At Mobile World Congress 2009, Amdocs, the provider of customer experience systems, today announced that Telefónica Europe has selected Amdocs ChangingWorlds' technology to launch a new mobile Internet service to four of the mobile operators from Telefónica Europe. Amdocs completed its acquisition of ChangingWorlds in December 2008.

The agreement includes O2 UK and Czech Republic, which have already launched, and O2 Germany and O2 Ireland, which will launch in 2009. The new Mobile Internet service will be made available across the majority of the Telefónica Europe device portfolio. 

The solution was defined by Telefónica Europe in close collaboration with Amdocs ChangingWorlds and offers a new Internet-like portal and a browser bar that provides intuitive navigation support. As users browse the new Mobile Internet service, the browser bar guides and provides links to both on- and off-portal content that matches their content preferences and behavioral profiles. The personalization engine automatically selects new, fresh and relevant content for each user based on learned user content preferences and behavioral patterns. Additionally, the Amdocs ChangingWorlds' device management system optimizes content presentation and screen flows to the specific capabilities of each O2 handset.

"The launch of a personalized Mobile Internet service is an integral part of the Telefónica Europe mobile data strategy designed to optimize user experience, and to ensure Telefónica Europe can offer a convincing Internet experience to mobile users," said Tanya Field, director of the Mobile Data Group of Telefónica S.A. "It allows Telefónica Europe the opportunity to extend key Internet functionality to the mobile environment giving customers the ability to manage a mobile browsing experience for both on- and off-portal activity. Essentially the new Mobile Internet portal delivers a customer user experience for internet customized to the mobile device."

FTS, a global provider of Billing, CRM and Business Control solutions for communication and content service providers, today announced that Foris Telecom has selected FTS' Leap Billing platform for its WiMAX operations worldwide.

Foris Telecom builds and operates next generation wireless broadband networks in multiple markets, providing VoIP telephony, data and video services.  Foris Telecom is building out its WiMAX infrastructure in a number of markets including South East Asia, the CIS, South America, and Africa. Leap Billing will support Foris Telecom's charging, billing and customer management, including invoicing, voucher management, and financial services.

"We selected FTS' Leap Billing for our WiMAX services for its flexibility, ease of configuration, and real-time support of all our transactions," said Haim Maimon, Foris Telecom's Chief Operating Officer. "One of our main objectives is to supply our customers with fast, simple, reliable and affordable services. Leap Billing supports these objectives while improving our business planning and enabling us to offer more and better services," he added. "We are proud to have teamed up with FTS, a key player in the billing and CRM arena."

"This is yet more proof of the wealth of features and benefits offered by our Leap range of solutions," said Gadi Maoz, FTS' Vice President of Sales & Marketing. "Leap Billing will provide Foris Telecom with billing and customer-management capabilities for their operations in multiple markets. This contract is testament to FTS' commitment to join forces with leading providers, and of our constant investment in further developing and innovating our field-proven product line." 

Genaker, a developer of SIP-based applications, today launches genaker40501, a new OMA Push-to-Talk service for Windows Mobile based handsets and "rugged" PDAs.

genaker40501 is an advanced Push-to-Talk technology that allows network carriers and service providers to provide their customers with a way to communicate easily with numerous people at the touch of a button.  Ideal for business customers, Push-to-Talk works in a similar way to walkie-talkie communication by delivering messages to multiple users instantly and reliably.

genaker40501 is also the only technology that combines Push-to-Talk technology with real-time location tracking, when used with handsets that include built-in GPS. This useful tool provides companies such as government bodies, shipping and courier organisations or companies with a large feet or remote personnel with a means of identifying and monitoring what is going on in their business from a central dispatch position.

genaker40501 also works with personal mobile users who are involved outdoor activities with "rugged" PDAs.

Nokia and Qualcomm have today announced that the two companies are planning to work together to develop advanced UMTS mobile devices, initially for North America.  They intend for the devices to be based on S60 software on Symbian OS and utilize Qualcomm's Mobile Station Modem MSM7xxx-series and MSM8xxx-series chipsets for processing performance and ubiquitous mobile broadband capabilities. The first mobile devices based on this collaboration would be expected to launch in mid-2010 and be compatible with the forthcoming Symbian Foundation platform.

"Nokia is very pleased to be in discussions with Qualcomm around designing mobile devices that can benefit from the high level of integration found on MSM chipsets," said Kai Oistamo, executive vice president, Devices, Nokia.  "We are eager to demonstrate to the industry the possibilities that exist when innovative and open software is combined with advanced hardware solutions."

"Nokia and Qualcomm are leaders in advanced wireless technologies, and this new level of cooperation would bring exceptional leaps in mobile performance to people around the world," said Steve Mollenkopf, executive vice president of Qualcomm and president of Qualcomm CDMA Technologies.  "We are very excited about the possibility of the substantial synergies between S60 software and MSM chipsets." 

Harris Stratex Networks, a  specialist in backhaul solutions for mobility and broadband networks, today introduced Eclipse Packet Node to address the growing demands for high speed packet transport in next generation mobile backhaul networks.
 
