Newly released forecasts by technology and media specialist Coda Research Consultancy are said to show that mobile phone users in Italy accessing video content via their devices will climb to 5.1m in 2015, and that revenues will reach US$685m.

Coda's report into the Italian TV market shows that users accessing TV content via DVB-H alone will double from its present 1.2m users to 2.5m in 2015.

In particular, the 2010 World Cup will act as a stimulus for accessing mobile TV services, as it did in 2006, and Coda estimates that regular usage will climb to 1.6m at the end of 2010.

However, Steve Smith, the report's author, commented that mobile TV take-up in Italy, although respectable when compared to the rest of Europe, has failed to meet expectations.

"In part this is due to how Europeans fit their mobile phones into their everyday lives," he explains. "People tend to use their phones for video, games, texting, social networking and so on when they are between spaces and events, such as when commuting or meeting friends. In Japan and South Korea, where mobile TV penetration is significantly higher, people spend a lot more time commuting on public transport and so have more time available. The streaming or broadcast of live TV simply doesn't fit the European consumer. This is one example of how operators and broadcasters aren't providing the kinds of video content and services mobile users actually want."

Where Coda does see the opportunity for significant growth is in users downloading video onto their phones either via 3G or from their laptops and PCs, with that caveat that content and rights owners allow them to do so. "Our research with iPhone users shows that downloading content allows people much greater control over their viewing experiences and the kinds of content they view. But content owners and service providers must provide more opportunities for users to do this," Steve explained.

The report Mobile TV and Video in Italy: An Assessment forms part of Coda Research Consultancy's ‘Mobilities' project.

Telmap, a specialist in mobile location solutions, today announced the availability of a special edition of Telmap Navigator for Android, allowing Telmap's location-based services solution to be accessed on the smart-phone operating system.

The Android edition follows launches on iPhone, BlackBerry, Symbian, BREW, and Windows Mobile and will help users take advantage of Android's user interface and capabilities, says Telmap.

Telmap Navigator for Android is said to enable users to be set-up and navigating within seconds, and provides users with real-time, relevant and localized service.

Key features are said to include:

• All-in-one solution including in-car navigation, dedicated pedestrian navigation, local search and content with an easy Tap ‘n' Go experience
• Real-time turn-by-turn navigation with 3D moving maps, voice and text instructions announcing street names, real-time traffic information and Points of Interests such as gas stations and parking lots along the way
• The Place Carousel, a palette of on-map widgets of popular business categories, such as hotels, cafes etc – provides local points of interest though a Tap ‘n' View search
• Full route corridor download that's conducted at the beginning of the navigation session, enabling quick and seamless re-routing when necessary with no need to re-connect to the server.

"Strategically, Telmap supports the main mobile platforms in order to provide a true location experience that can be brought to a greater audience on a wide range of devices", says Oren Nissim, CEO of Telmap.

"We see Android as another great platform that will drive a more connected and location-aware society. The high performance of the Android powered phones supports our unique technology requirements, and therefore provides an advanced user experience in mobile navigation and location-based applications."

Telmap says it is working with all of its customers to bring the Telmap Navigator Android edition to their subscribers.  Telmap Navigator for Android is available at leading Tier 1 operators, including Orange, where the service is bundled free of charge, as part of five top tariff plans. More operators are expected to launch in the near future, says Telmap.

Mobile operator 3 has launched the first mobile TV subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service, giving subscribers on-demand access to entire episodes of hit TV shows.

The SVOD service, called ‘TV on Demand', is fully managed and enabled by Mobix Interactive, now part of On Demand Group, a three-screen enabler for premier content and operations brands.  3's TV on Demand fulfills the industry's anytime, anywhere personal TV vision to provide programs to any handset with complete on-demand control. 

TV on Demand is said to establishe a major competitive differentiation among mobile television services.  Leveraging Mobix's Adrenalin technology and numerous partner studios and programmer relationships, TV on Demand presents a mobile viewing experience that correlates to television and broadband PC viewing.  It offers a variety of top-rated television shows (comedy, drama, etc.), enabling subscribers to extend their enjoyment of complete programs while they're on the go, away from their TV and broadband connections.  Adrenalin now ensures subscribers on any 3 handset can enjoy the new personalised functionality, including play, pause and resume of all programs at anytime.

