Mobile

Labels: GSM

# posted by Creative Designs @ 2:21 AM 0 Comments

TECHNOLOGY IS PROGRESSING at a rapid pace unleashing loads of opportunities for mankind. It has been a constant effort from the side of the mobile manufactures to offer you the best in features and best in technology.

To a large extent, we have reaped the fruits and more ripe endeavours are to be exhibited soon. Yes, the mobile phone industry is marching ahead with arms wide open – it won’t take much time to see man and machine becoming one!

With the entry of Vodafone, the largest mobile operator in the entire world, in collaboration with Hutch (Hutchisson Essar), the Indian mobile market is going to boom like anything again.

Vodafone, which recorded a market value of £84.7 billion till June, 2007 has equity interests in 27 countries currently and Partner Networks (networks in which it has no equity stake) in another 40 countries.

The seven markets where Vodafone has more than ten million proportionate customers are Germany, India, Italy, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the United States.

India, which has always been a fertile ground for many leading companies, will also help Vodafone leap ahead in the coming days. Even though there are major players like Bharti, Reliance, Birla in the scenario, Vodafone’s tie-ups with Hutch cannot be neglected.

Hutch has already been a popular network service provider in the country and how could one forget that cute canine featuring in all those commercials saying “wherever you go our network follows”.

Rewinding a bit, all the effort from Hutch materialized at the 3GSM Barcelona (12th to 15th February). Vodafone declared its successful acquisition of Hutchison’s stake. It beat off bids from rivals Reliance and the Hinduja group.

“Hutch is now Vodafone” - doing great rounds all across the media verticals will definitely give a stiff competition to the leading network operators in India. Only time will tell how the competitors will come up with an appropriate reply! For now, we welcome Vodafone to India...

Labels: GSM

# posted by Creative Designs @ 6:15 AM 0 Comments

Mumbai: The board of Idea Cellular on Monday decided to demerge the passive infrastructure of the company into a wholly owned subsidiary.

In July, the board had approved the formation of a separate wholly owned arm for a possible transfer of its GSM infrastructure business.

The AV Birla group company is following the trend among wireless telephony operators in the country to separate their infrastructure operations, thereby allowing for infrastructure sharing among themselves, which in turn leads to reduction in capital costs.

Reliance Communications and Airtel have already demerged their infrastructure operations.

‘Infrastructure’ would consist of tower, generator and other non-core telecom network related assets of a wireless operator.

Such a demerger also helps companies to monetise their assets.

RCom recently placed a 5 per cent equity stake in its infrastructure business with private equity investors for Rs 1,400 crore.

Labels: GSM

# posted by Creative Designs @ 7:59 AM 0 Comments

New Delhi, Aug. 14 (PTI): After raising STD call rates, Bharti Airtel and Hutch (now Vodafone Essar) have now quietly increased local charges within their own network to Rs 1.20 per minute for prepaid customers from Rs 1 a minute.

The new call charges, which come into effect from today, will be for prepaid customers for Airtel-to-Airtel and Hutch-to-Hutch calls, officials of both the companies said.

The two operators have also increased local SMS rates to Rs 1.20 per message for all users -- both prepaid and postpaid -- from Re 1 earlier.

While even minuscule reduction in rates are announced with fanfare, the companies refrained from publicising the tariff hike and brought out customary notices by way of small advertisements tucked inside newspaper pages.

Other operators like Idea, MTNL, BSNL, Reliance and Tata could also respond to the hike in local call rates after the revision by two of the country's largest service providers.

Officials said with subscriber base increasing, it is difficult to maintain networks to support huge additions of new users without raising tariffs. Since prepaid users constitute about 80 per cent of both the operators' customer base it is more useful to tinker with prepaid rates, they said justifying the tariff increase.

Hutch-Essar and Bharti Airtel had early this month, in a similar fashion, increased STD rates.

While prepaid users of Hutch will pay Rs 2.65 from Rs 2.40 previously for STD to all other networks, Bharti Airtel's prepaid and postpaid mobile customers in Delhi region would pay STD rates of Rs 2.65 and Rs 2.40 a minute respectively from Rs 2 earlier.

Labels: GSM

# posted by Creative Designs @ 4:50 AM 0 Comments

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# posted by Creative Designs @ 4:49 AM 0 Comments

Tata Sky on Wednesday marked its one millionth subscriber in a direct-to-home (DTH) television broadcast war with early mover Dish TV of the Zee group by eyeing a possible investment of about Rs. 2,000 crore in the medium term to boost value-added services.

