is designed to optimize the performance of legacy TDM and advanced IP-based access and campus networks with continuously variable native IP bandwidth, in a single software configurable system.
• Eastman Kodak has combined its Color Filter Pattern technology with a new CMOS pixel to create the KAC-05020 Image Sensor, a 1.4-micron, 5-megapixel device. Designed for mass-consumer camera applications such as mobile phones, the sensor provides a new level of resolution in small optical formats, using significantly smaller pixels. But unlike other small-pixel sensors which can produce poor images, especially under low light conditions, the 1.4-micron pixel reportedly provides image quality that can equal or surpass what is available from current devices using larger, 1.75-micron pixel CMOS designs.
• Continuous Computing has upgraded its Trillium 3G/4G Wireless Protocol Software for comprehensive support of UMTS High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) functionality in alignment with 3GPP Release 7 standards. These performance improvements increase the data rates and bandwidth over the air interface in 3G networks, allowing for faster video and data services and improved overall quality of service. The software is optimized to meet the rigorous performance requirements of HSPA services, thereby enabling TEMs to build out femtocell, 3G and HSPA networks.
• Ortiva Wireless has named Marc J. Zionts as its CEO. Zionts will be responsible for directing Ortiva's growth initiatives as the company expands its market share in the United States and abroad. Prior to joining Ortiva, Zionts was CEO of FastMobile, where he was responsible for the company's sale to Research in Motion (RIM).
• picoChip is collaborating with mimoOn to deliver a complete LTE (Long Term Evolution) base station reference design. The new PC86xx family of LTE reference designs cover the full range of eNode Bs from femtocells to multisector macrocells and is supported on the same common hardware platforms as picoChip's WiMAX products. LTE has significant commonality with WiMAX, both being based on OFDMA in the downlink, all-IP architecture together with MIMO and adaptive antenna systems (AAS). The PC86xx LTE design runs on the same picoChip and Wintegra hardware platforms as the companies' industry-standard WiMAX base station reference designs. As in WiMAX, the family includes PHY and MAC and scales from single-chip femtocell access points (Home eNode B) to sophisticated multisector carrier macrocells from 1.25MHz to 20MHz. Both TDD and FDD modes are supported.
• Laura Altschul has joined ExteNet Systems, in the newly created position of vice president of strategic marketing and communications. Formerly the director of national external affairs/engineering for T-Mobile USA, Altschul is one of the industry¹s leading experts in wireless site development and policy. At ExteNet, Altschul will be responsible for its government and industry relations in addition to marketing and corporate communications. In addition to her 10 years with T-Mobile, Altschul also created and led the Wireless Access Coalition and Coverage Communications Campaign, and has served on several industry committees including the GSM Association's RAG Health Policies Work Group (North American Representative), PCIA¹s State and Local Zoning Committee, CTIA Tower Siting Committee, the DAS Forum and Wireless Women's Leadership Forum.
• Opera Software has released Opera Mobile 9.5, the latest version of its Web browser for sophisticated feature phones and smartphones. Built on Opera's core architecture, 9.5's desktop-like browsing experience has been enhanced with zooming and panning and faster page loads. Opera Mobile is currently shipped on more than 100 million phones of OEMs such as HTC, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson.
• Accedian Networks, provider of packet performance assurance solutions, has appointed Scott Sumner to vice president of marketing. Prior to joining Accedian Networks, Sumner held senior marketing, product management and business development positions in a number of telecom-focused companies, including Minacom (acquired by Tektronix in 2006), Aethera Networks and PerkinElmer Optoelectronics.