LBS to find parking space

Drivers in Westminster in London can now solve their parking problems by sending a text message.

Westminster City Council, which pioneered a satellite navigation system to help people find nearby public toilets, has adapted its technology to help visitors park in the area.

Drivers who text CARPARK to 80097 will get a text back within seconds giving them details of their nearest car parks, based on their current location.

The service uses satellites to locate the phone when the message is sent allowing it to return information accurate to less than one mile.

The technology directs users to the nearest two of the council's 14 car parks across Westminster.

Locals can also text to receive an instant message back with details of the location and phone number of their nearest leisure centre, swimming pool, library, youth club or children's centre.

The authority hopes the system will eventually be used nationwide.

The service costs 25p (plus standard network charge) per text sent to the 80097 number.

There seems to be some confusion about the technology being used but my assumption is that it is Location Based Service. This service was earlier also referred to as 'SatLav' (SatNav + Lavoratory: because it was initially used to locate nearest toilets :)

Earlier, Robert Thurner, Commercial Director of Incentivated, which created the technology to pin-point users and their nearest toilet by matching postcodes, said:

"By employing the latest mobile technology, councils like Westminster Council are helping to make residents' lives easier. Whether they want to pay the congestion charge via their mobile or use location based services to find their nearest recycling centres or licensed minicabs, mobile can offer an immediate solution, at any time and anywhere. We applaud Westminster Council for adding text-public conveniences to their list of services and look forward to working with them in the future."

In future it could be used for a lot more different purposes.

I am not totally convinced if this is a great idea, expecially for parking:

• In UK, users are not allowed to use mobile while driving so how do they send the text message?
• If you park temporarily on the road to send this text message then you can get parking fine or you may just block other users
• You may send this text message while driving, in which case by the time you receive the response you have already travelled some distance.
• Generally SMS responses are quick but in congested situation they can take time.
• 25 pence + 10 pence network charge seems a lot to me if people are going to use this service regularly and its rolled out nationwide.
• A simpler alternative it to get a SatNav (available from 50 pounds) and they have Parking as points of interest.
• Google maps for mobile already uses LBS. Its just matter of time before they add this service and you can avail it free (or maybe pay some data charges if you are not on flat tariff).

Anyone seen this or similar services in action? Please give your opinion.

Mobile TV Wassup?

EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding hasn't given up pushing Mobile TV on anyone who'll listen, and has just published a set of guidelines in the hope that gentle persuasion will work where attempted legislation failed.

The EU still apparently believes that Mobile TV is going to be worth €7.8bn by 2013 as everyone leaps to watch TV on their mobile phones, citing the 5,000 punters signed up on Austria as a clear indication of things to come if only everyone in Europe would agree to abide by the newly-published recommendations.

Unfortunately only Austria, Finland, France and Germany have shown any interest in Mobile TV - and it's hard to imagine many regulators agreeing to the recommendations which include awarding technology-specific licences, penalising operators who fail to build enough coverage, and mandating cross-border service compatibility.

The recommendations (pdf) make some play of the fact that DVB-H has been endorsed by the EU as a mobile television standard, without mentioning the fact that the EU already recognises competing-technology MBMS as part of the GSM standard, and that most regulators want more technology-neutral spectrum licensing. In the UK Qualcomm owns a huge chunk of spectrum, and has no qualms about deploying another DVB-H competitor, MediaFLO, if the market wants it.

Viviane Reding, EU Telecoms and Media Commissioner:

“Successful commercial launches of Mobile TV in Austria, Italy, Finland and the Netherlands have proved that efficient authorisation procedures are a key factor for the fast take-up of Mobile TV. In Austria, 5,000 citizens were using Mobile TV within the first weeks of its launch. With predicted growth in sales during the Christmas period, many more Europeans should have the opportunity to watch TV on the go. This is why we want to give Member States guidance on how to allow industry to get these innovative services on track as quickly and smoothly as possible. We stand for a collaborative approach between all actors involved including broadcasters, mobile operators and platforms operators, and we oppose heavy regulation or burdensome authorisation procedures for the introduction of Mobile TV in Europe.”

Meanwhile, Nokia unveiled its own mobile television channel in an attempt to showcase its latest multimedia device and persuade users to finally embrace watching programmes on the move.

The Finnish handset manufacturer, which supplies four out of every 10 phones sold, has created a series of 96-second programmes.

Six new programmes – on motoring, fashion, gadgets, comedy, culture and homes – will launch on October 1 and are designed to show off the multimedia capabilities of Nokia's new N96 handset.

