Home e-NodeB Architecture in Release 8

The Architecture of Home e-NodeB's (popularly known as Femtocells) is as shown above.

The E-UTRAN architecture may deploy a Home eNB Gateway (HeNB GW) to allow the S1 interface between the HeNB and the EPC to scale to support a large number of HeNBs. The HeNB GW serves as a concentrator for the C-Plane, specifically the S1-MME interface. The S1-U interface from the HeNB may be terminated at the HeNB GW, or a direct logical U-Plane connection between HeNB and S-GW may be used.

At present there is no support X2 connectivity of HeNBs.

The S1 interface is defined as the interface:

• Between the HeNB GW and the Core Network,
• Between the HeNB and the HeNB GW,
• Between the HeNB and the Core Network,
• Between the eNB and the Core Network.

The HeNB GW appears to the MME as an eNB. The HeNB GW appears to the HeNB as an MME. The S1 interface between the HeNB and the EPC is the same whether the HeNB is connected to the EPC via a HeNB GW or not.

The HeNB GW shall connect to the EPC in a way that inbound and outbound mobility to cells served by the HeNB GW shall not necessarily require inter MME handovers.

The functions supported by the HeNB shall be the same as those supported by an eNB (with the possible exception of NNSF - NAS Node Selection Function) and the procedures run between a HeNB and the EPC shall be the same as those between an eNB and the EPC.

The HeNB hosts the same functions as an eNB, with the following additional specifications in case of connection to the HeNB GW:

• Discovery of a suitable Serving HeNB GW
• A HeNB shall only connect to a single HeNB GW at one time, namely no S1 Flex function shall be used at the HeNB in case of connection to the HeNB GW.
• If the HeNB is connected to a HeNB GW, it will not simultaneously connect to another HeNB GW, or another MME.
• The TAC and PLMN ID used by the HeNB shall also be supported by the HeNB GW.
• When the HeNB connects to a HeNB GW, selection of an MME at UE attachment is hosted by the HeNB GW instead of the HeNB;
• HeNBs may be deployed without network planning. A HeNB may be moved from one geographical area to another and therefore it may need to connect to different HeNB GWs depending on its location.

The HeNB GW hosts the following functions:

• Relaying UE-associated S1 application part messages between the MME serving the UE and the HeNB serving the UE;
• Terminating non-UE associated S1 application part procedures towards the HeNB and towards the MME. Note that when a HeNB GW is deployed, non-UE associated procedures shall be run between HeNBs and the HeNB GW and between the HeNB GW and the MME.
• Optionally terminating S1-U interface with the HeNB and with the SGW.
• Supporting TAC and PLMN ID used by the HeNB

In addition the MME hosts the following functions:

• Access control for UEs that are members of Closed Subscriber Groups (CSG).

Mechanisms for filtering of paging messages, in order to avoid paging message distribution to HeNBs belonging to CSGs where the UE is not registered, is FFS.

Source: 3GPP TS 36.300 - E-UTRA and E-UTRAN Overall description; Stage 2 (Release 8)

LTE: MIB and SIB transmission

One very interesting change that has been done is that in LTE the system information is not all transmitted on the same channel unlike UMTS/HSPA. Logically all BCH info is mapped on BCCH. On the transport channel side, the information is mapped either on BCH or DL-SCH. (DL-SCH = Downlink Shared Channel). Ofcourse they map onto different physical channels as can be seen in the diagram.

Once the UE has achieved synchronisation, it will read the MIB to camp on the cell. In LTE, MIB contains very limited information. It contains information about the cell bandwidth, some information about PHICH (Physical HARQ Indicator Channel) and the SFN.

The SIB's as I mentioned are transmitted on DL-SCH mapped on PDSCH. To receive information about SIB's the UE needs information about PHICH which is read from the MIB.

The BCH channel has a TTI of 40ms (which is quite a lot for LTE, if you think about it). Also it has very small transport block size and protected with 1/3 convolutional code and 16bit CRC.

All these help to keep the overhead in LTE system to minimum.

QR Codes expected to become big in the US

Quick-response (QR) codes are well-entrenched in Japan, where consumers routinely use their cellphones to check e-mail, download movie trailers, navigate Tokyo's labyrinthine streets, pay water bills, buy Cokes from high-tech vending machines, download e-coupons and even have their fortunes told.

They also use their phones to scan QR codes on magazine and outdoor ads. The digital codes are read by the phones' cameras and redirect them to designated mobile sites.

Northwest Airlines, for instance, has used QR codes on large outdoor posters in high-traffic areas in downtown Tokyo to send e-certificates for travel deals and award frequent-flyer bonus miles through its WorldPerks program. The campaign was created by Mindshare's Tokyo office.

Nestle used the technology to launch a canned drink called Nescafe Shake. A QR code on promotional materials led cellphone users to a mobile site where they could download two 15-minute films created by WPP's JWT, Tokyo. Users could also download the films' original music as songs or ringtones.

QR codes have moved beyond Japan into other Asian markets, including China. The latest generation of QR technology lets marketers and retailers fine-tune their messages, making the experience more personal.

The codes have improved, too. A Hong Kong-based company called MyClick Media has pioneered image-recognition mobile marketing in North Asia. Instead of photographing bar codes, users click on logos, objects and images selected by marketers. The photos grant users one-click access to mobile-based internet content, services, rewards and gifts via e-mail, text and multimedia messaging service.

Since the technology is limited to high-end phones and requires a software download, MyClick hasn't been a success for mass-market campaigns. But marketers such as Coca-Cola and Adidas have scored points with consumers in smaller promotions such as sporting events. China Mobile used MyClick to encourage subscribers to share good wishes for athletes during the Olympic Games last year in Beijing.

Not long back, I blogged about Bar Coded train tickets on mobiles. They now seem to be catching on in USA as well.

When Peter Shipman, a franchise owner of the Qdoba casual Mexican restaurant chain, was launching his third outlet in the college town of Ann Arbor, Mich., he needed a way to draw students to the new location -- and he wanted to speak their technological parlance. So he bought ads in the campus newspaper and posted promotional posters, each with a code kids could scan with their phones to get a mobile coupon for a buy-one-get-one-free burrito.

The campaign, which ran on technology from a company called Jagtag, netted a 52% redemption rate with about 400 scans* , roughly 1% of the total target student population.

For Qdoba, it was a digital version of clipping coupons. But these codes -- known as 2-D barcodes, since they're scanned both horizontally and vertically -- can also deliver product reviews, video demos or any other tool a marketer has in its digital arsenal. They can also help marketers track static ads and product performance in retail channels: Did the print ad get more scans in the men's lifestyle glossy or the outdoor-enthusiast magazine?

Qdoba joins small but growing group of marketers warming to the long-promised technology. In fact, among three vendors working to make this a reality -- Scanbuy, Jagtag and Clic2C -- there are at least 15 initiatives involving national brands in the retail, fashion, food and beverage categories that should hit next quarter.

