In order to accelerateOEM time to market with LTE technology, TI has created a development ecosystem, combining its wireless infrastructure DSPs, and software libraries and ATCA/AMC cards from leading systems developers Mercury Computer Systems and Silicon Turnkey Express (STx).
“This is a tumultuous time for service providers as they strive to meet consumers’ growing demand for high bandwidth applications,” said Godfrey Chua, research manager for IDC’s wireless and mobile infrastructure service.
“Although the LTE standard is not yet finalized, carriers’ work must begin now to test and evaluate its potential. TI’s LTE development ecosystem is the right approach and comes at the right time as it provides carriers and equipment manufacturers with sufficient lead time to meet potential deployment goals falling in the 2009/
2010 timeframe.”
Although the LTE standard has not yet been finalized, service providers TI hopes ots  development ecosystem will provide a preview into how systems can support the LTE air interface.

INSIDE Contactless, a provider of contactless chip technologies has partnered with Mobile Distillery, a java mobile porting Software Company, to develop an interoperable Java ME solution for NFC developers.
The partnership project aims to design a software solution for the development of portable NFC/Java Mobile Applications across multiple NFC phones.
Based on Mobile Distillery’s Celsius architecture, the solution is aimed at developers who will need to cope with multiple implementations of NFC technologies.   

Studies conducted by Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) members show as many as one in five mobile content transactions don’t complete.
To address associated revenue leakage and customer service issues,the MEF along with other concerned parties is launching a Quality of Experience initiative to establish agreement on industry-wide key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics needed to improve users’ experience with mobile content.
The initiative is supported by Alcatel-Lucent, Buongiorno, Celltick, Hungama Mobile, mBlox, Motorola, Motricity, Musiwave, Orange, Telephia and Vodafone.
A white paper produced by the group has identified three metrics – content availability, content performance and conformance – of how to effectively implement and measure good Quality of Experience. The idea is that with a better understanding of these three areas participants across the value chain to adjust their strategies to make mobile entertainment services more attractive and easier to adopt.
LCC will implement a global consumer research study over the next three months to determine specific correlations between mobile content adoption and subscribers’ Quality of Experience, including discoverability, usability, customer support and billing.
“The QoE initiative is part of an on-going effort by MEF to educate the mobile content industry about the need for a unified approach to improving subscribers’ quality of experience. We understand the health of the mobile entertainment industry depends on consumers’ willingness to try and adopt new services. The whole industry will benefit from higher standards that improve the consumer experience,” said Patrick Parodi, global chairman of MEF.
A summary of the multi-country consumer survey will be published at Mobile Entertainment Market, in Monaco June 5-6, 2007. 

Mobile domain provider dotMobi has “evaluated” the top 100 sites on the internet to see how “mobile ready” they are.
Using a list generated by Alexa Internet on January 23, 2007, dotMobi evaluated the most visited sites using its own testing tool that incorporates industry standards set by the W3C consortium and investors including Ericsson, Microsoft and Nokia.
The tool at http://ready.mobi simulated a mobile device and accessed each of the top 100’s PC-based web page and its .mobi (or other mobile) address, if applicable. The report scores each site from one (least mobile ready) to five (most mobile ready).
According to this scale, the top 10 mobile ready sites are Google.com, WashingtonPost.com, Ask.com, Yahoo.com Flickr.com, Live.com, Facebook.com, Overstock.com, Weather.com and USA Today.com. Only three of the top 10 most popular Web sites – Yahoo, Google and Facebook – scored greater than a three out of five on the Mobile Ready Report.
But how independent is the test? dotMobile itself said that sites that used a .mobi address tended to score well because “they generally followed the dotMobi standards and best practices to ensure an optimal mobile experience”.
The report indicated that many of the otherwise top web sites are not optimised for easy mobile viewing by consumers. These top 100 sites averaged a score of 1.3 out of five. On average, just the home pages of the tested sites cost 0.75p and took just under 40 seconds per page to download.
No surprisingly for a company whose interest is to promote dotMobi addresses, dotMobi say that the results show that the .mobi domain provides the best route to a mobile-ready website.
“There’s plenty of room for improvement because the mobile internet is still developing,” said Neil Edwards, CEO of dotMobi.

