UK independent television production company, Tiger Aspect Productions (Tiger Aspect) and mobile content retailer, Mobile Streams, have announced today that the popular animated Mr Bean series will be distributed via network operators around the world as well as retailed via Mobile Streams' dedicated mobile internet retail stores.

The partnership provides Mobile Streams with full access to the entire Mr Bean Animation catalogue. The series is based on the successful television series Mr Bean and includes classic episodes such as: ‘Missing Teddy', ‘No Parking' and ‘Bean's Bounty', all of which are voiced by Rowan Atkinson. In addition to downloading their favourite video clips from the series, fans can also personalize their mobile phone with a range of other mobile products from the Mr Bean brand including audio voicetones and screensavers.

"The extension of our agreement with Mobile Streams is testament to their strong global distribution network and ability to find new opportunities both with operators and on the mobile internet so that new and existing fans of Mr Bean can assess his official animated content in new ways and in markets around the world," commented Katherine Senior of Tiger Aspect Productions.

"Thanks to our strong relationships with quality providers such as Tiger Aspect, we are proud to have one of the most comprehensive content libraries in the world.  We look forward to building on our success distributing Mr Bean Animation over the last four years and ensuring that he continues to be accessible to his loyal fans across the globe," added, Arnd Aschentrup, SVP Global Content Operations at Mobile Streams.

The Animated Mr Bean series was launched in 2002 and is currently broadcast to over 60 countries around the world.

arvato services, the services arm of Bertelsmann's arvato division, and Margento B.V., a technology company from the Netherlands, have today announced the formation of a joint venture, headquartered in Munich, which will offer customers 'comprehensive' transaction and payment services via the mobile phone.

Margento will bring its transaction platform to the 50-50 joint venture, as well as its patented Data-Over-Voice (DOV) technology, while arvato services will invest in the joint venture and contribute its specialisation in Marketing, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Finance services. 

"We are excited about opening up the German market for mobile transaction services with arvato as our partner," said Margento CEO Gregor Breznik. arvato services' managing director Mario Schwegler added: "The JV's balanced mix of expertise in services and technology forms an outstanding basis for a nationwide implementation of mobile loyalty and payment services in Germany."

Margento's technology is said to turn mobile phones into a convenient, secure tool for payments and other transactions. Customers can use their mobiles to collect and redeem bonus points, pay for products and services, top up the balance on pre-paid phone accounts, redeem coupons, use mobile tickets, and buy and send electronic gift vouchers – all via a single terminal at POS.

Margento's technology is also claimed to provide other key benefits: it guarantees the highest security standards, it is mature and has already been proven in actual use, and unlike the much-hyped NFC technology, it works with all mobiles, by all manufacturers, without the need for additional hard- or software. And, as Breznik claims, it is 'incredibly easy to use': "With our DOV technology, any mobile phone is immediately ready to go, without the need for further modification. Customers don't have to write a text, access a browser or open complicated applications. They just make a phone-call."

New research has found that the Western European mobile phone market recorded another quarter of year-on-year declines in the second quarter of 2009 (2Q09). According to the IDC European Mobile Phone Tracker, handset vendors shipped 42 million units to Western Europe, down 6% from 2Q08. The second quarter results are an improvement on the 14% decrease in 1Q09, but the crisis will continue to impact the region, says IDC.

According to IDC, the switch from traditional mobile phones to converged mobile devices continued to be a major trend in Western Europe. Traditional mobile phones declined 12% during the quarter to 33.2 million units, and converged mobile devices (ie smart phones) experienced a healthy 25% increase during the quarter to 8.8 million units, when compared to the same period last year.

"The first six months of the year were very challenging to both vendors and operators in Western Europe. The market was hit hard by the financial crisis, and demand mobile for phones slumped as never experienced before," said Francisco Jeronimo, European mobile devices research manager, IDC. "Since 2Q08 the market has been suffering from negative growth, with the bottom line being hit in 1Q09. Despite the slight improvement in the second quarter of 2009, we will continue to see negative growth throughout the coming quarters, with full market recovery being seen only in 2011."

