France files TMP

France's national broadcasting authority, the CSA, selected the happy not so few DVB-H winners : 16 channels for 13 spots and 11 players, including 1 total newcomer in the broadcasting / mobile field : Luc Besson's EuropaCorp TV. TMP (Television Mobile Personnelle) echoes TNT (Television Numerique Terrestre), the free DVB-T package, and a 30% coverage is expected by EOY 2011 (TNT reaches 95% then). TMP packages should range between 3 and 6 euros, not including premium channels.

New slots will be awarded next year. Not necessarily from the pack of losers.

And the winners are :

France Televisions (3 channels to be determined later by the CSA)
TF1 Group (Eurosport - a pay TV - and TF1).
Canal Plus Group (Canal + - the premium channel - and i tele)
M6 Group (M6 and W9)
France Telecom (Orange Sport TV may join the pack of pay channels after clinching part of French Ligue 1 soccer rights – anyway, FT confirms its big league status)
Next Radio TV (BFM TV)
Groupe Bollore Medias (Direct 8 Mobile)
NRJ Group (NRJ 12)
AB Groupe (NT1). TMC channel (a JV with TF1) didn't make it.
Lagardere Active (Virgin 17)
EuropaCorp TV (EuropaCorp)

In predictable moves :
- the CSA denied a spot to TF1's LCI news pay TV (unlike free competitors i tele and BFM TV) but did the same for Canal Plus' s Infosport (vs Eurosport)
- Groupe AB saved only its top channel, already on TNT. NT 1 Remix and TMC (a JV with TF1) didn't make it. Ditto for Nextradio (RMC Sport and Business 24/7 failed) and FT / Orange (no to O'TV).
- Lagardere Active secured only the Virgin / music brand for the first round (Elle TMP, Canal TMP, Gulli, MTP 1, MCM Top also failed)

16 + 12 = 28. 7 more projects were refused :
- MCS / Ma Chaine Sport (Numericable)
- E3TV (L'Equipe + Les Echos + Equidia)
- Life BAC (Lifebac)
- Tele Melody (Cofites)
- TVSF (Association TVSF)
- Aprod TV (Adamique Production)
- One TV Plus (Mobibase)

Social networking for social networks

With Yahoo!'s oneConnect, mobile users will enjoy one interface to synchronise all their social networking services (Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace).

Except for the "contacts" part of the services.

What a shame. Imagine Steve Balmer wants to become your friend while you're on the go...

Talking about Stevie Nowonder : he's daring to buy Danger. So Microsoft's idea of innovation is to purchase a netco that used to be hype in the mid 90s and a small manufacturer that happened to make one hype device in the early 2000s ? Danger is my middle name, but I just use the initial : D as in "Dfence"... at least SonyEricsson is joining the Windows Mobile wagon.

Social networking again : Orange and T-Mobile will launch mobile TV in the UK using TDtv technology from NextWave Wireless (formerly known as IP Wireless). No spectrum hassles here, unlike with DVB-H. And as we recently saw*, Orange will soon be able to put satellite on the top of it.

Qualcomm is fuming : no one wants its MediaFLO, nor its UMB, nor its 4G (key CDMA players, including Verizon Wireless, are going for LTE).

Maybe Qualcomm should have tried social networking instead of asocial pervasive licensing.

* see "Orange has its rights, Orange has it right" (20080210)

iPhone is not my Oyster 3G

Apple's iConic handsets started to fly off the shelves.
They do looks beautiful, provided you keep your gloves on. They have Apple fingerprints all over, but a rather black, Korean touch as well. They will give AT&T a boost, but on a 2G network and with a Blackberrish herd of servers to support the service. Jobs love Gates, but the iPhone uses the same H.264 video format as YouTube, and is meant to give Safari a boost in the nascent mobile browsing market*... are Steve and Bill considering keeping their marriage secret for another ten years ?

ip.access also offers good looking devices ; their Oyster 3G femtocells even won a GSMA's Global Mobile Award earlier this year. But Frost & Sullivan awarded IPWireless with a Technology of the Year label last march, and two months later NextWave Wireless (better known for PacketVideo and WiMAX) completed the acquisition of the TD-CDMA - TDtv champion...

