Moovera Networks, a developer of fixed and mobile wireless communications systems, has today announced that Arriva Scandinavia A/S has selected the Moovbox M Series Mobile Broadband Gateway to deliver Internet connectivity on trains running across Denmark.

Arriva has equipped an initial twenty-nine trains serving commuters traveling between Aarhus, Thisted and Tønder in Jutland, and will provide free Wi-Fi hotspot services to passengers. Arriva will also utilize the Moovbox for GPS-based automatic vehicle location (AVL) to keep track of the train fleet via Moovera's MoovManage centralized monitoring system.

"We are continually seeking new ways to improve the quality of rail travel in Denmark," said Johnny Hansen, Managing Director of Arriva Scandinavia. "We believe that the introduction of broadband services on our trains in Jutland today will enhance the passenger experience and provide a useful and productive way for our customers to spend their journey time."

The Moovbox M Series delivers Wi-Fi Internet access on the Arriva fleet of Alstom Cordia Lint trains at speeds up to 7.2 Mbps by creating a bridge between the train and a next-generation 3G HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) cellular broadband network from 3 (www.3.dk). The Moovbox offers Ethernet connectivity for in-train systems such as CCTV and telematics data, and includes built-in GPS for real-time fleet tracking. The cost of the deployment will be partially underwritten by advertising on the Wi-Fi hotspot landing page that users see when they access the Internet service.

"This is a landmark deployment for Moovera as it is our first major installation with a national rail network operator," said Jim Baker, Moovera CEO and founder. "We have an established reputation as a leading provider of Internet access systems on buses, coaches and ferries so it was only a matter of time before we encompassed trains as well. Many of our large transportation customers who use the Moovbox mobile broadband gateway on their bus fleets also own train operations, so it is a natural progression for them to use tried and tested Moovbox technology to deliver Wi-Fi services to rail passengers."

Nokia has announced that its update for Nokia Maps has left beta stage and is now ready for consumers to download.
 
Downloaded over 240,000 times since announced in February, Nokia Maps 2.0 is said to have improved its optional Car Navigation, enhanced its pedestrian navigation, added multimedia city guides, now offers satellite images, and is sporting a redesigned user interface. Nokia's mapping and navigation solutions give people navigation features, local content and world maps directly on their mobile device, in a way that only connected devices can.
 
Nokia Maps 2.0 uses vector maps provided by Navteq and TeleAtlas, and now has maps covering over 200 countries, with over 70 of them navigable. Maps can be downloaded over the air directly to selected devices or by using the Nokia Map Loader on a PC.  A new beta version of the Nokia Map Loader is available on the Nokia Betalabs web site.

Orange and Nokia today announced a strategic international partnership, extending the first agreement signed by the two companies in February 2008. The two have committed to a three year partnership, which will include the addition of ten new Nokia handsets to the Orange Signature range and the addition of music to a combined offer of games, advertising, maps and location based services. 
 
Orange and Nokia have agreed to launch a suite of integrated multimedia services on the new Nokia handsets, launching in H208 across nine major markets, in an initiative designed to boost the adoption of mobile digital entertainment. As part of the strategic partnership, customers will have direct access to the Orange Music Store, both Orange and NGage games, as well as Nokia Maps. Under the Orange Signature programme, all services will be integrated into the familiar Orange user interface, providing one click access to information and entertainment.
 
"This collaboration underlines Orange's drive to create strategic partnerships that will give customers the best possible mobile multimedia experience in the simplest way," said Olaf Swantee, EVP of Orange's Personal Communications Services. "Combined with our leadership in mobile multimedia innovation and relationships with leading content providers, Orange believes that Nokia's devices and Ovi platform will make a powerful environment for the provision of a joint range of services," added Georges Penalver, EVP of Orange's Group Strategic Marketing.
 
"We are pleased to create this strategic partnership with Orange and believe that the combination of Signature and Ovi services will extend and enrich consumer choice," said Kai Öistämö, EVP, Devices, Nokia. "We also expect our close collaboration to extend beyond the initial focus areas of music, games, maps and advertising to include other services over time."
 
Under the agreement, the two companies will work jointly on marketing to support the launch of new devices and the development of multimedia applications. For instance, Nokia's Mobile Maps platform and GPS technology will be introduced to a wide portfolio of Nokia handsets in the Orange Signature range, allowing for navigation, location based search and advertising services. The two companies plan to create 10 million active Mobile Maps users on Nokia devices within the Orange footprint by 2010.