For the full year, IDC says it believes that the Western European market will decline 10%. Demand for converged mobile devices will continue to grow, but will not be strong enough to reverse the overall market decline as they represent only 21% of total shipments. On the other hand, traditional mobile phones will continue to decline, though at a lower rate, as vendors adjust their portfolios, bringing more features to the low-end devices.

Among the biggest handset vendors, it is important to point out that Korean manufacturers continue to perform better than Scandinavian phone makers, says IDC. For the first time, Samsung and LG together shipped more devices to Western Europe than Nokia. Nokia continues to be the market leader, with 36.3% market share, but the gap to Samsung, the second biggest vendor with 28.9% market share, continues to diminish. On the other hand, LG continues to challenge Sony Ericsson's market position, and the success of its touch screen handsets allowed LG to get 11.5% market share, the highest ever in Western Europe, says IDC.

Nokia Siemens Networks says it recently made the world's first LTE call using commercial base station and fully standard compliant software.

Standard compliant LTE network products and terminals are a precondition for commercial network rollouts and for end users to benefit from a large terminal variety from different vendors. The Nokia Siemens Networks' call was made via base stations with fully complaint software to the 3GPP Rel.8 (March 2009 baseline) LTE standard, bringing LTE trials closer to the behavior of future commercial deployments.

"This call is a significant landmark in building and strengthening our entire LTE ecosystem and shows our commitment to the technology," says Marc Rouanne, head of Nokia Siemens Networks' Radio Access business unit. "We see customers adopting LTE along differing timelines and we stand ready to meet the needs of early adopters of LTE as well as operators with extended migration paths from 3G/HSPA+ to LTE," he added.  

The LTE data call was conducted in Nokia Siemens Networks' R Centre in Ulm, Germany, with its Flexi Multiradio Base Station. The first deployments for LTE services are foreseen for the end of 2009 with volume rollouts of commercial networks in early 2010.

Comfone, provider of roaming services to more than 300 operators in over 130 countries, has added TeliaSonera as the newest member of its WeRoam Wireless IP roaming platform with an aggregated footprint of over 60,000 global hotspots.

As part of the tie-up, TeliaSonera will bring 3,400 hotspots to Comfone WeRoam's network, thereby significantly increasing WeRoam's reach in Scandinavia.
 
Comfone WeRoam is an open roaming platform that supports username/password and EAP (SIM) certificates based authentication for WLAN Roaming. In the first half of 2009, WeRoam says it recorded a 43% annual increase in WLAN traffic as the market demand for broad WiFi coverage continues to grow. Despite the global economic downturn, fully 80% of Comfone WeRoam traffic in August 2009 was generated by travellers – 72% in hotels and 8% in airports. Combined with a further 12% generated in cafes and restaurants, wireless user trends clearly underscore the critical role that roaming plays for wireless operators.

TeliaSonera's Head of Roaming, Jan Karmakar, commented, "Our customers are continuously increasing their use of mobile broadband and mobile data services both at home and while travelling. Therefore TeliaSonera requires reliable roaming partners like Comfone to substantially increase our access to more wireless hotspots allowing our customers to always be online."

Laurent Freléchoux, Product Marketing Director WeRoam, further explained that with an average WeRoam session time of 47 minutes during the first half of the year, "we are noticing a constant increase in average session time, a clear indication that end users do find value in a WiFi roaming service. Compounded with the roll-out of Comfone's Web Access Portal solution across the footprint, the outlook for traffic growth looks very positive."

Zynetix, the UK-based GSM infrastructure manufacturer, today announced that it has been awarded a contract to deploy and operate its Zynetix softMSC for Cloud9 Mobile, in Gibraltar and on the Isle of Man.

The agreement involves the deployment of the Zynetix softMSC GSM core, including comprehensive voice, SMS and data capabilities, together with Radio Access Network (RAN) components from UK-based ip.access. Beyond supply of the softMSC GSM core, Zynetix will provide full integration and commissioning and once in commercial service Zynetix will provide managed network services on behalf of Cloud9 Mobile.

