Etisalat launches iPhone 3G in UAE and Saudi Arabia

Etisalat has launched Apple’s iPhone 3G in United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. The company will offer the device with various service packages for both the 8Gb model and 16Gb model. According to the company, iPhone 3G combines all the features of iPhone plus 3G networking that is twice as fast, built-in GPS for expanded location-based mobile services, and iPhone 2.2 software which includes support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and runs various third party applications available through the Apple App Store. Etisalat will also sell iPhone 3G through its direct business sales teams. Etisalat’s 3G mobile broadband network will offer 3G mobile phones download speeds of up to 7.2Mbps and upload speed of 1.9Mbps. Essa Al Haddad, chief marketing officer at Etisalat, said: “iPhone is a perfect blend of advanced functionality and high performance and we are delighted to be one of the first operators in the region to offer this to our customers on the nation’s most advanced high speed network. iPhone 3G is an amazing mobile device and we are sure that our customers are going to enjoy using iPhone 3G to make calls, send emails and surf the web even faster.”

Mobile phone network launched in south Sudan

Lebanese investors have launched a new mobile phone network in south Sudan, with the infrastructure to reach 1 million subscribers in the region’s increasingly crowded telecoms market, officials said on Monday. Vivacell is the second active network operating solely in south Sudan, where it will also compete with three nationwide mobile operators.

Lebanon’s Fattouch Investment Group launched the operation after buying NOW (Network of the World) in 2007, Vivacell officials said. NOW is a south Sudanese company that secured a GSM licence for the region but never launched a working network. The 2007 purchase was not widely publicised at the time. “This is the NOW licence. Vivacell is a commercial name,” said south Sudanese Telecommunications Ministry Undersecretary Stephen Juma. South Sudan was given two mobile phone licences under a 2005 peace deal that ended more than two decades of civil war with northern Sudan. One went to NOW, the other to local firm Gemtel. The peace accord also allowed for four nationwide mobile operators and three of them — Kuwait’s Zain, South Africa’s MTN, and Sudan’s own Sudani — have already set up operations in the south.There was a lack of clarity about the ownership of NOW before the 2007 purchase.

South Sudan telecoms ministry officials have in the past said the government had a stake and also stated that NOW was entirely owned by private investors. Gabriel Alaak Garang, finance secretary for the south’s dominant party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), said the SPLM had a controlling stake in a company called Wawat Securities Limited, that itself owned a share in the new Vivacell operation. “Fattouch owns 75 percent (of Vivacell) and Wawat 25 percent,” south Sudanese Telecoms Minister Gier Chuang said. Vivacell’s Commercial Director, Khalil Kassab, said he could not give details of the size of the company’s investment or the number of subscribers. Other company officials said its existing infrastructure could reach 1 million subscribers and the company had plans to expand further in the south.South Sudan’s population is not known because of a lack of accurate census data. U.N. estimates have put it at around 10 million.

Aircel launches GSM Mobile services in Bangalore

Aircel, one of the fast growing Pan India telecom operator in the country, on Monday launched its GSM mobile services in Bangalore, With a subscriber base over 16 million, Aircel, the fifth largest service provider, rolled out its 12th circle with Bangalore. Mr Gurdeep Singh, Chief Operating Officer, Aircel said, ‘we will be introducing products and services uniquely tailored to meet the special needs of our Bangalore consumers. To reward high usage in a simple manner there is an inbuilt reduction in tariff on all local calls after the first minute to 50p for all subsequent minutes’. The Bangalore launch augments the next phase of our Pan India rollout. Aircel will be launching a rich bouquet of VAS services with localised content including a WAP portal page in the local language that would work on any GPRS handset, he said. Bangalore, having a strong business corridor with Kerala and Tamil Nadu, Aircel has introduced segment wise tailored offers for its customers. It enables subscribers in Bangalore to make STD calls to Kerala and Tamil Nadu Aircel to Aircel at only Rs 1 per minute. Also in view of the high ILD traffic to the Gulf and US/Canada from Karnataka, to facilitate usage, Aircel has an attractive inbuilt ISD tariff of call to Gulf at Rs 5.99 per minute and calls to US/Canada at 3.99 per minute, Mr Singh said in a release.

