RealNetworks, the digital entertainment services company, has signed its tenth European Music-on-Demand (MOD) deal, enabling mobilkom austria's music service.

Subscribers of mobilkom austria's A1 service will have access to more than 2 million DRM-free tracks, with a wide variety of choices of plans. Subscribers can purchase single DRM-free tracks, pre-pay for a package (bundle) of DRM-free tracks, or opt for a flat-rate, all-you-can-eat subscription. 
 
"RealNetworks has proven itself as the best choice for mobile music in Europe and we are proud to partner with them on our A1 music service," said Reinhard Zuba, head of marketing at mobilkom austria. "Their expertise in creating a user interface that makes it easy for subscribers to find the music they want, combined with their expertise in audio streaming made them a clear choice for our network."
 
Real also powers MOD for Vodafone music stores in nine countries, including the UK, Ireland, Portugal, Germany, Italy, Greece, The Netherlands, Romania and Spain.
 
"We were honoured to be chosen as the MOD partner for mobilkom, and feel that there is a strong cultural bond between our companies, particularly given our strong presence in Austria," said Andreas Spechtler, managing director, marketing and sales EMEA, RealNetworks.  "They have been a pioneer in mobile music, with offerings since 2005, and continue to be so with their forward thinking pricing and packaging models."
 
As a provider of MOD for mobile operators, Real provides and hosts the technologies that enable subscribers to discover, download and listen to music on their mobile device and personal computer.  Real's MOD service is currently deployed with 14 communications service providers in 13 countries around the world.
 
In total, Real's ASP services are currently available through 84 different mobile operators in 45 countries worldwide, making them available to 860.9 million subscribers.  Real offers mobile operators a comprehensive selection of mobile services including: Music-On-Demand; Video-On-Demand; personalisation features such as Ringtones, RBTs and Multimedia Ringback Services; and messaging services. 

Nimbuzz has announced the launch of its multi community mobile social messenger application for  Android handsets. For Android users, Nimbuzz has introduced a buddy list layout, Skype IM, a time-sensitive user interface, home-screen notifications, auto-reconnect, clickable URLs, and local social network support.

Alongside home-screen notifications that alert the user on the home screen of activities such as incoming chats while the application runs in the background, Nimbuzz also added a time-sensitive user interface option that detects how long the user presses on a contact in the buddy list. A fast-click instantly opens the contacts profile; a long-click opens a live chat window.

The updates work alongside the auto-reconnect feature guaranteeing seamless connectivity, by instantly reconnecting whenever a connection is lost. The smart buddy list displays information in an intelligent way, combining avatar and presence information in one, with community icon and resource information, if the person is online on the mobile or PC, in the same line.

Integrating Skype IM is said to be unique to Nimbuzz, which already supports multiple communities including Facebook, Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, ICQ and more. Clickable URLs that make for a multi media chat experience, and the additional support for local social networks such as StudiVZ, Hyves, Gadu Gadu, and Giovani, are said to add to the extensive feature list.

Evert-Jaap Lugt, founder and CEO of Nimbuzz said: "Mobiles are no longer just about hardware but software. Nimbuzz increases the value of the handset and enriches the user experience. Our Android version is a perfect example of what we do best, integrating Nimbuzz's award winning service to bring the best out of each operating system and handset."

Vodafone Germany and Huawei have signedf a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to conduct a joint test gauging the performance of LTE (Long Term Evolution) in the Digital Dividend Band. The agreement marks a joint initiative to validate LTE' s application within the Digital Dividend Band (790-862MHz) using Huawei' s end-to-end LTE solution.

From this summer the cooperation will see Vodafone Germany and Huawei not only demonstrate LTE' s ability to provide broadband coverage to rural and urban areas, effectively bridging the digital divide between those areas of Germany, but also to prove its compatibility with adjacent technologies such as Digital TV and Digital Radio. The test will be based on Huawei' s end-to-end solutions and both parties will form a joint working group for conducting the test.

Hartmut Kremling, CTO of Vodafone Germany said: 'Vodafone is an active player in bringing leading broadband services to Germany. By cooperating with local telecoms authorities, utilising the rich LTE experiences from Vodafone Germany and Huawei, we are confident that the test will be carried out successfully.'

