T-Mobile Launches Unlimited Home Calling Service
By Teresa von Fuchs
T-Mobile USA plans to launch nationwide a new service that lets customers place unlimited domestic VoIP calls from their home landline phones. Called T-Mobile @Home, the service, which has been tested in Seattle and Dallas since February, will cost $10 per month and is expected to roll out July 2.
The service will be available to customers with a T-Mobile wireless plan of at least $40 per month. In order to access service, customers will need to buy a T-Mobile Internet router, which plugs into a home broadband connection. Customers can then plug a standard landline telephone into the router. The T-Mobile router costs $50, and customers can keep their home phone numbers.
Unlike other major U.S. wireless carriers that have launched similar services such as AT&T and Verizon, T-Mobile doesn’t have an established landline business.
T-Mobile already launched an at-home service earlier this year, called HotSpot@Home. The service allows Wi-Fi-enabled handsets to connect to a wireless router at home, or any T-Mobile hotspot, for unlimited wireless VoIP calling.
Sprint’s Extends Loyalty Program for Business Customers
By Rhonda Wickham
Beginning today, all Sprint Nextel small- and medium-size businesses can take advantage of its Business Premier customer loyalty program. This program originally served customers of the Nextel National Network and has now been expanded to Sprint Network business customers that have been converted to the operator’s unified billing platform.
The program offers rewards, added services and benefits to participants. Among the benefits are anniversary rewards, discounts on select business phones, notification of improved coverage and specialized business customer care.
Based on monthly billing levels, business customers are assigned a tier of Silver, Gold or Platinum. From there, they can enroll in PremierPoints, which lets them accumulate points that can be redeemed for rewards such as Sprint phone accessories, office equipment, brand name merchandise and retail gift cards.
Supreme Court Agrees to Hear AT&T Antitrust Case
By Teresa von Fuchs
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case filed against AT&T by Internet service provider LinkLine, which accused the telecom of anti-competitive practices.
Originally heard by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, LinkLine filed the suit claiming that AT&T overcharged for wholesale high-speed Internet service, making it impossible for the reseller to compete with AT&T’s low prices in the retail market. LinkLine buys Internet access from AT&T, combines it with other services and then resells the service in competition with the AT&T.
The San Francisco Court ruled against AT&T, saying that the company was intentionally setting wholesale prices to prohibit competition in the retail market from resellers. AT&T asked the Supreme Court to step in, saying that its prices are fair and reasonable and that the accusations are not covered under current antitrust legislation.
In a statement, the operator said: “We are pleased that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear our appeal.”
AT&T Announces Digital Media Solutions Portfolio
By Teresa von Fuchs
In more AT&T news, the carrier has introduced a suite of content delivery and digital media solutions to help companies package, deliver and distribute video and rich multimedia Web content across all three screens: the computer, television and mobile computing devices.
AT&T's Digital Media Solutions portfolio includes content distribution and management, broadcast video and digital signage services and solutions targeted to companies ranging from small businesses with multiple offices to larger, multinational companies.
As part of this latest offering, AT&T signed strategic agreements with ExtendMedia, Qumu and Stratacache, software companies that specialize in formatting and packaging content that is suitable for both B2B and B2C applications. Over the next several months, AT&T expects to integrate the software expertise of ExtendMedia, Qumu, and Stratacache with its own capabilities to provide companies with simplified, central network-based multimedia solutions.
By the end of the year, AT&T hopes to invest nearly $70 million in network infrastructure and development to support digital media capabilities across the United States, Europe, Japan, Hong Kong, China and Taiwan.
“Enterprise customers are using video and multimedia content to communicate with their employees, shareholders, partners and suppliers, but they are grappling with the complexity involved in staging, managing and distributing their content to their end-users,” said Ron Spears, group president for Global Business Services at AT&T, in a statement. “AT&T's network is at the heart of a simpler way to achieve this, using the scope and scale of our networking capabilities, services and professional expertise to deliver applications to both companies and the end-users they serve.”
American Airlines to Test In-Flight Internet
By Teresa von Fuchs
American Airlines, the latest airline to announce in-flight connectivity services, today announced that customers can begin testing Internet access on two flights. American Airlines said it hopes to expand service to more flights in a couple of weeks.
The service, offered in partnership with Aircell, will cost $9.95 to $12.95 depending on flight length, though the test service will be offered for free. The service will be tested first on a flight from New York to Los Angeles and on a return flight. Passengers will be able to use e-mail, IM, download video and connect to secure networks using notebooks or other wireless devices. Along with the paid service, passengers will be able to connect to American's Website, Frommer's Travel Guides and some news headlines for free.