Nokia announced a tie-up with the BBC that would allow N96 users to access its popular iPlayer 7-day catchup service. Previously, Apple's iPhone was the only mobile compatible with iPlayer. Ainslie said the initiative was not intended to signal a major move into commissioning.

One would assume that this channel would also be available on the old Nokia N77.

The 16 French broadcasters that were awarded a mobile TV licence have entered into talks with Orange and other mobile operators about the service’s business plan. So far, the introduction of what the French call TMP (Television Mobile Personnelle), is not moving forward according to the original plan.

The broadcasters are concerned about the business plan and expect the mobile operators to pay a fee per subscribers to them. Earlier this month at a meeting with the media authority CSA they reiterated their confidence in the future of the mobile TV and the DVB-H standard.

Three mobile TV licenses for the territory will be put up for auction in mid 2009, according to Hong Kong's Commerce & Economic Development Bureau.

The licenses, valid for 15 years, will allow operators to broadcast up to 20 channels via the European Union-endorsed DVB-H standard, and 6 channels through the Korean T-DMB standard.

License holders are required to start broadcasting within 18 months from the conclusion of the auction, with mobile TV services expected to begin by 2010, according to the Bureau.

"Mobile TV exemplifies the technological advancement and media convergence," said Duncan Pescod, permanent secretary for Commerce and Economic Development. "The market world wide has called for timely response from governments and regulators to facilitate the launch and growth of this innovative service."

2008 Mobile TV Roundup

2008 has been a bad year for Mobile TV. All the hype and expectations from 2007 died down early this year. From that point it has been a downward spiral for the Mobile TV market. Mobile Europe has a good summary on Mobile TV in 2008. Interesting highlights as follows:

• The most high profile event of the year was probably a bad news story: the demise of MFD [Mobiles Fernsehen Deutschland]'s DMB-based service in Germany, finally withdrawn after struggling for the best part of two years to increase viewer figures, and as MFD shifted its strategy towards DVB-H.
• The one big success has been the continued growth of 3 Italia's DVB-H service, cunningly launched on the back of the 2006 football World Cup (won by Italy), which now has more than 850,000 subscribers and has added a free to air bouquet to its pay TV offering
• Yann Courqueux, director of broadcast development, IPTV and mobile TV at Thomson, is optimistic about the potential of the Russian market, where three operators are set to launch services in 2009
• On the technology side, supporters of DVB-H and DVB-SH feel 2008 was the year when their standard established a clear lead over its rivals.
• The consumers have noticed during 2008 has been the appearance of a new generation of handsets and mobile devices, including the Nokia N96 and the BlackBerry Storm.
• Another service that some believe will be crucial to the prospects of mobile TV in the longer term is DVR capability, but there were no significant steps forward in this area in Europe during 2008.
• It will be at least two more years before we begin to see mass adoption of mobile TV across Europe

Complete article here.

2008 Femtocells Roundup

Think Femtocell has a good review of Femtocell activities and progress in 2008. Some interesting highlights:

• Didn’t meet expectations given by some of the more enthusiastic commentators, but overachieved on many industry expectations.
• Several vendors have commercially applicable products, others are rapidly catching up.
• The early commercial launches of 2G CDMA femtocells in the USA appear to have gone reasonably well.
• The Femto Forum has done well to ensure that the industry enters the standards meetings with one voice.
• There remain two architecture options – one directly compatible with todays 3G GSM/UMTS core network and services
• the other targeting the future IMS/SIP based solution
• The first is now effectively completed within 3GPP Release 8, although interoperability between femtocell vendors will need testing and clarification before entirely complete.
• Operators have set very demanding price points, which won’t be achieved until volumes dramatically increase. Prices for complete units are said to be below $200 already, with the target $100 achievable within 18 months
• The primary competitor for femtocells is WiFi, specifically the UMA standard which can handover calls between 2G/3G and WiFi. UMA requires special handsets, which until recently have been fairly limited and restricted to 2G. Although its been around for a few years, it seems only the last year that we’ve seen more and more handsets with WiFi appear – and low power WiFi at that.

Predictions for 2009

• Commercial launches, more in the second half of 2009
• SIP/IMS femtocell architecture adopted in US and Japan
• 3GPP standards incorporate SIP/IMS femtocell protocols in Release 9
• “Over the top” WiFi-style services, such as Fring and TruPhone, will become more popular – driven by greater focus on cost cutting and improved 3G data rates/quality.
• LTE femtocells won’t become reality until at least 2011, operators will continue to prepare and roll out initially using traditional macrocellular basestations.

