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Orga Systems’ NGCP said to process 12.000 diameter messages per second

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Orga Systems,  a specialist in real-time charging and billing, announced today that the benchmarked results of its convergent policy management solution NGCP provide ‘outstanding performance’ and provide MNOs with the ability to successfully profit from increasing usage of data services.

According to Orga, performance benchmarks of NGCP prove that the system processes up to 12.000 diameter messages per second running on an entry level UNIX server (T5220) with one CPU. Showing an average latency of 8msec, benefiting from its multithreading parallel processing, NGCP supports most efficient hardware utilization resulting in a processor load of less than 60%. The CPU load scales almost linear with throughput and gives operators a reliable reserve for peak load periods, says Orga. With its highly efficient design, NGCP is said to cope easily with rising demands in policy control and advanced charging scenarios. Its modular architecture is compliant to the latest 3GPP specifications and gives MNOs a future-proof platform for market growth, says Orga.

Orga Systems unifies policy management, active mediation and charging control on one single platform, helping operators to manage complex subscriber profiles and charging rules for all services across all networks for pre and postpaid subscribers. Real-time charging and policy management allow for the control of bandwidth-hungry applications, while at the same time generating additional revenues with new individualized service offerings, says Orga.

3D functionality and dual core processors to drive smartphone shipments to reach $94bn by 2015, says research

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A new report by Juniper Research has found that 3D functionality and other technology developments, such as the introduction of dual core processors, will drive the high–end smartphone market over the next five years.

Features associated with today’s smartphones, meanwhile, such as app store connectivity and touchscreens, will be present in over 80% of handsets shipped in the US by 2015. Western Europe and Far East & China are also demonstrating significant take-up says Juniper.

“The handset market will become increasingly polarised,” says Anthony Cox, Senior Analyst at Juniper. “Handsets with smartphone functionality will account for the lion’s share of shipments in developed markets, while less developed economies will see a ready market for low cost handsets.”

However, several less developed markets, such as parts of Latin America and Africa, will all but miss out on the smartphone revolution.  Meanwhile the global mid-tier market, characterised by feature phones and standard handsets, will continue to contract, it says.

Further findings from the Next Generation Smartphones report include:

·         The take up of video calling using the mobile device will be limited even with the launch of Facetime by Apple

·         Competition will drive smartphone pricing down, though this may be mitigated against by the launch of handsets with new functionality

·         The combination of the smartphone and the app store will result in substantial increases in data usage over the smartphone device

The report finds that Apple’s operating system has revolutionised the market, leaving several well-known players in its wake. The challenge for the likes of Nokia, Research in Motion and Microsoft  is not only to bring new operating systems to the table as quickly as possible, but also to make sure that developers create apps for them when there are two successful stores out there already, says Juniper.

Wireless Logic SIM provisioning platform gets £1 million upgrade

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European independent M2M connectivity provider, Wireless Logic, is to invest over £1 million in upgrades to SIMPro, its SIM card provisioning platform, which currently manages and monitors hundreds of thousands of active customer SIM cards across the UK and Europe.

The million pound investment will now see SIMPro enhanced and developed over the course of the next 18 months to help reduce support costs for SIs and to offer new services such as real-time data visual display, data-mining and disaster recovery, many of which could be available as soon as October of this year.

Developed and launched by Wireless Logic in 2007, SIMPro is said to be used by over 400 of the company’s 600 systems integrators across Europe who benefit from the platform’s ability to manage entire SIM estates across multiple mobile networks over one single platform.

Phil Cole, Wireless Logic’s co-founder and Sales Director, believes the platform’s ‘One Window’ view is becoming an essential tool for SIs managing large SIM estates who may be haemorrhaging profit through an inability to manage and monitor SIM estates over multiple networks.

“Many systems integrators managing M2M projects with multiple network partners find it difficult to manage their estate of SIMs, especially as the numbers increase. Many redundant connections remain active and can prove costly over time. Performance is also an issue – the quicker a problem is identified, the quicker it can be rectified. SIMPro uses a single view across the entire estate – regardless of network – all on one platform. For the first time, SIs can see where they can reduce costs, make efficiencies and now, with a raft of new features planned, they can make even greater savings.”

Some of SIMPro’s new features will include real-time GPRS monitoring and analysis, AT Command Device Management which removes call out costs, and SIMDev. SIMDev is a platform which allows SIs to develop applications separately to legacy systems; allowing development of Android, Windows or Bada applications without the need for extortionate development costs. Using SIMDev, SIs can bring new applications to market quickly, says Wireless Logic.