What else ? 3 items picked (almost) randomly :

. The EC and Viviane Reding keep pushing DVB-H. Sorry, no spectrum. And no cash back for those insane 3G auctions either.

. Saudi Telecom, a laggard in booming Middle East, eventually joins the investing frenzy. Malaysia's Maxis is their first foreign target ever. What a coincidence... after islamic banking, there could actually be a big market for islamic telecom... Infrastructure Shariah anyone ?

. Wells Fargo & Company and Visa USA pursue their NFC mobile banking trials. After Phase I (this spring : employees, Wells Fargo Customer Experience Research Lab) and before Phase II (this summer : employees, Visa payWave enabled merchants), WFC released their new CEO Mobile services (that's Commercial Electronic Office). Real customers - 300-500 Wells Fargo Visa cardholders - won't be involved before Phase III (this autumn ?). After that, you should be hearing about some operator... beyond Visa, that is.


*Safari's web browser usage share is well below 5%, but has been significantly improving lately.

TDTV and femtosales

TDTV seems to have gained a few steps since last year*. Vodafone, 3UK, O2 / Telefonica and Orange have been trying IPWireless's mobile TV solution in Bristol, and unlike for DVB-H, spectrum is available in many countries.
But IPW are facing an impressive bunch of haves and have-mores from Europe (Nokia / DVB-H), the US (Qualcomm / MediaFLO) or Asia (Korea Inc / DMB). Plus lobbying has never been their main asset. Yet Voda, 3, Telefonica and Orange do mean something in Europe. Especially when you need to speed up the delivery of handsets.
I remember the first 3G+ femtocells I ever saw working were IPWireless's UMTS-TDD dongles...
To be not seamlessly continued...

* see "TDtv and IP fews" (20060213)

mAdSense and Google Phonies (Google Phones ?)

"Don't Be Evil" is embedded in Big G's DNA. They said we were the next Microsoft, they now say we are the next Apple. But we neither want to rule the hardware / OS entry point nor rule the hardware / DRM entry point. Do we ?
One thing is sure : if Google's plans remain evasive, their ambitions remain pervasive. And mobility a must have, whatever the path. Speculations, analysts and pundits keep fueling expectations (gPhone, WISP, M-VNO, VoIP, WiFi, WiMAX, mobile suites...), but Google shouldn't care about it.
... if it weren't for its shareholders... I don't want to spoil the party but $462 per share and $143 bn overall look like a lot of dough to me. Like that insane, neverending hike in the Vietnam stock exchange, not even dented by the Shanghai hiccup.
Come to think of it, the ultimate stage of mobile advertising by the king of online advertising will be called mAdSense.

What else ? The CeBIT is over. Which means it was open before. Talking about bomb news : cellcos are eventually realizing the golden years of mobile voice ARPU will soon be over and the bulk of mobile data is bound to go flat. At last.

What else ?
- BT and KPN are working on M-VNOs in Spain. Belgacom, Swisscom, Eircom declined to comment.
- Viviane Reding wants DVB-H to outperform Galileo and Airbus across and beyond Europe. China already decided to launch a competitor to Airbus and Boeing, another to 3GSM and cdma2000. Why not split from Europe over the GPS-killer / killee and why not launch a specific mobile.TV.cn ?
- The WiMAX Spectrum Owners Alliance (WiSOA) wants to promote both WiMAX roaming and the survival / resale of its exotic founders
- I'm still stuck with a broken foot and a broken club - I can't move and Paris Saint Germain keeps sinking towards second division. Mobility definitely sucks.

3GSM 2007 - A brave new World ? A new and improved Vodafone ?