Nike 6.0, the action-sports division of the footwear maker, recently deployed 2-D barcodes at several sporting events it sponsored late last year, delivering content about Nike athletes to fans who sent in images of Jagtag codes. While Nike won't disclose campaign metrics, Butch Bannon, a business-development exec at its promotional-marketing agency, TAOW Productions, said Nike will look at other ways of integrating 2-D barcodes in future venues.

Microsoft will be slapping 2-D barcodes on the next round of packaging for its Xbox games, said Larry Harris, CEO of Ansible, which worked with Microsoft on a 2-D-barcode campaign to promote an enterprise server.

This kind of one-to-one exchange between brand and consumer is already well-entrenched in Japan, where they're known as QR codes and where readers come preinstalled on about 70% of all mobile phones. But stateside only a few brands have flirted with the technology, mostly because consumers don't want to bother downloading the applications required to read the codes. Plus, there are no standards for 2-D barcodes in the U.S., meaning the codes employed in one-off campaigns are proprietary, and each require their own reader and decoder.

Jagtag is trying to solve that problem by making it easier for consumers. Rather than downloading an application, they take a picture of Jagtag's 2-D barcode and send it to a short code, and Jagtag sends back a URL, coupon or other media via multimedia messaging service.

But analysts and Jagtag competitors agree that for 2-D barcodes to gain any meaningful traction, the code reader must come preloaded on cellphones -- and only the wireless carriers can make happen, as they dictate the specs to handset makers.

Jonathan Bulkeley, CEO of Scanbuy, a Jagtag competitor, said he expects his code reader to be preinstalled on 10 to 12 handsets sold by Sprint and Alltel, which Verizon has acquired, by this spring. But consider there are 250 different handsets in the U.S., and they run on several different operating systems. That's a long way to go.

The wireless carriers are slowly coming onboard as they look to transactions and commerce to help drive revenue. Scanbuy has been chasing AT&T and Verizon for at least 18 months; late last year, it got Sprint to approve its application, so users can download it on 40 handsets sold by the carrier. The No. 3 U.S. carrier began promoting Scanbuy's application on its website late last year. Jagtag's service works with AT&T and Verizon. "Carriers need to figure out how to make money on navigation, transaction and advertising," Mr. Bulkeley said. "On mobile, consumers are going to go directly to what they're interested in, not go search for it."

IPHOBAC's advanced photonic technologies: Up to 12.5 Gbit/s @ 60 GHz

With much of the mobile world yet to migrate to 3G mobile communications, let alone 4G, European researchers are already working on a new technology able to deliver data wirelessly up to 12.5Gb/s.

The technology – known as ‘millimetre (mm)-wave’ or microwave photonics – has commercial applications not just in telecommunications (access and in-house networks) but also in instrumentation, radar, security, radio astronomy and other fields.

Despite the quantum leap in performance made possible by combining the latest radio and optics technologies to produce mm-wave components, it will probably only be a few years before there are real benefits for the average EU citizen.

This is thanks to research and development work being done by the EU-funded project IPHOBAC, which brings together partners from both academia and industry with the aim of developing a new class of components and systems for mm-wave applications.

The mm-wave band is the extremely high frequency part of the radio spectrum, from 30 to 300 gigahertz (GHz), and it gets it name from having a wavelength of one to 10mm. Until now, the band has been largely undeveloped, so the new technology makes available for exploitation more of the scarce and much-in-demand spectrum.

It recently unveiled a tiny component, a transmitter able to transmit a continuous signal not only through the entire mm-wave band but beyond. Its full range is 30 to 325GHz and even higher frequency operation is now under investigation. The first component worldwide able to deliver that range of performance, it will be used in both communications and radar systems. Other components developed by the project include 110GHz modulators, 110GHz photodetectors, 300GHz dual-mode lasers, 60GHz mode-locked lasers, and 60GHz transceivers.

Project coordinator Andreas Stöhr says millimetre-wave photonics is a truly disruptive technology for high frequency applications. “It offers unique capabilities such as ultra-wide tunability and low-phase noise which are not possible with competing technologies, such as electronics,” he says.

What this will mean in practical terms is not only ultra-fast wireless data transfer over telecommunications networks, but also a whole range of new applications.


One of these, a 60GHz Photonic Wireless System, was demonstrated at the ICT 2008 exhibition in Lyon and was voted into the Top Ten Best exhibits. The system allows wireless connectivity in full high definition (HD) between devices in the home, such as a set-top box, TV, PC, and mobile devices. It is the first home area network to demonstrate the speeds necessary for full wireless HD of up to 3Gb/s.

The system can also be used to provide multi-camera coverage of live events in HD. “There is no time to compress the signal as the director needs to see live feed from every camera to decide which picture to use, and ours is the only technology which can deliver fast enough data rates to transmit uncompressed HD video/audio signals,” says Stöhr.

The same technology has been demonstrated for access telecom networks and has delivered world record data rates of up to 12.5Gb/s over short- to medium-range wireless spans, or 1500 times the speed of upcoming 4G mobile networks.

One way in which the technology can be deployed in the relatively short term, according to Stöhr, is wirelessly supporting very fast broadband to remote areas. “You can have your fibre in the ground delivering 10Gb/s but we can deliver this by air to remote areas where there is no fibre or to bridge gaps in fibre networks,” he says.

The project is also developing systems for space applications, working with the European Space Agency. Stöhr said he could not reveal details as this has not yet been made public, save to say the systems will operate in the 100GHz band and are needed immediately.

There are various ongoing co-operation projects with industry to commercialise the components and systems, and some components are already at a pre-commercial stage and are being sold in limited numbers. There are also ongoing talks with some of the biggest names in telecommunications, including Siemens, Ericsson, Thales Communications and Malaysia Telecom.

“In just a few years time everybody will be able to see the results of the IPHOBAC project in telecommunications, in the home, in radio astronomy and in space. It is a completely new technology which will be used in many applications even medical ones where mm-wave devices to detect skin cancer are under investigation,” says Stöhr.

You can see their demo here.

LTE is really going for it

In my blog last week I tried to present some arguments which lead to the belief that LTE might take us out from the current recession.

After the current Mobile world congress the vibes coming out are very much in favour of LTE. It looks like an LTE onslaught. I must admit that the recent development in the LTE sector ahs really pushed the technology closer to the reality. These developments have really given a kick to the WiMax camp as well and one can see the nervousness in the WiMax camp.
Following are some of the recent LTE onslaught as I might say:

• Motorola, Nokia Siemens Networks and Ericsson have already made LTE announcements.
• Motorola introduced its LTE base stations,
• Nokia announced a new version of its Flexi Multiradio base station that expands the technologies supported by the NSN line to cover GSM/EDGE, WCDMA/HSPA and LTE in a single unit.
• Ericsson introduced an evolved packet core portfolio for LTE networks so that HSPA operators can gracefully migrate to LTE.