The company is aiming for eight million subscribers by 2012, which would mean a more than 50 per cent market share in the pay segment on current reckoning. But that would be a tough call as players like Bharti Airtel, Reliance ADAG and Sun TV launch their own DTH offerings.

“More new features will be added in interactive television. We will also cater to regions and pockets in a focused manner,” Vikram Kaushik, Tata Sky’s chief executive officer, told a news conference.

The company also intends to improve the distribution network of recharge vouchers for monthly packages and introduce monthly instalment schemes to make the Rs. 4,000 crore installation cost more affordable

Only about 4 million of India’s 117 million television subscribers now fall under the DTH niche.

According to market analyst Media Partners Asia, the penetration of pay TV, which includes CAS (conditional access system) and DTH, was estimated to be 46 per cent in March, and is expected to increase to 90 per cent by 2015. Kotak Institutional Equities estimates the DTH subscriber base to increase to 15 million by 2012.

DTH viewing is expected to become more interactive at a lower cost with a larger range to choose from. Tata Sky now offers 120 channels and plans to increase that to 150. Dish TV already offers 170 and also recently launched a set-top box for computers to woo PC-based subscribers.

Labels: GSM

# posted by Creative Designs @ 8:20 AM 0 Comments

Nokia has warned that some of its BL-5C batteries could suffer a short circuit while charging, causing the unit to overheat and bulge.

The handset giant has several suppliers which have collectively produced more than 300 million BL-5C batteries.

However, the problem applies only to the 46 million batteries supplied by Japanese manufacturer Matsushita Battery Industrial between December 2005 and November 2006. The batteries are used in around 46 Nokia handsets.

There have been about 100 incidents of overheating reported globally, and no serious injuries or property damage have been reported by Nokia.

The overheating can cause affected batteries to bulge and possibly dislodge the phone's battery cover.

Mark Squires, communications director at Nokia, told vnunet.com that the problem has surfaced now because it requires over 200 charging cycles before the issue manifests itself.

Squires added that the rate of incidence is low and that the problem does not damage users' phones.

Nokia has set up a Product Advisory website for customers concerned that they may be using one of the potentially faulty batteries.

Affected customers can fill in an online form to have a replacement battery sent to them and return the old battery for recycling.

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# posted by Creative Designs @ 8:09 AM 0 Comments

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# posted by Creative Designs @ 8:07 AM 0 Comments

Chandigarh, Chandigarh, India, Monday, August 6, 2007 (InfoMailers.com)::

Hutch, one of India’s leading cellular service providers has introduced ‘Apne Minutes’ for its Haryana prepaid customers. Through this offer, a Hutch prepaid customer can purchase Bonus Cards of Rs.10/- to get a talk time of 100 minutes and on a bonus card of Rs.24/- a subscriber can get a talk time worth 250 minutes. While most bonus cards offer talk time, validity or tariff benefits for a stipulated period, “Apne Minutes” offers predefined minutes – for local Hutch-to-Hutch calls.

The ‘Apne Minutes’ recharge cards do not have a specific validity period. Therefore, a Hutch prepaid customer can now accumulate talk time on his ‘Apne Minute’ plan along with the regular recharge. The accumulated talk time can be used to call local Hutch numbers across Haryana between 10 pm to 10 am. For instance, if a subscriber has purchased a Rs. 10/- “Apne Minutes” coupon, he is entitled to 100 minutes of talk time. During the same period, if he recharges his regular prepaid card, he can avail of his regular recharge talk time and the 100 minutes talk time simultaneously.

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# posted by Creative Designs @ 8:02 AM 0 Comments

Here's an overview of the technology now available, the product options, and how well and far the devices can travel.

Work doesn't stop just because you've left the office. If anything, you just multitask more. So it's critical to get a mobile phone that can work as hard as you do. Today's business handsets have made a massive evolutionary leap from the simple pocket talkers of yore, offering surprisingly effective solutions for managing your calendar, your contacts, and even your business data, no matter where you are. There is no single greatest handset for all users, but with a little bit of forethought, you can easily choose the best phone and service plan for your own business needs.

Smart Phones

Built explicitly for business users, these intelligent mobiles make quick work of e-mail, Web surfing, and business data.