Cole added: “Users of SIMPro tell us that it is the most effective way to gain a global view of the entire estate of SIM cards, across many operators and countries, terminated through one VPN. With this additional investment, we’re looking forward to giving users even more value through innovative analytics and cost-saving support tools.”

Telmap announces commercial launch of Telmap5 in Europe

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Telmap today announced the launch of the Telmap5 Mobile Location Companion, commercialized by SFR in France under the name SFR GPS.

The new location companion is said to be the next generation of SFR’s existing Find & Go service (also powered by Telmap) and in addition to the complete navigation offering, Telmap says it has added several new features:

A ‘unique’ widget carousel which enables quick and focused access to nearby information from any screen within the application. Using the widget carousel, customers can quickly and easily find whatever they are looking for: The nearest Velib bike rental station or SFR shop, parking, hospitals, ATM’s and more all by simply clicking on the relevant widget on the carousel; An intuitive free-text search that enables users to access millions of points of interest from a variety of content providers and categorizes the results to ensure their relevance to the user; A new and improved map-centric user-interface which places users at the centre of the map enabling them to make the most of their surroundings.

SFR GPS is available on the BlackBerry Curve 9300 and 8900 and on the BlackBerry Bold 9700 and 9000;  it will be available shortly afterwards on additional smartphones.  SFR customers have free access to the application for local search, mapping and pedestrian navigation and for a monthly subscription, customers can also benefit from complete turn-by-turn in-car navigation.

“This is the next step in our commitment to enable SFR to drive customer loyalty by bringing true value to their end-users through a differentiated offering that answers customer’s day-to-day needs,” says Oren Nissim, Telmap CEO.  “By constantly identifying new consumer trends, we will continue to enhance SFR GPS with additional content and services in the future.”

AT4 wireless introduces MIMO 4×2 capabilities in the E2010 Broadband Wireless Test Set

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AT4 wireless has announced the commercial availability of the LTE Rel-8 MIMO 4×2 option in its E2010 Broadband Wireless Test Set. The introduction of this option in the E2010, together with the already existing VSA capabilities, embedded channel emulation and AWGN and the multi-cell, multi-RAT capabilities, makes it a unique solution in the wireless test equipment industry.

According to 3GPP specifications, MIMO 4×2 feature is mandatory to be supported by LTE Rel-8 compliant UEs. Early availability of this feature in AT4 wireless S3110B LTE Mobile Test Application enables LTE UEs manufacturers to validate their designs for compliance to this demanding feature. Additionally, the MIMO 4×2 feature also translates into immediate availability all 3GPP TS 36.521-1 chapter 8 MIMO 4×2 test cases, that will be required as part of the GCF and PTCRB certification schemes. This allows AT4 wireless customers to start pre-certification of their designs as of today, providing enough time to debug potential issues and avoiding roadblocks during actual device certification.

“This new feature, together with the early availability of December’09 compliant LTE protocol stack in our system simulator, allows AT4 wireless to provide its customers with the most advanced testing tools when it comes to LTE UE verification and certification”, said Juan P Hidalgo, LTE Product Manager at AT4 wireless. “This annoucement also reinforces AT4 wireless commitment to provide the most compact test solution in the LTE testing arena, leveraging AT4 wireless customers’ investments.”

Vodafone Hungary selects FancyFon device management

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FancyFon, a specialist in mobile device management solutions for smartphones, today announced that Vodafone Hungary has selected FancyFon’s technology, FAMOC, to provide mobile device lifecycle management, both as a hosted and behind-the-firewall solution, for its business customers.

Vodafone Hungary required a centrally managed and secure mobile device management solution to support the evolving demands of its business customers. Vodafone Hungary issued an international tender for such a solution, and FAMOC was selected over and above competing US and European-based independent software vendors.

As a result, Vodafone Hungary now offers mobile device management to its business customers; from SMBs to large enterprises and government organizations. In addition, FAMOC will enable Vodafone Hungary to differentiate itself from its regional competitors, by offering its business customers with device management functionality and capabilities, under aggressively competitive commercial terms.

Dr. Gabor Piller, Director of Vodafone Hungary’s Enterprise Business Unit, commented; “As an early adopter of ground-breaking technology, Vodafone Hungary wanted to be the first to offer its customers mobile device management functionality, and after researching the various solutions on the market, we decided that FancyFon was by far the best.”

Dietmar Fuchs, COO at FancyFon added; “As increasing numbers of businesses demand advanced levels of support for their fleet of smartphones, service providers must respond to the market by offering a centralized mobile device management solution. FancyFon is perfectly placed to provide carriers with a market-leading platform that enables them to cater to this demand, and allows service providers to offer device management to their customer base at an attractive price point.”