Things are a really spicing up in the market especially with the operators already started playing mind games in terms of whom to choose their vendors for the LTE devices.

Just last week there was a report where it said that Verizon Wireless and Nokia are reportedly planning a partnership that might be an exclusive deal to create an "iconic" device to run on Verizon's Long Term Evolution (LTE) network.

Although not sure how true the above report is but it still was buzzing news. There is no doubt that whenever the announcement will come from Verizon regarding the very vendors it is choosing, it will be a surprise to everyone.

Just remember the last year where the industry was really struggling to put a strong hold on LTE. I still remember very well, last year all the talks were for WiMax and the Vodafone Group CEO Arun Sarin urged the vendor community to step up efforts on the LTE standard since WiMAX was ahead in its development. WiMAX may still be ahead this year, but LTE certainly has the momentum behind it.

Certainly WiMax and the news related to it will be around but what interests me is how some of the companies are now making LTE as their priority as the future broadband technology. It’s unbelievable that those companies who were once heavily pushing WiMAX have now jumped into the LTE market.

Wireless 20/20, for instance, used to be WiMAX 20/20, but now its on the LTE bandwagon.

It’s already reported that 26 operators have committed to Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology out of which ten network operators are ready to launch their networks by 2010

Other companies have made some good progress in WiMAX, announcing new innovative products; still others appear to be threatened by the onslaught of LTE, trying to dub LTE as just another Long Term Excuse.

£300/min: The cost of mobile broadband while roaming

Trying to keep his young son entertained in the evenings on a skiing holiday, Will Pierce decided to download a few episodes of their favourite TV shows.

He had assumed that he could use his £25 Vodafone data card - which gives him access to mobile broadband while overseas - without incurring any unexpected costs.

But when he returned from the five-day break in Meribel, he was sent a phone bill for nearly £21,716.

Mr Pierce and his son Louis, eight, had gone for a 'boys' holiday' with another father and his son, also eight.

The group rented an apartment, but it did not have any English-language TV channels. With the boys too young to spend evenings out in the resort, Mr Pierce was anxious to keep them entertained.

So over the course of the stay he downloaded several shows - mostly Top Gear for the boys and Kavanagh QC for the grown-ups - on to his laptop computer using the data card.

He was charged according to the number of megabytes used, meaning one show lasting less than 18 minutes cost him £5,132 - almost £300 a minute. Downloading the same size file in the UK would not have cost Mr Pierce anything under most broadband tariffs.

Mr Pierce did not deal directly with Vodafone, instead addressing his complaint to DRD Communication Services, the European network operator.

DRD agreed to waive its fees, bringing the bill down to £16,500, but Vodafone initially insisted that the usage was 'valid' and refused to back down.

However, a spokesman for Vodafone said yesterday that the company would waive the full amount.

She added: 'Such bills are exceptionally rare and we have an investigation under way.'

Next Generation “Sixth Sense” game-changing wearable tech

TED has this very interesting concept from Pattie Maes’ lab at MIT, spearheaded by Pranav Mistry. It’s a wearable device with a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment. Imagine “Minority Report” and then some...


Its just matter of time after this concept becomes reality for it to be available in mobiles, etc.

Google's voicemail search

This is an interesting convergence of technologies that have now been around for some time. There are many applications on the market that does voice to text conversion and vice versa. Now google is going a step further and letting people search their voicemails.

Google Voice gives you a single number streamlining your work, home and mobile phones and lets you store transcripts of voicemail phone messages in your email inbox.

Using speech-recognition technology, it will even let you search those messages for a snippet of information just as if you were trawling a sea of emails.

It will also let you make free local and cheap international calls, as well as consult Goog411, the company's free U.S. directory enquiries service.

Google Voice is based on technology originally launched by Grand Central Communications, a company bought up by Google nearly two years ago.

The acquisition had taken so long to bear fruit that observers were starting to suspect it had come to nothing.

Like the original Grand Central product, Google Voice offers consumers a single phone number that can route incoming calls to home, office and mobile phones.

Domestic calls will be free but international calls will require users to set up a Google Checkout account. Calls to landlines in the UK will cost 2 cents per minute.

EBay's Skype offers free domestic and international calls made over the internet from one computer to another, but there is a charge to landlines and mobile phones.

Skype president Josh Silverman told analysts and investors that "chat and voice will become table stakes". He also revealed that the company is adding 350,000 new users a day and is on track to do more than 100 billion calling minutes in 2009 alone.

Google does not view the service as a threat to Skype or other telecom companies any more than its Google Talk offering, which lets users chat over the internet for free.

"This is about allowing your existing phone to work better," said Craig Walker, now group product manager for real time communications at Google and co-founder of GrandCentral.

"It's not that we are replacing your phone, we are giving [it] the ability to work better," he said.
He declined to say how many users had signed up. Google Voice is currently only available to former GrandCentral users.

Google Voice also allows all voice messages to be turned into text which will then be sent either through an e-mail or an sms.

HSPA+ to become more widely available in 2009

According to 3G Americas press release, 100 million new connections were added last year. On a worldwide basis, GSM totals 3.5 billion of the nearly 4 billion mobile subscriptions or 89% share of market at the end of December 2008. With 278 UMTS-HSPA networks in service in 121 countries, there are 290 million UMTS-HSPA subscriptions as of the end of 2008 compared to 186 million a year earlier—more than 100 million new 3G connections. UMTS-HSPA subscriptions are expected to more than double in 2009, according to Informa’s forecasts, and reach 455 million connections by the end of this year.

A survey last year by GSA showed that over 1000 HSPA devices have already been launched. Remember HSPA device could be HSDPA device only or HSDPA and HSUPA device. According to Dell'Oro group, Worldwide total mobile infrastructure market revenues grew 5% in 2008, driven by the nearly doubling and quadrupling of revenues of the WCDMA and WiMAX markets, respectively.

The focus is now moving towards HSPA+ (Release 7). HSPA+ is already becoming everyones favourite as it now has the potential to compete with LTE. The HSPA+ data rates will soon be able to rival that of LTE. No new spectrum will be required and enhancements will now allow multiple bands to be used at the same time thereby reducing the need to move to LTE for gaining higher data rates by use of higher bandwidth.

O2 Germany is planning to upgrade its network to HSPA+ by mid 2009. Vodafone also plans to upgrade its network to HSPA+ when more devices are available. Hong Kong operator CSLNWM is working with China's ZTE to upgrade their network to SDR based HSPA+ network that could easily be upgraded to LTE. Australia's Telstra has already announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that it is the first in the world to offer mobile broadband service with peak rates of 21 Mbps made possible through HSPA+ technology.