Read the complete article here.

WiTricity on display at CES 2009

No more batteries, no more chargers and no more wire spaghetti. This is the future promised by "wireless power", a means of broadcasting electricity through the air to laptops, iPods and other gadgets without the need for cables and sockets.

Untethered lighting, audio speakers and digital picture frames are expected to be among the first commercial products demonstrated in Las Vegas this week at the International Consumer Electronics Show, the world's biggest gadgets tradeshow.

Experts believe this is just the beginning and that eventually wireless electricity - dubbed "WiTricity" by some - could do for battery life what WiFi did for the internet. In a world without wires, laptop users in cafes and airport terminals would be inside an "electricity hotspot" and no longer have to delve past legs, bags and furniture in search of an awkwardly located socket.

Among the companies showcasing the ambitious technology at CES is PowerBeam. Its system turns electricity into an invisible laser, then literally beams it, as heat, across the room to a solar cell that converts it back into electricity.

David Graham, the co-founder of PowerBeam, told the Observer: "We're going to delete the word 'recharge' from the English dictionary. If your cellphone is recharging on your desk all day, you won't be thinking about it."

The Silicon Valley company can currently use a laser to generate about 1.5 watts of power to a solar cell 10 metres away. This would be enough to power an electronic speaker or small LED (light-emitting diode) lights, but not enough to operate a laptop, which requires an estimated 30 to 50 watts. However, Graham said that the technology could comfortably be scaled up.

PowerBeam insists its laser does not pose a risk to users' health because it is simply moving heat from one place to another. Graham said that, if someone walked through the beam, it would shut down within a thousandth of a second, then restart once the path was clear.

This is a powerbeam demo on Youtube:

Mobiles changing people's lives in Africa

Interesting article in Guardian about how Mobiles give chance to farmers in Africa to cut out the middleman and sell the crops directly to the buyers.

Read more here.

Everything you want to know on Single Carrier FDMA

While working on our LTE training, I came across this very interesting website that contains probably everything you want to know on SC-FDMA. Bookmark it if this is an area of interest.

Single Carrier FDMA Discussion Forum

Happy New Year 2009

Happy new year to everyone. May the new year see lots of new technologies succeed. May we see lots of new mobile phones with innovative technologies. May we see operators offering bigger bundles cheaper. May we see the technologies being simplified and understandable by everyone. May we see WiMAX and LTE co-exist peacefully. May we see lots of nice new books available at a much cheaper price :) May we see nice new mobile apps making our life simpler. May we keep reading and writing blogs and exchanging ideas.

Bar Coded Train Tickets on Mobile

The Association ot Train Operating Companies has announced that all its franchisees will be able to take orders from train travellers straight from their phone and receive their tickets literally seconds before trains depart.

The system uses Masabi's tried and tested mobile ticketing solutions which relies on a barcode image that is scanned by the appropriate device(s) - as used by City AM newspaper and for V-fest events.

There's no need to sign-up and fast repeat purchases can simply be done using the card's CVV.

In addition, you won't be charged extra for using the sytem which uses US Government certified security encryption and when things go wrong, the new barcodes contain enough ticket information to allow alternative systems to validate tickets.

Ben Wittaker of Masabi said that "Once you send your text message to purchase your ticket, you will receive a response with a barcode reference, which can be scanned by inspectors."

Commentators hope that the service is more reliable than the UK train network and more secure than Transport For London's own Oyster system which has suffered a number of security scares in the past few months.

National Express, Heathrow Express and Chiltern Railways have already adopted the Rail Settlement Plan. This will lay the foundations of the rail ticketing body in charge of drafting the UK-wide standard which will oversee the use of tickets printed outside train stations.

Following successful trails with various train companies Masabi has worked with the Rail Settlement plan - the body that cross charges networks for ticketing to create an open standard for train tickets carrying bar codes to be accepted across rail franchises - enabling tickets to be printed out at home, or even displayed on mobile-phone screens, and used on journeys between network operators.

Selling tickets is an expensive part of running a rail franchise, and nearly 90 per cent of tickets are still sold at stations using ticket machines or at traditional windows.

Trials run by Masabi, who specialise in rendering bar-code information on phone screens, have apparently demonstrated that customers will happily buy tickets using their mobile phone - either while travelling to, or on arrival at, the railway station. Masabi's Java application stores the customer's credit card details locally, so the user just keys in the three-digit code from the back of their card along with origin and destination, and the ticket is bought and delivered over SMS or data connection where available.