This week, Vodafone decided to send a few messages to the market :
- Purchase of Hutchison Essar ($11.7bn for a 67% controlling stake... provided Essar doesn't launch a counterattack tainted with economic patriotism*) : I intend to remain in the World's top 3 operators for subscribers and I'm gonna post exciting growth rates for the years to come. Certainly not for ARPU but I'm investing for the long term. And by the way : I'm still able to invest for higher purposes than the loyalty of my shareholders.
- Another deal with Orange on 3G network sharing : I prefer to invest on CAPEX in India where it will make a difference. I'm bracing for a fiercer competition in mature markets, where I will focus on service.
- An impressive collection of old and new partnerships with almost all major web players (Google for mapping, Yahoo! and Microsoft for IM, YouTube, eBay, MySpace...) : you think these newcomers are smarter and swifter, and you believe they will get the bulk of the value but look ! everybody wants to work with me and I'm certainly not begging for partners. They know who's ruling the game and you don't want to miss this train or else...

At last the big red machine decides to move. But I cannot see much disruption out there. It actually looks like their last smart move in Turkey, only at a bigger scale. I'd like to have more movements in the home / office spheres. Beyond WCDMA900, that is (Nokia providing UMTS900 for SFR after Portugal and Finland). To be continued...

Otherwise, 2007 doesn't look like a year for new paradygms :
- Qualcomm still wants to be the King of the Universe, but its Universal Broadcast Modem (UBM) combines MediaFLO technology, DVB-H and 1seg / ISDB-T without caring much for DMB... a slap on the wrist for those naughty koreans who want to kick it out of their country.
- Quadplays are getting mainstream. The Virgin-NTL combo, Virgin Media, charges £20 for 2, £30 for 3 and £40 for the first no-frills quads (the 125 pound gorilla offers unlimited calls in the fixed arena and 500 mn of mobile babbling plus a monthly data package including £60 in airtime and 1,000 SMS, along with the hardware - handset and PVR). Virgin Mobile will also strengthten its controlled distribution.
- Either terrified by Viviane Reding or cornered by an ever tougher competition, O2 extends My Europe to 31 countries. For £10 per month or £60 per year, business subscribers to My Europe Extra won't be charged for incoming calls whatever the network on which they are roaming. Intraeuropean calls will cost 25p per mn flat.

That could be the best news for 2007 (but for MNO shareholders) : the landline / mobile gap in calling rates is bound to decrease even before VoIP gets fully mobile. The competition goes beyond mobility and furthermore, from the customer's point of view, that's the minimum you could expect from convergence in a broadband world.


* Voda downsizes its participation in Bharti but still keeps a few toes in the venture.

CES 2007 - a cup of T before China-To-The-Home

Another year, another light bulb show on The Strip. The 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show shouldn't bring major disruptions, only display the ability of some players to deliver more goods after Christmas.
Sin City ? Forget the booze and take a cup of T : the time has come for the mass market to hear about terabytes more often. Massive hard drives on one end, heavy entertainment on the other, and FTTH in between, the dice are rolling.
Spin City ? From "Let It Snow" to "Get It Now®", Verizon Wireless adds V CAST Mobile TV to V CAST Music, V CAST Video (YouTube ? YouBet !), Mobile Web 2.0(SM) and co. Yet, VZW won't be the star this year. Qualcomm ? He'll try to fool the paparazzis with his former Korean proteges (Samsung SCH-u620, LG VX9400), but Samsung and LG already displayed MediaFLO handset last CES 2006 and both are openly courting DMB and DVB*. Besides, Qualcomm is still being sued in Korea, where Microsoft is strictly monitored and Intel just decided to cancel a promising R&D center.
Sim City ? Is K-Pop still ruling the show ? LG's Points Of Presence also include dual format Blu-Ray / HD-DVD players and drives, and as far as content (with himself) is concerned, Bae Yong-jun just listed part of his company in Japan, where Yonsama on mobile keeps selling (there, this utterly corny hallyuwood fake is still considered a great actor)... put Helio On Top of it and you may think Korea holds a full house. Except China's massive investments in R&D and entertainment start showing. If not this year, on time for CES 2008.


* speaking of T, DVB-H and Las Vegas : I didn't hear any bird sing on the Hiwire / T-mobile trial.

La3 Live - Berlin or Bust - Aussie Yield Management

Remember when 3 snatched the mobile rights for the 2006 World Cup ? HWL's unit certainly didn't get all its money back but its PR teams make sure they made the most of it, even where they didn't pay. Some feed back from 3 World Cup participants : England, Italy and Australia.