ZTE wins contract to roll out OMT’s new GSM/UMTS networks

ZTE Corporation, a China-based provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions, has won a commercial contract to roll out all of Outremer Telecom’s new GSM/UMTS networks in the company’s overseas territories in the French regions of the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean. Outremer Telecom (OMT) operates in five overseas territories in the French regions of the Caribbean (Martinique, Guadeloupe, Guyana) and the Indian Ocean (Reunion, Mayotte), supplying services, which include; data and messaging services for residential or business mobile subscribers. Following ZTE’s implementation of OMT’s mobile network in Martinique in 2008, ZTE will roll-out new 3G networks in Guyana and Guadeloupe, while also replace the existing 2G infrastructures for the French operator. This will enable OMT to extend its 2G and 3G networks in use in Mayotte since 2006 and in Reunion since 2007. In accordance with the general conditions of the contract, ZTE is supplying a range of equipment, including: R4 network core equipment, 2G/3G radio stations, prepayment and SMS platforms and centralized multi-equipment supervision. Jean Hegesippe, chairman and managing director of Outremer Telecom Group, said: “The launch of our third generation services forms part of the implementation of our broadband strategy in our overseas territories. We chose to partner with ZTE once again for this project, after rolling out networks in Reunion with the company. The professionalism of the teams and the quality of service offered to us, played a major part in our decision to work with ZTE.”

Vodafone Said to Plan Hundreds of Job Cuts in U.K.

Vodafone Group Plc, the world’s largest mobile-phone company, plans to cut hundreds of jobs in the U.K. to reduce costs and protect earnings amid the economic slowdown, two people with direct knowledge of the plan said. The company aims to announce the measures tomorrow, said the people, who declined to be identified because the plans are confidential. The jobs will be eliminated at Vodafone’s U.K. operations, the people said, declining to give a precise number. Vodafone Chief Executive Officer Vittorio Colao, the 47- year-old former McKinsey & Co. partner who took over in July, is pushing managers to eke out more profit from existing operations. Earlier this month, he agreed to merge an Australian unit with Hutchison Telecommunications Ltd.’s operation in that country, where growth prospects are slim. “Companies, even if their business models are broadly speaking robust, are taking the opportunity to trim their cost basis,” Jeremy Batstone-Carr, an equity strategist at Charles Stanley & Co., said in an interview today when asked why Vodafone is cutting costs. “It’s good business practice to make sure that your cost base is appropriate for operating conditions.” Vodafone shares were little changed at 126.2 pence in London trading. The shares have declined 22 percent in the past year, cutting the company’s market value to 66.2 billion pounds.

On Feb. 3, Colao said Vodafone was making progress on its plan to reduce costs by 1 billion pounds ($1.45 billion) by March 2011 to protect earnings. The measures will have “some impact on headcount,” he said at the time, declining to say how many jobs may be affected. The cuts would include “network rationalization” and lower spending in areas such as logistics and advertising, he said. The company may say tomorrow that besides the job cuts, it will also hire new people to bolster online and new media units, said the people familiar with the plans. The measures will lead to an overall net loss of “hundreds of jobs” in the U.K. Simon Gordon, a Vodafone spokesman, declined to comment. Vodafone on Nov. 11 cut its full-year sales forecast for the second time in four months, while keeping its profit forecast, raising the full-year free cash flow prediction and increasing the dividend payment. “Telecommunication companies represent a nice place to be in these market conditions, largely because of the reliability of the dividend payouts,” Charles Stanley’s Batstone-Carr said. Vodafone’s U.K. unit had a margin on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of 23.2 percent in the six months ended Sept. 30. In Germany, Vodafone’s biggest market, the margin was 44 percent and in Italy 44.9 percent.