Andrew has won a multi-year contract for communications systems that will provide improved wireless coverage inside Deutsche Bahn AG's high speed train ICE in Germany.

Andrew in-train repeaters will be installed in all 250 ICE train sets covering nearly 1,500 carriages-the majority of the ICE fleet-that will feature high quality, high-availability mobile telephony signal coverage for passengers and official rail communications.  The project, which began this month and is scheduled for completion in 2010, is a common project between Deutsche Bahn and the German mobile network operators T-Mobile, Vodafone, the E-Plus Group and O2. 

The Andrew repeater system will support five separate GSM networks, covering the four operators plus the rail system's communications network, in the GSM-900, GSM-1800 and GSM-R bands.  The company has previously supported Deutsche Bahn in providing in-train coverage systems on portions of the ICE system since 2002.

"High-speed rail is one of the most challenging environments in which to provide wireless communications, with the complexities of different terrain and rapidly changing outdoor signal levels of the various networks," said Matt Melester, vice president and general manager, Wireless Innovations, Andrew.  "Andrew has vast experience around the world in successfully supporting such requirements.  We are proud to be chosen for this important project benefiting German rail passengers and ICE personnel."

NeuStar has announced that Tele2, said to be one of Europe's leading "alternative telecommunications" operators, has selected NeuStar's Next Generation Messaging (NGM) services to roll out mobile Instant Messaging services across Tele2's mobile phone networks. Tele2 will be working with NeuStar to roll out mobile Instant Messaging solutions to its mobile operators serving more than 17 million customers.

Tele2 has worked with NeuStar to implement NeuStar's industry-leading Mobile Instant Messaging, Presence, and Interconnect services into Tele2's mobile solutions.  Furthermore, NeuStar has developed additional billing software solutions to assist Tele2 in enhancing Tele2's end-to-end solution.

"Our philosophy is to always offer our customers easy-to-use services at great value for their money, and the rollout of mobile IM will provide our customers just that," said Karl-Johan Nybell, Director, Product Implementation and New Markets at Tele2.  "NeuStar has a track record of being able to provide solutions that are easy and intuitive for the end user and quick to market for the operator. We have worked closely with NeuStar to deliver a solution that is right for our customers."

"Tele2 prides itself in offering great value and simple to use mobile services to its customers, and we are very happy to be working with them," said Allen Scott, General Manager of NeuStar NGM.  "We are confident that Tele2 will be able to roll out mobile IM solutions to their customers quickly and easily, offering them a new mobile service that Tele2 subscribers will enjoy and use regularly."

B2M Solutions, specialist in managing the mobile enterprise, has entered an Alliance Partnership with NetMotion Wireless, a provider of mobile productivity and management software.  The relationship allows both companies to collaborate on software development to provide customers with a fully managed mobile enterprise where the wireless communications are both secure and stable.

NetMotion's extensive customer base of over 1,200 organisations now has access to the B2M mprodigy mobile management system, with the peace-of-mind that it will work seamlessly with NetMotion's Mobility XE, the company's award-winning mobile virtual private network (VPN) software. In turn, B2M's customers can use Mobility XE as part of an mprodigy installation to ensure a highly secure communications path between mobile devices and company servers. 

Peter George, Vice President of International Operations at NetMotion Wireless says, "Full systems management is a vital component for all large mobile enterprises and B2M mprodigy has been selected by NetMotion Mobility customers looking for a comprehensive management system. The success of projects for these joint customers has proven our Mobility XE mobile VPN is entirely complementary with mprodigy^TM.  Together we are committed to delivering a best-of-breed robust solution, providing our customers with the confidence they need to deploy in highly scaleable and mission critical environments."

Julie Purves, Managing Director of B2M Solutions adds, "Both B2M and NetMotion have designed their solutions from the ground-up to be used in a mobile environment and we have a mutual advantage over systems built on legacy fixed networks and office based systems.  This makes for a perfect partnership where we can offer a very secure end-to-end solution. NetMotion Mobility secures the communications links between devices and the host and mprodigy delivers total management over a mobile estate." 

Alongside mprodigy's management capabilities, the new features of Mobility XE version 8.0 (introduced on 5 May 2008) are specifically designed to meet the security and connectivity needs of highly mobile field personnel.  It allows devices to connect to the enterprise network only after meeting specified security policies, but gives IT administrators greater control and flexibility.