• 3 UK claimed 3.6M viewings for its World Cup mobile TV channels during the competition. That's a 61% increase vs May and an average 106,000 per day but also, less impressively, the equivalent of one viewing per customer (3.5M overall). According to the operator, two programs proved quite successful : World Cup Highlights lured enough people everyday to fill Highbury (38,500 seats - make that one third of the total) and Berlin or Bust did 17.5% of the traffic.
  The most popular World Cup TV highlights were about England's glorious victories against the World's top 3 teams (Trinidad & Tobago, Paraguay and Equador), Zidane's infamous nod on Materazzi, and obviously the most important Becks-free game (Spain vs Ukraine - how many 3 handsets for the Rafael Benitez squad in Liverpool ?). The Berlin or Bust program was specifically designed for the event and users didn't have to pay anything to view it... well anything but 30 second ads for Canon, thanks to 3's marketing partner 4th Screen Advertising.
  In order to keep the show rolling and do better than the English team (no Berlin, just bust and crack some nuts), 3 offered through its Pilot Pitch unit a prize for the best mobile TV concept : TV producers can earn up to £50k for the funding of a pilot.
  -
  
• In Italia, Tre bet on DVB-H technology with the usual suspect (Nokia). La3 Live and its 9 channels were launched on June the 5th, right before the World Cup. The daily costs depends on the duration of the formula : 3 euros if by the day, 1.5 euros if by the week, 50c if by the semester. 3 expect 20% of the pop to use mobile TV by 2010 and targets 500,000 users for La3 Live by the end of the year. After 6 weeks of operation closely linked to the major sports event of the year, the cellco claims 110,000 users, and only give few insights about usage patterns (mostly outdoors, 40% of the time during office hours).
  -
• In Australia, 3 used the World Cup as a perfect yield management tool for its network : the games were played late at night and for AUS$ 8, you could have unlimited WC packages (videos, highlights and scores). On June 21st, 3 claimed 300,000 views after 12 days of competition and right before Australia-Croatia. Sessions lasted an average 6 mn, but some watched the whole game vs Japan... I hope none of these happy fews enjoyed a battery failure right before the Hiddink Boys' late come back.
  

Note that during the competition, 3 knotted a partnership with Yahoo!, who happens to be the FIFA's top internet partner.

Watcha sure, but who's gonna paya

Under the "Watcha - TV goes mobile" motto (but with a SGH-P900), debitel started their T-DMB service on time for the World Cup*. Fernsehen macht Spass but also money : €9.95 per month... I'd rather invest in a digital TV USB key or player (both are selling fine in Korea and advertising started in Europe).
In a quite sober press release, Samsung reminded their readers they also provided DVB-H handsets for the Italian market - it's not us vs them, after all. This small operation with a minor VNO is just a PR thing... we don't want to fight with European majors - nor leave them in the hands of Nokia.
If European big league MNOs are definitely interested in mobile TV, right now they're doing a lot of noise at the top of their voices. Actually, voice reached its top and time has come to slash roaming rates. The anti-Vodafone alliance reacted to Vodafone-and-3's announcements but once more, a not so impressive way : T-Mobile, Orange, Wind, Telecom Italia, Telenor and TeliaSonera proposed common goals for October (retail max €0.45 / mn) and next year (max €0.36 / mn), but Telefonica-O2 declined in order to salvage their golden goose beyond the 2006 summer season.

* Watcha : www.watcha.de and www.debitel.de/tv.