 

BSNL introduces 3G services in Chennai(India)

Indian mobile operator BSNL has unveiled pricing for its new 3G mobile services, initially available in Chennai. The state-owned operator and its sister company MTNL have been granted spectrum to test 3G services in major cities, prior to the auction of 3G spectrum for private mobile operators. The 3G service currently offers download speeds of 144 Kbps, which the operator hopes to soon ugrade to 2 Mbps, MD Kuldeep Goyal said at a press conference for the launch. In addition to services such as video calls and multimedia services, the operator also plans to use the 3G network for mobile banking.

BSNL’s 3G voice prepaid plans include the Super 1350, the Super 650 and the Super 350. The local on-net call charges for these plans range from INR 0.30 to INR 0.40 per minute, while the local off-net call charges range from INR 0.60 to INR 0.70 per minute. The STD on-net and off-net call tariff is INR 1 per minute for all the voice prepaid plans. The data usage charges range from INR 2 to INR 3 per MB. The 3G voice postpaid plan includes the Unlimited 2500, the Full value 1000, the Full value 800 and the Full value 500. The local on-net call charges for these plans range from INR 0 to INR 0.30 per minute, while the local off-net call charges range from INR 0.30 to INR 0.60 per minute. The STD on-net call tariff is between INR 0 to INR 1 per minute and off-net call tariff is between INR 0.50 to INR 1 per minute. The data usage charges range from INR 2 to INR 3 per MB for the postpaid voice plans. The 3G data plans for prepaid users include the MBV 250, the MBV 400, the MBV 650, the MBV 1000 and the MBV 3001. The data charges for these plans are INR 2 per MB. The 3G data plans for postpaid users include the MB 250, the MB 400, the MB 650, the MB 1000 and the MB 3000. The data charges beyond the free limit for these plans are INR 2 per MB.

Visto acquires Motorola’s Good Technology

Mobile push synchronisation platform and service provider Visto has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Good Technology from Motorola. Via this acquisition, Visto plans to deliver a full range of secure, mobile messaging services for corporate customers through mobile operators and OEM handset manufacturers. Good Technology currently offers wireless messaging, mobile VPN data access, device management and handheld security for enterprise customers worldwide. The transaction is scheduled for completion by end-February. No financial details of the transaction were released.

NTT DoCoMo gets nod for TTSL stake

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on Monday approved the proposal of Japanese telecom major NTT DoCoMo to acquire 27.31%  equity capital of Tata Teleservices for about Rs 12,924 crore. It also approved the Japanese company’s proposal to acquire 20.25% stake in Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd for about Rs 949 crore and converting the Indian entity into an operating-cum-holding company. The twin investment by NTT DoCoMo is one of the largest FDI to flow into the telecom sector in last one year. The CCEA, which met under the chairmanship of external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee, cleared over 40 proposals making the meeting one the lengthiest in recent past. Briefing mediapersons, home minister P Chidambaram, however, clarified that this was not the government’s last Cabinet meeting before elections and more could flow in following weeks. In other decisions, the CCEA also approved establishment of three Petroleum Chemical and Petrochemical Investment Regions (PCPIR) at Vishakhapatnam, Dahej and Haldia. It also approved the additional funds to the tune of Rs 450 crore to provide immediate relief to the exporters by way of providing interest subvention to mitigate hardships on account of global meltdown. The Cabinet which also met on Monday approved an important decision to check the rising price of sugar. It decided to impose stockholding limit and turnover limit in sugar for a period of four months from the date of the notification. Mr Chidambaram said that the decision was taken to check hoarding especially when there was an expectation that future price was showing a rise till September 2009.

