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Irish MVNO signs deal with Tweakker for its OTA seamless automatic mobile phone configuration service

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Mobile internet connectivity specialist Tweakker today announced that it has entered into an agreement with JUST Mobile of Ireland, enabling JUST’s customers to have seamless access to its mobile phone setting service from the network operator’s website.

The agreement was struck in early March. Tweakker has since designed and delivered a customised white label version of its configuration service to the customer as a simple bolt-on website gateway with the look and feel of its brand. The gateway links with Tweakker’s MVNO Over-the-Air (OTA) provisioning servers.

JUST Mobile began trading in October 2010. As the only Irish-owned independent network provider, the Tweakker deal gives JUST’s customers online configuration care from the operator’s website at anytime, from any location. The service is said to greatly reduce the burden on JUST’s call centre, thus enhancing its overall Customer Care service.

Consumers can join JUST Mobile’s network or top up their SIM cards in 500 towns and villages nationwide thanks to a partnership with BWG foods, which gives JUST a front desk in over 900 SPAR, SPAR Express, EUROSPAR, MACE and XL outlets.

“As the new kid on the block, we want consumers to have the best customer experience from the outset and that means great deals, real value and superb customer care,” says Stuart Kelly, JUST Mobile’s Sales Director. “And when you’re talking customer care and automatic device configurations, there’s only one name in the business that counts – Tweakker.”

Tweakker’s business director Dennis Juul Poulsen adds: “Clearly, we’re delighted that our customised white label gateway is also proving a powerful care tool for JUST Mobile. This seamless website bolt-on service is now proving invaluable to MVNOs, Internet content providers and service providers in every continent.”

Tweakker’s Over-the-Air configuration service supports more than 2,400 mobile models and 129 brands – said to be the largest library of phone configurations and video guides in the world.

Evolved Intelligence Launches “Next Generation” Steering of Roaming

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Evolved Intelligence, the network value added services company, has launched what it calls a “next generation” steering of roaming system. The system, claims the company, aims to maximise overall profits for the operator whilst minimising the impact of steering on customer experience.

Steering of roaming is the means by which mobile operators choose the network that they would like their subscribers to use when out of coverage of the home network. Whilst there are many approaches to doing this, most networks today use some form of network based steering because of the increasingly dynamic nature of the modern roaming marketplace. Network based steering operates by either rejecting or accepting requests to attach using SS7 signalling.

Originally the objectives of steering were seen as simply getting the best possible pricing deal for the network. As the market matures, roaming managers increasingly focus on the need to maximise overall profits and to maintain a good overall customer experience.  

Poor customer experience whilst roaming can lead to serious problems. Robin Burton, Head of Marketing at Evolved Intelligence: “We have spoken with operators who have lost valuable corporate accounts because of a poor experience whilst roaming. Clearly roaming managers need to think about more than simply whether they are getting the best price.”

Evolved Intelligence’s new approach to steering is designed to minimise the intervention of the steering platform and thereby minimise any impact on customer experience.  

Says Nick Jones, CTO at Evolved Intelligence: “We operate a “damped steering” system which achieves overall attach targets over a period. This means that a significant number of roamers will probably not be steered at all. This both reduces signalling costs and reduces the impact on roaming experience”.

The system is also designed to recognise any situations where the “first choice” network is not available and allow attachment to an alternative network. Lack of availability may be due to a number of factors including lack of radio coverage, aggressive steering in areas of intermittent coverage or incorrect treatment of data and voice during steering.

Says Robin Burton: “Many steering systems are focussed on the percentage of roamers that are directed towards the chosen partner. Often it is felt that the “ideal” would be to achieve a 100% target. We feel that this may be a misguided ambition. It is very easy for a steering platform to achieve a 100% target: you simply refuse any requests to attach from any network other than your chosen target. This will, however, mean that there are many occasions when your preferred network is not available and you refuse your subscriber access to an alternative. This loses you traffic and annoys your customer. The Evolved Intelligence system has therefor been designed to automatically recognise these situations and allow connection.”

Evolved Intelligence Steering is supplied with a real time dashboard which displays the targets selected and the systems achievement of them. It is available as a remote managed “cloud based” service or as a service running on a local open standards platform.

Nokia Siemens looking for rural 800MHz LTE trial location in UK

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Tech-deprived techies required for LTE trial

Nokia Siemens Networks is to trial LTE 800MHz technology in a rural location in the UK. The company is currently partnering with industry grouping Cambridge Wireless to find a suitable location for the trial.

The objective of the rural broadband trial is to evaluate the economics of providing broadband to rural communities using LTE at 800MHz. The trial will run for approximately six months and Cambridge Wireless and NSN are currently looking for a suitable location – somewhere that is poorly served by broadband and with limited or no 3G coverage. Cambridge Wireless has asked its members to suggest a suitable location.