On the devices front Huawei has E182E HSPA+ slide USB stick supporting 21.6Mbps DL and 5.76Mbps in UL. Novatel surprisingly has the same specs for its MC996D modem. Qualcomm meanwhile has released a range of new HSPA+ capable chipsets. The MSM8260 supports 3GPP Release 7 HSPA+ for data rates of up to 28 Mbps. The MSM8660 adds support for 3GPP/3GPP2 multimode, and the MSM8270 adds support for Release 8 dual-carrier HSPA+ for even higher data rates of up to 42 Mbps. All three products offer full backward compatibility to previous generation networks and are pin-, software- and functionally-compatible.

Its just a matter of time before we will all be able to experience the HSPA+ speeds on our mobiles and mobile connected Laptops.

HSPA Data rates

Martin has posted a HSPA data rates table on his blog so I decided to copy it and add a photograph that I took from an Ericsson presentation ;)

• 3.6 MBit/s : Baseline HSPA with 16QAM modulation
• 7.2 MBit/s : 16 QAM, more simultaneous channels)
• 14.4 MBit/s : 16 QAM, even more simultaneous channels
• 21 MBit/s : 64 QAM modulation
• 28 MBit/s : MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output = 2 antennas) + 16 QAM, (3GPP Rel 7)
• 42 MBit/s : MIMO + 64QAM (3GPP Release 8)
• 42 MBit/s : 64QAM + Dual Carrier (3GPP Rel 8)
• 82 MBit/s : MIMO + 64QAM + Dual Carrier (i.e. 2 x 5MHz) (3GPP Release 9)
• + more in case 3GPP decides to increase the number of carriers that can be bundled in Rel 9 or beyond.

Giving up Texting for Lent

Lent, instituted by the Council of Nicaea in 325 and which for most Christian congregations runs from Ash Wednesday to Easter, commemorates the 40 days that Jesus is said to have spent fasting in the desert and rejecting the temptations of Satan before beginning his ministry.

The bishops are encouraging their parishioners to take up new forms of abstinence after the Pope emphasised in his Ash Wednesday address the importance of Lent as a spiritual build-up to Easter and praised the age-old Christian practice of fasting.

Chocolate, cigarettes and alcohol may be the predictable vices to give up for the 40 days of Lent but Italians are being urged to abstain from more contemporary pleasures, like texting, Facebook and iPods.

The Bishop of Modena, in northern Italy, has called on young Italians to give up on Fridays their addiction to sending text messages, in the run-up to Easter Sunday. Archbishop Benito Cocchi said that this would help them to "cleanse themselves from the virtual world and get back into touch with themselves".

The average Italian sends 50 texts a month, the second highest rate in Europe, behind the UK.
The bishops of Pesaro, on the Adriatic, and of Bari, in the south, have also picked up on the idea of a "text message fast" and more bishops could follow suit.

In the Diocese of Trento, in the foothills of the Alps, Archbishop Luigi Bressan has set out a type of calender of abstinence for his parishioners, with each Sunday of Lent dedicated to a different sacrifice.

He has called on Catholics to abstain from using a car, from logging into Facebook, from listening to music on MP3 players, and from playing computer games. He has also suggested that people use Lent to embrace recycling and he called for "abstinence from egocentricity".

In Venice, the bishop has suggested giving up mineral water and drinking only tap water during Lent.

Network operator '3' released a Facebook phone called INQ last year. Though I am not a fan of Facebook or for that reason the INQ, I know quite a few people are. Maybe this abstaining from the phone for a day maybe a good idea.

Joggler or Post-it?

O2 has recently released a family friendly touchscreen tablet which can act as a replacement for the post it notes many of us leave on the fridge door to communicate with our family members.


The following is from O2's website:

Managing family life can be a struggle. Introducing the O2 Joggler, a new device designed to help organise your family life a little better. Think of it as your new fridge door.

The fridge door has always done its best to organise family life. From birthdays to sports days, from pianos lessons to parents' evenings - it's all there. Somewhere.

The O2 Joggler works with an interactive online calendar and your mobile phone so every family member will know who needs to be where by when. O2 numbers even get text message reminders. Much more than an interactive calendar, the O2 Joggler runs a number of family-friendly applications to support family life and keep your family in the loop, including:

• Includes up-to-the-minute news, sport, traffic and weather updates
• View and load music, videos and photos
• Let everyone in your selected family group know what's going on and who's doing what with your shared O2 Calendar. Set up and update events and, if you are on O2, you can send text reminders to your chosen O2 phone numbers.
• View and load your photos from a USB memory stick which can be inserted into the side of your O2 Joggler. You can save your favourite photos on your O2 Joggler and display them as a slide show on the screen.
• Challenge yourself to a game of Japanese Sudoku.
• Store and watch your favourite videos.

The seven-inch touchscreen device connects wirelessly or via Ethernet cable to home broadband, meaning no SIM is required – and therefore there’s no additional monthly cost. It features a calendar to store appointments and deadlines, and will send text messages as reminders.

While the device can be used by anyone regardless of which network they’re on, the Joggler will only sent info to O2 mobiles – so Junior won’t get the reminder if he’s on Orange, T-Mobile or any other network. For O2 customers, their Joggler will be able to send 50 free text messages a month.

The oddly-named Joggler will be available from early April, for £149.99 or free for O2 customers if taken instead of a handset upgrade. Corporate customers will not be allowed to upgrade to the Joggler, so they'll have to pay out to get one.

Somehow I am not convinced if this device will be popular big time though its failure can easily be blamed on the current financial crisis. Somehow the features remind me of Femtozone services and maybe the Femto application developers can include some features from this into their Femtozone apps :)

LTE can get us out from the current recession

Hello everybody. Just in case you guys thinking where I am then I can tell you that I just returned back from my holiday last week.

Everybody is aware how the market situation is getting worse and there is no doubt it has started affecting the telecomm companies as well.

One of the major doubts I have been carrying from the past few weeks was, what will happen to LTE now after seeing the worsening state of the economy.

As I have mentioned in my previous blogs that the companies are toying with idea of considering HSPA+ as one of the option in case they can’t afford LTE in the current climate.

However I firmly believe that the success of LTE is very important not only for people like me but for the industry as well.

I think with WiMax loosing its grip it’s a very good opportunity for the telecomm giants to leapfrog the competition and work feverishly towards the launch of LTE.

The early signs are that LTE is getting a go ahead from most and the mobile industry is really pushing LTE

It is estimated that there will more than 50 million mobile users by the end of 2013. With the no of users growing at a rapid pace in India and china and other Asian countries these numbers sounds reasonable enough.

This growth rate would be remarkable given that the original standardization and specification process for Long Term Evolution (LTE) aka '4G' only envisages commercial deployment in the 2011-2012 timeframe. It would appear that the mobile industry is once again doing what it does best, overhyping new technology whilst it is still in development.

I suppose in the current climate the only excitement is that the announcements about LTE are arriving almost daily, each more positive than the next.

CDMA operator Verizon Wireless has already announced its intention to migrate its network to LTE, Motorola plans to focus on LTE, perhaps at the expense of WiMAX and so it goes on.