FAMOC is said to have delivered a mobile device lifecycle management solution to Vodafone Hungary, enabling the carrier to offer each of its business customers a centrally managed platform from which to control its entire fleet of corporate smartphones, based on disparate mobile platforms, in real time, over the air.

Orange and T-Mobile offer combined network access

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Two networks, one access – first move to single network?

Everything Everywhere (EE), the combined entity formed from the merger of Orange UK and T-Mobile UK, has said that from October it will offer users access across the combined footprint of both networks.

From 5th October, 30 million customers – the combined customer base of Orange and T-Mobile in the UK – will be able to access both networks. Customers will have to register for access to the “other” network and EE’s plan is for registered to customers to be able to automatically be authenticated on the “other” network, if signal is lost on their existing network. Tom Alexander, CEO, said that the operators would also include access to WiFi and fixed network assets within one “super network”.

Of interest to industry watchers will be the news that EE is intending to use this network sharing as a form of crude traffic management and Quality of Service control. A statement from the company said, “Next year customers can expect benefits such as automatically switching to whichever of the two networks has the strongest signal while they’re mid-call, and enhanced data and internet coverage.”

Detecting network signal strength and performing a hand-off across networks proves that the companies have taken steps in the background to integrate the signalling and control layers of the networks.
Although EE says that it will work both brands on a co-opetition basis, offering a harmonised or optimised network quality experience will necessarily eliminate one possible area of differentiation.

But the move also shows that instead of moving to just one network, EE will continue to view its networks for the time being as two separate networks-albeit with identical access privileges for users.

Another question that occurs is how the operators will charge each other for traffic termination, or carrying each other’s data. If a data session is begun on Orange’s network, but then hands over to T-Mobile’s network because it offers greater bandwidth at that time, then how will the session be handled financially between the operators? T-Mobile has effectively handled Orange’s data for it. Orange will bill the customer, or rate the data used against his bundle- essentially extracting the benefit from the session. Will Orange then pay T-Mobile for carrying the bulk of the data on behalf of its own customer? That would be a normal interconnect relationship, except in this case between two entities that share an owner.

The easiest way to deal with that, eliminating any added cost or complecity, would be to treat the network as one network, serving a combined user base. So it may not be too much of a stretch to view this announcement as the first move to a combined network, and business model.

Never one to undersell itself, EE described the move as “the start of the single, biggest improvement of network coverage since the birth of mobile”.
Both operator brands are offering the chance to sign up for network sharing online, at either www.t-mobile.co.uk/share or www.orange.co.uk/share.

Mobile advertisers forecast to spend $1.8 billion on location-based campaigns in 2015, says study

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Location-based advertising is still in its infancy, but according to a new study from ABI Research, businesses are primed to spend $1.8 billion on it in 2015 as part of their overall mobile marketing budgets.

“It’s still early days and there’s no single ‘right’ approach to location-based advertising,” says practice director Neil Strother. “This remains a very fragmented market that is full of experimentation.”

Nonetheless, the options are becoming more clearly defined, says ABI. Location-based ads are enabled by three sets of technologies: GPS, Wi-Fi, and Cell-ID (location determined relative to mobile phone transmitters.) The most successful campaigns use a mix of some or all of these, depending on the product or service, the region, the consumers, and the location accuracy required.

New location-based services are springing up, catering to mobile shoppers. Some are “check-in” services such as Loopt, Gowalla, Foursquare, and Facebook with its Places, for consumers who are willing to “self-identify.” Others, such as Shopkick, use an iPhone app to reward shoppers just for visiting certain stores.

But do people really want to be tracked, asks ABI? “Some might be put off by the ‘Big Brother’ aspects of this,” says Strother, “but it’s really about the value-exchange: if you care about getting discounts or being rewarded for shopping, is the value-exchange high enough so that you’ll accept having your whereabouts known to these companies in return for the benefits?”

How should a retailer begin? Strother lays out a step-by-step guide for the would-be location-based advertiser in the report. The main points:

Establish your marketing goals, as with any other marketing campaign
Analyze your customers’ mobile and location habits and develop your location approach
Choose location partner(s) and determine the best technologies for your brand Execute your geo-targeted campaign, measure the results, and refine

Destination Dublin for Management World

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TM Forum announced today that after eleven years in Nice, France, its Management World conference will move to Dublin’s new Convention Center – the CCD – May 23-26, 2011. TM Forum says Dublin and the CCD will provide the perfect business environment for Management World attendees-a leading capital city that is easy to get to, easy to do business in and with a reputation for hospitality that is second to none.

As a vibrant European hub for global technology companies, including major communications service providers, IT organizations and large online businesses such as Google, Facebook and eBay, Dublin is a natural fit for the increasing scope of the industry’s premier conference, it says.