Vincent Pang, Vice President and Head of Huawei Vodafone Business Unit said: 'We are very pleased that Vodafone Germany chose Huawei as the partner for this test, which is another milestone for the collaboration between our two companies. Huawei will leverage its cutting edge LTE technologies to ensure Vodafone Germany remains ahead of the market as well as help it to achieve sustainable growth in the future.' '

Ubiquisys, the developer of 3G femtocells, today announced it has secured $11m dollars funding from its existing shareholders to support it with a range of commercial operator deployments soon to take place globally targeting both the consumer and enterprise markets. At the same time the company also announced that Alison Sparshatt will be joining as CFO.

"The femtocell industry is about to enter a phase of aggressive growth," said Chris Gilbert, CEO of Ubiquisys. "We have already seen the first major operator launches and the autumn will see a number of others unveiling their future plans. Securing this funding, against the current economic backdrop, underlines our investors' commitment to the company's technology and reaffirms our position as pioneers of the femtocell market."

Earlier this year Softbank announced the world's first commercial 3G femtocell deployment using the Ubiquisys ZoneGate. Since it was founded in 2004, the company has secured partnerships with the leading OEMs in the sector such as NEC, Nokia Siemens Networks, and NETGEAR. The company's real-time cognitive radio was central in solving the issue of interference seen by many as a potential stumbling block to widespread femtocell deployments.

A new report from Juniper Research is said to show how the mobile handset market is becoming increasingly polarised between low cost handsets for emerging markets and high-end smartphones for developed regions – with the mid-range handset market being squeezed.

According to Juniper, low-cost handsets and Smartphones will together account for almost 79% of all new mobile phones by 2014, or just over 1 billion units in all. Operators and vendors are preparing to deal with a massive influx of new users from low-income socio-economic groups in developing markets and a rising demand for complex ‘smart' devices from affluent users in developed markets.

Vendors such as Nokia, Apple and RIM (makers of Blackberry) are well positioned to benefit from these trends whilst players operating more in the mid range market such as Sony Ericsson and Motorola are having to rethink their strategy.

According to Low-cost handsets report author Andrew Kitson: "Low-cost handset shipments will number more than 700 million in 2014, up by 31% from levels seen in 2008, albeit down slightly from a peak of 716 million in 2012 as some users begin to upgrade to costlier devices. At the same time, smartphone shipment volumes will grow continuously across the forecast period, reaching almost 360 million by the end of the period. We therefore expect that mid-range device sales volumes will fall by more than 41% over the period".

Other findings from the Low cost handsets research include:

• In 2008, the Indian Sub Continent region accounted for the majority (23%) of low-cost handset sales, due to efforts by operators such as Vodafone to meet low-income users' needs in markets such as India: by 2014, the region will account for 22% of sales
• Take-up in emerging markets will be boosted by the availability of low-cost, highly targeted localised information services, such as Nokia's Life Tools offering

Icomera, a provider of cellular broadband gateways, has announced that UK-based Excel Passenger Logistics has selected Icomera's Moovbox M200 Mobile Broadband Gateway to provide Wi-Fi connectivity and GPS tracking on buses and coaches serving British airports.

Passengers travelling on Excel ground transport connections to Stansted, Liverpool and Manchester airports will benefit from free hotspot Internet access at broadband speeds up to several megabits per second.

The Moovbox gateways will also provide real-time GPS tracking of the vehicles, helping Excel monitor schedule adherence and improve overall service performance. Excel's ‘airportbycoach' service offers luxury road transport from Ipswich to Stansted Airport, and between Manchester and Liverpool Airports, the latter operating every hour, 24 hours a day.

"Coach and bus services play an extremely important role in providing travelers with fast and cost effective connections to and from British airports," said Graham Hayden, Managing Director at Excel Passenger Logistics. "We want passengers to enjoy the very highest level of service and the installation of free Wi-Fi on our fleet is a major part of our offering. For international passengers, the presence of free Wi-Fi avoids expensive data roaming fees that make using 3G connections aboard so unattractive. In terms of reliability, feature set, price point and return on investment, the Icomera product ticked all our boxes when we were researching an on-board Internet solution."