Subscribers will pay either £5 per month or £1.49 per day for unlimited access to all shows in the service. Full content details of the service will be launched shortly.

Charlotte Blanchard, Director of Products and Services at 3 UK, said, "This platform gives us the ability to offer true on-demand TV, bringing one of the most popular types of internet service to our mobile customers.  The TV on Demand service will allow our customers to watch their favourite programmes when and where they want to."

Damian Mulcock, CEO of Mobix Interactive, said, "The introduction of subscription video-on-demand with full length programming to the mobile environment heralds a new era in the growth of mobile video. Our experience shows that penetration and viewing rates are enhanced by subscription on demand services, and Adrenalin's capability to deliver this new experience fits with the convergence strategies of our customers and consumers' increasing desire for multi-screen access and on-demand viewing."

Mobix Interactive is now located in On Demand Group's recently launched London headquarters that provides 3 UK and other customers with access to an integrated suite of services and technologies, including the Adrenalin video delivery platform and the VZ content management platform, to develop and manage on-demand services to any consumer platform.  The organization today supplies telco, cable and mobile operators with movies, programmes and promotions in English, German, Greek, Turkish and Arabic.

giffgaff, a new ‘people powered' mobile network, has launched today and announced details on its 'competitive and transparent' pricing structure, which is said to match the cheapest networks on the market and cheaper than the top four mobile networks. 

The giffgaff pricing structure includes 8p per minute for voice calls and 4p for text to other UK mobile networks.  Free data is on offer to all members for a limited period, and all members receive free calls and texts to other giffgaff members.  International prices are said to be equally competitive at 8p per minute to landlines in the EU, India, Pakistan, Australia and New Zealand and 16p to mobiles.  Calling the USA and Canada is 8p for both landlines and mobiles.  giffgaff is also said to be the only UK mobile operator not to charge for any 0800 freephone numbers.

Said to define a new mobile network business model, giffgaff, an online only business, is the first of its kind. It taps into existing online behaviour where people get involved by creating content, suggesting new ideas, and supporting each other with queries on forums or blogs. The more members get involved the greater the reward and they will receive payback in either cash, mobile credit, or as a donation to their preferred charity or fundraising group. 

Operating as an independent company, mobile virtual network operator giffgaff will deliver its service using the O2 network.  Inherent in the business model, it says, is an ethical and low carbon business which is represented by the online only, SIM only model.

giffgaff is a SIM only hybrid pre and post-pay offer with the flexibility and control of pre-pay, and the ease of post pay with ‘auto-top-up' online.  Free mobile internet will be available at launch for approximately six months while the product is in Beta phase.  As part of its commitment to member participation, new members can access up to 100MB of free mobile internet per day from the UK, and in exchange, giffgaff hopes to gain insight from its members, including input on the pricing policy for data in the future

giffgaff CEO Mike Fairman said: "Our price per minute structure is transparent, competitive and clear, and we look forward to feedback on our forum from our members.  We're always keen to hear what people think as involving customers in a two-way dialogue is at the forefront of what we do.  Our pricing structure going forward will evolve based on members input."

giffgaff is launching with a ‘people powered' campaign on 25th November asking the public to help make the network famous in return for a V.I.G (Very Important Giffgaffer)  SIM that means you receive free UK mobile calls, texts and mobile internet for a whole year.  The original launch campaign is based on a ‘Tool Hire' concept, whereby a series of fun and eccentric marketing tools will be available for free hire at giffgaff.com/tools.  The tools are said to be designed to promote giffgaff in an amusing and capturing way and the Tool Hire videos will also be used virally to support the launch and the five best videos will each receive a cash reward for £5,000 each.

The website, www.giffgaff.com, will continue to host discussions as well as regular updates on giffgaff developments.

fring, a mobile application that lets users communicate and share web-based content from their  mobile devices, today announced the world's first mobile video calls over internet protocol (IP).

fring video enables users to conduct video calls with other fringsters as well as with Skype contacts over their device's Wi-Fi or 3G internet connection.

This video feature is embedded within the fring application that enables free voice calls to other fring users, Skype and GoogleTalk buddies, as well as friends on regular phone lines via Skype-Out and many popular SIP services. fring offers users live chat, update profiles, share files and talk with friends from several Instant Messaging services like MSN, AIM, GoogleTalk and Skype, in addition to interacting with popular online social networks including Twitter, Facebook, Last.fm and more, all from one integrated fring contact list.