“One of the keys to growing an event in today’s market is to remain one-step ahead – to keep it fresh, relevant and invigorating,” commented Nik Willetts, senior vice president, Communications, TM Forum. “Dublin and the CCD offer the ideal platform for Management World’s continued growth by bringing together the right audience and tackling the major issues and opportunities facing the industry today. Management World is widely regarded as the meeting place of the industry, and this move will make networking and doing business even easier for our attendees.”

The Convention Center Dublin is the world’s first carbon-neutral conference facility. This purpose-built venue allows for a range of new sponsorship opportunities available to TM Forum members, with significant support already shown by long-standing sponsors of the event.

In addition to a new location, a number of innovative features are under development for the 2011 conference.  “Our highly successful Executive Program will expand in 2011, providing a unique forum for senior executives from across the industry to network with their peers,” added Willetts. “We’re also creating new set interactive presentation formats and exclusive content. In short, Management World 2011 will be our best conference yet!”

The future of text: the future of mobile

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Operators can use SMS to make money, instead of racing to the bottom

What follows is an excellent article from Stewart Easby, head of product marketing, Telsis. Despite the fact that operators are giving SMS bundles away for nothing (and read on for some shocking examples of this race to the bottom) Easby makes the case for SMS as a driver for future operators revenues. Consumers like it, it’s adaptable and easy to use, and by using smart text services, as well as application-to-person services, Easby argues operators can still use SMS to drive profitable future services, including the likes of mobile social networking. It’s well worth five minutes of your time. – Keith Dyer, Editor, Mobile Europe.

Stewart Easby writes:

At an event in London to mark 25 years of cellular telephony, presenters were invited to discuss what the future of mobile will bring.

I was struck by how most of the talk was of high speed data services, and about related technologies. It was not surprising that vendors should promote whatever technology or service they had to offer. Put a group of technologists in a room together and it’s almost inevitable that they are going to end up breathing their own fumes. However, I was surprised that over the course of the presentations there was so very little acknowledgement of what subscribers actually want.

To me, it pointed up the persistent disconnect that exists between phone users and much of the mobile industry. WAP, IM, MMS and video have all been heavily promoted, yet subscribers in the main have ignored them and simply got on with the business of talk and texting. After an agonisingly slow start, MMS is now growing and, says Portio Research, could be generating $51 billion globally by 2014; but in the same year, Portio says, subscribers will send over 11 trillion text messages to generate revenues of $124 billion.

It is almost as if, in spite of the astonishing revenues, the mobile industry devalues text because it is such a simple, low-tech idea. However, subscribers do not have the same dismissive view, and despite increasingly having access to alternative on-phone communication channels such as IM and email, are sending ever greater volumes of text messages. The different channels seem not to be cannibalising each other. Subscribers treat each medium differently and use them for different purposes. It’s said that the average time taken for a recipient to read an email is 48 hours, while for a text messages it’s four minutes.

Nonetheless, text messaging has become a commodity, and one subject to the price pressures of the market. In one European country there are three competing operators. The operator with the smallest number of subscribers offered 1000 minutes of voice plus 1000 text messages for €10 per month. Just two days later one of the other operators offered the same deal for €9 per month. The third operator hit back a day later by offering the same for just €1 pm. The other two quickly matched the price. Between them, and in less than a week, the three operators threw away tens of millions of Euros in revenue – and ended up in the same competitive situation they started out in.

The first operator recognised the differentiating power of text messaging, but set about using it in the wrong way. Rather than competing on price, they should have competed by rolling out innovative new text services. With minimal extra investment, they would have seen a beneficial impact on recruitment and retention, plus won the bonus of new revenue streams from services for which subscribers were willing to pay a premium.

There are multiple reasons why text has the potential to return substantially greater revenues. All handsets can send and receive text, whereas only a small percentage support mobile data. Text is a push service, has low battery impact and provides an instant receipt. It is also a service with which subscribers are demonstrably comfortable, one that is firmly embedded in youth culture globally and which has propagated through the age classes as yesterday’s teenagers become today’s businessmen and women, parents and grandparents.

Operators that avoid the trap of competing on price and instead use smart text services as a route to achieving differentiation will leverage these factors. Some operators have already embarked on the first wave of such a programme by deploying generic smart text services such as divert to another handset, copy to another handset, archive in network, anti-bullying and auto-reply. The first operators to do this have created temporary first-mover advantage, but to consolidate their lead they must drive forward with a second wave that adds fully custom services, targeting multiple customer segments with text-based applications that appeal directly to special interests.

 

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