AdaptiveMobile, provider of mobile subscriber protection for enterprises and individuals, has issued a stark warning to both mobile operators and parents that the cyber-bullying of schoolchildren highlighted by recent research in Ireland is actually an escalating international problem.

The survey, carried out by Trinity College Dublin, questioned nearly 2800 pupils from eight secondary schools and shows that children as young as 12 are being targeted by cyber bullies through various forms of communication including mobile phone calls, text messages and e-mails.

Other disturbing findings are that one in seven students have been targeted by bullies via their mobile phones or the internet, with one in eight boys questioned having been 'cyber-bullied' in recent months.

As a result, the Irish Government has been criticised for failing to respond to this growing problem. However, Lorcan Burke, CEO of AdaptiveMobile, asserts that this is a problem facing many more countries than Ireland: "The problem of cyber-bullying in Irish schools concerns me at a personal level, but my experience of dealing with mobile operators around the world shows me that unfortunately Ireland is one of dozens of countries suffering a growth in cyber-bullying, especially in mobile phone harassment.

"Children and teenagers are typically the fastest adopters of mobile technology, which means they are the first to realise the benefits of mobile access and content, but also the drawbacks. We want parents to know the real risks that exist and also to encourage them to work closely with their children and mobile service provider for a safer mobile experience for their child."

AdaptiveMobile is said to be working with mobile operators to safeguard their infrastructure and enable them to deliver appropriate controls to ensure a safe mobile experience for teenagers and children. Its parental controls are multifaceted, allowing parents to block applications, phone numbers and sites, or allow certain technologies in a limited capacity. It is encouraging parents to become an active partner in their children's mobile experience, working closely with their mobile service provider to get the best level of protection available.

Anritsu, a provider of testing, monitoring and management solutions for advanced and converged networks, has today announced release 6.2 of its Service Assurance solution MasterClaw. Providing extensive support for IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem), VoIP and wireless broadband services, the latest release of MasterClaw is a converged network and service monitoring solution that supports operators and service providers in their migration to IMS and NGN (Next Generation Networks). With MasterClaw, Anritsu says that operators and service providers can efficiently scale their OSS solution from a single technology implementation into a converged deployment, spanning legacy technologies and new technologies such as HSPA, IMS, VoIP and NGN.

MasterClaw is an integrated Service Assurance platform for converged next generation networks. Based on non-intrusive probes, MasterClaw provides end-to-end network and service visibility across GSM, GPRS, UMTS, VoIP, triple play, IMS and NGN networks. The integrated application suite combines network monitoring and troubleshooting with service and customer quality monitoring.

Some of the most significant new features in MasterClaw 6.2 are said to include:
* Full monitoring support for IMS monitoring including R7 As IMS is maturing and reaching the commercial deployment phase, the newest release of MasterClaw now supports IMS R7, including the charging related Diameter interfaces: Rf, Ro, Gy, Gx.
* MasterClaw Insight, the new interactive operations intelligence tool
MasterClaw Insight brings operational insight to your fingertips. Through drillable reports and online encyclopaedia that guide users through the analytical process, MasterClaw Insight gives direct access to service quality and customer centric monitoring information needed to optimize the customer experience.
* User Plane tracing and analysis of wireless broadband services

To support management of wireless broadband services MasterClaw 6.2 offers the ability to analyze service sessions that are a part of the user plane signalling. The functionality includes in-progress tracing and statistical support, as well as full user sessions can be captured for offline analysis in external third party tools such as Wireshark.

The new release also includes further enhancements of MasterClaw's flexible Web based user interface. The upgrade includes both the application launch portal and the intuitive dashboard that provides instant information about the performance of any key indicator, with dynamic self-learning alarms.

"We are of course very proud to be able to announce the release 6.2 of MasterClaw", says Svend Dahl-Pedersen, Product Managing Director at Anritsu's Service Assurance Division. "Many of our customers are now entering into IMS and NGN with real commercial service offerings and with its full support for IMS R7 and VoIP our latest version of MasterClaw is designed to help our customers in the migration to IMS/NGN and reduce the technical risks.

Mr. Dahl-Pedersen continues: "During 2007 we had a growth in our business in excess of 25%, which is more than twice as much as the Service Assurance market in general. This proves that our customers appreciate our award winning suite of integrated Service Assurance applications, and MasterClaw's ability to seamlessly span across both today's and tomorrow's network and service technologies. Especially the brand new operation intelligence package, MasterClaw Insight, will help our customers to optimize their operations further."