The Cabinet also approved the National Policy on Skill Development proposed by the labour ministry. It also approved a proposal for encouraging development and commercialising of innovations that would also allow researchers to have equity stake in scientific enterprises while in professional employment. For the aviation sector, the Cabinet approved the proposal of National Aviation Company of India Ltd (Nacil) for setting up a joint venture company with Singapore Air Terminal Services (SATS) for undertaking ground handling/cargo handling activities at various airports. Nacil and SATS would hold 50:50 equity in the new company. The Cabinet also decided to please the newly recruited bureaucrats by extending invalidity clause, disability and other extra ordinary circumstances clause in their new pension scheme. Government officials joining service after January 1, 2004, are covered only for pension under a new contributory scheme. The changes would extend some provisions of older pension scheme to the new recruits. The Cabinet also decided to place Railways’ Rae Bareilly coach factory, Madhepura electric locomotive factory and another diesel locomotive factory as a department of the railways. This has been done as railways has failed to get a joint venture partner due to current economic slowdown. The CCEA cleared a proposal to revive the defunct ITI by injecting fresh capital and roping in new joint venture partners. It also raised minimum support price of milling copra and ball copra. The Cabinet also approved amendment to Coinage Act. The cabinet also took note of the achievement of special recruitment drive launched to fill up the backlog reserved vacancies of SCs and STs. The Rs 70,000-crore mega Nayachara chemical hub in West Bengal which will generate at least 1 lakh jobs was also cleared by the Cabinet. In the port sector, the CCEA approved the project Development of Eight berth as Container terminal on BoT basis at Tuticorin Port with an investment of Rs 312.23 crore and another proposal for development of coal terminal at berth no 7 in the port of Mormugao, Goa.

 

Atheros Demonstrates Innovative Mobile Connectivity at Mobile World Congress 2009

Atheros Communications, Inc., a global leader in innovative technologies for wireless and wired communications, is demonstrating its expanding mobile wireless connectivity portfolio, featuring its latest innovations for the WLAN, PAN and GPS markets at the 2009 Mobile World Congress, in Booth #2F37, ground floor Hall 2. Building on its broad adoption in the PC and networking equipment markets, Atheros is committed to delivering best-of-breed mobile technologies that uniquely benefit from its worldwide wireless technology ecosystem. The company is driving mobile wireless innovation by offering solutions with enhanced functionality combined with high-level integration and performance to help customers build differentiated products that deliver a great user experience.

The New-Generation AR6002 Wireless LAN for Mobile

The Atheros AR6002 sets the bar for mobile WLAN solutions, offering infrastructure-class wireless throughput, near-zero power consumption in standby mode and a remarkable 30 percent lower power consumption in active mode versus competitive solutions. The newest-generation Atheros AR6002 provides a significantly enhanced set of features including the industry’s only Soft AP capability for handsets, support for Android(TM) designs, and the combination of Atheros WLAN with Qualcomm’s Bluetooth connectivity, resulting from the companies’ collaboration. The company will demonstrate Atheros’ direct connect technology which supports Soft AP functionality for handsets, bringing new mobile capabilities to people-on-the go. With this unique feature, a mobile phone can easily share a 3G/4G connection with multiple WLAN-enabled PCs and client devices via its AR6002 radio. Atheros’ extensive portfolio of PC and networking solutions for 802.11n supports direct connectivity, and now ROCm mobile WLAN designs provide this soft AP feature, which enables the AR6002 to deliver dual-functionality as a client device as well as an AP. The Wi-Fi Alliance will demonstrate the device-to-device use case with Atheros’ solutions in their meeting room at Mobile World Congress.

Atheros will also unveil a new WLAN/Bluetooth connectivity platform, which combines Atheros’ AR6002 mobile WLAN solution with Qualcomm’s new BTS4025(TM) Bluetooth System-on-Chip (SoC). With this new solution, the companies are delivering best-in-class wireless system performance to OEMs and ODMs developing cellular phones based on Qualcomm’s Mobile Station Modem(TM) (MSM(TM)) chipsets for CDMA and WCDMA.