But the standard also allows for bar codes to be rendered on other devices, or printed out after being bought on-line. Ticket inspectors will need to be equipped with bar-code readers, of course, but many are already sporting the technology and the standard has been devised in such a way that the last eight digits can be manually entered and checked on-line if necessary. Where a bar-code reader is used it shouldn't be necessary to perform an on-line verification as the 2D bar code contains authenticated details of the journey paid for.

The service does open up the opportunity to have one's phone poised, ready to buy a ticket should an inspector turn up, but you'll have to ensure you're are in the middle of a long carriage for that plan - as being dependent on timely SMS delivery to avoid a fine is not a good position to be in.

See Masabi's website for details.

Improved Antenna to revolutionise mobile battery life

Atif Shamim, revolutionising mobile battery life

­Atif Shamim, an electronics PhD student at Carleton University, has built a prototype that extends the battery life of mobile phones, by getting rid of all the wires used to connect the electronic circuits with the antenna.

The invention involves a packaging technique to connect the antenna with the circuits via a wireless connection between a micro-antenna embedded within the circuits on the chip.

“This has not been tried before - that the circuits are connected to the antenna wirelessly. They’ve been connected through wires and a bunch of other components. That’s where the power gets lost,” Mr. Shamim said.

He estimates his module consumes 12 times less power than the traditional, wired-transmitter module. It is also much simpler in design, lowering the overall cost of any hand-held device, he said.

Mr. Shamim has filed patent applications in the U.S. and in Canada.

Earlier this year, the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation honoured Mr. Shamim and Mr. Arsalan as student researchers of the year for their work in the field of wireless biomedical sensors.

Shamim says his major goals for the innovation still lie in biomedical applications, including his original radiation sensors as well as remote healthcare sensors to monitor heart-rate, blood pressure and body temperature. He and Arsalan have also started up a company called Vital Signs Monitoring, and the two have already filed patents for the technology they developed. Clearly he has come a long way from when he first came to Canada, but he says his goals are still the same.

"My aim when I came here was to get some real skills in this domain, learn some new things and be an expert of something that would be valuable for me to find employment," said Shamim. "I was looking for a neat application for these small transmitters. ...That's where the trend is: make it cheaper, smaller, more efficient, so I think this is a good step towards that."

2008 saw an explosion in mobile social networking

Interesting article on Fierce Mobile Content on how Social Networking sites are being shaped by Mobiles and Vice-versa:

The volume of U.S. wireless subscribers who accessed social networks via mobile handset increased 182 percent between September 2007 and October 2008 according to a recent consumer study conducted by research firms The Kelsey Group and ConStat--in all, about 9.6 percent of U.S. subscribers ages 18 and over connected with a social network via mobile handset during the past year, compared to just 3.4 percent 12 months earlier.

A separate user study released this fall by market analysis firm ABI Research reports close to half of all social networking users have now visited destinations like MySpace and Facebook via mobile device. Forty-six percent of social network members have visited their favorite sites on their phones, with more than half of them checking for comments and messages from their friends--about 45 percent have also posted status updates. ABI adds that among all mobile social networking users, nearly 70 percent have visited MySpace, with another 67 percent checking their Facebook accounts. No other social networking destination achieved 15 percent mobile adoption. ABI suggests that consumers do not wish to create new and separate social networking profiles for the mobile platform, but instead prefer to access their existing social networking accounts on the go.

Both Facebook and MySpace enjoyed banner years in mobile. In November, Facebook announced its mobile userbase has expanded from 5 million to 15 million since the beginning of 2008--writing on The Facebook Blog, mobile team engineer Wayne Chang adds that in the 24 hours after the site began allowing subscribers to comment on their friends' status updates via the Facebook mobile site, users posted close to a million status comments. No less impressive, MySpace announced that same month that its integrated mobile solution customized for device maker Research In Motion's BlackBerry smartphones generated more than 400,000 downloads in its first seven days of release, an all-time high for both MySpace and RIM in terms of first-week downloads. Perhaps most important, the success of the BlackBerry MySpace app underscores social networking's growing profile among enterprise users--for many smartphone-toting professionals, 2008 was the year they abandoned their Rolodexes in favor of making and nurturing their contacts via the virtual world.

I can relate to this as mobile is now the main source of internet connectivity for my wife. I have been asked to get the new INQ1 phone from '3' as it would make her experience of Facebook better.