Building on an existing contract between the parties whereby Zynetix provides managed HLR services for Cloud9 Mobile Wholesale Division, this new agreement spearheads a major expansion of Cloud9 Mobile's activities.

Commenting on the agreement, Cloud9 International Board Member Jean-Christophe Viguier said "The award of this contract marks the culmination of a broad evaluation of GSM infrastructure suppliers.  We selected Zynetix on the basis of their experience, flexibility and their ability to deliver exactly what we need in a timely manner. These networks will deliver improved customer service, both locally and internationally, and increase competition in both locations"

Zynetix CEO Ian Taylor added, "We are delighted to have been chosen to provide our softMSC GSM core for Cloud9 Mobile's GSM networks. We believe that outsourcing the commissioning and operation of GSM infrastructure provides the lowest risk and fastest time to market while delivering a high quality and feature-rich mobile service. Today's announcement is the culmination of months of planning by both companies and marks the start of an exciting new phase in the relationship between Zynetix and Cloud9."

A new report from global advisory and consulting firm Ovum says that mobile broadband in emerging markets is a very different proposition to that seen in mature markets. According to the report – "Operator strategies for mobile broadband in emerging markets" – low fixed-line and PC penetration provide an opportunity for mobile broadband to become a viable fixed-line alternative. However, Ovum believes that for operators to succeed, ‘pragmatism' must be the watchword in terms of access technology, devices, deployment and market approach.

Operators today are taking a far more pragmatic approach to mobile broadband in emerging markets than in developed markets, says Ovum, focusing more on the service offered (web access) than the technology or device. According to the report, operators are selling mobile broadband services based on everything from GPRS to WiMAX.

That said, HSPA will undoubtedly be the dominant technology in emerging markets for the next five years, accounting for two-thirds of next-generation access connections in 2014, says Ovum.

"The opportunity for mobile WiMAX in emerging markets is certainly greater than in developed markets, but the more rapid adoption of LTE will see the two next-generation technologies almost on parity by 2014", says Steven Hartley, senior analyst at Ovum and co-author of the report.

Ovum states that another crucial practicality to consider is the cost involved in launching and running mobile broadband services, as with all emerging market services.

"It is vital that operators build and then run highly efficient networks to handle the resulting data traffic," Hartley said. "ARPU will be low and margins negligible without a clear understanding of the building and operational costs associated with these services. Nonetheless, costs will not be solely in the network. The additional support needed for more complex services and devices should also be carefully considered".

Pragmatism is also evident in the approach to deployment; however, the competitive landscape will dictate the strategy that operators should adopt.

"Operators should take a more conservative view of technology and service rollouts to ensure demand and profitability before committing too much finance, where competition (or the threat of it) from fixed and mobile operators is limited." This may seem counterintuitive to operators with a mature market background, but those operating in markets with low ARPU and potentially high costs (such as fuel supplies to remote base stations or international connectivity) must be sure that a new service launch is viable. Therefore, operators are best ‘skimming' the most profitable segments of the market if they can. "If competition already exists in the market then they may be forced into a broader, mass-market approach from launch."

As a result of the heightened cost-consciousness and careful deployment of mobile broadband in emerging markets, customer segmentation is critical for success. The services, marketing and pricing for small-screen (handset) and big-screen (PC) devices will differ depending on the customers targeted. And the segments targeted will depend on the strategy adopted.

However, says Ovum, the success or failure of mobile broadband in an emerging market may still be outside an operator's control.

"Governments have a major role to play in providing an environment conducive to success; spectrum policy is the clearest example of this, either through its release to operators or through global harmonisation to benefit from economies of scale", says Daniel Subramaniam, analyst at Ovum and co-author of this report.

Governments also hold the keys to unlock several other stimuli for deployment and uptake.

"Reducing taxes on telecoms services, encouraging competition and boosting investment in power supply and international connectivity could all result in lower prices to end users", adds Subramaniam.