Recently T-Mobile step up the pressure on equipment vendors, when it stated it will not deploy HSPA+ to further boost its mobile broadband throughput but will instead skip this technical evolution and invest in LTE.

And now the news is that Nokia is affirming it’s commitment to LTE and says that it would have device for LTE networks by 2010.

Nokia affirmed its commitment to Long Term evolution (LTE) technology and said it would have devices for LTE networks in 2010, according to a company executive. By doing this Nokia in my view is dismissing WiMAX as a 4G standard. I believe one of the major reasons why Nokia might be thinking that way is because of WiMax’s lack of backwards compatibility and an unclear roadmap.

I hope all this news regarding LTE materializes and kicks off a nice decade ahead. However only time will tell whether the LTE hype is justified or if the mobile industry is about to get another dash of cold reality.

Blog: Advanced C++ with examples

This has nothing to do with Mobiles or 3G and 4G but for lots of people who get involved in different C++ coding and reviewing, etc. Here is the link to the blog:

http://advancedcppwithexamples.blogspot.com/

SMS hailed as enablers of next-generation offerings

Text services make money and complement new rich services, says new research.

The study, conducted by Direct2Mobile found that mobile operators believe SMS will become the enabler that underpins next generation offerings, with all those surveyed claiming they are developing their messaging infrastructure in order to introduce new value-added services.

Of all the services cited, mobile social networking and mobile applications lead the way with 75 per cent of operators expecting to invest in them over the next 12 months. Mobile broadband is not far behind with 65 per cent expecting to make investments over the next 12 months, closely followed by location-based services, IM/presence and the mobile internet (which 50 per cent of operators stated would be a priority for the 12 months ahead).

Jay Seaton, CMO at Airwide Solutions, said: “Revenues from SMS have become a substantial and strategic income stream for mobile operators worldwide. However, recent market changes are placing an ever greater pressure on operators to deliver new and richer services that will not only complement voice and text services but also boost ARPU and help improve market share.”

Networks may have to bundle Femtocells along with contract phones

"Tom Prescott, 32, took Orange to court after they refused to cancel his 18- month contract, even though he could not get a signal either at his Richmond home or in his office. "I felt bullied by the company, and dealing with Orange was awful. I hope people who have the same problem now realise they can do something about it."

Tom Prescott took his phone network (Orange) to court and won £500 for "lack of signal" in his home, there will be a sense of greater urgency in the industry.

The attitude of other mobile operators wasn't likely to be very different - before the lawsuit, anyway. If you complain that a call got dropped, and expect to be taken seriously, then you're mad. Most companies would have taken Orange's attitude: "Coverage is outside our control."

The Court disagreed. It said that if you sell an 18 month contract to a victim who neither lives nor works in an area where you can provide coverage, then it really is your problem, not theirs.

The trouble is, 3G phone technology simply doesn't work well enough for them to be able to fix the problem. Very simply, if the phone mast is blocked by brick or concrete walls, then very little of a 3G wireless signal will get through.

That was Prescott's problem: he couldn't make calls, and he couldn't receive calls. So naturally, he asked for his money back. Orange took the view that if the phone worked, and the network was in place, and if he could actually use the phone out in the street, then they'd done all anybody could expect. So they refused - an error of judgement commercially, but a complete disaster in PR terms.

And all operators are staring at the same disaster, if they don't change their business habits.

Not just one or two phone users have the problem; in some areas, claims of providing coverage are close to fraudulent. They can get away with it if the old 2G GSM network provides backup coverage, of course. But after this, even that may be called into question.

We know how to solve the problem. Simply, 3G operators have to put a private mast into your home. These are very small mobile phone cells. Smaller than microcells, smaller even than picocells, they are called femtocells. They are limited to short range: inside the building, and perhaps the gardens.

Question: who will provide your femtocell? Orange? Cingular? Clearwire? France Telecom?

Wrong Answer: "If I provide the customer's femtocell, they'll have to use my service! They'll never be able to switch! Muhahahaha!"

Better answer: "...it's going to cost us, but we have to make sure that this mini-mast works with any phone. Otherwise, nobody is going to see any point in using it."

Best Answer: "We have to change roaming regulations! The whole business model needs radical reform, so that we do NOT create logjams for our customers."

Here's the problem, rather neatly summarised by consultant Dean "Disruptive" Bubley: "These operators are living in a dream world of one operator per household. It isn't going to be true even of single people living alone."

Most households have phones from several operators.

The teenagers have friends on the same network, so that they can have free SMS texting chats together. Tell them "use another network" and have your face eaten off. It's not the money (they'll say) - "That network isn't cool."

The parents often have phones provided by employers (no choice there). And
there are "private" lines which they use because they always have. "Everybody knows that number," they say.

Yes, you can move a number from one network to another. No, it isn't a picnic. And anyway "why should I?" is the common response.

More mobile broadband ... with WiMAX this time

An interactive, online map by the WiMAX Forum and Informa Telecoms & Media’s World Cellular Information Service (WCIS) offers information on the many WiMAX deployments across the globe. Click here to access the map.

With investments already made into WiMAX, the wireless broadband technology will be able to withstand the current economic downturn in a year that will see some additional network deployments, according to the WiMAX Forum.

Because of the current economic climate, WiMAX providers are not being as aggressive with network deployments, but the forum estimates at least 100 more operators will launch commercial services this year.

The Forum says WiMAX now covers 430 million people or POPS, globally and are on a path to nearly double to 800 million people by end of 2010 and explode to 18 million by 2012. In-Stat forecasts LTE will have 23 million subscribers by 2013, but nearly 82 million mobile PCs with WiMax will ship in 2013.

So far, Mobile WiMAX is being offered in just two cities, Baltimore and Portland, Ore. On March 5th, Clearwire will announce which cities will be added next in the United States. Another nine cities are expected to roll out this year.

According to research firm In-Stat, WiMAX will continue to outpace LTE over the next few years and the technologies will take different paths. Verizon Wireless is expected to launch LTE commercially sometime next year but most operators will wait until 2011 or 2012.

Meanwhile, the WiMAX forum says there will be 100 certified products on the market this year, growing to 1,000 by 2011. The forum also expects growth to continue in Asia, Europe, Latin America and Africa.

Via: Daily Wireless

More than half the world now uses mobile phones

A UN report this week showed that more than half the global population now pay to use one.

The survey, by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), an agency of the UN, also found that nearly a quarter of the world's 6.7 billion people use the internet.

But it is the breathtaking growth of cellular technology that is doing more to change society, particularly in developing countries where a lack of effective communications infrastructure has traditionally been one of the biggest obstacles to economic growth.

By the end of last year there were an estimated 4.1bn mobile subscriptions, up from 1bn in 2002. That represents six in 10 of the world's population, although it is hard to make a precise calculation about how many people actually use mobile phones.

Africa is the continent with the fastest growth, where penetration has soared from just one in 50 people at the turn of the century to 28%.

