Thursday, July 7, 2005

How Big is Podcasting Market?. Now that Apple’s iTunes has added podcasting support, and it is getting noticed on Wall Street, it is about time someone came out with a market research report, however over-exuberant it might seem. The Diffusion Group emailed a press release this morning and were quick to point out that the “demand for time-shifted digital audio [...] [Om Malik's Broadband Blog]
12:10:26 PM    comment   

China: Restructuring plan delays 3G licenses release. The restructuring plan of China's telecom industry would not be released before the end of the summer, delaying the sale of 3G licenses, the weekly China Business Post reported. The weekly didn't give a date for the launch of 3G licenses. The plan for a restructuring of China's telecom industry had been finalized but not submitted to the State Council, the report said, citing unnamed senior officials in the telecom industry. [Daily 3G News]
12:10:10 PM    comment   

Freescale excited about EDGE/WCDMA combo. Freescale is particularly enthused about the four-chip EDGE/WCDMA offering the company announced recently. That fourth-generation chip set was Freescale's first combo to integrate Edge; prior generations were GSM only. It has separate power amplifiers and analog basebands for each chain. [Daily 3G News]
12:08:21 PM    comment   

D. Telekom mulls U.S. T-Mobile sale - Jul 5, 2005. Deutsche Telekom has been sounding out institutional investors on whether to sell off U.S. mobile operator T-Mobile USA or spend billions of dollars to expand the business, according to fund managers. But many investors are skeptical a buyer will emerge and question whether there was a sensible way to spend the $30 billion Deutsche Telekom could raise in a sale, and hope T-Mobile USA might need less investment if it goes on its own. [Daily 3G News]
12:08:08 PM    comment   

South Africa: Update on 3G progress. But, Telkom is not the only broadband provider. Alternatives include the mobile operators, but mobile broadband has not yet taken off as a mass-market tool. This is due partly to the cost, which incidentally has come down a lot, and the previously slow speeds. First to market in high speed 3G, Vodacom had 10 853 active 3G users at the end of March, and 5 105 Mobile Connect Card subscribers. MTN said at its recent launch that it already had 5 000 3G subscribers. [Daily 3G News]
12:05:56 PM    comment   

Nokia expands future radio technology portfolio. Nokia will now include a new technology in its radio access technology portfolio. The future WiMAX solution will provide a high-speed, limited coverage, data only complement to the fully mobile and standardized 3G voice and broadband data networks currently being launched globally, said the company. [Daily 3G News]
12:05:46 PM    comment   

Java Gets Mobile at 10 - poised for 3G. Last week, industry association 3G Americas, which includes Cingular, T-Mobile USA and Rogers Wireless as well as the handset giants, published a technical position paper on wireless Java technologies to drive application interoperability on handsets in the Americas. The aim of these recommendations, like the OMTA, is to help establish a standard Java based platform for cellphones that will address the fragmentation of the generic platform for mobility. [Daily 3G News]
12:05:35 PM    comment   

Hong Kong: Hutch signing 800 new 3G subscribers daily. Hutchison Telecommunications (Hong Kong), a unit of Li Ka-shing's Hutchison Whampoa, said half of its daily new subscribers for third-generation mobile phone services are from rivals and that it has signed up 348,000 customers so far. [Daily 3G News]
12:05:25 PM    comment   

New DoCoMo 3G Micro Fuel Cell. WWJ Editors, July 7, 2005
DoCoMo announced that the company together with Fujitsu Labs has developed a new and improved prototype methanol fuel cell for 3G FOMA handsets. The new prototype enables eight hours of continuous talk time, three times the capacity of the existing prototype, while weighing the same, 190g. The device is expected to greatly extend usage time once it goes into commercial production. Further work on the prototype is expected to be completed by the end of March 2006. [Wireless Watch Japan]
12:03:23 PM    comment   

Japanese Carrier Plans WiMax Network. ARNnet, 7 July 2005
A new Japanese telecommunications carrier plans to launch a national wireless network by the end of 2006 that will offer voice and data services using the emerging WiMax network technology combined with city-based WLANs (wireless LANs), a company backing the carrier said on Wednesday. The WiMax network will consist of about 200,000 access points each with a range of up to 3 kilometers. They will offer connection speeds of around 75M bps (bits per second) and cover 80 percent of Japan's population by the end of 2007, according to Kaori Ogawa, a spokeswoman for Heisei Denden, a Tokyo-based communications carrier. [Wireless Watch Japan]
12:03:14 PM    comment   

Japan Ready to Launch Cellphone P2P Digital Cash. Japan Ready to Launch Cellphone P2P Digital Cash
WWJ Editors, 7 July 2005
bitWallet Ltd., the company that manages digital cash service Edy (Euro-Dollar-Yen), just announced [Press Release in Japanese] that they will launch their new service called "Edy to Edy" on Wednesday, July 20. According to their statement "the value of Edy can be sent only by the Edy number, the mail address or the telephone number, it is thought that the payment for net auction, personal gifts or adjustment and congratulation can be used more conveniently". A minimum transfer fee of 50yen will be charged for each transaction plus (Aha!) the govt's standard 5% consumption tax, the maximum amount per transfer is limited to 50,000yen. P2P transactions between individual handsets has, until now, not been possible in Japan. [Wireless Watch Japan]
12:02:53 PM    comment   

Microsoft and French Ally Discuss Their Phone Plans. The chief executives of Microsoft and France Télécom discussed their new partnership to develop products to deliver voice, data and video over phone networks. By VICTORIA SHANNON. [NYT > Business]
12:01:06 PM    comment   