WorldDMB President, Quentin Walker, has slammed EU Commissioner, Viviane Reding, after it was revealed that Ms Reding has rejected telecoms and broadcast recommendations over mobile TV broadcasting standards.
The EMBC, which includes every major mobile telecoms operator, broadcaster, network provider and technology manufacturer from the Member States, has spent the past year studying the mobile technology market in Europe.
 Its report, presented at the European Commission conference on Mobile TV during Ce-Bit, concluded “there is no urgent need for specific new E.U. regulation to foster the introduction and development of mobile broadcasting.”
Rather the market should be allowed to decide for itself which technologies are best suited for broadcasting television, radio and data to mobile devices in Europe. The Council recommended technology neutrality and said the Commission “should not favour any one technology over another.”
Europe’s telecoms companies and broadcasters were therefore stunned today when Ms. Reding flew in the face of the Council’s report and defied her own policy of technology neutrality, saying, “The industry should agree on one single standard. I believe this should be the DVB-H family of standards.”
She went on to suggest that if the industry and member states failed to agree on one standard she would be forced to “intervene with regulatory measures.”
Responding to Ms Reding’s stance on the issue, WorldDMB President, Quentin Howard said, “It is ridiculous for the Commission to think that only one system can work everywhere! Each country has its own unique requirements and market conditions and the Commissioner’s preference for one solution suggests she has failed to grasp that mobile operators and broadcasters need flexibility to develop different business models.
“It is vital for European industry that the market is not restricted to one specific technology but rather we are able to use different systems tailored to each market. Technology is a rapidly and continually evolving process and it would be damaging to Europe’s economy and its citizens for the Commission to mandate one standard.
“Madame Reding says she prefers a European technology for Europe and cites interoperability as an important issue. I couldn’t agree more. DAB/DMB is a European technology whose development was funded by the EU. This European system has been adopted by leading technology nations including Korea and China. DMB is the world’s most successful mobile TV platform by an order of magnitude compared to DVB-H.
“On interoperability, I am pleased to remind her that WorldDMB and the DVB Forum are already working together to ensure that DAB/DMB and DVB-H2 (the next version of DVB-H) can be interoperable.
“The availability of spectrum is key to the roll-out of mobile TV and radio, and having a combination of DMB and DVB-H, for example, means you can start mobile broadcasting now in most European countries without the need for the Commission to do anything at all. For the Commissioner to sweep away all these issues, contradict her own policy of neutrality and to ignore the recommendations of the EMBC is unbelievable.”

Orange has followed Vodafone in the “mobilising web social networking” route by saying UK customers will have access to a mobile version of Bebo from summer 2007.
How will it work? Bebo Mobile members with a WAP phone will have access to Bebo.com from Orange World, where they can access all the key functionality of the UK’s most popular social network.
Orange customers will be able to sign up for a “Bebo Bundle” which offers mobile access to Bebo.com and also enables them to send SMS comments directly to their friends’ profile, receive immediate SMS profile notifications, upload photos directly to their profile and send Bebo Mails via SMS. Pricing will be announced when the service launches this summer. Orange will also hope to attract Bebo members onto Orange by designing a package just for them.

Israel’s largest mobile operator, Cellcom has launched an ad-funded mobile games service powered by innerActive’s technology. The service offers the subscribers free games downloads, sponsored by brands such as: Nokia, McDonald’s, Diadora, Samsung, Adidas and Walt Disney. The  ads are injected into the games as Product Placement and appear at different media areas within the game.

O2 Airwave will be working with network intergator Siemens to provide consultancy advice on the design and implementation of the network operations for the Norwegian TETRA public safety radio network.
The agreement is the first deal O2 Airwave has done outside the UK, although the operator has been touting its expertise around for a while.
O2 Airwave’ operates the UK’s national TETRA communications network which now has around 180,000 users.
It will now use that experience to act as a consultant to Siemens, which has a turn-key contract with the Norwegian authorities for the network and will also provide the control rooms in conjunction with Frequentis as well as operation and maintenance of the network. The first users of the network will be the Norwegian public emergency services of fire, police and health.
O2 Airwave has stated its intention to expand internationally and is currently pursuing opportunities in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

TeliaSonera’s 3G Spanish mobile operator, Yoigo, has signed its first 100,000 subscribers, the operator has said.
Launched on December 1, 2006, the fourth operator in the Spanish market has signed up more than 93,000 active customers and 120,000 orders from prospective subscribers, TeliaSonera said.
Kenneth Karlberg, President of Mobility Services at TeliaSonera, said, “Thanks to our easy to use services with attractive pricing on the Spanish market we are now able to celebrate reaching 100,000 customers in such a short time.”
Yoigo counted down to the 100,000th subscirber on its website, www.yoigo.com, and as a marketing gimmick  offered its customer number 100,000 a trip for two to Helsinki to watch the Final of the Eurovision Song Contest on May 12. Yoigo also  offered free text messages to all its subscribers the day after it reached 100,000.
Yoigo competes head-to-head with the three big multi-nationals.

Billing Services Group Ltd (BSG) has proposed off-loading its wireless business division for $290 million, and has said Syniverse has signed an agreement for the acquisition. The proposal would combine Syniverse’s technology interoperability and network services capabilities with BSG’s GSM data clearing business.
BSG is using most of the cash raised from the disposal to re-pay its existing $250 million debt. It is retaining its wireline business, which generated 60% of its pro forma revenues in 2006, and that business will be re-financed in a $105 million underwriting.
“The proposed acquisition of BSG’s Wireless business will allow us to better serve the demands of our clients; further develop our global operations and customer base in Europe, Asia and the Middle East; and allow us to continue to be a leading service provider to GSM operators worldwide,” said Tony Holcombe, President and CEO of Syniverse. “The acquisition also brings to Syniverse a number of new services, including a best-in-class financial clearing platform, several new wireless services and additional product development expertise that will position us to better serve the increasingly complex needs of our global wireless customers.”
Following completion of the transaction and integration of the two businesses, Syniverse intends to maintain its European headquarters in The Netherlands and its European operations in BSG’s facilities in Germany and the United Kingdom