Much of the take-up is thought to have been driven by money transfer services that allow people without bank accounts to send money speedily and safely by text messages, which the recipient - typically a family member - can cash in at the other end. Vodafone's M-Pesa money transfer service was launched in Kenya in 2007 and now has 5 million users.

The ITU report points to the Gambia, where mobile subscriptions have rocketed amid stiff competition among mobile operators. Out of almost a million telephone subscribers, there are more than 800,000 mobile subscriptions but only about 50,000 fixed telephone lines in service.

Developing countries now account for about two-thirds of the mobile phones in use, compared with less than half of subscriptions in 2002.

The adoption of mobile technology has outstripped the growth of fixed-line connections, which rose from 1bn to 1.3bn over the same period, with market penetration stuck just below 20% for some years.

The figures demonstrate that many people in the developing world are bypassing the older technology altogether.

In the developed world, many people use more than one mobile device, with subscriptions exceeding population by 11% in Europe.

On the other hand, a single mobile phone may have several users in poorer countries, where handsets are sometimes shared or rented out by their owners.

The report also recorded a marked increase in internet use, which more than doubled from 11% of people using the net in 2002 to 23% last year.

Here the report identified a clear gap between the rich and poor world: fewer than one in 20 Africans went online in 2007, for instance, and less than 15% in Asia, whereas Europe and the Americas recorded penetration of 43% and 44% respectively.

Across the world just 5% of people have broadband internet at home, although this rises to 20% in the developed world.

Sweden was the world's most advanced country in the use of information and communications technology, in an index of 154 countries that took various factors into account such as access to computers and literacy levels.

South Korea and Denmark were placed second and third in the list, while the UK was ranked 10th.

Mobile phones have changed Congo irrevocably, especially Goma. The country has only about 20,000 land lines after the system collapsed under Mobutu Sese Seko's ruinous dictatorship.

Now traders shipping imports to distant towns, farmers sending produce to the main cities, and those involved in the thriving gold and diamond smuggling trade use their phones to check prices, text quotes and arrange deliveries. Women who once sold roasted corn by the roadside now make a living dealing in mobile top-up cards and recharging flat phone batteries in a town where much of the population doesn't have electricity.

"Everyone but the very poor has a cell phone," said Mukeba. "Even the guy who only makes a few dollars a day picking up passengers on his bike. Even the woman selling things by the roadside. Almost everyone finds the money."

Cell phones have helped transform Goma in other ways. The town's economic boom of recent years has been fuelled by war and plunder, particularly of the rich mines in eastern Congo. Among them are diamonds and gold but also coltan, a rare but crucial element in mobile phones.

The small fortunes to be made by mining it sent tens of thousands digging for black mud and attracted criminal syndicates and foreign armies. "It all came at once," said Mukeba. "War, cell phones, dollars. Some people are getting very, very rich and everyone is making a little bit of money."

Nokia to offer Netbooks soon

According to Electric Pig:

A Nokia netbook is in the works, Nokia’s CEO has confirmed, ending months of speculation that the mobile giant could be entering the netbook market.

Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo has finally broken silence on the subject of a Nokia netbook, admitting, “we are looking very actively [at] this opportunity,” when asked if Nokia has plans to enter the laptop business.

So, a Nokia netbook is on the cards then, taking what Nokia does best in the mobile arena - cheap, powerful operating systems, tiny technology and net connectivity, and wading in to battle with the likes of the Asus Eee PC range with its own Nokia netbook.

The announcement comes just a week after Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where PC makers including Acer, HP and Lenovo unveiled new smartphone offerings, muscling in on what Nokia sees as its territory.

It is still too early to predict when Nokia will roll out its Netbooks or its UMPC but already news sites have started speculating about the death of Eee PC's and how Nokia Laptops will rule.

ARM’s multi-core Sparrow chip has just been announced last week, and Nokia is already working on it’s first compact mobile computer with some blow-out specs, running Linux OS on this CPU. But don’t get your hopes up – this Nokia device is slated only for 2011 release.

The design of Nokia Sparrow device does not follow the current netbook trend, going more the MID way, with some passing resemblance to Nokia N800 internet tablet.
It will have multi-slide keyboard, with different layouts/keys revealed as you slide it in different directions. The display also slides in several directions for different functions – think Nokia N97 tilting display.

The new Nokia computer has a very interesting keyboard with diamond shaped, elevated keys inverted to each other. At first glance it seems very uncomfortable – the keys are pretty small (about half the size of normal key), actually the device itself is rather small. But when you start typing on it, it works very well. It is very difficult to hit multiple keys with a finger, even on purpose.

The Nokia Sparrow computer has a novel, transparent widget based interface. Each running application gets it’s own semi-transparent widget to put it’s content in. Multiple applications can be stored in memory “for months”. E.g. when you are writing a document or e-mail, just swipe the finger through the screen and semi-transparent panels with active or pre-set applications and their content pop-up. Select one and you can start working with it at once.

There are also rumours that Nokia and Qualcomm are working together on Netbooks based on Qualcomms Snapdragon Chipset.

For a company like Nokia, which is investing heavily in Web and GPS services, it has become crucial to stake out a course that embraces all portable Internet devices. The Nokia N8xx series of Internet tablets are the first proof of that, but the WiMAX enabled Nokia N810 was recently cancelled. However, through the recent, and historical, agreement made with Qualcomm, Nokia is suddenly getting access to Qualcomm's Gobi and Snapdragon technology.

With old handheld giants like Intel and Dell aiming to take a bite out of the future mobile market, and with graphics specialists such as Nvidia lurking in the background, it's understandable to see former enemies joining forces against the new competition. If there's one thing nobody can afford right now, it's old battles messing up future product lines that could attract carrier interest.

As such, it comes as no surprise that Nokia, according to Reuters, is looking into expanding its portfolio to include laptops. The only question is what operating systems Nokia will opt for, which actually leads to many questions: Will Nokia boost the development pace of Linux-based Maemo? Could the Symbian Foundation be working on a new netbook platform? Will Nokia offer Windows Mobile 7 netbooks?

In the meantime, the Nokia N97 is a starting step in their Netbooks ambition.

N97 is a high-end smartphone with a 3.5 inch touch display, QWERTY keyboard and social location software to allow people to use Facebook, MySpace and other sites on the go.

For the record, Nokia calls its latest device a “mobile computer.”

Nokia’s N97 has some sweet specs (statement, Techmeme)–it supports up to 48 GB of storage, has a 5 megapixel camera, music support and DVD quality video capture. The rub: The N97 isn’t what you’d call affordable. It has an estimated retail price of 550 euro before taxes and subsidies.

Mobile Broadband Report from UMTS Forum

A white paper from The UMTS Forum charts the technical and commercial path towards a new generation of high-speed mobile broadband systems.