Universal service obligations to bridge the digital divide can also be implemented to boost uptake. These may be less attractive to operators, but could be the stick compared to the carrot of the former measures.

Araxxe, a supplier of monitoring services, has introduced new extensions of its interconnection and roaming control service, Arconnex, that detects routing errors and traffic corruption in networks.

According to Arraxe, the revenue linked to incoming interconnection and to roaming services can represent up to 20% of a mobile operator's margin. At present, new voice over IP transport technologies, increasingly complex roaming architectures and the extension of least-cost routing and roaming steering multiply the risks of routing errors or packet corruption. International actors use methods that are more and more sophisticated (SIM box, SIM multiplexer), even fraudulent (illegal trunks, fraudulent SLA) to run very profitable arbitrations between different traffic routing methods. Whatever the strength and the accuracy of their internal monitoring systems, operators at the beginning or end of the calls are often unaware of what has happened in-between, says Araxxe.

To address the risks, Araxxe says its Arconnex, the monitoring offering for interconnection and roaming, represents an original control approach under the form of a ‘service bureau' based on remotely managed robots deployed across the world. This allows Arconnex to fully monitor routing of any telecom operator in the world, whether for interconnection or for roaming traffic.

The Arconnex service is built upon a statistic sampling method leveraging Araxxe's experience in detecting interconnection frauds around the world. The method has been patented by Araxxe and is said to be key to delivering a pointed monitoring that delivers value.

The robots deployed globally generate all kinds of transactions coming from and going to operators. Then, each transaction is verified to know if it has been correctly routed by checking a number of technical parameters of the call: presence of user name on the calling line, interconnection trunks used, etc. Based on this analysis, Araxxe produces monthly reports that provide detailed information and performance indicators. Routing errors and fraudulent corruptions are detailed so that the operator can identify and fix the problem. Specific reports can be used to support or defend against litigation between the operator and the concerned cheating companies.

The benefits of the service are immediate, easily quantifiable and directly contribute to operating margins improvement by eliminating SIM boxes, increasing international call durations or increasing roaming traffic volumes, says the company.

"As the cheating companies toughen their interconnection frauds, especially in Central America where we operate and where fraud is very high, we had to adapt our detection methods", declared Philippe Orsini, manager of the Arconnex service at Araxxe. "The algorithms for call generation detection are regularly optimized to become more accurate and more discreet".

According to new analysis from Juniper Research, consumer demand for environmentally sustainable mobile devices will be the primary driver behind the growth of green handsets, which could see global shipments grow to 485 million units by 2014.

The scenario-based forecasts within Juniper Research's new report – ‘Green Mobile Handsets & Applications: Strategies, Scenarios & Forecasts 2009-2014' –  also suggest that even with an incremental attitude shift by consumers, numbers will still grow from a quarter of million shipments in 2009 to over 105 million by 2014.

Dr. Windsor Holden, Principal Analyst at Juniper Research and lead author for the report, commented; "With manufacturers only now beginning to introduce green handsets, shipment volumes are relatively low in all cases. Moving forward, we should not expect to see production lines of completely ‘green' phones, but a gradual move to introducing green elements throughout devices."

The average mobile user is responsible for around 25kg of CO2 emissions per year, a collective total of 93Mt (Megatonnes) of CO2 globally at the end of 2008. With a number of challenges facing vendors and operators, such as the Kyoto Protocol, a concerted effort is required by companies across the industry to reduce these average emissions by a far greater extent over the next five years.

Further findings from the Juniper Research Green Handsets report includes:

• Network operators and handset vendors should increase their promotion of handset take-back initiatives, and increase their take-back targets
• Eco-applications offer the potential for the mobile industry to reduce CO2 emissions above and beyond its own direct and indirect emissions by exerting a positive influence on consumer behaviour

The report, launched globally today, contains comprehensive six year forecasting for all the key market parameters including maintaining stable CO2 footprints, electricity costs, no-load CO2 emissions and recycled/refurbished handsets.