Not just anyone can get involved though. A note from Cambridge Wireless to its members said, “To minimise the ‘customer support’ required, our plan is to primarily involve Cambridge Wireless members (or their friends and families) in the first instance (rather than the general public).”

 

Research says shipments of smartphones grew 74 percent in 2010

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According to a new research report by Berg Insight, global shipments of smartphones increased 74 percent in 2010 to 295 million units. Growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 32.4 percent, shipments are forecasted to reach 1,200 million units in 2015. The global user base of smartphones increased at the same time by 38 percent year-on-year to an estimated 470 million active users in 2010, says Berg.

In the next five years, the global user base of smartphones is forecasted to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 42.9 percent to reach 2.8 billion in 2015. Smartphones are receiving more attention from handset manufacturers, network operators and application developers. Most importantly, says Berg, an increasing number of users are now discovering how smartphones can act as personal computing devices enabling access to the mobile web and applications, besides voice and text services. Although high-end devices tend to get most attention, the primary growth will come from medium- and low-end smartphones.

 “Chipset developers and handset vendors are working on technologies that will ensure a good user experience also for low cost smartphones”, said André Malm, Senior Analyst, Berg Insight. “The challenge is to develop a handset with enough memory, graphics performance and processing power to run the operating system with multiple applications while ensuring a responsive system with fluid user interface and still keep costs down”.

He adds that smartphones in general will also benefit from advancements in chipset design. In the next five years, further performance increases will come from dual- or quad-core application and graphics processors. These new processors will enable smartphones to rival the performance of dedicated gaming consoles and notebook computers. At the same time, new user interfaces will be developed that make better use of sensors such as accelerometers and gyroscopes as well as cameras to detect movement or gestures without the need to touch the display.

 

GSA confirms more mobile phones are shipping with HD Voice activated as default

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The latest Mobile HD Voice report from GSA (Global mobile Suppliers Association) confirms commercial network service and deployments worldwide, and the expanding ecosystem of HD Voice-compatible user devices. Several models of phones are now shipping with HD Voice (W-AMR) activated as default. This trend is expected to extend to an increasing number of new product launches as leading manufacturers confirm HD Voice capability as a main strategy, says GSA.

Mobile HD Voice based on AMR (Adaptive Multi Rate) Wideband technology (W-AMR) enables high-quality voice calls in mobile networks and an improved user experience. It provides significantly higher voice quality for calls between mobile phones supporting the feature, and can be implemented in GSM, WCDMA-HSPA (UMTS) and LTE networks. The higher voice quality using HD Voice improves the call experience and allows people to better share feelings, do business and communicate information. HD Voice transmits a broader spectrum of the human voice; therefore conversation is more natural and is likened to speaking to the other party in the same room. HD Voice also helps people hear better in noisy environments. The W-AMR speech technology is standardized by 3GPP.

There is a strong business case for Mobile HD Voice, says GSA. Customers make more, or longer, calls with HD Voice, and place a high value on HD Voice, it says. HD Voice helps operators to clearly differentiate their offerings and enable high quality services to voice dependent business like call center services, information services, emergency services, etc. HD Voice is also ideal for conference calls and can contribute to a reduction in business travel and raise productivity while reducing the environmental impact. Calls which are easier to hear and understand reduce fatigue typically associated with long conference calls.

The first commercial mobile HD Voice service was launched in September 2009. The momentum for introducing HD Voice is growing. HD Voice services are launched on 15 mobile networks in 14 countries across the world: Armenia, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Egypt, France, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Luxembourg, Moldova, Russia, Spain, and the UK.

The report identifies 27 models of HD Voice-capable phones from leading manufacturers that have been launched in the market.

GetJar defends decision to off Opera

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Mobile Europe publishes GetJar blog post (that you can’t read on GetJar yet)

This morning, independent app store GetJar tweeted that due to breach of terms and conditions, Opera Mini was to be slung off the GetJar app store. Opera Mini has been one of the top performing apps on GetJar up until this action – totalling 30 million downloads.

The announcement came a day after Opera announced it would be launching its own app store. Naturally, most people put two and two together, and came up with the correct answer. GetJar is not happy about Opera including its own app store within the browers, effectively denying GetJar of potential ad revenue, as it sees it.

We have received a blog post, before it has been published, from GetJar in defence of its action.

Opera Mini told us, “As we have worked closely with GetJar for a number of years we would like to find a solution to still be part of their offering. Opera Mini has been one of the most popular downloads in GetJar’s system historically, so we also believe this means that their users are missing out on a popular app.  We are in dialogue with GetJar about the process going forward. At this stage we can not confirm anything”.

GetJar’s PR was keen to point out that although the company promotes openness, it is still a business, and needs to protect its own interests.