BlackBerry The standard bearers of business phones, RIM BlackBerry handsets are defined by their intuitive keypads and smart, stable software. Because of their wide adoption among large corporations, BlackBerrys integrate easily into business networks of all sizes. Every major cellular provider offers at least a few BlackBerry options, complete with e-mail and data services that let you easily synchronize the handset with PCs and servers back at the office. Traditional BlackBerrys, such as the 8700 series, sport spacious QWERTY keypads for quick thumb typing, while the smaller Pearl models use a technology called SureType to allow fast typing with multiple letters assigned to each key.

Windows Mobile Rapidly gaining ground among business users, Windows Mobile devices such as the Motorola Q are designed to offer a familiar Windows-style appearance for business users, along with simple data syncing with Microsoft Outlook. Like BlackBerry, Windows Mobile offers a variety of network-side connectivity options so a small company with just a few handsets can grow into a large company with a fleet of handsets without having to throw away all the phones in the process.

Palm Palm Treo smart phones maintain a prominent place among business handsets, thanks in large part to their simple interface. In recent years, Palm has extended its offerings to include Windows Mobile as an option, and also offers BlackBerry Connect service, which makes it a viable choice for larger business networks.

Symbian Less known in North America than in Europe, Symbian is the primary operating system used on Nokia smart phones. It is powerful and versatile, with a variety of options for integration with business networks, although North American small business users will find it more challenging to implement than either BlackBerry or Windows Mobile, because it simply enjoys a smaller market share here--and therefore, fewer support options--than its competitors.

iPhone In June, Apple made its first foray into the world of mobile phones with the iPhone, a svelte smart phone that integrates e-mail, a Web browser, and an iPod into one device. It remains to be seen whether the entertainment-centric iPhone will make the jump into the business world, but it's certainly a promising platform.

Linux The open source Linux operating system is enjoying rapid growth on cell phones, although it has yet to break into the world of business smart phones. Currently a number of initiatives are in the works to create phones as powerful and versatile as the BlackBerry, but they have yet to materialize in the marketplace. It will, however, be interesting to watch as companies like Motorola apply more effort to Linux development on phones.

A Note About Camera Phones Nearly every cell phone on the market today includes a small camera, usually of fairly low quality, built into its chassis. This can spell trouble for businesses that place a premium on protecting their trade secrets, and it's worth considering this problem if you're planning to hand smart phones to your workforce. Fortunately, many of the premium handsets mentioned above are available in both camera-equipped and cameraless models.

Technologies

Your phone's performance in the field will depend largely on the technology it uses to connect. Here's a look at the leading technologies.

GSM/EDGE/UMTS The Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) is the leading cellular technology worldwide. In North America, it is used by AT&T and T-Mobile. GSM phones use small data cards, called SIM cards, to store information about the user's account, which makes it easy to upgrade to a new phone. Just pop your SIM card out of your old phone and into your new phone, and you can start talking right away. For high-speed data services, GSM phones commonly use a technology called EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution). EDGE phones typically offer a maximum data rate of around 236Kbps, which is slow by 3G (third-generation) cellular standards. For this reason, EDGE is not generally considered a 3G technology.

In addition to EDGE, GSM networks also sometimes use a faster technology called UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) for genuine 3G data rates of up to 3.6Mbps, which is quite fast. To reach the higher UMTS data rates, you must have a newer device that uses the HDSPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) protocol. Unfortunately, UMTS deployment has been slow in many parts of North America, so it's still not available in all areas.

CDMA/EV-DO The other major cellular technology is Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), which is used by Sprint and Verizon Wireless. Unlike GSM phones, CDMA handsets are hard-coded with a unique ID number that is recognized by the network to allow connections, so there is no SIM card. The 3G data technology for CDMA phones in North America is called Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO). EV-DO offers data rates of up to 3.1Mbps. Unlike UMTS, EV-DO data service is nearly ubiquitous throughout all major American metro areas.

Carriers

Choosing the right cellular carrier will is critical to ensure quality connectivity for your business travels. Here's what you can expect from the major U.S. carriers.

AT&T Formerly known as Cingular, AT&T is one of the two largest carriers in the U.S. Its GSM-based network uses predominantly EDGE data service, which is generally slower than the EV-DO service offered by Sprint and Verizon Wireless. However, the company has been rolling out a faster UMTS for a couple of years now. Only two AT&T phones feature the faster UMTS data service. In general, AT&T's EDGE data plans tend to cost significantly more than the EV-DO plans offered by Verizon Wireless and Sprint. International roaming agreements make it easy to take your AT&T GSM phone abroad without missing important calls.