Voda results and a DVB-H Kartel

German MNOs definitely took their time to answer debitel's M-VNO - DMB combo*. Vodafone, E-Plus, O2 and T-Mobile unsurprisingly decided to push DVB-H, but their joint approach may prove counterproductive : it looks like clumsy lobbying from all 3G auction winners / losers (Telefonica included), with the benediction of the main lobbyist behind European UMTS then and DVB-H now (Nokia, a former Finnish timber company building forests for towercos). The message : we paid the price for your bad spectrum allocation management so this time let us do our job. We'll take care of everything and TV operators will enjoy an efficient one-stop-shopping system. Mobile TV belongs to us not to them, we need to recover some of our losses thank you.
Losses ? Voda painted their net loss of 21.9 billion pounds a rather T-Mobilish pink in a "Delivering against expectations" section where they "meet or exceed all financial guidance for FY05/06". Meet "financial guidance", the latest financial indicator... a sure hit after the 2000-2002 EBITDA wave, even if all analysts are not bound to dance on this one that easily.
Other remarks :
- over 5% of total revenues for the FY (10% for the last month) were generated by "3G devices", which means "3G" itself delivered much less than that.
- one year after the French NO (to the constitution as well as to the sale of SFR), Europe seems to have stalled. Spain looks fine but Voda warns the audience : fiercer competition in 2006 means weaker results ahead.
- messaging put aside, data jumped an impressive 60% but only represents 3% of controlled service revenue. Revenues can be "stimulated" but margin will improve much quicklier across the Red Empire through a much less glamour "disciplined execution".
- dividends are definitely following a positive curve but in such a context that sounds like a strategical dead-end
- The Verizon Wireless operation comes handy and I'm not sure it will be the case in the future. I see neither strategic vision nor long term commitment in the following statements : "Vodafone's board will always consider shareholder's value", "Vodafone is happy to remain in the US with its existing stake". Actually, I don't think shareholders are happy to remain with the existing lack of strategy.

Now moving on to the "Mobile Plus" revolution (which could be translated by "we cannot survive as mobile only but we cannot scream our loss of face so loudly so let's label fixed services as mobile extensions") : Vodafone At Home and Vodafone At Office were very much needed, and tapping into the advertising well makes perfect sense, but the company seems to define itself as a follower.

If I didn't expect Voda to turn into a daredevil overnight, a cultural shift demands at least some affirmation from a leader. Here, a "customer demand led" Vodafone cautiously dips a timid toe inside the fixed arena ("only the fixed services customers want") and doesn't even expose its own brand in the advertising field where it is so much relevant : to me, leveraging on Google only, a rival in location-based services, instead of developping the Vodafone brand is a strategic mistake.

Well... I've definitely not been very kind to Vodafone lately, but I'm holding no grudge against them. Only expressing some frustration considering what they could do. I felt the same about Orange a few years ago and I hope it won't take them as much time to deliver.

* see "CeBIT unnovations" (20060312)

Hiwire - Aloha Partners, Goodbye Stranger

"The Largest Owner of 700 MHz Spectrum in the US" ? Aloha Partners' claim might lure investors but won't attract many consumers. So last week, their mobile TV trial arm, Hiwire, teamed with SES Global SA / SES Americom to help Charles Townsend fulfill his vision of mobile digital TV (and matter-of-factly fill his future pipes).
We've seen Aloha try Flarion's FLASH-OFDM in Tucson or 3G CDMA2000 1x EV-DO with Lucent. Flarion and CDMA almost belonging to rival Qualcomm, Aloha bets on DVB-H in Vegas for his new partnership. Smells like Finn spirit... guess who could be Nokiaing on heaven's door ?

Links :
- Aloha Partners : http://www.alohapartners.net
- SES Global SA (SES Americom) : http://www.geamericom.com

CeBIT unnovations

More than ever, the wireless circus focused on Barcelona rather than Hannover. That was Barcelona's first year and the CeBIT goes far beyond mobility, but still.
Samsung's 10 megapixel picturephone is no more a disruption than Sony Ericsson's 4 GB W950. xandros added UMTS to their Linux laptops but the technology was already a commodity. Microsoft eventually unfolded their Origami* but the UMPC (Ultra Mobile Personal Computer*) looks so much like the PDA all Samsung employees have been carrying everywhere in Korea for a couple of years. At the government's level, UK goes NGN and the EU goes RFID, but that's about time. I don't know how DVB-H is doing up there but France Telecom R&D seem to bet on Far East Asia (especially Korea and China) for mobile TV. What else ? Samsung will deliver DMB handsets in Germany on time for the World Cup, as expected**. With debitel as the entry point ; quite a disappointment. The industry eventually realize genuine VoIP over mobile requires HSUPA and a more mobile world requires more fiber. That was CeBIT CeLEBRATING 20 years of innovation.