Aircell is also working with Virgin America and JetBlue Airways to provide in-flight access solutions; JetBlue began testing e-mail, IM and some Amazon.com services aboard one of its planes in December.
Public Safety Agencies Support Sprint Rebanding Plan
By Teresa von Fuchs
Three public-safety organizations have reportedly filed a joint letter with the FCC on behalf of Sprint Nextel’s proposal to vacate channels in the 800 MHz band in stages. The three organizations – the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO), the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) – reportedly said in the letter that Sprint’s proposal is “not unreasonable,” and that they would “not object” if the commission accepted the carrier’s plan.
The FCC recently granted requests made by Sprint and multiple public safety organizations to extend its rebanding deadline. The rebanding plan was originally adopted by Nextel and public safety agencies. Among other things, it requires all parties to clear channels in the 800 band in order to avoid continued interference issues between the carrier’s iDEN network service and public safety radio service. While the FCC agreed to extend part of Sprint’s request for an extension, the commission was still deliberating about the carrier’s deadline to vacate other channels. The FCC’s original rebanding deadline was tomorrow.
The public safety agencies’ letter in support of Sprint’s plan reportedly included the clause that the carrier vacate all of its interleaved channels within 60 days of a public-safety agency being prepared to operate on the spectrum after July 1, 2009.
Under the Sprint’s proposal, it would immediately clear 20 channels, then clear more channels in proportion to the percentage of NPSPAC licensees that have completed rebanding.
Study: Reliability Issues Persist for Short Codes
By Monica Alleven
What’s the industry average for an SMS response from a common short code (CSC)? About 9 seconds, according to a new study from Keynote Competitive Research.
The fastest CSC responded in less than 6 seconds, while the slowest averaged more than 19 seconds.
The study also found that reliability and variability issues persist. Several short codes had more than 10 hours of outage, while one reported more than 50 hours. In addition, response times for some short codes degraded severely during the busiest hours of the day; one CSC showed a 60% peak-period slowdown every day.
In general, CDMA carriers had slower send times than GSM carriers, and for some short codes, response time was more than twice as slow via one carrier compared to another, according to Keynote.
Short codes have increased in popularity, but until now, there hasn’t been much visibility in terms of how well the codes are performing, according to Nisheeth Mohan, product manager of mobile at Keynote. The study ran throughout the month of May. “The goal is to inform the industry,” providing visibility into the end-user performance of short codes, he said.
The study, which compared the round-trip delivery time and average availability of SMS messages sent to 24 popular short codes, found that CBS and Coca-Cola rank first in overall reliability, while Obopay ranks first in overall responsiveness. Measurements were taken from New York and San Francisco over AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless networks during the 4-week period.
Verizon Wireless Lets Customers Get Loopt
By Wireless Week Staff
Verizon Wireless customers can now access Loopt’s interoperable location-based service.
Loopt enables friends who opt-in to be located by other friends and see what they are up to. Via detailed, interactive maps on mobile phones, friends can connect while on the go, navigating their social lives by orienting them to people, places and events. Users also can choose to permit sharing of location updates, geo-tagged photos and comments with friends in their mobile address book or on online social networks, communities and blogs.
“Loopt helps Verizon Wireless customers stay connected to friends and share their location in a fun and interactive way,” said Ryan Hughes, vice president of digital media programming for Verizon, in a statement. “Loopt enhances our customers’ real world experiences by helping friends stay informed of their friends’ lives.”
Loopt is 100% permission-based and users share location information only with their known friends via private networks. In addition, Loopt users can turn location-sharing on or off at any time on a friend-by-friend basis or for all friends at once.
Loopt is available beginning today on select Verizon Wireless phones for $3.99 a month. Customers need a Get It Now-enabled handset to access the virtual store.
Openmoko Announces First Distributors
By Evan Koblentz
Openmoko today named the first distributors for its open-source smartphone platform.
The list includes German companies Pulster, Golden Delicious Computers and TRIsoft; Bearstech in France; and IDA Systems in India. All of the distributors are experienced in dealing with custom and educational or industrial handhelds.
The shipping version, Neo FreeRunner, was announced early this year and includes basic developer tools. It is available in 850 MHz and 900 MHz versions for a suggested retail price of $399 (less in quantity or for educational institutions). Computer-aided design files are also available to help developers build accessories, graphical user interfaces and virtual models.