Simplifying LTE/SAE Interfaces

Here is simplified diagram of LTE Interfaces from my upcoming training on LTE/SAE. Hope you find it useful.

Femtocell interference by macro network is now addressed

It is widely accepted that the deployment of femtocells will be a significant factor in driving the future uptake of mobile broadband services. There has been concern however over potential issues of interference between femtocells and the micro/macro networks. These concerns have been largely allayed by a femtocell radio study carried out by The Femto Forum.

If one understand the basic concept of femtocells that the concern for interference is obvious. The femtocells and macrocell network share the same carrier and hence the cause for interference. The simplest way to avoid interference is for the femtocell to utilise a different carrier than the surrounding macro network. But I think this will be like running away from the problem instead of solving it. Also this not very much feasible or practical solution either because majority of 3G operators do not have sufficient spectrum.

This issue was really serious and as expected whoever involved with the femtocell deployment specially the Femto Forum got involved into the research to answers the queries regarding the interference.

The Femto Forum study therefore focused on finding technological solutions for mitigating interference when both the femtocell and macrocell networks share the same carrier. These methods are already being developed for pre-standard femtocell solutions, and Femto Forum members are working to bring them within the standards framework.
The main objective of the study was to identify a number of solutions that will mitigate any potential interference of the macro network by the femtocells.

The first really good news is that the study found femtocells have the potential to deliver an order of magnitude of more capacity than the macro network alone when used in dense deployments, even when occupying the same radio channel as the macrocell.

Effectively what it’s been suggested is that any interference related barriers to wide scale femtocell deployment have been removed so operators will be able to maximise the capacity benefits offered by femtocells.

Following are the key solutions suggested for interference mitigation considering that femtocell and macro cell using the same carrier:

• Adaptive Pilot Power Control: In this case the femtocell dynamicallyadjusts its transmit power in response to the current level of signals fromsurrounding cells and the desired coverage area.
• Extended Tests for Dynamic Range: This will ensure that femtocell designsare able to operate reliably even in the presence of nearby high powermobile phones connected to the macro network (this test has already beenincorporated into the latest 3GPP Release 8, 25.104 specification).
• Uplink power capping: This technique specify that the uplink power of the mobile phone is capped when operating in the femtocell environment thus ensuring that even in difficult radio conditions,the phone hands-off to the macro network before its transmit power increasesto the point where macro noise rise is a problem.
• Dynamic receiver gain management: Automatic gain or adaptive attenuation in the femtocell will ensure that femtocells can offer good service to both near and far mobile phones without unnecessarily increasing the phone transmit power, therefore keeping the noise rise to a minimum.

At a time when mobile operators are seeing data usage rocket, femtocells offer an economic and effective way to deal with demand. This therefore makes it very important for the femtocell technology to sort out any niggling issues.

There is no doubt that by utilizing the identified interference management techniques femtocells can offer operators an effective method to increase capacity and coverage within theirexisting networks through dense cell deployments.

Marketting is the key for femtocells success

In the last year alone femtocells has come a long way and as we speak the technology is in the process of getting deployed at many places. There is no doubt that mobile operators have moved from laboratory tests and technical trials to large-scale commercial pilots of femtocells. The most public of these has been Softbank Mobile in Japan that is using around 10,000 femtocells to test the technical and commercial feasibility of the technology.

There are so many multinational operators who are conducting trials as above with the objective of launching commercial pilots during Q1/2009.

However this opportunity is reliant upon mobile operators developing and marketing a proposition that will have obvious appeal to the consumer.

Even now in some countries the mobile operators struggle to understand what femtocell proposition will work in their market? They understand the business case, but the key issue of how to persuade a customer to acquire and install a femtocell remains unsolved in many regions.
This could be explained best by taking the example of Germany where cellphone subscribers are accustomed to using advantageous 'home-zone' tariffs that use the normal cellular network to determine when the subscriber is making calls from their home. Attempting to undermine this attractive proposition with a femtocell-based solution could be difficult. However places where comprehensive 3G coverage is compromised it is possibly providing the subscriber with their own femtocell, or personal 'home cell which could eventually prove to be particularly attractive for the customer.

I believe the key challenge is the consumer proposition and the future success depends on mobile operators and their ability to package their femtocell propositions appropriately for the various market segments.

I always ask the question whether standalone femtocells are likely to be short-lived.
ip.access claims it is already seeing demand for femtocell modules to be integrated into other devices, such as WiFi home hubs and set-top boxes, etc.