Europe may remain the heart of GSM / 3GSM but for the rest, everything is being decided somewhere between Asia and America.


* see "Origami Project - a crush for paper tigers ?" (20060302). Before the take off, MS decided to nest their UMPC in the Windows XP environment : http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/umpc.
** see "Play it again, Samsung ?" (20060216).

Play it again, Samsung ?

Mainland Chinese mobile TV operators ordered 500,000 Samsung DMB-T phones, but in Hong-Kong SAR / Xiang-gang, big figures don't necessarily mean good news :

1. Hutchison Whampoa sold a 10% stake in 3, but to Goldman Sachs and for a lousy 420 million euros. They keep delaying the IPO and see their deal with Skype fall in the shadow of Telefonica's "Plug'n Talk" VoIPo3G solution (even if, for the beginning, it is limited to laptops & PCs through USB & Memory Sticks).
   
2. PCCW Wireless added 310,000 new 3G subscribers in January, but without disclosing the cost of their welcome packs (six month of line rental fees, 10,000 mn of local calls per month, unlimited SMS, unlimited 3G browsing... why did only 310,000 take it ?).

The Chinese jackpot was just one part of Samsung's PRsenal in Barcelona : the kings of crossbar confirmed their ambitions for DMB-T in Europe (trials with TF1 - Bouygues Telecom starting later this month, SGH-P900 on time for the 2006 World Cup, undisclosed negociations with several MNOs...), but will also be ready for DVB-H (SGH-P910) and MediaFLO. Besides, Koreans (for a start) will enjoy an exciting SPH-B4100 which allows simultaneous T-DMB and S-DMB*. There's also fish to fry about Microsoft (i320 with Windows Mobile 5 and a keyboard), HSDPA (Z560) and naturally WiBro (a new device - M8000 - and a new deal : Telecom Italia will use Samsung Wibro solutions next year).

To celebrate in music, Samsung decided to showcase a supposedly customer-oriented (but MNO / CSP driven) SecureMMC application lyrically dubbed "Music download service supporting OMA v2 DRM & MMC with Beep Science"... Play it again, Sam ?

Another player put his cards on the table : Option exhibited GlobeTrotter FUSION+ HSDPA (a HSDPA/UMTS/EDGE / Wi-Fi / PEPPERONI / ANCHOVIES combo Data Card) and GlobeTrotter GT MAX (a tri-band HSDPA / 3G UMTS Data Card already snatched by Cingular GlobalConnect for a promising new plan : unlimited at home + 100Mb abroad). Down the corridor, CSI Wireless tried to plug their fixed wireless (GSM or TDMA) phones : Series 405 (basic) and Series 415 (speaker phone capability + internet access & email via PC).

As expected, HSDPA is getting mainstream (ie Intel working hand in hand with the GSMA to boost embedded HSDPA in laptops) and HSUPA starts making noise far beyond the darkest alleys.

As expected also, "mobile TV" is more often heard than "wireless data". But even if "mobile goes TV" looks strong in the charts, this is only 3GSM radio, and we soon will move back to the "TV goes mobile" tune**.

* 2 channels at the same time, in other words. On the same mini-screen ? Korean will soon outclass Japan in miniaturization. When you think Ninendo consider adding a mobile TV tuner to their DS Portable gaming systems...

** the Murdoch lads managed to sell once again their Sky By Mobile (skybymobile.com) concept. This BSkyB's mobile counterpart to Sky By Broadband leverages on the whole Sky machine : Sky TV by mobile, Sky News, Sky Bet, Sky Digital, Sky Sports (including the Baclays Premiership and UEFA Champions League)...