Distributors for other regions will be announced in August at the LinuxWorld Expo in San Francisco, officials said. A consumer version is expected later this year, with consumer-grade software expected next year, according to Openmoko’s e-commerce site.
Openmoko was first announced in 2006. Other open-source mobile phone platforms are more focused on the software side, such as Google’s Android and the LiMo Foundation. Also, Nokia recently said it’s buying out and will open-source the Symbian operating system, while the Linux Phone Standards Forum advocates industry standards.
Study: Mobile Content Bypassing Operator Networks
By Wireless Week Staff
A large percentage of multimedia content on mobile phone is either user generated or is stored on handsets, according to Pioneer Consulting’s “Multimedia Mobile Content Distribution.”
Increasingly, this content is shared with friends, family and contacts on social networks. Handsets having Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and WiMAX capabilities let end users use alternative networks to share content, effectively bypassing the operator’s mobile network and the content value chain.
Pioneer Consulting estimates that as a result of users sharing content and bypassing the existing value chain, $16.4 billion worth of revenue opportunity will be at risk by 2012. This is estimated to be more than a quarter of the total revenue opportunity for that year.
However, the study says that all is not lost yet and operators can play a key role in preventing this disruption from happening. To begin, mobile operators need to re-evaluate the applicability of the traditional client-server content delivery architecture in an environment where a large portion of the content originates from the handset. In addition, operators need to realize that there will be a bandwidth bottleneck between the base station and the handset due to an oversubscribed air interface, especially in the case of bandwidth heavy multimedia content.
“Mobile operators need to embrace peer-to-peer (P2P) methodologies within their own networks and focus on the advantages of using both assisted P2P and augmented P2P to mitigate the disruption,” said Robert Hsieh, author of the report.
“P2P is generally treated with contempt by operators and has now become the ‘P’ word that should never be uttered,” said Aditya Kaul, senior analyst of Emerging Wireless at Pioneer. “It is more of an attitude problem rather than an engineering one, and unless operators wake up to the reality of the situation, we cannot even begin to solve the problem.”
DISA Taps Alcatel-Lucent WiMAX Solution
By Wireless Week Staff
Alcatel-Lucent subsidiary LGS, which serves the U.S. government community, announced that the Defense Information System Agency (DISA) has selected Alcatel-Lucent’s WiMAX wireless broadband technology after technical and interoperability analysis under its Tactical Service Providers (TSP) Joint Capabilities Technology Demonstration (JCTD).
The JCTD aim is to demonstrate potential war fighting applications and the usefulness of a hybrid communications architecture that uses emerging standards-based, COTS (commercial off-the-shelf), satellite communications and wireless technology to extend global, wideband communications and services in a mobile tactical environment.
Through LGS, Alcatel-Lucent will provide a turnkey WiMAX radio access network that includes a WiMAX base station, WiMAX access controller and WiMAX operation and maintenance center that will support 802.16e-2005 (Rev. E).
The next phase of the project will include live demonstrations in the field and over-the-air transmission verification of further interoperability testing to validate the equipment capabilities and any unforeseen limitations.
Top Off Your Battery By Dancing
By Rhonda Wickham
John Mayer, Amy Winehouse and Shakin’ Stevens won’t be the only ones shaking this weekend at the Glastonbury Festival, the world’s largest greenfield music and arts celebration in London.
Mobile operator Orange has teamed up with GotWind, a company that specializes in renewable energy, to make sure its subscribers have power for their cell phones. All they have to do is wear a recharging gizmo and dance.
The portable kinetic energy chargers use a system of weights and magnets that provide an electric current to top up charge in a storage battery. This can then later be used to recharge mobile phones The devices can be worn on users’ arms.
Orange said the chargers, which will be given a test run at the festival, weigh as much as a mobile phone and are about the size of a deck of cards.
News Briefs for June 25, 2008
Companies in today’s briefs include: Kyocera Wireless, KORE Telematics, Digital Airways, Anam, Neustar, Cellfire, TravellingWave, Blyk, Motorola, Telefónica, Bango, CellSpin Soft, Palm, Symbian, Microsoft, Research In Motion, Viet Nam Posts and Telecommunications, Nortel, Multi-Links Telecommunications
• Beginning July 1, California drivers can get a ticket for talking on their cell phone while driving without a hands-free device. To take the sting out of the new legislation, Kyocera Wireless plans to hand out free hands-free headsets from 11:30-1:30 at 2831 Camino del Rio North (in the Dave & Busters parking lot) in San Diego.