The Moovbox M200 Mobile Broadband Gateway acts as a bridge between a vehicle and high-speed cellular data networks including 3G/HSPA, EV-DO and WiMAX, providing Wi-Fi access and an Ethernet-based local area network (LAN) for connecting on-board systems such as CCTV and passenger information systems. The M200 also has integrated GPS receiver for real-time automatic vehicle location (AVL) via the web-based MoovManage service.

"Air travelers are used to Wi-Fi hotspots in airports around the world, and Excel have taken this one step further with their decision to deploy free Wi-Fi on their coaches," said Dave Palmer, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales at Icomera. "Manchester Airport alone serves over one million passengers every year, and by 2030 it's hoped that coach connections like those run by Excel will attract up to 10% of passenger traffic. Free in-vehicle Wi-Fi service is a great way to encourage people to catch the bus rather than drive by car, and make best use of their journey time by sitting back in comfort and catching up on email, browsing the web and participating in the all-important social networking sites."

With the proliferation of Wi-Fi enabled portable devices such as the iPhone, iPod Touch and Blackberry, free on-board Wi-Fi is rapidly becoming expected by passengers, especially on commuter routes and inter-city transport services. All five major UK transport operators – Stagecoach, Arriva, FirstGroup, National Express and Go-Ahead – have deployed Icomera Internet systems on key routes favoured by commuters, students and international travelers, serving over 50,000 Internet connections every week.

Subscribers of T-Mobile in the Czech Republic can expect advanced 3G data and multimedia services as a result of a faster mobile broadband network. The upgraded 3G network is based on the energy-efficient Nokia Siemens Networks Flexi Multiradio Base Stations and HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) technology. It is expected to be launched in Prague by the end of the year.

The agreement between T-Mobile and Nokia Siemens Networks signed this month will offer a number of benefits to customers, but in particular the availability of high-speed mobile data services. HSPA technology is one of the latest developments in 3G mobile networks. The main advantage it provides to customers is high-speed data transfers with download and upload peak rates of up to 14.4 Mbps and 5.7 Mbps respectively. Such performance will create a DSL-like user experience.

Moreover, the technology to be installed, will prepare the ground for the roll-out of the next generation of mobile networks.

"The demand for data services in the Czech Republic has been growing continually. Therefore building a 3G network is one of our priorities even in these economically more challenging times," says Roland Mahler, Managing Director of T-Mobile Czech Republic.

"Nokia Siemens Networks is one of the companies that supplies technology for the entire mobile division of the Deutsche Telekom Group, which is a guarantee that we will be able to offer the top quality services to our customers. "

"We are very pleased to extend our partnership with this important agreement," said Ralph Griewing of Nokia Siemens Networks, in charge of business relations with Deutsche Telekom. "We are also glad that our innovative solutions, like the Flexi Base Station and HSPA, will provide the Czech consumers with a fast, reliable broadband experience, offering at the same time an energy-efficient platform to T-Mobile."

Nokia Siemens Networks is also providing T-Mobile with network integration services, the NetAct network management system to monitor, manage and optimize the network and an upgrade of the core network to support advanced 3G services. The pilot operation of T-Mobile's 3G network will start in the autumn in Prague.

Deutsche Telekom International Carrier Sales & Solutions (ICSS) has launched ICSS Mobile World. ICSS says it is offering a "competitive set of mobile products combining basic and new aspiring services".

Within the set data, roaming, and messaging services, customers can choose to bundle four, three, or two services.

Customers can select the following offers:

– IP eXchange service, a premium-quality solution based on GSMA standards that promises reliable delivery of traffic while offering the flexibility to apply an appropriate level of quality. The solution includes a completely managed connection with quality of service, high flexibility, and scalability, including CPE (customer premise equipment) for fixed network access up to 2.5 Gbps or IPsec access up to 30 Mbps.

– SMS eXchange, an SMS hubbing service that provides seamless, worldwide termination of high-quality SMS messages regardless of the network and destination country. SMX offers a "one-stop shopping, one hub, one contract, one bill" solution with extended international connectivity and without additional investment to MNOs and MVNOs but also to SMS aggregators through a single interface.