Moving aggresively into the direction of making the femtocell technology a real success, major global operators are now backing the vision of taking femtocells out of homes and offices into the wider environment as part of their Long Term Evolution (LTE) deployment. I think this is a smart move as you cannot be relying completely on the “home only” concept to move femtocells in the vicinity of huge success. At the LTE World Summit in London, China Mobile, T-Mobile and Telus all expressed support for this idea that first was advanced by Vodafone earlier this year. Femtocell specialist picoChip gave reality to this concept by announcing further details of what is claimed to be the industry's first complete LTE picocell and femtocell reference designs. These new platforms will enable high capacity networks for metro, hot-zone and rural deployments. According to the picoChip view of LTE, all deployments will consist of small femtocell base stations.

I hope you agree that with femtocell technology reaching commercial maturity, attention is now switching to developing application services and operator business models that will maximize the technology benefits which will eventually lead to a success story for femtocells.

India gets ready for 3G

So here comes 3G in India. It’s been long coming as the data needs were increasing rapidly in almost all the Indian states. With the existing cellular infrastructure not capable of holding huge traffic particular for data, arrival of 3G was imminent.

The Indian Department of Telecoms (DoT) has published its official timetable for the award of its 3G licences across the country as well as a breakdown of how the relevant spectrum will be allocated across the telecoms circles.

As expected, the state-owned operators BSNL and MTNL each have been reserved one block of 2x5MHz in each circle, with the exception of Rajasthan (State in North West India) which will have no 3G spectrum at all. The number of blocks of spectrum in the private auction differs depending on the circle (see the spectrum table, below).

The auction for the 15-year licences is planned for Jan. 15, 2009. In the majority of 3G service areas there is 25 MHz of paired frequency bandwidth available which relates to four blocks of 2x5 MHz spectrum available for auction in addition to the block reserved for the state-owned operators, Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL). Spectrum is rather limited in many other areas, including the major metro circle of Delhi where only two 2x5MHz blocks will be available to private operators.

All of the 3G spectrum will be in the 2.1 GHz band and in the 2.3 GHz and 2.5 GHz frequency bands, a separate auction for Broadband Wireless Access (WiMAX). In both these auctions, which will take place two days after the 3G auction, bidders are restricted to just one block of spectrum per service area.

The table below shows the proposed spectrum layout.

Service Area (Indian Cities or States)	Paired frequency bandwidth to be allotted	Paired frequency bandwidth to be allotted
Delhi	160	15
Mumbai	160	25
Kolkata	80	25
Maharashtra	160	25
Gujrat	160	15
Andhra Pradesh	160	25
Karnataka	160	25
Tamil Nadu	80	25
Kerela	80	25
Punjab	80	25
Haryana	80	25
Uttar Pradesh(e)	80	25
Uttar Pradesh (w)	80	10
Rajasthan	0	20
Madhya Pradesh	80	25
Bengal	80	25
Himachal Prades	30	25
Bihar	30	25
Orrisa	30	25
Assam	30	25
North East	30	5
Jammu And Kashmir	30	25

Texting and Internet being trialled on flights

BMI is piloting mobile internet and texting services on planes, but frequent flyers need not get up in arms about getting stuck next to chatty people, as the airline has wisely chosen to leave out voice calls.

The service, from OnAir, will be trialled for six months on just one plane – an Airbus A320, which flies between Heathrow and Moscow. Passengers will be able to use SMS, email and internet on mobiles, PDAs and laptops with GSM SIM cards or dongles.

Peter Spencer, managing director of BMI, said: “It opens up an exciting new era of travellers being able to stay in touch by text message and email whilst in the air.

The pilot project isn’t just about testing the tech or the take-up, however. “The trial will help us address some of the social and etiquette issues regarding the use of mobile communications devices inflight and provide valuable customer feedback which will be at the heart of deciding how the service is developed and rolled out across the remainder of our mid haul fleet,” Spencer said.

“We have chosen not to implement the voice call option as part of the trial,” he added.

On the other side of the world, Delta Air Lines officially launched Aircell's Gogo Inflight Internet service on six of its aircrafts. In-flight Internet initially will be available on five MD-88 aircraft flying Delta Shuttle routes between New York's LaGuardia Airport and Boston's Logan and Washington's Reagan airports plus one Boeing 757 flying throughout Delta's domestic system, with service spreading to other Delta routes as additional aircraft are introduced.