Avi Shechter, Co-Founder & CEO of fring: "As the mobile VoIP trail-blazers since this industry's inception, we have a responsibility to continue breaking the mobile-internet barriers, and bringing users all the choices, richness and always-on connectivity that internet communications on mobile can deliver."

Shechter continued, "fring was the first to bring Nokia, iPhone and Android users the choice to make free calls together with live chat over their devices' internet connection, the first to enable cost-saving mobile twitter over internet, and now we're proud to continue leading the field with the world's first mobile video over internet including fring and Skype mobile video calls."

The new fring version with video calls support is currently available to users with Nokia X6, N97 mini, N97, 5800, N95 8G, N95 and N82 devices. In addition, fring says it supports thousands of handsets on multiple platforms including Symbian S60, iPhone/iPod touch, Android, Windows Mobile, J2ME and Linux devices.

There are now 302 HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) mobile broadband networks in commercial service, according to new research by the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA). It means that the number of HSPA networks in service has tripled in less than three years, making it the fastest adoption of any mobile broadband system, says GSA.

HSPA is now commercially available in 128 countries and territories, and emerging growth markets featured highly in recent HSPA service launches, particularly in Africa and parts of Asia.

Alan Hadden, President of GSA, stated: "The milestone of 300 commercial HSPA networks is hugely significant, and was achieved in only 4 years. The HSPA eco-system is very robust with more than 1750 user devices launched in the market by 190 suppliers. Network operators across the world are reporting significant traffic and revenue growth with HSPA-enabled data and Internet services, and are confidently investing to further enhance performance and capacity."

HSPA is the first evolution of WCDMA systems. According to GSA there are 314 commercial WCDMA systems in 131 countries, which means that over 96% of WCDMA operators have launched HSPA on their networks.

With the number of HSPA subscribers worldwide closing in on 200 million by year end, operators are investing in enhanced network capacity, efficiencies, and system capabilities including higher data speeds for mobile broadband services. Sixty-two operators have committed to HSPA Evolution (HSPA+), including 36 HSPA networks now commercially launched in 23 countries. Thirty-three HSPA+ networks support a peak downlink speed of 21 Mbps, and 3 networks have deployed MIMO and support 28 Mbps.

In July 2009, GSA revealed that more than 50% of commercial HSPA networks support a peak downlink data speed of 7.2 Mbps or higher, with almost 600 hundred compatible user devices in the market. GSA recently released the results of its unique survey of industry opinion on the expectation for the next baseline for mobile broadband. The survey results showed that most people believe that the next baseline for mobile broadband peak downlink data speed will be 21 Mbps HSPA+, and that this new baseline would be achieved during 2010.

Industry support for the next evolutionary step – LTE – is also firmly established as the key global trend, with 45 LTE network commitments secured, with several more expected to be announced soon following trials activities in all regions, and actions to secure appropriate spectrum to support LTE introduction. GSA says it expects 16 LTE networks will be in commercial service within the next year.

EMVCo, GlobalPlatform and the GSM Association (GSMA) have announced plans to develop a common, cross-industry certification model for secure elements with post-issuance capabilities.  The aim is to simplify and speed up testing processes for pre-certified applications and certified UICC platforms, when they are redeployed. 

The EMV standards body EMVCo, the international smart card infrastructure body GlobalPlatform, and global telecoms association the GSMA, have agreed to work together to define functional and security requirements for a common certification process.  The resulting document will enable Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) and the payments industry to develop cross-industry certification schemes, for mobile platforms and payments applications respectively. 

When fully developed and operational, the schemes will work together to ensure that any certified payment application will work with any certified UICC platform, reducing the incidence of certification failures when new application/platform combinations are subsequently added for testing. 

The result will be significantly reduced testing and development costs and a faster time to market, it is claimed.  Also, no further certifications will be necessary when loading applications with less stringent security requirements onto new UICC platforms. 

The activity is said to have been welcomed by the Association of French Mobile Operators (AFOM), the European Payments Council, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and SIMalliance. 

