Nokia has announced that it has paid Qualcomm USD 20 million for patent licenses covering the second quarter 2007.

While Nokia and Qualcomm have had patent license agreements since 1992 and Nokia’s obligations to pay license fees under the old agreements partially expire on April 9, 2007, the new payment does not extend, and is not related to, the old agreement, says Nokia. Rather, it is based on the licenses that Qualcomm has agreed and provided through the European Telecommunication Standardization Institute (ETSI).

“As we continue to negotiate the new cross-license agreement, Nokia views this payment as fair and reasonable compensation for the use of relevant Qualcomm essential patents in Nokia UMTS handsets during the second quarter of 2007.  Nokia believes that Qualcomm’s patent portfolio is concentrated in the United States, and that it has few or no alleged UMTS patents in many of the countries in which Nokia has substantial UMTS handset sales. When Qualcomm’s early patents become paid-up and royalty-free on April 9, 2007 Qualcomm’s share of all patents relevant to Nokia UMTS handsets will significantly decrease”, said Rick Simonson, chief financial officer, Nokia.

Nokia intends to make similar payments in the future and will announce such payments when they are made.

Nokia has until 2007 paid less than 3 per cent cumulative license fees under all of its patent license agreements involving WCDMA products.

Nokia retains the right to ask Qualcomm, and its customers, to respect Nokia’s patents rights. The retained rights have significant value, and Nokia believes it is well positioned to offset any claims Qualcomm may make against Nokia products to claim more money in license fees.

“It is important to note that as of April 9, 2007, Qualcomm’s entire chipset business becomes exposed to Nokia’s extensive GSM, WCDMA and CDMA patent portfolios and Nokia will use all rights from those portfolios when defending itself against any new Qualcomm litigation”, Simonson concluded.

$290 million cash for the Billing Services Group division

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 existingh $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.

Starts operations on 1 April

Nokia Siemens Networks has announced the start of full commercial operations as a new company.

The company has five product business units – Radio Access, Broadband Access, Service Core and Applications, IP/Transport, and Operations Support Systems – as well as a 20,000-string Services Business Unit.

The company puts itself at number three in the networks business market, and is targetting the number one spot.

Simon Beresford-Wylie, chief executive officer of Nokia Siemens Networks, said that the company wanted to be the number one choice for mobile-fixed connectivity and, in a nod to the investigation at Siemens that delayed the start of operations, said, “We also want to be known for operating with the highest standards of ethics and integrity.”

The 1 April launch just about squeezes Nokia Siemens Networks inside the first quarter deadline the company re-set for itself when it delayed its establishment earlier this year.

Not that the immediate landscape looks to easy.

Nokia and Nokia Siemens Networks have said that they are updating the outlook for the mobile and fixed services infrastructure market for 2007.  The companies now expect very slight market growth for the mobile and fixed infrastructure and related services market in euro terms in 2007.  Previously, Nokia expected slight growth in the mobile and fixed infrastructure and related services market in euro terms in 2007.  From April 1, 2007, the financial results of Nokia Siemens Networks will be consolidated to Nokia. 

So why do we need mobile broadcast?

Stop us if we’re getting the wrong end of the stick here but we thought the whole point of mobile digital broadcast TV (DVB-H, FLO, DMB, even MBMS etc) was to do with the fact that if operators started streaming real live TV out over their 3G networks as unicast, and everyone started watching it, they could support a very small number of channels, the user experience would be rubbish and the network would quickly get maxed out with a million phones all pointing at the same content.

Yet following the BBC’s announcement of a year long “trial” deal with three UK operators, 3, Vodafone, and Orange to stream three channels live to users on the mobile networks in question, it seems the network operators themselves are quite happy with 3G being the delivery medium for live, mass market, TV channels.

With operators already supplying Sky, Channel4 and other broadcast content, as a live simulcast, a Vodafone spokesperson didn’t see there being any capacity issues going forward. And obviously the advantage of streaming live TV out over 3G is that it doesn’t require the 3G user to upgrade to any fancy new handsets.

“We launched commercially in late 2005 with 20-40 channels, including Sky and Channel 4, and we have seen massive usage but no capacity issues,” the Vodafone man said,  “and this is all simulcast.”

“At the moment [network] capacity is not an issue, although it is something we need to be aware of and there are bits and pieces, such as HSDPA and splitting streams, we are considering. But 3G has provided a very good way of broadcasting TV at good enough quality – although again that’s no to say we are not considering other bits and pieces.”

Head of TV & Video at Orange Deborah Tonroe, told Mobile Europe that the company has been streaming live TV over 3G since they started the service and at current user levels has no capacity issues.

“Technically we’ve been doing synchronous streaming since day one, with nine live streaming channels, and the BBC brings a new dimension to that. At this time 3G is more than adequate given the size of the market for TV.”

“Future technologies are still some time away, with several issues [regulation, spectrum] hampering potential development,” Tonroe added.

And although she said Orange would continue to look at other technologies, she said “the jury is still out” on whether other technologies will even be required. Capacity problems caused by large numbers watching the same live broadcast are not a given, Tonroe said.

“It would become a problem within a single cell if everyone all tuned in to the same programme at the same time, but it doesn’t work like that. Our viewing habits are not synchronous, just as not everybody makes a telephone call at the same time in the same cell.” 

Vodafone’s spokesperson said Vodafone would be including the BBC channels (BBC One, BBC News 24 and BBC Three) into its “Variety Pack” package, which users get for £3 a month. Access to Sky Sports costs £5 a month, and Sky News £3 a month.  All you can get everything Vodafone offers for £10 a month.

Vodafone is making as much money from TV subs as it is now from on-portal sales of ring-tones, the spokesperson added, giving some idea as to the earnings potential of TV over 3G.