Eclipse Packet Node builds upon the Eclipse platform to support Native Mixed Mode (TDM plus IP) transmission for smooth and cost-effective migration of backhaul networks. Eclipse Packet Node now adds increased nodal and radio link native packet handling capacity to meet the transport requirements expected for 4G, as well as a host of leading edge innovations that will help Operators overcome challenges in traffic management, backhaul bandwidth limitations and costs, and even timing and synchronisation in an all-IP network environment.

Eclipse Packet Node increases the packet handling capability of the Eclipse nodal design by over 1,000%, thanks to a new ‘Packet Plane' architecture. Eclipse Packet Node supports dramatically increased link throughputs with over 1Gbit/s transported in a single 56 MHz channel and over 140 Mbit/s in a single 7 MHz channel. Operators can make more use of their limited frequency resources than ever before. Innovative coding enhancements have also enabled improved RF path performance, with up to 6dB of additional system gain, resulting in longer paths, smaller antennas, and/or extended availability.

"Eclipse Packet Node represents the most comprehensive convergence solution available on the market today, that will enable our customers to transform their networks to all-IP ," said Paul Kennard, Harris Stratex Networks Chief Technology Officer, "Packet Node provides seamless support for both TDM and all-IP traffic with the same carrier-class performance, protection and network resiliency features, along with the raw IP capacity capability to meet network requirements all the way to LTE and beyond."

NetHawk has released NetHawk iPro v1.1, a high-performance capture appliance for network monitoring and analysis applications. The new NetHawk iPro introduces advanced Web based user interface with real-time dashboard, long-term statistics and easy file management. With multiple and concurrent recording sessions it is ideal to use NetHawk iPro along with NetHawk M5 Protocol Analysers and other network testing solutions.

Session based filtering allows to record different types of traffic to separate files simultaneously. NetHawk iPro is a compact-size 1U server with sustained 2Gbps recording speed and 4 Terabytes of storage capacity. NetHawk iPro is part of the NetHawk M5 product family. High speed links can be analysed to the last bit by using NetHawk iPro as the capture probe for NetHawk M5 Data Base server.

A NetHawk M5 Diagnostics client can be used to obtain data from the database and to perform complex data analysis immediately and in a user-friendly way. NetHawk iPro has extensive filtering possibilities and it can fully offload the data capture load from analyser applications.

NetHawk iPro also supports the industry standard pcap file format. With NetHawk Open source IDS option you can get free of charge Intrusion Detection System. Also a wide variety of other ready-made open source solutions are available for NetHawk iPro, which offers extensive possibilities for 3rd party application developers and systems integrators.

NetHawk is presenting the new NetHawk iPro solutions at MWC.

LG Electronics and GeoSentric Oyj's GyPSii business unit, have today announced a partnership to embed GyPSii's location-enabled mobile digital lifestyle application on a range of new mobile devices.  

Under the terms of the deal, LG Electronics mobile customers will have access to GyPSii's broad range of location-aware functions and mobile lifestyle services – including user generated content sharing, friend finding and social networking application, as well as the ability to view it all on a map – within a single, easy to navigate user interface.  The service will be provided in partnership with Intrinsyc, LG's navigation solution provider. 

 "As demand for Social Networking and Navigation on the mobile phone increases, it is vital that these services form an essential element of the LG customer offering on our new devices," said DooWhan (Paul) Sang, Vice President of LG Electronics, "With its impressive global infrastructure and market reach, GyPSii is clearly leading the way in the mobile social networking space, so we are delighted to have it pre-installed on our new range of next generation devices."

Within the partnership agreement, LG Electronics and GyPSii will share advertising and sponsorship revenues generated by users of GyPSii on the new LG devices.  The range will first launch across the Windows Mobile operating system, closely followed by Android and java-enabled devices.

"In partnering with LG Electronics, one of the world's largest manufacturers of mobile devices, we have demonstrated our ability to quickly meet the demands of the industry and provide a mass-market mobile social networking experience that can be accessed by consumers across the globe," said Dan Harple, CEO at GyPSii. 

"Our availability in 18 languages, as well as ability to reach specific communities and provide detailed reports on their interaction with an advertisement, coupon or sponsored message, makes us a very attractive option for marketers looking to maximise ROI from their mobile marketing campaigns," continued Harple.  "To sign with another industry leader extends the reach of GyPSii still further, so we look forward to working with LG as the GyPSii community builds and we open up new revenue streams across the impressive range of mobile devices."

Anam is announcing today that three major, global mobile operators have signed up to Anam's Smart Services for SMS. Anam is a pioneer of value-added SMS services which enable global mobile operators to increase their revenues from SMS so the deals with the unnamed operators mean that Anam will provide increased SMS functionality to help create new, compelling services for subscribers in Taiwan, Ireland and Vietnam.

Some of the Smart Services that Anam is providing as part of these new deals include Messaging+, which adds email-like functionality to SMS, allowing users to forward messages or set up an out-of-office alert; and Anti-SPAM, which blocks unwanted messages on the network, creating a better service for subscribers.