The AR6002 now also features support for Android-based CDMA and WCDMA handset designs. Atheros is currently delivering its world-class mobile WLAN performance to Android platforms with several handsets currently in development and scheduled to launch in the second half of 2009. With the November launch of Nintendo’s DSi, Atheros’ AR6002 is now rocking the gaming world with its market-leading throughput, reliable coverage, and the industry’s lowest power consumption. With the AR6002, latency-free, real-time wireless gaming is a reality. Come experience the best in mobile gaming at our booth with the new ROCm-enabled, Nintendo DSi.

ROCm Precision GPS

Atheros will demonstrate unmatched navigational accuracy with the AR1511 single-chip receiver and ORION 3.0 software, the company’s latest complete assisted GPS solution, which employs its patent-pending advanced parallel search to deliver rapid fix times, even in the most challenging environments. This high-performance AGPS solution is currently being designed into personal navigation devices by leading manufacturers and is also the ideal solution for applications in PCs and personal media players. “Atheros continues to take mobile connectivity to the next level by bringing new innovations to our customers like the world’s only Soft AP technology for handsets,” said Amir Faintuch, vice president and general manager of Atheros’ Mobile Business Unit. “Atheros’ industry-leading ROCm portfolio of wireless technologies delivers uncompromised performance and unique functionality that enables real product differentiation in any mobile device, from cell phones to personal navigation products and gaming devices, enhancing the user experience.”

GSMA Leads Mobile Advertising Initiative

The GSMA and a task force comprising Telefónica, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile International and 3, today unveiled the results of a feasibility study examining mobile audience metrics that will enable media and advertising agencies, brands and publishers to deliver better mobile advertising campaigns. The study, part of the GSMA’s Mobile Media Metrics programme, has created a measurement process for mobile browsing that respects the privacy of mobile users and provides rich planning information for the media and advertising communities.
“Access to transparent measurement is essential in establishing mobile as a legitimate advertising medium. This programme will help take the guesswork out of mobile for brands, publishers and agencies,” said Rob Conway, CEO and Board Member of the GSMA. “For the first time, the advertising community has access to real, aggregated mobile audience data, which offers insight into the most popular sites, ranked by number of visitors, page impressions, time and duration of visits. This will enable better planning of marketing campaigns, and in turn, will accelerate sales of mobile advertising inventory.”
Top Sites
The results of the study, based on a sample of anonymised data from UK mobile operators, reveal that operator sites continue to command the largest audiences, with 68% of UK mobile users visiting operator portals. Google is the top off-portal destination and Facebook is the top mobile site by time spent browsing, with other social networking sites featuring strongly. In addition to the top sites, a total of 167,648 mobile Internet sites have been measured during the feasibility study.

Top Mobile Sites vs. Top Internet Sites, December 2008 UK Mobile Phone Users (sample of UK Operators) and UK Internet Users*

	Top 10 Mobile Sites	Top 10 PC Internet Sites
1	Mobile Operator Sites	Google Sites
2	Google Sites	Microsoft Sites
3	Facebook.com	Yahoo! Sites
4	Yahoo! Sites	Facebook.com
5	BBC Sites	EBay
6	Apple Inc. Sites	BBC Sites
7	Microsoft Sites	AOL (inc. Bebo)
8	Sony Online (inc. Sony Ericsson)	Amazon Sites
9	Nokia	Ask Network
10	AOL (inc. Bebo)	Wikimedia Foundation Sites