GlobalPlatform is also said to have been chosen to lead the initiative due to its cross-industry technical expertise.  Gil Bernabeu, GlobalPlatform's Technical Director, explains: "With an increasing number of parties delivering smart card solutions combining multiple applications from different sectors, the certification model will streamline testing requirements across the advancing smart card ecosystem.  We believe that the creation of the model will increase overall market confidence.  Although industry bodies such as MNOs and payment organizations will remain responsible for certifying technology compliance, GlobalPlatform hopes that adherence to the model and relevant security configurations will become commonplace."

Brian Byrne, Chair of the EMVCo Board of Managers, added: "A common type approval approach for contactless mobile payment UICCs will avoid redundancy and conflicting efforts between different parties with approval authorities and interests.  We see this as a natural extension of EMVCo's commitment to provide a globally interoperable acceptance environment for secure payments.  Our participation is aimed at ensuring the resulting type approval process is not only cost-effective and efficient, but that it is secure and flexible enough to meet the requirements of the payment and telecommunications industries."

"Developing a UICC certification model for NFC services, that is cost effective and results in a short time to market will be critical for the commercial rollout of mobile NFC services worldwide", adds Alex Sinclair, Chief Technology Officer, GSMA.

AFOM has indicated its intent to incorporate in the existing UICC Protection Profile the necessary items from the common industry certification model once it has been developed. 

Andrew Solutions, a global specialist in wireless communication systems and products, has launched a new microwave antenna solution said to offer high performance in a smaller antenna size.

The Andrew ValuLine Vision one-meter microwave backhaul antenna, with its 'robust' electrical design, enables radiation pattern performance and gain levels that are similar to a 1.2 meter antenna and compliant to the highest regulatory standards. According to Andrew, this means that: substantial CapEx and OpEx reductions should materialize; many 1.2m antenna links can now be closed with the new 1m antenna, and; high gain is achievable with a smaller size antenna. 
 

The antenna's smaller size and improved physical design translate into the following: Lower freight and storage costs; less tower loading; lower tower leasing costs; easier installation; lower price.
 
"Overwhelmingly positive enthusiasm-that's the reaction from the largest microwave antenna customers with whom we have discussed this new one-meter antenna," said Andrew's John Cole, director of product line management, Microwave Products. "One of the selling points of microwave backhaul is cost-effectiveness, and offering high gain and superior performance in a smaller antenna size is definitely cost-effective."

The Andrew ValuLine Vision one-meter antenna's mount design gives unencumbered access to the rear of the antenna, making radio equipment and waveguide cable installation easier. The mount allows for gradual adjustments, simplifying antenna alignment even under adverse conditions. Andrew's design include a lower volume shipping package that also helps reduce freight and storage costs.

The antenna is made to withstand winds up to 250 kilometers per hour and boasts radiation pattern performance that exceeds ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) Class 3 performance.

The ValuLine Vision one-meter antenna will be available from the company's four microwave manufacturing facilities worldwide. Single and dual polarized models are available. The new antenna will support customer radios and couplers, as required.

A new report from Juniper Research is said to have found that the market for mobile augmented reality (AR) services is expected to reach $732 million by 2014, with revenues derived from a combination of paid-for app downloads, subscription based services and advertising.

The Mobile Augmented Reality report found that annual revenues from AR are unlikely to exceed even $2 million during 2010, due to the fact that only a small minority of smartphones will be AR-enabled.  However, this proportion will rise dramatically in the medium term, the result of increasing adoption of Android handsets and iPhones, along with greater deployment of AR enablers such as digital compasses and accelerometers by other leading vendors.

Although initial service adoption will be driven by AR location-based search, Juniper Research says it expects the first substantial revenues to be derived from AR-enabled games, bolstered by revenues from mobile enterprise solutions from 2012-3 onwards. Meanwhile, AR advertising is expected to be increasingly attractive to brands and retailers as the potential user base increases, with AR ad networks able to charge higher CPC and CPM rates because of location relevance.

However, the report cautioned that while AR geotagging presents a wealth of opportunities, providers and enablers must carefully consider the potential legal implications of enabling such services. According to report author Dr Windsor Holden, "The problem is that the embryonic nature of the technology means that we have no legal or regulatory framework in place which specifically covers augmented reality. For example, can a house-owner legitimately demand that a geotag of his or her property be removed? Would that third party require prior permission before creating a tag?"

Other findings include:

• Incremental revenues from subscriptions, upsold content and licences will together comprise the largest AR revenue stream by 2014, overhauling point of sale revenues
• 350 million handsets expected to be AR enabled by 2014