"In-flight Internet access is one of the most popular requests we receive from our customers," noted Tim Mapes, Delta's senior vice president of marketing. To celebrate the launch, Delta passengers traveling on the Gogo-equipped MD-88 Shuttle aircraft will be treated to a holiday surprise with complimentary access to Gogo during a Dec. 16 - 31, 2008 promotional period.

A "WiFi hotspot" decal will be prominently displayed adjacent to the boarding door of the MD-88 aircraft so customers will know Gogo Inflight Internet service is available on their flight. In addition, a Delta-Gogo instructional card will be available in each seatback, providing details on how to sign up for the service. Gogo representatives and Delta employees will be available at all three Delta Shuttle-served airports throughout the promotional period to provide information and assistance to customers traveling during this timeframe.

Mobile healthcare named 2009 tech pioneer

The World Economic Forum on Thursday named Japan-based Mobile Healthcare Inc (MHC) as a 2009 Technology Pioneer. The company, which develops real-time mobile health solutions for preventing and managing diabetes, obesity and other lifestyle-related illnesses that can be accessed over mobile phones, became one of the 34 technology visionaries to be honored at the 2009 World Economic Forum.

MHC Founder & CEO James Nakagawa said, “We have aspired from the outset to be pioneers, exploring the life-changing potential of mobile technology and finding solutions that empower people to tackle their own health issues affordably and easily via their personal cellular devices and the Internet. I was at once ecstatic and humbled by the news that our work had gained disciples from amongst the venerable body of global business and financial leaders put forth by the World Economic Forum.”

The company’s flagship product, Lifewatcher, is a mobile phone-based health management application for people with so-called ‘lifestyle diseases’ such as diabetes and obesity. Users can monitor their own conditions by logging blood sugar levels, calorie intake, exercise and many other variables into their ‘always on’ mobile device, creating a one-glance health portfolio, which collates daily, monthly and even yearly data. It also delivers vital medical information, reminders and alerts with escalating alarm-levels if goals are not met.Using real-time cellular technology, diabetics and lifestyle illness sufferers can also be in constant dialogue with medical practitioners to ensure health measures are in check or, if not, to spark intervention that could save lives. With the dramatic rise of diabetes and obesity to pandemic levels in countries like Japan and the U.S., doctors have been welcoming this self-directed management tool that affordably and easily increases drug, nutrition, exercise and monitoring compliance for sufferers.

Motohisa Furukawa, a high-ranking Japanese politician and long-time participant at Davos said: “Japan is particularly proud this year to see Mobile Healthcare accepting this honor. It is my hope that government representatives attending Davos this year will recognize the particular relevance of innovative technologies like Lifewatcher, as a universal low-cost healthcare solution that is also environmentally sustainable, as we move forward in these tough economic times in a resource-constrained world.”

Nokia may be entering laptop market

With the telecoms market so tight every company especially the giants like Nokia are looking at the alternatives for their revenues to go further north. Some time ago there was a rumour that the Nokia might enter into the laptop market and hence widen its area of business. Although at that time this was categorically denied by Nokia, rumours the Finnish mobile giant may be planning to enter the laptop computer market have resurfaced. On this occasion it was through the medium of a research note from a Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) analyst. For a report that could just be speculative it contained a remarkable amount of detail suggesting as it did that the Nokia device would be a 9 to 10 inch notebook/tablet computer with touchpad, NFC and Linux OS.

In its early days Nokia did produce computers but by the mid-1980s it had exited the business, merging its PC division with Ericsson Information Systems.

In the past of couple of years we have seen that companies like HP and Apple have moved into the smartphone business and hence taken a small share of the market. This has really affected likes of Nokia, Ericsson, Samsung and other vendors. Taking a leaf out of computer manufacturers such as HP and Apple who has moved into smartphone business, Nokia thinks that perhaps it is its time now to mount a counterattack.

Indian m-Commerce service among top tech pioneers for 2009

JiGrahak is behind ngpay, the brand name of a free mobile-commerce service that allows consumers in India to shop, order meals, make charitable donations, do their banking, and pay their bills, among other things. Launched last February, ngpay already has attracted more than 230,000 users and has become the largest channel for mobile-based transactions with Indian Railways and HDFC Bank, and for movie ticketing. The company expects to have 1 million users by mid-2009.

More information available from this youtube video:

Femtocell 3GPP Specifications

Now with Release 8 frozen, if you are Femtocell follower then there are couple of specs that you can read:

3GPP TR 25.820 - 3G Home NodeB Study Item Technical Report: Contains study of items from RAN#2, RAN#3 and RAN#4 point of view.

