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Your advert here!!! Technical Editors:
Last modified: | Mobile Insight Vol: 8 Issue 317 May 15th 2006GSMA replies to EU roaming proposalsThe full Inquirer story ...Roaming tariffs are going down, honest guv O2 may snatch Pipex from BTThere have been many rumours that established UK ISP, Pipex, is up for grabs. Back in February, The Business printed the rumour that BT was interested in acquiring the company. But O2 may snatch it. Recently 02 has told the FT that it is definitely going to "go down the DSL route". Sadly the Pink One didn't manage to get O2 chairman, Peter Erskine, to elaborate on exactly how it was doing this. Meanwhile there have been reports, chiefly in the Sunday Telegraph, that Vodafone is interested in buying another ISP, Tiscali. Subsequently, more rumours have slipped out that O2 is interested in either Pipex or Plusnet. They have all missed the point. Erskine was formerly at BT spin-off, BT Cellnet, now trading as O2. So Erskine could well be contemplating thumbing his nose at BT and snatching Pipex from the former Brit telecoms duopoly. Better still, O2 could use the coffers of its new parent Spain's Telefonica to acquire Britain's leading DSL provider. That would be BT, then.The full Inquirer story ... BT to rue O2 spin-off BSkyB to trial MediaFLO in EuropeExactly as predicted a month ago, BSkyB has announced that it will be trialling Qualcomm's mobile TV solution MediaFLO in Europe during Q3 2006. The move goes against conventional wisdom that rival technology, DVB-H, will out win in Europe combined with a bit of DMB-T thrown in for good measure. (see What is Mobile TV/DVB-H?) The announcement is also curious because the trail will take place in 8 MHz of PAL spectrum. So that's on a terrestrial TV signal. BSkyB hasn't told us how it got a test licence for that yet. Anyway, the upshot is that BSkyB has 10 channels' worth of spectrum to play with. It hasn't made any announcements as to exactly what content will be tested. But you could guess that live Sky News would probably feature in there somewhere. Qualcomm has said that it will be providing the test devices. The company wouldn't reveal exactly where these will come from besides the fact that they will appear to all intents and purposes to be mobile phone shaped. Currently some six manufacturers have shown handsets capable of supporting MediaFLO and Samsung has shown a 3G handset version that would work in Europe. Obviously Qualcomm can only say that it is working with BSkyB at present. However, BSkyB is well-known as being on the leading edge for the whole of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation environment. So the deal bodes well for MediaFLO globally. Nokia an ardent fan of DVB-H isn't going to like this.The full Inquirer story ... Qulacomm signs up BSkyB Instant base station kit from AltobridgeBefore the Hurricane season starts to hit Eastern seaboard of the US again in earnest, Altobridge has teamed up with satellite network provider, Inmarsat, to provide an instant cellular network recovery kit. The objective is to provide key personnel with a cellular network cell that will cover a several mile radius and will work with ordinary mobile phones. Known as a 'Remote Contiguous Communications (RCC) unit, it's small enough to be carried by a person. To provide the connexion back to the outside world, you need to hook up the RCC to one of Inmarsats BGAN lightweight, portable terminals. BGAN (Broadband Global Area Network) hooks up mobile phones to both data and voice communications. Obviously, you don't want everybody to start using the system, so Altobridge provides 'Subscriber Access Control' software so that only known handsets can start making calls. The system also has military applications as well as being targeted at emergency services.The full Inquirer story ...Cellular network recovery kit targets hurricane states The wrong kind of KewneyUK wireless industry guru, Guy Kewney, was due to make an appearance on the BBC's News 24 TV programme. In his role as an expert on both the Beatles and Apple iTunes, naturally. Kewney - who played triangle on the Beatles' Abbey Road album (OK. We've made that bit up) was supposed to be quizzed by the Beeb's (BBC's) Karen Bowerman about the court battle between the Beatles record label (Apple) and a Californian manufacturer of personal computers (Apple). However, owing to a mix up at the recording studios, another man, Guy Goma, who was applying for a job at the Beeb was accidentally dragged onto the TV set. Naturally, the impostor gamely tried to answer the questions put to him. Obviously none of the researchers were aware that the revered Mr Kewney isn't black and in his thirties. Nor does he speak English with a strong French accent. Attempts to cover up the whole incident have back-fired, however. Guy (the Kewney) posted details of the incident onto the web, which made it big time into British national newspapers such as the Mail on Sunday. In the meantime, the number of hits on Mr Kewney's own web site, newswireless.net, have spiralled enormously. "My ISP is not very happy with me," Guy Kewney exclusively told Mobile Insight.
SnippetsIn Site of the Week (by Tony Dennis)This week Mixipix Mixipix has launched a new WAP site designed to let youngsters send silly cartoons using their mobile handsets and paying
for the service from their phones, too.
The USP here is that the cartoons are animated. Plus they can be saved as
wallpapers, screensavers or caller ID pictures. The only gripe Mobile Insight had was that the signing up process didn't seem to work as intended. But sending the text 'Mix nnn' to 80010 cured that.
Mixipix has tried very hard to make the process as easy as poss. You can send the text 'Go mixipix'
to 83055. The
company claims it will correctly identify the receiving handset so that the
cartoon will take advantage of that particular model's display capabilities. The
payment currently 75 pence a time is handled by Bango. |
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