Tonroe said that Orange would also be offering the BBC channels within its existing packages,, calling them “bonus channels – for want of a better world”. She said the BBC was using its year’s trial to understand the potential of mobile and to learn from first hand experience of customers.

Ad-funded model takes new steps

Blyk is currently getting the headlines for its impending launch of a “free” MVNO service. With an impressive sounding roster of advertisers, plus the strong rumour that Orange UK is to be the first host operator, the MVNO is looking at plenty of nice publicity.

Yet how will ads be served? What services will Blyk itself actually offer? Who will the host operator be? What does the launch tell us about the ad-funded model for other services and operators? A lot of questions remain only partially answered.

Blyk’s spokesperson has said that the original intention was to have the host operator named by Monday 26th march, but that in fact confirmation should now come within the next couple of days.

As for services, Blyk has said it will offer voice minutes and texts to customers willing to look at ads. There are no plans to provide content and media services so far, the spokesperson said. Yet aren’t those just the sort of services the teen market being targeted by Blyk is interested in? The spokesperson said that it could be that if a user expressed an interest in a service available from a particular advertiser then that advertiser could be the one that provides the service.

And if only voice and text are available as services, how will ads be served? Again, the spokesperson said she has “not seen” the formats so far, so doesn’t know what form the ads will take.

The important part of the business, the spokesperson pointed out, is that users will only get ads from companies they have agreed to, with an interactive element to them, allowing a response of some kind.

The company responsible for this “clever” part of Blyk’s business  – the insertion of ads into media streams in real time, and the interaction with the operator’s own customer systems to make sure only relevant ads are served – is First Hop.

Speaking to Mobile Europe, First Hop’s ceo Timo Laaksonen said that Blyk had developed its ad-based solution on top of FirstHop’s existing service delivery platform (SDP), to add to the SDP’s existing ability to create and control services on a sponsored or ad-funded basis.

Laaksonen said, “There’s complexity in the real time ad insertion algorithms. We have been working very interactively with Blyk, talking about how the system should work, how the ad insertions should interact with Blyk’s customer segmentation model.”

Laaksonen said that there would be nothing to stop other operators using the technology to create their own packages based on ad or sponsor subsidies, but he thought that Blyk’s customized ad-only approach had cleared a few barriers.

“On the mobile side, there has been a lot of talk about advertising, but it has not really taken off well. There have been too many parties protecting their own revenues. Now here’s a player starting from scratch, so I think they need to do things differently to make a splash. I think they will teach a lot of people whether this is the right way to go about it or not, and in the next year or so we will see if this is the right approach for the mass market,” Laaksonen said.

Advertising revenues and sponsorship is going to be important going forward, and the more we go into internet-style services, the more difficult it’s going to be to avoid it, Laaksonen counseled.

That said, given the number of services that people have proposed would lend themselves to ad-funding (IM, social networking, TV etc) is it a little ironic to see the first player come to market with a voice based “free calls” model?

“I wouldn’t say ironical is the word,” Laaksonen said, “It’s a different approach and we needed somebody to shake the market up a little bit.”

You’ve got MySpace and YouTube, guess we’ll have Bebo

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.
 

Sorry, “Favourite Place” tariff

Despite telling journalists at its annual gathering late in 2006  that it wouldn’t be replicating its German home zone tariff (Genion) in the UK, O2 has decided that the UK does need a home zone play after all.

The operator is launching ‘Favourite Place’ –  a location based Pre-Pay tariff.  From March 30th 2007, customers can choose a location and make 500 minutes of free calls to UK landlines and other O2 mobiles from that postcode every month.

O2 is hoping the package will appeal to students (likely), as well as home and location-based (ie, poor sods stuck in an office) workers.

No launch is complete without its attendant gimmick and this one is a competition for customers to take in a 6×4 inch photo of their favourite place into their local O2 store, where it will be displayed and entered into a prize draw to win £1000 to spend on their favourite place. O2 is also running a text poll to find out where their customers’ favourite place is.  Customers can choose between the gym, the office, home, the pub or university, simply by texting the word ‘PLACE’ followed by their choice (e.g. PLACE PUB) to 60600.

If the winner of that one is gym, then things really are getting desperate.

More seriously, the tariff is a sign that substitution of fixed minutes is now sufficiently attractive for mobile operators that they are prepared to give those minutes (or at least 500 per month of them) away, to attract users onto the network.

As well as confirming yesterday its acquistion fo Zynetix, Sonus has announced today a strategic partnership with Networks, a provider of IP-based picocell and femtocell base stations.

The two companies say they are working together to enable broadband-cellular converged solutions to deliver voice services and multimedia applications to mobile handsets by leveraging customer-premise GSM access technologies, such as picocells and femtocells. Which is similar to the reason given for the acquisition of softswitch vendor Zynetix.

“Sonus has been actively engaged in building an ecosystem of world-class vendors that are pioneering the new market for broadband-cellular converged solutions through GSM access technologies,” said Vikram Saksena, chief technology officer, Sonus Networks. “Sonus’ IMS-ready network infrastructure coupled with solutions from companies like RadioFrame Networks opens up a new set of opportunities for wireless network operators that are committed to improving service to their customers while reaping significant operational benefits.”

The Norwegians would

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 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.

 MEF says launches initiative to sort it

Studies conducted by Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) members show as many as one in five mobile content transactions don’t complete.

This represents unacceptable revenue leakage, as well as poor customer service, and the MEF along with a host of 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 initiative 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 to the industry at large at MEF’s annual event, Mobile Entertainment Market (MeM), in Monaco June 5-6, 2007. The full report will be made exclusively available to MEF members and will be used to agree on industry KPIs.