3GPP TS TS 22.220 - Service Requirements for Home NodeBs and Home eNodeBs: It lists different requirements as the title suggests. You can see some more info on this at Martin's blog.

Over the next few months since the Femtocell race is heating up, you would find these documents being updated with lots of details and probably stage 2 and stage 3 documents detailing some implementation details, etc. Will keep you informed.

Mobile phones can be very distracting

There are so many telecoms blogs which we read and write in our daily life. Today I want to touch on a different but very serious subject regarding the mobile phones.
Everybody knows how dangerous or distracting a mobile phone can be when we are involved in some other jobs e.g. driving.

I thought to touch on this subject and outline some important facts about the do’s and don’ts before we go into the festive period.

It’s very much evident that while driving it’s simply dangerous to chat on the mobile phone. It doesn't matter much whether the talking happens with a phone held to the ear, or through a speaker-phone, it's all distracting to the driver. In the past, it has been reported that chatting on mobile phones slows traffic. It’s quite simple that drivers who are talking on a cell phone clog traffic because they're driving more slowly (and reacting much more slowly) than drivers who take the radical path of paying attention to their driving. Well, yet another study, this time conducted by researchers at the University of Utah, finds that mobile phone calls are just plain distracting to drivers (must read this article). Admittedly, the sample size consist only 41 adults, with 41 of their passenger friends. What is interesting about this study though is that it pits drivers having conversations using hands-free mobile phones against drivers maintaining in-car conversations with their passengers.

The study noted that drivers on their mobile phones tended to drift in their lanes, and were four times as likely to miss pulling off the highway at a prearranged location. Drivers maintaining conversation with their passengers apparently fared much better. A plausible reason for this is that the in-car passengers actually supported drivers by their talking about surrounding traffic.
Last week in one of my blog I reported how texting is picking up especially in teens. Texting on the mobile is even more dangerous than chatting while driving as your eyes are down. In September this year a train crash was reported in California where the driver was blamed for the crash as he was busy texting.

Well this was for the drivers but how about normal person on the road. Everyday we come across people who walk across the street looking at their cell phone and not at the traffic.

This business of walking with you eyes down on the cell phone is equally a risky business as it is while driving.

Well I know that there is nothing new in whatever I mentioned above and it has already been told to us millions of time. I still considered myself a duty bound and thought if I mention here soma of you may be extra cautious while using the cell phone specially when during this festive period.

Please take care and I wish you wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year.

Vodafone launches true "Pay as you go" data package

Vodafone launched a pay as you go USB modem that doesn't need topping up every month. It costs £39 upfront and comes with £15 worth of credit, which amounts to 1GB of data. According to Vodafone, 1GB of data lets you do 30 hours of Web surfing, or send 650 emails, or download 65 music tracks or short video clips.

Unlike certain other pay as you go mobile broadband services, the 1GB will not expire after 30 days. The minimum you can top up the dongle each time is £15, which can be done using a voucher or over the phone.

It is capable of speeds of up to 3.6Mbps, but customers should only expect speeds of up to 1Mbps to 2Mbps. The modem will also double as a 4GB USB memory stick.

I would like to refer to this as true pay as you go plan because the topup does not expire after a month. On the other hand, a similar amount on '3' would get you 3GB of data in their version of PAYG which expires after a month.

LTE functionality frozen as part of Release 8

According to 3GPP website: 3GPP has approved the functional freeze of LTE as part of Release 8.

There is significant commitment from operators to deploy this technology, and this landmark achievement will allow them to realize their early deployment plans.

But the 3GPP decided to give more time to the work on SAE -– a.k.a. evolved packet core (EPC) –- because the specs weren't complete enough. The standards body has drawn up a list of "exceptions" that will have until March 2009 to be finalized in order to be included in Release 8.

"There are a number of pieces of work which we thought should be included but weren't quite ready," says Scrase. "[There are] quite a number of parts for SAE, the work [on which] still lags behind LTE work. We have a high level of confidence that the items will be completed by March, otherwise we wouldn't have included them on the list."

Scrase says that it is common to extend deadlines in this way and that the 3GPP allowed a similar extension for Release 7.

The decisions about LTE and SAE took place at a 3GPP meeting in Athens last week, where the group definitively agreed on what is contained in Release 8 and what's not, according to Scrase. The group also agreed on what should be included in Release 9, which is scheduled to be frozen in December 2009.

And there is more to Release 8 than LTE and SAE. For example, some of the specifications for femtocells -- or "Home Node B" in 3GPP terminology -- are included in the release.