Read GetJar’s blog post below (complete with smileys):

Dear GetJar Users,
This week we had to take a very drastic and unusual step at GetJar: to remove one of our long-time favourite apps. This is something that we don’t take lightly and is nearly unprecedented in the 5+ years we’ve been distributing apps to consumers in more than 190 countries. The app in question, Opera Mini browser, had racked up more the 30 million downloads on GetJar over the last several years and was one of the most popular apps in the browser category. It was also the winner of the prestigious Gettie Award last year for best mobile app in the Windows Mobile category

So why did we do this?

Apps on Getjar are free to download. This has always allowed us to provide quick, unrestricted and worldwide access to apps for all our users. It’s a central part of our business and philosophy and one that we find fundamental to allowing consumers to try great content no matter where they live and how they want to consume apps. However, to keep our service running GetJar needs to make money 😉 Therefore, we allow app developers to promote their applications on GetJar using advertising.  Developers can obtain extra visibility to promote their apps and pay for this on a per-download-basis.  This keeps your content free, keeps us running and allows developers to get extra visibility. 

The simple problem is that Opera mini decided to include a competing app store in its browser.  Although we don’t have any issue with this in principle, in practice it means that consumers might start using this app store instead of visiting GetJar to get their favourite apps. This robs GetJar of traffic and therefore of the advertising necessary to keep our service free for the more than 25 million consumers that use GetJar.  It also jeopardizes an ecosystem that has generated over 1.6 billion downloads for tens of thousands of developers who depend on us to make money from their apps. Don’t get me wrong: we’re happy to go head-to-head with any other app store and are certain that once you’ve tried the Opera App store you’ll find the depth of content, discovery and download from GetJar more compelling than ever. But it’s an another thing entirely to help competitors grow their business at our expense or that of our community. We spent many months negotiating with Opera to avoid this scenario and are disappointed that GetJar consumers will no longer have access to Opera Mini. Fortunately, there are a number of excellent options on GetJar for our users including Bitstream Bolt, UC Web browser and Squace. All are excellent products.

In the meantime, we hope to resolve this solution with Opera in the future and want to thank you all for being such dedicated GetJar fans 😉

Thanks,

Patrick Mork, CMO GetJar

 

One in eight mobile users expected to use mobile ticketing by 2015, says report

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One in every eight mobile users worldwide will either have a ticket delivered to their mobile phone or buy a ticket with their phone by 2015 which equates to over 750 million users, according to the latest analysis from Juniper Research.  This compares with approximately 1 in 20 now which equates to 230 million. Ticket delivery will be by SMS, bar codes, mobile web, smartphone apps or NFC, says Juniper.

Whilst mobile ticketing users are currently concentrated in a number of early adopting transport schemes in Japan, Central & Eastern Europe and Scandinavia, the report determined that opportunities for mobile ticketing will spread right across the transport, sport, entertainment and events sectors.

The Mobile Ticketing report pinpointed the next two years to 2013 as the key period in which mobile ticketing will transition from a minority experience to become mainstream as the mobile plays an ever growing role in all aspects of airline travel, rail travel, festivals and cinemas.

Report author Howard Wilcox pointed out: “Mobile technology is moving the ticket machine into our pockets. Our research demonstrated that mobile ticketing will change the way that many people buy and obtain their regular, every day tickets that are mostly printed at the moment. We foresee strong acceptance driven not only by airlines but also cinemas and some sports events: bar coded boarding passes are a clear case in point.”

Juniper’s report contains comprehensive five year forecasting for all the key market parameters including users, transactions and values for transport, sport and entertainment ticketing. Additionally the report highlights conclusions from analysis of 24 vendors addressing the market, which culminates in a new strategy positioning matrix.

Further key findings from the report include:

• Number of primarily developed regions will see penetration of up to one in five users by 2015.

• Growth constraints include existing ticketing infrastructure and danger posed by poor user experience.

iPass and Orange Business Services announce extended agreement

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iPass, a provider of enterprise mobility services, today announced an extended agreement with Orange Business Services, a global communications solutions integrator. With the agreement, Orange Business Services will offer the iPass Open Mobile platform, a cloud-based services delivery system, as part of its enterprise mobility solution.

Orange plans to deploy the iPass Open Mobile platform as the engine within its own Business Everywhere solution.  After successfully using iPass enterprise mobility services within its solution for CAC40 and multinational enterprises, Orange is also expanding the agreement to meet rising demand from its wider portfolio across smaller enterprises, where the pain of overcoming mobility challenges is just as acute.

“As a large carrier, Orange Business Services has high standards for both its service levels to customers and the strength of the technology we underpin those services with.  We had no hesitation in relying on iPass to extend our Business Everywhere solution to smaller-enterprises having worked with iPass for a number of years,” said Jeroen van Brussel, vice president International Mobility & Global Solutions MNC at Orange Business Services.  “Well planned, executed and managed mobility services should not just be for those within the realms of the upper echelons of business but rather be available to all.  With demand steadily rising, we’re looking forward to offering our iPass-powered service to a wider section of our customer base.”