Titled Mobile Broadband Evolution: the roadmap from HSPA to LTE, the white paper takes a holistic view of tomorrow’s widely predicted ‘data explosion’. In the global context of rapid growth in voice and IP traffic over both fixed and mobile networks, the paper paints a compelling case for 3G LTE (Long Term Evolution) as a vital next step for operators to anticipate and exploit the challenges of tomorrow’s data-driven world.

Following the large-scale introduction of HSPA, 3G network operators are already experiencing a massive increase in non-SMS mobile data traffic. Driven by applications such as consumer video, new networks with lower carriage costs per bit will be required to satisfy sustained growth in mobile broadband traffic over the next decade and beyond.

The white paper argues that HSPA+ and LTE technologies – deployed either in new or refarmed spectrum – will deliver spectral efficiencies capable of providing the required performance. The emergence of LTE as the next technology of choice for both 3GPP and non-3GPP networks will also result in unprecedented global economies of scale, further improving the cost per bit characteristics of these networks.

Based on an all-IP core plus a new radio interface based on OFDM, LTE promises downlink peak data rates up to 300 Mbps with increased spectral efficiency and more capacity for simultaneous users in the same cell.

LTE offers exceptional flexibility in the use of operators’ current and future spectrum assets. It can be deployed in either paired or unpaired spectrum: and while its full potential will be realised in bandwidths of up to 20MHz, it is also quite feasible to deploy LTE in far smaller tranches of just a few Megahertz.

A hallmark of LTE is the appearance of an Evolved Packet Core (EPC) network architecture, simplifying connectivity with 3GPP and 3GPP2 technologies as well as WiFi and fixed line broadband networks.

First technical deployments of LTE are expected in the second half of 2009, for commercial service openings between 2010 and 2012. The industry ecosystem that already surrounds LTE displays very strong operator and vendor commitment to LTE.

The phased release approach of 3GPP allows operators to introduce LTE in a flexible fashion, balancing their legacy network investments, spectrum holdings and business strategies for mobile broadband. The combination of multiband terminals with backwardly compatible infrastructure is central to this flexibility, allowing operators to build out service capability in line with device and spectrum availability. The deployment of LTE co-existing with WCDMA/HSPA promises to mirror the success of the deployment of WCDMA/HSPA co-existing with GSM/EDGE.

Industry support for LTE is not limited to the 3GPP community. LTE’s backward compatibility with 3GPP2 networks also raises the possibility of migration from CDMA2000 to LTE – as already signalled by several major operators in North America and Asia.

Looking beyond LTE, new access networks with wider spectrum bandwidths will eventually be needed to support anticipated dramatic increases of mobile traffic. Currently under study within the ITU, IMT-Advanced will support peak data rates of up to 100 Mbit/s for high mobility and up to 1 Gbit/s for low mobility scenarios. 3GPP will address these requirements in an upgrade for LTE networks referred to as “LTE-Advanced”.

Paper can be downloaded here.

The endless world of Mobile Apps is getting bigger

Mobile industry experts have warned the sudden rush of mobile application stores could cause confusion for publishers and advertisers.

Last week Microsoft, Nokia and Orange all announced the launch of app stores, joining the likes of Apple, O2, Samsung and Google Android as the industry bids to drive use of content services.


The move to mobile apps aims to offer consumers a richer experience than can be achieved via a mobile internet site. However, there's a risk that stores with different development requirements, marketing strategies and distribution methods will lead to market confusion.


At a recent CES session, Nick Montes, president of Viva! Vision, noted that people want three things from their cell phones. "They want to communicate, and they want to save time and kill time," he said.

It's probably not a coincidence that nearly every mobile application available can neatly fit into one of those categories. Whether consumers want to communicate with their friends via Facebook Mobile, save time by checking traffic with TeleNav or kill time with an iBeer, these and many other applications are available through a growing list of mobile application vendors. The question developers are undoubtedly asking is: Are they making as much money as they should be?


The world of mobile application stores is an increasingly fragmented one. Apple offers the App Store. Google has the Android Market. Nokia unveiled the Ovi Store. Microsoft will offer the Windows Marketplace. Palm's Pre store is in the works, and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) is building its inventory.


The fact that Handango advertises support for 1,000 devices and eight different platforms should suggest the complexity of the mobile applications market. The proliferation of new platforms and devices certainly doesn't make anyone's job easier.

"It's so inefficient," says Roger Entner, head of Telecom Research for The Nielsen Company. "I mean, there's a reason why retail has a lot of department stores and very few manufacturer stores. Ultimately, you hope device manufacturers and carriers will realize the value in having a more centralized application store."

For developers, the world of mobile apps can be feast or famine, with luck playing a big part in any success. Marketing an application as a single title in libraries that range from Apple's 15,000 titles to Handango's 140,000 can seem like an exercise in futility. Presently, developers are basically left to fend for themselves when it comes to getting the word out about their products.


Although rags to riches success stories are coming out of the App Store (iFart has reportedly sold 350,000 copies), Barnard recently reported that App Cubby only broke even, with $65,000 in revenue and $65,000 in expenses. Still, he's excited about being a part of the App Store and thinks that an open discourse about the store's strengths and flaws can mean better apps as well as better devices. "Besides," adds Barnard, "I never got into this to become a millionaire. What I'm really excited about is that the App Store has allowed me to run an international, sustainable business out of my home. Not to mention, I love doing it."


According to a new study, some smartphone owners spent as much on applications for their cell phones last year as they did on the devices themselves.

Call it the Apple App Store effect, says the ABI Research study on mobile storefronts. Despite having one of the smallest catalogs of all the development platforms -- now around 15,000 app titles compared to 85,000 each for Palm and RIM -- Apple's iPhone App Store has generated significant sales across the board.

As a result, this year more mobile application storefronts will be launched from Nokia, Palm, RIM and Samsung, said Orr.

The study, conducted in November, asked 235 U.S. smartphone users who installed applications on their devices in 2008 how much they had spent in the last 12 months. ABI found that almost 17 percent doled out between US$100 and $499 for mobile apps. The majority spent between zero cents and $100.

Considering how cheap most mobile apps are, starting for as little as a buck at Apple's App Store, that translates into a lot of downloads. There has also been a lot of excitement about mobile apps thanks to Apple heavily marketing its App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Of course, notes Orr, the downside is that Apple has created the expectation that all mobile apps should be as cheap as the ones it offers. On Dec. 31, 96 percent of the 12,000-plus titles in the App Store cost less than $10. That's cheap compared to the rest of the industry, which charges between $7 and $25 a pop.

Not everything in the App Store is truly a bargain, though. While some simple utilities go for less than $1, there are a number of professional apps that go for far more, like a stage lighting app called iRa Pro which costs $900.

ABI projects mobile app sales to rise from "hundreds of millions of dollars" this year to over a billion dollars in 2010.