– Signaling for International Roaming provides the customer with a high-quality, low-cost solution for all signaling for international roaming needs.

– MMX allows interconnection to a large number of partners and provides collection, mediation, rating, reporting, invoicing, and interworking negotiation.

In February 2009, ICSS launched SMS eXchange. In July 2009, ICSS then entered the market with the new IPX platform.

The IPX (IP eXchange) platform enables seamless convergence between different provider networks and thus interoperability among mobile network operators (MNOs), fixed network operators (FNOs), ISPs, and content and application providers. GRX traffic is supported on the ICSS IPX platform and GRX customers can be seamlessly migrated to IPX. The MMX service can be easily activated as existing service on the platform, as well.

"We are continuing to enhance our comprehensive portfolio of mobile products and offering our products and services in flexible, cost-effective bundles," Helmut Angst, Senior Vice President at Deutsche Telekom ICSS, says. "This lets our customers provide their own customers with more, new mobile services at attractive prices and thus improves competitiveness."

O2 has announced an agreement with Telmap which will see its personal navigation and mapping service made available to O2 customers on the majority of GPS-enabled handsets sold by O2.

O2 is said to have worked closely with Telmap to optimize the application for use on the O2 network and will be providing first level customer support and billing support.

Telmap's Navigator offers mapping and GPS navigation with features including in-car 3D maps with text-to-speech technology, traffic alerts with alternative route options and turn by turn directions while walking. O2 customers will also benefit from access to relevant content including places and businesses, event ticketing, restaurant listings and reviews amongst other premium services. O2 will also incorporate points of interest such as O2 Academy venues and Wi-Fi hotspots.

In addition to providing customer service, O2 will make it easy for customers to pay for the Telmap service by integrating the subscription charge onto their mobile phone bill. O2 will also offer the chance for customers to try the service for 14 days before they decide to buy.

"This is a pioneering agreement between operator and application developer which we believe will set a benchmark for future agreements," said Peter Rampling, O2's Marketing Director. "We have worked closely with Telmap to build a service wrap around the application which we believe will offer the best customer experience. Navigation is fast becoming one of the most popular mobile services and we look forward to bringing this leading application to our customers."

"This is a very important agreement for Telmap and we are excited to be starting this relationship with O2", said Oren Nissim, CEO of Telmap. "There is a strong synergy between O2, a leading, innovative operator and Telmap's innovative technology and vast experience; we believe this collaboration will allow us to deliver the best in class solution to O2 customers and for O2 to create a winning location strategy in the marketplace".   

The first new handsets from O2 with the application embedded will appear on the market in the autumn. There will be a range of subscription packages available, starting from £3.50 per month. Existing customers will also be able to download the application if they have a compatible handset. The agreement with O2 in the UK will form a framework for future agreements between Telmap and Telefónica operations globally. 

weComm, a specialist in interactive mobile data solutions, today announced that it has partnered with Livestation to deliver live TV news to mobile handsets including Android and BlackBerry devices.

Livestation already delivers live TV streaming services on iPhone for news partners such as BBC World News and Al Jazeera. weComm's wave On-Demand Mobile Application Platform, will enable Livestation to deliver live broadcasts from Livestation's global news TV partners to all leading mobile operating systems. Live TV content will be available for a monthly subscription and the service will provide access to other news formats from the same providers. The companies will distribute the service in a number of easy-to-subscribe methods including through the major mobile handset-manufacturers' application stores.

weComm's wave platform uses a client-server infrastructure to deliver  interactive mobile data services optimized to all major mobile operating systems. The technology delivers content and applications to handsets on-demand, giving the richness and interactivity of an on-device application combined with the 'flexibility and freshness' of an online service.

Matteo Berlucchi, Livestation CEO, said of the partnership: "Time to market is key for us. By partnering with weComm we can now deliver a high-quality, live TV experience very quickly to the market across the broadest possible range of smartphone devices."

weComm CEO Graham Summers: "Livestation has an extremely well targeted proposition which has clearly excited the world's leading news channels. weComm is delighted to have been chosen as the mobile partner to help Livestation exploit their fantastic service on a wider range of platforms."