Microsoft's Lichtman Defends IPTV Program. : After weeks of reports and speculation that Microsoft's IPTV plans have hit a snag or two, Moshe Lichtman, who runs the TV division, took the company's case directly to analysts and investors in an hour-long call held by UBS... [PaidContent.org]
12:00:54 PM    comment   

Movies on Sony PSP: Sales Figures Still Unclear. : We've been covering the slew of movie studios releasing movies in UMD format for Sony PSP...but this story says that the sales figures on these are not yet very clear. To date, 31 titles have been released on UMD.... [PaidContent.org]
12:00:44 PM    comment   

Turner Signs On As Verizon's First Video Provider; CNN.com's Premium Plans. : Verizon's first video deal for its FiOS TV puts 10 Turner Broadcasting channels in the programming lineup: CNN, TBS, TNT, Headline News, Turner Classic Movies, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, CNN International, CNN en Espanol and TNT in HD. (HBO and... [PaidContent.org]
12:00:34 PM    comment   

Google, Hearst & Goldman To Invest $100 Million In Current's Broadband-Over-Powerlines Effort. : We couldn't make this stuff up. Google, Goldman Sachs Group and Hearst Corp. are investing about $100 million in Maryland-based Current Communications Group and broadband via powerlines, according to WSJ. The announcement is expected today. Current says its uploads... [PaidContent.org]
12:00:25 PM    comment   

BSNL To Invite Bids From Content Providers For Broadband Services. Business Standard: In its efforts to enrich broadband content, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), India's largest telco, will invite Expression of Interest (EOI) from content providers next week on a non-exclusive revenue share basis, and follow it up with tenders, company executives said.
The government-owned PSU is also set to slash broadband tariffs further and will introduce a slew of new entry level packages in an effort to garner a sizeable numbers to meet the target of a million customers by the year-end.
Two factors, the government's threat that last mile copper would be unbundled if BSNL failed to meet stipulated targets, and the dawning reality that the future of its landline business depends on its broadband services, have resulted in company accelerating the tender process. [ContentSutra]
12:00:08 PM    comment   

While Star Is Struggling In China, India Turns Out Be The Real Star. The Australian: Star TV is yet to break even in China, or tap more than a tiny fraction of the potential audience which is about 300 million. But the big Star story is India, where an estimated 70 per cent of the company's revenues are earned. "With 57 channels and 300 million viewers, and broadcasting across 53 countries in seven languages, the key challenge for Star is to stay diverse and local," the story quotes Star's CEO Michelle Guthrie.
In India the family entertainment channel Star Plus has been No.1 by "quite a margin" for five years, according to Guthrie, who inherited Star's top seat from James Murdoch in November 2003. Shows like Kaun Banega Crorepati (Who Wants to be a Millionaire) and family dramas helped Star Plus hold 40 of the 50 top-rated Hindi general entertainment programs in Indian cable TV homes last year. [ContentSutra]
11:59:39 AM    comment   

Triple Play Broadband Is The Future In India. domain-b.com: After wireless, broadband is expected to be the next big revolution to sweep India. The day isn't far away when Indian consumers will have access to triple play broadband at their doorstep - whether home or office, says Sudhir Narang, senior VP, service provider and government, Cisco Systems, India & SAARC.
Globally, broadband remains hot. Estimates by Ovum put broadband connections at 140 million this year, while Yankee Group says that number could well pass 325 million by 2008. From India's perspective, broadband is the ideal technology platform to connect a geographically diverse country and to deliver the promise of convergence, if India is to continue to develop and progress in today's information-based global economy. The possibilities are immense and include distance learning, telemedicine, quality entertainment and more productive enterprises among others, all of which will drive economic growth further. [ContentSutra]
11:59:28 AM    comment   

WoldSpace Launches Services In Delhi. Indiantelevision.com: WorldSpace Satellite Radio, which has the world's largest global satellite radio broadcast footprint, today announced the launch of its services in Delhi, India's capital. It has also proposed a focused distribution and after sales service as part of an aggressive national rollout plan. Every city will have some unique content on offer for local listeners. Delhi and surrounding areas, for example, would have a dose of Punjabi music. Within a year's time, the company expects to ramp up its activities in cities like Mumbai, Chandigarh, Kolkata and Cochin, apart from on going sales activities in cities like Bangalore.
Having committed to invest $25 million (as per submission to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board) in the Indian market at the time of setting up the Indian operations about four years ago, WorldSpace now is investing heavily into retail stores, communications and marketing initiatives and manpower. [ContentSutra]
11:59:18 AM    comment   

Sprint Launches EV-DO Wireless High-Speed Data Service. Sprint has begun launch of a new wireless high-speed data network that... [Wireless IQ - News Feeds]
11:56:28 AM    comment   

i-mode World roundup - DoCoMo 3G boost, Bouygues, Telstra, NEC & O2. In 2006 DoCoMo and Vodafone plan to increase the maximum data transfer speeds of their respective 3G services by around 10 times to about 3.6 megabits per second. The new HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) service will boost the downstream data speed by 10 times, while keeping the upstream speed unchanged at 384 kilobits per second. At this speed, it will take only around 20 seconds to download a four-to-five minute song. [i-mode Business Strategy]
11:55:34 AM    comment   

Music to Your Cellphone. Cellphone makers and wireless operators are shifting their attention to music, taking a swipe at the iPod and other stand-alone MP3 players. By THOMAS J. FITZGERALD. [NYT > Technology]
11:54:21 AM    comment   

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