You look WonderPhone tonight

This week, Les Echos mentioned WonderPhone were considering MediaFLO as well as DVB-H and DMB-T for the "push to store" concept they've been lobbying for since last october at the French NRA. I guess Qualcomm would love to enter by the content window after being turned down at the infrastructure door...
Along with the article came a crossbar handset, the kind of beauties dominating the airwaves in Korea since TV and movies entered mobility. T-DMB services (dubbed "take out TV") joined SKT's S-DMB Tu Media last month, but handsets are just arriving now. LG (the manufacturer) also released a T-DMB LG PDA called PM80 and big enough to tear your pockets off... judging by the size at least - I didn't read the price tag.
LG Telecom (the operator) don't offer DMB, nor even MediaFLO. So they decided to offer mobile TV for free and KTF may well follow suit.
But such devensive gifts have nothing to do with innovation, and broadband Korea will go even more broadband this year : FTTH keeps spreading* and KT will launch their Wibro services next April in Seoul. The fixed incumbent intends to compete with SKT & KTF's HSDPA much more aggressively than it did with their WiFi services (Nespot).
In the meanwhile, ReignCom Ltd (iRiver's manufacturer) are building an impressive (and not so unreminiscent of N-GAGE) platform around their new Wibro game console : partners include KT, POSdata Co. (system integrator), CJ Internet and NHN (Hangame portal).
How do you say "plenty" in Korean ? "Manta"... Which leads us back to WonderPhone : Manta happens to be the name of their mobile game portal.

* I've been enjoying it at home for one year now. In Seoul, because as far as Paris is concerned, I understand FT were just planning a few thousand lines for the next two years at 4 to 5 times the price charged in Seoul...
A few links : wonder-phone.com - nespot.com - reigncom.com

Movio Modio Modeo

Following their Pittsburgh, PA trials, Modeo LLC (the new name for Crown Castle Mobile Media) will launch DVB-H services (including audio and video podcasting) across 30 US markets (including NYC) by the end of 2007.
Meanwhile, BT released some data from their BT Movio DAB trials (1,000 users) : unsurprisingly enough considering the technology and the services, digital radio was more popular than digital TV with 90 mns per week vs 66. 50% of the time, mobile TV is home TV, with a 6 P.M. prime time... One should wonder whether the age of broadband - at least one screen in every room - will make this kind of usage irrelevant, but up to now, the Korean case proved mobile TV usages could bloom even in the dead middle of the broadband home / office spheres. The fact is mobile TV is more personal TV than the set in a teenager's bedroom, mobile TV is more seamless than TV on the go. Two thirds of BT Movio users would pay £8 per month for the service (translation : reality would put that around one fourth max, especially when they learn digital radio will be free), and one third would change for an operator with this service (make that one third max).
Because of BT's intense PR, Nokia are already asked why they chose DVB-H over DAB, whilst the latter is clearly out of the global race for mobile TV. Mainstream medias don't even mention DMB, Nokia's and DVB's biggest competitor. For the moment, argumentation appears like a walk in the park for Nok-Nok.

CES2006 - beyond Gates, real openings

Billy Boy's pathetic remarks about Google's tendency to overhype future announcements (look who's talking) made the headlines, but I'm eager to see how T-Mobile performs next march with their HSDPA laptops. Less glam but more subs ?
Quite impressed also by Samsung's massive nextgen overload : Blue-ray, MPEG4, Wibro, MediaFLO, GPRS/EVDO S/T-DMB, DVB-H... you name it ! Plus another striking partnership : after Vodafone in the mobile world (by the way, Sammy just demonstrated HSDPA at 3.6Mbps), Comcast and set-top boxes.
They're starting 2006 at the top, but can they keep the pace ?

BeautifulPhones, cheesecakes, greenfees

A few weeks after BT's BT Fusion, neuf cegetel are trying their WiFi - GSM handsets, dubbed BeautifulPhone. That's about 10 years after cegetel* tried dual mode homezone DECT - GSM handsets, but the continuity of the multimedia / office spheres could succeed where voice only failed to sell.
Swisscom should sell too, or at least be fully open to strategic partnerships : Switzerland are abandoning their 66.1% share of the cheesecake. TDC / easymobile could grab more than a few crumbs of this jewel airline, but why would Vodafone turn their own cheese into a gruyere ?
Elsewhere in Europe, H3G Italia will broadcast DVB-H next year (H2) after taking over Channel 7 and their digital TV frequencies. The only truly pure greenfield 3G player eventually understood profits would come from 3G voice and mobile TV wasn't a 3G application.