Anam's range of Smart Services also includes Ad-Funded SMS, which inserts ads into text messages to allow operators to increase revenues from advertisers and offer subsidised messaging; Parental Control, which allows parents to block unwelcome messages from their child's handset; and SMS Money Transfer, which allows users to send money to contacts in their address book, simply by using a standard text message.

"Our Smart Services solutions are helping many global operators create new, revenue-generating, SMS-borne services. Subscribers like these services because they can easily understand and access them, yet they also create increased revenues for operators," said Gerry McKenna, CEO of Anam. "Once again we have seen major, global operators turn to Anam to provide the services that will help them increase profits and be key in differentiating them from their competitors."

Securing these recent deals was, in part, due to the comprehensive nature of Anam's offering. The company can offer SMS infrastructure solutions that can improve the delivery of messages through the network, through to SMS applications and Smart Services that can help operators to dramatically increase revenues as well as reduce churn by creating ‘sticky' services.

"These deals highlight the value that our Smart Services solutions can bring to global mobile operators, with about another eight million mobile subscribers now able to access services like Messaging+," said Jote Bassi, VP Global Sales and Marketing at Anam. "It's great to see the hard work and dedication of our worldwide team and support staff continuing to produce some excellent results."

Anam recently announced that it was offering free texts for life to mobile operators by scrapping the charge for capacity licences for its Eclipse SMSX short messaging platform. Now operators no longer have to pay higher license fees if they wanted their network to be able to process more messages, allowing them to simply and easily introduce more SMS based services.

Anam is exhibiting at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Alcatel-Lucent has announced the launch of a multi-industry initiative – the ng Connect Program – that is dedicated to establishing a rich and diverse ecosystem of infrastructure, devices, content and applications for both mobile and fixed broadband networks including 4G, Long Term Evolution (LTE), GPON and other ultra high bandwidth technologies. The ng Connect Program will bring the benefits of a seamless broadband experience to mobile phones, computers, cars, gaming systems and more, enabling consumers to stream more content, run more sophisticated applications on-the-go, and communicate in the most popular formats of today, and tomorrow.

One example of the possible applications resulting from this ecosystem is in the automotive sector – connecting automobiles to new services through tomorrow's broadband networks.  "QNX is excited about what LTE can bring to the next-generation connected vehicle. A reliable high-speed connection transforms the user experience: no more hard drive in the car, no more out-of-date navigation and mapping system, and no more visits to the dealer to update your software," said Dan Dodge, CEO of QNX Software Systems. "The car becomes an Internet terminal, an edge device, providing users with real-time access to the latest applications, data, and content. LTE complements our own vision of enabling cars that dynamically connect to the internet cloud, to consumer devices, and to one another."

The ng Connect Program is committed to bringing together companies, large and small, that are developing cutting edge technologies and services which will reshape the way people communicate, interact online and on-the-go, including augmented reality, mobile games and compelling social networking/entertainment experiences.  By helping bring new applications and services to market more quickly, the ng Connect Program will facilitate an expansion of the revenue base for network operators and others.  To accomplish this, ng Connect Program will promote a variety of pre-integrated solutions featuring the latest innovations in network, device and software technologies.

"As we move into the next phase of the evolution of broadband networks with the advent of ultra high bandwidth systems such as 4G and GPON, it is critical that a broad spectrum of companies – including those from industries that are not normally associated – come together in a strong ecosystem that can effectively innovate, remove business and technical barriers and define new business models to accelerate mass adoption of new services and devices," said Tim Krause, Chief Marketing Officer at Alcatel-Lucent, a founding member of the ng Connect Program. "The establishment of the ng Connect program is an important step in our strategy to create an open ecosystem so that the trusted capabilities of service providers can be combined with the innovation of the web to bring whole new classes of services to market, services that can leverage the growing capabilities of service aware IP networks, IMS and more. The ng Connect Program is dedicated to bringing this ecosystem to life."
 
The ng Connect Program's initial phase has three goals: accelerating deployment of new services and devices through pre-integration and validation; identifying and promoting new revenue streams through innovative business models; and broadening the wireless broadband device landscape to include consumer electronics products, industrial and consumer equipment for machine-to-machine communications, and automotive connectivity.  The ng Connect Program will showcase the next generation connected user experience through proof-of-concept solutions. 

O3SIS, a provider of mobile email and synchronization solutions, has announced the launch of its new Device Client Suite. Based on OMA DS (SyncML), Java and IP-Push industry standards the brand new Clients enable users to synchronize all types of multimedia contents from and to mobile devices. The Clients also fully support Push Mail capabilities of today's primary Smartphone platforms in the market, such as iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Windows Mobile and Symbian Smartphones.

O3SIS customers now can fully leverage existing infrastructure investments to empower a wide range of mobile phones, while unifying all the various Smartphone platforms and previously isolated applications. O3SIS is demonstrating its Device Clients Suite in combination with Living Phone Safe and Living Communication products at Mobile World Congress.