Mobile Advertisement may help industry achieve salvation

I have blogged in past that mobile advertisement industry will probably grow and its the same feeling that has tempted companies like Nokia to jump in this arena. Unfortunately the latest news is that Nokia is planning to cut its workforce in the advertisement division:

Just a year after establishing a division dedicated to mobile advertising networks, Nokia has slashed half the UK-based unit's workforce, with the loss of about 30 jobs.

The numbers may not be huge in the context of major vendors' cutback programs, but it is indicative of the gap, in the short term at least, between Nokia's dreams of turning into a web services giant, and the reality of keeping its conventional business ticking over through a downturn.

All is not lost though. As more consumers surf the Web on handsets like the iPhone 3G, the U.S. market for local mobile search will balloon from $20 million in 2008 to $1.3 billion in 2013, according to a report from the Kelsey Group.

The report, "Going Mobile: The Mobile Local Media Opportunity," said only about 20% of U.S. cell phone subscribers are on the mobile Web right now, and only about 5.2 million are doing searches. Because of this, SMS advertising is the dominant form of mobile advertising.

But the firm said habits will change over the next few years, and more mobile data networks will get rolled out. Local search in particular will be a beneficiary, and it's expected to grow in volume from 28% to 35% by 2013.

There is also interesting analysis on Mobile Advertisement market in The Mobile Broadband Evolution whitepaper:

Mobile search ads are billed to create their own sector of business in the advertising space. According to ABI Research (Mobile Search Critical as Search Advertising Races Towards $5 Billion in 2013. ABI Research. 16 April 2008), the market for mobile search ads is projected to jump from $813 million in 2008 to $5 billion in 2013. Over the same period, SMS searches will increase nearly six-fold, from 13 billion to in excess of 76 billion.

Juniper Research expects nearly 1.3 billion users – 30% of the mobile subscriber base – to use local mobile search services by 2013.(Local Mobile Search Finds Favor. Juniper Research. 29 April 2008) Juniper believes that advertising supported local search will be the key to driving this sector, with the caveat that the effectiveness of advertising in this sector will vary widely according to local conditions. The best equipped regions are thought to be Western Europe and North America, as countries within these regions typically have good local digital information suppliers such as Yellow and White Pages, as well as good mapping data. Total mobile search revenues are expected to reach $4.8 billion by 2013 with the caution from Juniper that “advertising overload” might act as a disincentive to consumers.

Every six months, The Mobile Marketing Association updates its global Mobile Advertising Guidelines providing advertising guidelines and best practices necessary to implement mobile advertising initiatives, including mobile web banner, MMS messaging, downloadable applications and mobile TV and video. (Mobile Marketing Association Publishes Updated Global Mobile Advertising Guidelines. Mobile Marketing Association. 28 October 2008.) With guidelines in place, consumers can expect to see more ads on mobile phones. Informa Telecoms & Media projected the mobile advertising industry would be worth $1.72 billion in 2008 and will rise to $12.09 billion in 2013.(Mobile Advertising: Cutting Through the Hype, 2nd Edition. Informa Telecoms & Media. 10 July 2008) According to eMarketer, worldwide spending on mobile advertising reached nearly $2.7 billion in 2007 and was expectedo each $4.6 billion in 2008, rising to $19.1 billion by 2012. (eMarketer: Worldwide mobile ad spending to hit $19.1 billion by 2012. eMarketer. 27 March 2008.) Most ad dollars will go to text messaging; SMS, MMS text-messaging and mobile instant messaging. Mobile email will account for more than $14 billion of the $19 billion total expected in 2012; up from $2.5 billion in 2007. The expansion of display and search advertising on mobile phones worldwide is expected to reach $1.2 billion and $3.7 billion respectively by 2012.

Arthur D. Little predicts that in the coming years, mobile advertising is poised to be the next major digital media platform for brands to reach customers, and the key telecoms players have a great deal to gain from bringing their services to the market early. (Little, Arthur D. Report Forecasts 60% Annual Growth in Mobile Advertising over the Next 4 Years. 20 May 2008.) Roughly 60% annual growth in mobile advertising spending over the next four years is predicted in its 2008 report. Future mobile advertising formats will be more interactive and dynamic than online advertising or mobile advertising today, including call waiting, idle-screen advertisements, mobile TV ads, games and voicemail ads. Push ads via SMS/MMS are another traditional option. The Arthur D. Little report cites the Blyk case study: Blyk, a UK-based Mobile Virtual Network Operator, successfully launched large-scale mobile advertising to early adopters with a 29% response rate by using highly defined target groups and user data to achieve such a positive rate compared to .05% response rate for typical online marketing campaigns.

A report from GfK and social network website, Limbo revealed that mobile advertising awareness grew 33% in nine months, suggesting an increased allocation of advertising dollars to mobile formats through the first nine months of 2008. Nearly four out of ten, or 104 million, Americans with a mobile phone recall seeing advertising on their devices between the months of July and September 2008, marking the first time the number of Americans aware of mobile advertising has exceeded 100 million in a three month period. (More Than 100 Million Americans Viewed Mobile Ads in Q3 2008. Cellular-News. 3 November 2008) The most commonly viewed mobile ads were in the form of SMS messages, reaching 60 million consumers – a 42% increase in nine months. The report also noted that although Mobile Web advertising had about half the reach of SMS ads, it also saw strong growth, with 31 million people recalling ads in this format.

A report by Media Analyst Screen Digest examined the emerging market for rich media advertising delivered to consumers via their mobile phone in the form of TV, video, games, user-generated content (UGC) and music. Screen Digest projects the market for rich media advertising on mobile will reach $2.79 billion by 2012, with global mobile TV advertising accounting for the lion’s share at $2.44 billion. By 2012, advertising will account for 20% of mobile TV revenues. The reason for success? More ubiquitous than the PC, the mobile method offers the opportunity to send personalized messages to people in all markets. Advertising sent via mobile phones reaches the recipient directly, wherever they are, at any time and location, offering effective targeting as well as interactivity and consumer engagement. “The potential is huge, and some of the world’s largest companies are vying for control of what they see as the next major advertising medium,” stated David MacQueen, co-author of the report.(Mobile Advertising Using Rich Media Formats. Screen Digest. 29 April 2008.)

Key findings of survey conducted by Transverse and iGR consultancy provided insight to mobile customers’ phone use and their willingness to view advertisements in exchange for discounts to their monthly service bill. “Mobile advertising has taken on many forms, and is generally considered to be obtrusive. But when consumers are given the choice to receive ads and share their usage patterns in exchange for discounts, mobile advertising has the potential to be highly targeted and highly effective,” stated Iain Gillott, President of iGR. (Survey Finds 61 Percent of Mobile Users Would Agree to View Advertising for Discount on Monthly Bill. FierceWireless. 18 November 2008.) Among those surveyed, 46% said that a 25 to 50% discount on their monthly bill was enough of an incentive to provide access to their usage patterns, including browsing, email and texting habits, as well as location – but not personal information such as the content of texts and emails.