Nokia recently announced a new commercial DVB-H pilot in Stockholm with Teracom in Sweden. Nokia is supplying the Nokia Mobile Broadcast System 3.0 and Nokia N92 mobile TV devices to the pilot which will last from October to December 2006 and includes 400 consumers. The project is a co-operation between ATG, Boxer, Nokia, Sveriges Radio, Sveriges Television/UR, Telenor and Teracom. The pilot participants will be able to watch fourteen TV channels and listen to four radio channels in the Stockholm city region, where a network has been built for high quality indoor and outdoor coverage. The objective is to evaluate what Swedish consumers think about commercial broadcast mobile TV. We strongly believe in the capability of the DVB-H technology as ...

Posted by Budi Putra on June 30th, 2006 No Comments »

Indonesia has five 3G licensed-operators. Yes, you got it right: Five. The problem is, none of them is actually operating. Telkomsel, Indonesia’s leading cellular operator, will launch commercial 3G services only later this year. Indosat and Excelcom, two other biggest GSM operators, did some trials in Jakarta last year, but we haven't heard much from them since then. What about the other two operators, Cyber Access Communications and Natrindo Telepon Seluler? Do not expect these new entrants to launch 3G services anytime soon. So far they have no broad existing subscribers, and they operate small coverage of cellular networks only. [3G] This post was originally published in Sarapan Ekonomi

Posted by Budi Putra on June 27th, 2006 1 Comment »

How much momentum has Asia's much-hyped 3G deployment garnered in this year? How potential this service to boost business and economic in this region? So how about other Southeast Asia countries who also run this technology? According to some industry observers, Third-Generation (3G) in Southeast Asia, namely Malaysia and Singapore--currently the only two markets where such services are commercially available--has seen starkly different uptakes. Figures from Singapore's industry regulator Infcomm Development Authority, indicate that, as of end-April, 8 percent of the country's 4.4 million mobile subscribers are 3G users--or over 360,000 users. Alayne Wong, Asia-Pacific communications research manager at IDC, calls these numbers very encouraging. In comparison though, Malaysia's rate of growth has been significantly slower. According to Wong, as at the first quarter ...

Posted by Budi Putra on June 23rd, 2006 No Comments »

How the future of mobile game in the era of 3G services? Mobile game developers must find ways to build in the technology’s capabilities, says Artificial Life. Creativity and innovation will play important role to conquer this challenge. 3G opens up myriad opportunities for mobile games, and it’s a shame that few developers are taking advantage of it. The overwhelming majority of them are content to develop single-thumb apps, which are bundled free on handsets, and offer little opportunity for revenue generation through product placement or service usage. Such games, which typically take one developer a few days to develop out of his home PC, are squandering the vast possibilities that 3G offers, says Eberhard Schoneburg, chairman and CEO of Artificial Life, a ...

Posted by Budi Putra on June 23rd, 2006 No Comments »

Malaysia is one of the fastest growing 3G countries in Southeast Asia. Celcom (Malaysia) Bhd reported will expand its 3G mobile service to cover the whole country by July 15, said chief executive officer Datuk Shazalli Ramly. Its 3G service currently covers the major urban areas, such as the capital, Shah Alam, Johor Baru, Ipoh, Alor Star, Kota Kinabalu and Kuching. There are 100,000 subscribers to the service now. Celcom wants to boost its 3G subscriber base to 150,000 by year end, and expects the expansion in its 3G coverage will help. [3G!] Link

Posted by Budi Putra on June 21st, 2006 2 Comments »

Is there any problem in charging 3G services? This is one of the best solutions The BSS/OSS software vendor, Intec and Huawei say they have successfully implemented Intec's Mediation solution for Asia Pacific Broadband Wireless ("APBW"), a CDMA 2000 operator in Taiwan, within three months. Established in November 2001, APBW won its 3G mobile operating license and successfully introduced Taiwan`s first CDMA cellular service in 2003. In this project, the Intec implementation team worked closely with the Huawei project team in defining customer requirements. The new convergent mediation platform was commissioned to collect, mediate and distribute all revenue records from the newly installed Huawei MSC to APBW's existing billing platform, interconnect billing platform, data warehouse and fraud management systems. Huawei acted as ...

Posted by Budi Putra on June 6th, 2006 No Comments »

France Telecom SA's (FTE) research unit in Beijing said Friday it is assessing China's locally developed third-generation mobile phone standard, which its parent company may consider using in Europe at a later date. China's Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access standard uses a different frequency spectrum for mobile-phone calls and data transfers than the other two 3G standards, Wideband CDMA and CDMA2000. [3G!]

Posted by Budi Putra on May 28th, 2006 No Comments »

Saudi Telecom Company (STC) has announced the launch of 3G, having started testing the service in 2005. STC’s Al Jawal mobile operation plans to roll out the largest 3G network in the Middle East and will activate a full service including: voice and video calls, live TV and HSDPA technology, running at speeds of up to 1.5Mbps. The operator already has over 3,000 customers testing and using the service. Five hundred base stations are fully operational in 20 cities across the kingdom with a further 460 new base stations going live in the coming weeks, which will further enhance the coverage. Al Jawal plans to deliver 100% coverage in Jeddah, Riyadh and Dammam, and subscribers will be able to obtain and ...

Posted by Budi Putra on May 25th, 2006 No Comments »

China Telecom is about a month away from completing the final base stations for its TD-SCDMA third-generation wireless network. Chairman Wang Xiaochu told reporters at its annual meeting Tuesday that China Telecom would be ready to launch 3G service within eight after obtaining a license from the government. China wants 3G service up and running in time for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. "The construction of the remaining 30 stations there will be finished at the end of this month," Wang said in Hong Kong. "We will then start our TD-SCDMA trial-run at 100 stations and the final test results should come out soon." [3G!] Source

Posted by Budi Putra on May 25th, 2006 No Comments »

Sri Lanka yesterday offered third-generation (3G) mobile phone network licences to the country's four cellular phone operators at US$5 million each. The 3G licences will allow the companies to offer high-speed voice and data transmission. The largest mobile company in Sri Lanka, Dialog Telekom, was already carrying out 3G trials, while two other firms - Mobitel and Celltel - were also keen. Dialog, which inked plans for a US$150 million two-year expansion drive last week, hopes to offer high-speed Internet access on mobile phones later this year. [3G!] Source: AFP

Posted by Budi Putra on May 23rd, 2006 No Comments »