“Orange Business Services has been a key strategic partner for iPass, and this latest agreement reflects our successful partnership and also the vision we share for providing businesses with an enterprise-class connectivity solution,” said Rene Hendrikse, vice president of iPass EMEA. “As its name suggests, our Open Mobile Platform was designed with an open architecture to allow partners like Orange Business Services to define their own mobility services based on their customers’ needs.”

Android surges ahead in Europe

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Kantar Worldpanel and IDC results both show Android growth

Two sets of results suggest that sales of Android devices increased greatly in much of Europe in the first quarter of 2011.

IDC’s European Mobile Phone Tracker found that Android device sales grew 1,580% year-on-year to 7.9 million units from 470 thousand units a year ago. IDC said that Apple’s iOS increased 66% in 4Q10 compared to 4Q09 as more operators launched the iPhone4. The new Windows Phone 7 grew 100% sequentially, limited by the soft launch in most countries (English version only) and the lack of local languages, IDC said.

Backing that up were results obtained from consumer panels by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, which indicated that Android has increased its share of smartphone sales in Great Britain, for example, to 37.4%, from 8.3 % a year ago.

Kantar found that even in markets where Symbian still dominates overll, Android is growing rapidly. In Germany Symbian remained the number 1 Smartphone platform, with a 30.5% market share, but this is down from 47.3% one year ago.  Android saw an increase in its share of the market by 25 percentage points to move to a 28.8% share. In Italy Symbian has a majority share of 49.8%, with Android’s market share growing 16.2 percentage points to a 17.2% share. In France Android’s market share grew 25 percentage points, on a year on year on a quarterly basis.

As for iOS, Kantar reported a 25 point drop in market share in France, and in Britain a similar drop from 39% market share of smartphone OS to 22%.

“The last quarter of 2010 clearly shows the trends for the coming years in Western Europe. The Western European mobile phone market will be dominated by smartphones, and Android will be the king of the hill,” said Francisco Jeronimo, European mobile devices research manager, IDC. “Android surged from 4% to 31% market share in less than a year to become the market leader in 4Q10 and the fastest growing operating system ever. IDC estimates at that Android will grow at a 37% compound annual growth rate between 2010 and 2015 in Western Europe.”

IDC found that Nokia shipments dropped 11% year-on-year to 19.6 million units, and its market share slipped to 33% in 4Q10 from 39% in 4Q09. Samsung’s smartphone performance was not enough to reverse the decline in feature phones and total shipments fell 2% from the previous year, but rose 13% sequentially. Apple kept its market share despite the 66% year-on-year growth in shipments. Sony Ericsson shipments fell 15% year-on-year, despite the 3,121% growth in its Android smartphones. The phone maker shipped 2.2 million smartphones and 2 million feature phones. The X10 and X10 mini were top selling devices in most countries and operators. RIM‘s shipments increased 67% year-on-year to 3.8 million units from 2.3 million units a year ago.

 

Swedish 800MHz auction yields 63% of German equivalent

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UK telecoms consultancy Coleago, which is doing a nice job of tracking spectrum auctions around the world, has calculated that a lack of competitive pressure in Sweden’s 800MHz auction yielded just 63% of the price per MHz per pop that 800MHz spectrum fetched in Germany.

A note from Coleago’s MD Graham Friend said that the result of the auction was a benchmark of US$/MHz/Pop 0.58, which is 63% of the value achieved in Germany and only 32% of the value achieved in Hong Kong.

“Both the German and Hong Kong auctions faced much higher levels of competitive tension,” Friend said. Capping the maximum bid at 2x10MHz per bidder may have limited the competitive aspect of the bidding, Friend said.

HI3G, TeliaSonera and Net4Mobility, a joint venture between Telenor and Tele2, all bid for that maximum of 2x10MHz spectrum, with Hi3G paying about half the amount for its block of spectrum compared to the other two bidders. TeliaSonera’s said that its licence cost it EUR96 million. Com Hem and Netett Sverige participated unsuccessfully in the auction.

Friend noted, “This outcome is particularly interesting as HI3G may well have had one of the highest valuations for the spectrum as HI3G, prior to the auction, did not hold any sub 1GHzspectrum. This represents another good result for HI3G as the company secured 2x10MHz of 2.6GHz spectrum in the Danish auction at a fraction of the prices paid by other bidders on a per MHz, per Pop basis.”

The Swedish and Post Telecoms Authority announced the results of the 800Mhz auction on Fiday, 4 March, the same day the Hong Kong auction closed. The acquired frequency blocks in the 800 MHz frequency band are not subject to any conditions related to construction pace or population coverage in Sweden.


 

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