User Behaviour
The output of the GSMA’s Mobile Media Metrics programme will allow brands, publishers and agencies access to rich, aggregated user behaviour data, enabling comparison with other media. For example, mobile users accessing Facebook spend an average of 24 minutes per day on the site, similar to the 27.5 minutes spent by PC users. Mobile users on Facebook averaged 3.3 visits per day versus 2.3 visits per day by PC users.
Mobile is used consistently throughout the whole day, but the early morning (7-10am) is the key day part for mobile, accounting for 22% of total mobile minutes browsed, compared with only 11% of total minutes browsed by PC Internet users in the same day part. Mobile can therefore act as an extension to media such as the Internet and TV, while it reinforces other early morning media, such as radio and newspapers.
Demographics
The real value comes in the combination of aggregated site popularity and user behaviour data with independently collected demographic information, which enables more effective targeting of campaigns. Mobile is confirmed as a strong youth medium with 48 per cent of users between 18-34 years old, compared to 40 per cent for the fixed Internet and 29 per cent for the TV audience (source: BMRB’s TGI). Mobile is also more skewed towards men, who represent 63 per cent of total users compared with 53 per cent for the fixed Internet.
“The mobile phone has the potential to offer relevant, personalised advertising on a level that has largely been unattainable until now,” said Conway. “This potential can only be achieved if mobile is part of a sophisticated, integrated approach to advertising. The rich data delivered through this programme will enable advertisers to create truly comprehensive, cross-platform media plan and campaigns.”
In the feasibility study, the GSMA worked with comScore as its measurement partner and ABC Electronic its media audit partner, as well as key industry stakeholders including JICWEBS and its member associations. The next phase of the programme will see the commercial launch of an audited mobile measurement service, expected in the second half of 2009. The GSMA will establish three further working groups, one each for advertisers, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. These working groups will confirm the measurement and reporting needs of the media industry, gather support for the proposed measures as a ‘common currency’ for mobile audience measurement, and establish how best to integrate this valuable information into existing cross-media business processes and tools.
Supporting quotes:
“Establishing a common system for mobile advertising will make it as easy for advertisers to run campaigns on mobiles as it is across traditional media such as television and radio. This marks a significant step forward in driving the credibility of mobile advertising,” said Tanya Field, Director – Mobile Data Group, Telefónica S.A.
“Mobile Media Metrics is vital to the development of Mobile Advertising industry,” said Frank Boulben, Director Commercial Strategy at Vodafone Group. “The GSMA has supported a solution which can be deployed by mobile operators in virtually every country and is based on ongoing collaboration with the leading advertisers and advertising agencies.”

“Mobile advertising is an innovative channel with solid future potential in terms of reach, targeting and message relevance. One of the key building blocks for the successful take-up of mobile advertising is a standardised measurement system for mobile media audiences allowing advertisers to make informed decisions on the ROI of their campaigns. The GSMA initiative will play a vital role in bringing all the necessary elements together to ensure an effective mobile audience measurement process is put in place,” said Ingo Schneider, Vice President Multimedia, T-Mobile International.
“We’re now in an era of less hype and more reality when it comes to mobile advertising. This Mobile Media Metrics initiative is a big step forward in making mobile advertising simpler to plan, buy, execute and measure. It will provide a clearer picture of the usage of mobile as a medium for the advertising industry and as brands invest more in mobile, it will help us to pass on even greater benefits to customers, such as choice, quality and ad-funded services,” said Steve Heald, Sales Director, Partner Channels, Orange UK.
“Network operators have long sought the independent verification which will allow them to monetise mobile Internet usage on their networks. Media buyers have also been excited about mobile for years, but have never had access to the independent statistics to justify large ad spend; hopefully Mobile Media Metrics will change all this. 3 is very excited about the opportunity provided by this initiative and we look forward to helping media buyers generate a higher ROI through the use of mobile advertising,” said Neil Andrews, Head of Portal Advertising at 3 UK. “Robust audience data is vital to the success of any medium, and Mobile Media Metrics represents a huge step forward for the industry. Once media planners start using the research to justify mobile advertising on schedules, we can expect to see the medium grow with well targeted cross-network campaigns” said Guy Philippson, CEO of IAB UK. “ABCe is looking forward to working with the mobile industry to progress and ultimately deliver mobile measurement to the standards agreed by JICWEBS (The Joint Industry Committee for Web Standards in the UK and Ireland). Media planners, owners and buyers require trusted and transparent data to justify driving media budgets to mobile,” said Richard Foan, MD of ABC Electronic.