* then the no-yet-born long distance subsidiary of the no-yet-born Vivendi, but already with SFR

NRJ mobile and bank robberies

From radio to TV to mobile, NRJ Group are heading for a multimedia grand slam. Of course, NRJ owner Jean-Paul Baudecroux cannot leverage on as massive a blog pool as his rival and potential target Skyrock (Skyblog drafted millions and NRJblog followed with a me-too product - still considered as such by the public)... but he's the early bird and remains the helluva dealmaker. Plus he certainly took this media a better way than other players. To the point this French operator could export the concept to Scandinavia, where M-VNOhood started : NRJ/ENERGY operates in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, but also in Germany, Switzerland or Austria. Besides, they know about network operating since the NRJ Group owns the French towerco towerCast, also a SFR partner in their DVB-H trials (see "Satellite of love"*).
Far from your usual reseller, NRJ mobile can be considered a genuine M-VNO. They're not killing voice (35 to 55 cents per mn), they're not killing SMS (6 to 12 cents apiece), they're certainly not killing radio (15 cents per mn), and they're not even killing music : 2 euros per song, that will disturb neither their carrier (SFR), nor their carrier's owner (Universal), nor even NRJ's annoucers (SFR and Universal among others). The core target is young but not so cheap, and their vanity is rewarded : customers can pick their numbers in the 06.06 series (no doubt M6 Mobile is loving it).
NRJ's partners should know about overcharging services : CIC (10% of NRJ mobile) happens to be my bank...


* by the way, TF1 & co have just started their T-DMB trials in Paris on October the 15th (one month after DVB-H), I'm sure with the blessing of LG (see "Mobile Real TV - LG and the H-free handset").

A bridge on a bluetooth ?

Berlusconi's Mediaset* will fuel TIM's DVB-H service next year. That's about mobile TV.
M6 mobile signed their 100,000th customer 4 month after launch. That's about TV and mobility.
apple discovers video. That's about time.
Cisco & Nokia launched 3G-WiFi phones together, and the rumor had IT Cisco purchasing Telecom Nokia. Do they need to put a bridge on a blue tooth ?
RealMedia joined Netscape & co for a $700M tip. Microsoft didn't even have to open their warchest. How much for a Sony ?

* talking about mobile TVs : Le Lay plans to move Eurosport's headquarters to Milano. To spy Mediaset or to strengthen an Axis of Anvils ? Competition, beware.

TDD & TDMB, not so TDous

After all, TDMB still has a chance in Europe. Part of the lobbying I mentioned about LG is about the easiness of piggybacking on existing DAB networks, whilst DVB spectrum remains to be seen. And LG are starting this month a T-DMB trial in Regensburg, Germany, supposedly under the helm of the EU IST CELTIC Project, CELTIC standing for Cooperation for a European sustained Leadership In Telecommunications. I guess Nokia appreciates the joke, especially since they are part of CELTIC's Core Group (the same can be said about BT, FT or Telefonica). And CELTIC's "Call 2 projects tackling convergence" still includes WingTV, a program devoted to Nokia's DVB-UMTS integration. Fixed incumbents are already involved in such trials, but they are also busy taking shares of IPTV market as quickly as possible in a competitive DSL world. France Telecom's MaLigne TV could go international with a more colorful branding (the color of a juicy fruit, for instance), and Telefonica's Imagenio could leverage on the operator's reconquista of the Americas. Mobile broadcasters will be stronger if they already are strong IPTV leaders...
TD-CDMA have been back from the dead for months : Orange in France, T-Mobile in the Czech Republic, Nextel in Washington D.C.... even Japan reserved the 2GHz spectrum for IP Wireless' beloved technology. TDD could prove a quick fix for such US players as Sprint-Nextel or T-Mobile : W-CDMA is on its way (in different bands) and the HSDPA -HSUPA have the favor of many GSM players, but TDD could deliver earlier and cheaper coverage without major spectrum hurdles (especially compared to demanding HSUPA). Beyond data cards or dongles, handsets are yet to be found, and the industry needs more than IPW partnerships with Atmel or Teleca to solve this.