Verizon Wireless Matching AT&T in size and coverage, the Verizon Wireless network is based on CDMA and EV-DO technology. Verizon's EV-DO handset selection is impressive, and includes about ten offerings for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Palm OS. Because CDMA is less broadly adopted in Europe and Asia than in the U.S., traveling abroad can be more problematic with Verizon handsets, although the company does offer some handsets that work on both CDMA and GSM networks.

Sprint Following its merger with Nextel, Sprint has arisen as a major force in the cellular world, and now offers a large 3G EV-DO data network with about nine smart phone offerings for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Palm users. Like Verizon, Sprint's phones can pose problems for international travelers, but the company does offer special phone loans for overseas trips. Of the three leading companies, Sprint has the most confusing billing plans, although service costs for voice and data are roughly comparable to Verizon.

T-Mobile More focused on home users than businesses, T-Mobile's GSM offers EDGE data services over roughly 75 percent of the company's service area. While T-Mobile does boast a few good business smart phones, including BlackBerry and Windows Mobile handsets, it remains less focused on the needs of business users than its three major competitors. The company does not offer any true 3G data service.

Mobile E-Mail

Whether you have five employees or 50,000, you have several options for getting your e-mail on your mobile phone.

POP3 The most common type of mail server is the POP3 server. If your small business hosts its Internet services through a third-party provider, chances are this is the type of server you use. All true smart phones feature a POP3 mail client, which you can easily configure by entering the address of your server, your username, and your password. POP3 clients connect to the server at regular intervals (or manually, when you tap the Send/Receive button) to check for new mail and send out your messages.

Exchange Medium-size to large businesses often use Microsoft Exchange to manage e-mail and calendars together. This powerful server application makes it easy for workers to share calendars, automatically schedule appointments, and manage shared company resources such as conference rooms. Many smart phones support Exchange servers, which lets them automatically sync all of your calendar, contact, and mail data through one connection. As you might expect, Exchange support tends to be particularly good on Windows Mobile devices.

BlackBerry Known for innovating "push" technology, BlackBerry e-mail uses a specialized server (either on the Internet or on your business network) to push incoming e-mail straight to your handset when it comes in, rather than make you wait until your phone syncs up with the server. BlackBerry Internet Service is most commonly managed through your wireless carrier, although some larger companies manage their own BlackBerry enterprise servers.

Proprietary Sync Systems In addition to the technologies described above, some wireless carriers also offer their own services to sync e-mail and other data to your mobile device. Verizon Wireless offers Wireless Sync, AT&T offers XPress Mail, and various other options are also available. These services often involve installing an application on your desktop PC, which then relays information over the Internet to your handset, keeping your Outlook schedule, contacts, and e-mail in sync between the PC and the phone.

Data Services

Business handsets offer a variety of data connections to keep you in touch with the Internet and your office.

Internet All phones today, from the most feature-laden smart phones on down to the simplest slim handsets, offer Internet access for the Web and messaging. The quality of that Internet experience will depend entirely on the size and resolution of the screen, the quality of the keypad and controls, and the speed of the data connection. If you select a handset with a fast UMTS/HDSPA or EV-DO connection, your mobile Web surfing will likely be just as fast as what you're accustomed to at the office.

VPN If you have a Virtual Private Network (VPN) set up at your office, you can access it through a smart phone. Many devices come with a VPN client application pre-installed, making it easy to configure your device for secure access to your network's servers. This is particularly useful when you need to grab an important file while you're away from the office, and you don't have time to boot a laptop.

Wi-Fi Increasingly, mobile handsets are beginning to offer Wi-Fi connections for data services. This lets you surf at high speed without having to go through your cellular carrier's network. It also means you can access any servers on your network as if you were at your desk.

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# posted by Creative Designs @ 8:00 AM 0 Comments

The GPS unit doubles as a Bluetooth handsfree set, and the regionally-tuned mapping software can offer up contact details of points along the way, which means a quick click-to-call without looking up numbers for, say, hotels and restaurants.

A built in MP3 player will beam tunes to your car radio via FM, and there are photo slideshow and video functions for times when the split screen traffic info service fails to bail you out of gridlock. Due in Europe this fall for €300 ($410), with a Worldwide rollout soon after.

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# posted by Creative Designs @ 7:58 AM 0 Comments