• M2M firm KORE Telematics named Edward Bursk its new chief marketing officer. Prior to joining KORE, Bursk was chief marketing officer for Alcatel-Lucent’s government subsidiary (LGS).
• Digital Airways introduced Kaleido 3D, an advanced graphic rendering solution for mobile phones. Building on the Kaleido UI software solution, Kaleido 3D allows 2G and 3G handsets makers to create full 3D user interfaces.
• SMS application provider Anam teamed with NeuStar, a provider of clearinghouse and directory services. By combining the two companies’ technologies, they help operators remove interoperability barriers between SMS and mobile IM users. IM users will be able to seamlessly exchange IM messages with SMS users without having to leave that conversation.
• Cellfire introduced Cellfire 3.0, the latest version of its mobile coupon service that provides consumers access to savings from national, regional and local merchants on their cell phones. The newq version allows consumers to mobilize offers they discover in traditional and interactive media, and includes an enhanced user experience and seamless Web-phone integration.
• TravellingWave claims to have solved multimodal noise interference issues commonly associated with mobile speech and text input through its new speech processing algorithm. The Rao-Aronov-Garafutdinov speech-processing (RAGs) algorithm extracts frequency localized time-varying modulation features, which reduce background/channel noises; mitigate noisy interferences (as in low frequency hums); and suppress impulsive noises (for instance, clicks that are picked by a mobile microphone when users tap the keys). The company also announced that Todd Achilles, former executive director of handsets for T-Mobile USA and former GM for HTC-Americas, has joined TravellingWave’s advisory board and will assist management in product innovation and marketing strategies. TravellingWave is currently in trials with multiple mobile phone manufacturers and mobile carriers for VoicePredict which will be additionally released in the second half of the year as a downloadable software package for end-users with selective handsets.
• UK-based MVNO Blyk is expanding service to include Germany, Spain and Belgium in 2009. Today’s announcement follows one earlier this year in which the MVNO announced plans to enter the Dutch market. Blyk operates an ad-funded model of offering a quantity of free calls and texts to teenagers in exchange for sending ads to their mobile phones. Blyk claims to have run more than 900 campaigns in the U.K. for brands such as Coca Cola, STA Travel, Penguin, Buena Vista, L’Oreal and music artists The Kooks and Alphabeat with an average response rate of 29%.
• Motorola published the interim results of its 2-year managed services contract with Telefónica to optimize the operator’s GSM network in Spain. The company reports that through the optimization process, Telefónica’s customers have benefited from improved network performance that has resulted in the possibility of making calls from areas where previously it was impossible, thus increasing revenue for the operator. A reduction in dropped calls also has improved the overall experience and service quality for Telefónica’s customers.
• UK-based mobile billing supplier Bango is now processing on-bill payments in South Africa. South Africa, which is in the top 5 countries in Bango's mobile Web surfing chart, has more than 42 million mobile subscribers and a mobile penetration rate of between 85%-90% of the population.
• CellSpin Soft added support for Palm OS to its mobile blogging software. The company will now provide a free, 1-click GUI-based mobile application for capturing images, audio, video and text, and publishing to a user’s favorite community site. This could be a blogging, social networking, photo sharing or auction service. Sites include MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Pownce, Blogger, YouTube, Picasa, Flickr, Live Journal, Live Spaces and eBay. CellSpin is free to users. In addition to Palm OS, it also supports Symbian, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 5.0 and 6.0 and Research In Motion’s Blackberry operating systems.
• Motorola won contracts worth $28 million with Viet Nam Posts and Telecommunications (VNPT) Group for the expansion of the Vinaphone GSM network across 12 Northern provinces in Vietnam. Under the agreements, more than 1,000 cell sites will be deployed in northern Vietnam. Motorola will deliver its GSM infrastructure and solutions as well as a range of comprehensive services, including network optimization, operations and maintenance, to expand the cellular network and mobile services of Vinaphone, a subsidiary of VNPT, in suburban and rural areas of the country. This is Motorola’s second GSM network expansion project with VNPT in six months. Shipment of the equipment will begin in Q3 2008, and the project is expected to be completed in 2009.
• Nortel won a CDMA network upgrade contract from Nigeria-based Multi-Links Telecommunications worth $45 million. The initial phase of the contract has been awarded and will use Nortel's CDMA 1X EV-DO Rev. A solution in the metropolitan region of Lagos, the prime economic center of the country. The Multi-Links network will include Nortel's enhanced base station controller, EV-DO radio network controller and suite of base stations that support 1X and 1X EV-DO Rev. A.