Tag Archive
Kaira Calls For Help to Hunza Landslide Victims: Telenor Presents Rs. 2 mln For Affectees
Minister for Information and Broadcasting Qamar Zaman Kaira Thursday asked civil society, corporate sector and philanthropists to come forward and help government in its relief and rehabilitation effort for victims of recent land-slide in Attabad, Hunza. The Minister, who is also Governor of Gilgit-Baltistan was talking to Vice President Corporate Affairs of Telenor,... »
US, Pakistan Further Expand Bilateral Cooperation in IT Field
The U.S and Pakistani officials agreed to enhance bilateral cooperation in the fields of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and evolving a cooperation program for deploying socially relevant services using mobile phones and other IT platforms. This was agreed during the meeting of Ambassador Richard Holbrooke Special Representative of US for Afghanistan and Pakistan and... »
Australian telcos eye 4G networks in government spectrum sale
Telstra, Optus and Vodafone Hutchison have begun formulating responses to the federal government’s proposed auction of broadcast spectrum, which is expected to lead to the creation of a high-speed 4G mobile broadband network. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has issued a green paper that argues that a “digital dividend” of spectrum vacated by the switch... »
What is Mobile Number Portability?
In Pakistan, an independent body – Pakistan MNP Database (PMD) was setup by Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA), with the specific purpose of managing the implementation of MNP. The PMD is set to have a 14 member dedicated staff, with the entire project costing Rs. 4-5 billion (US$66 million – US$82 million) with US$10 million... »
BT protest over mobile 3G licences falls on deaf ears
Lord Mandelson is to forge ahead with a consultation to extend indefinitely mobile phone companies’ 3G licences, despite the threat of a judicial review from BT. The fixed-line phone group has written a “letter before action” to the Business Secretary, condemning plans to hand over for good the valuable licences to Vodafone and its peers... »
Mobile operators square off in network infrastructure envy
The paralysingly dull subject of mobile network infrastructure became a hot consumer topic in 2009. It is likely to become even bigger news in 2010, as mobile operators slug it out over which has the best network. Infrastructure became a talking point when O2’s network started to fail in London last summer because data-hungry smartphones,... »
eWeek Says To Expect More From GoogleVoice in 2010
Check out the eWeek article about GoogleVoice and Gizmo. Seems the Nexus One isn't the only thing that Google is now "leaking" over. Here's what I think. 1) Gizmo5's assets brings GoogleVoice the missing soft client on multiple platforms except the iPhone. That will have to wait. Macs, PCs, Symbian and Android will be their markets... »
Code That Protects Most Mobile Phone Calls Is Divulged
A German computer engineer said Monday that he had deciphered and published the secret code used to encrypt most of the world’s digital mobile phone calls, in what he called an attempt to expose weaknesses in the security of global wireless systems. The action by the encryption expert, Karsten Nohl, aimed to question the effectiveness... »
The State of Google Voice on The iPhone
The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) sums up fairly concisely just what is up with the status of Google Voice on the iPhone. If Google GIVES the Nexus One to all GoogleVoice customers, with some kind of incentive to move to T-Mobile, it will initially be AT&T who suffers. Do you remember the old days when... »
Top Stories of 2009: Acquisitions – VoIP on Sale
Despite the economy, the VoIP and UC market had a few big buys. Some were fraught with negotiation, litigation or last minute actors swooping in from nowhere. Here are a few notable deals worth noting in 2009: Avaya buys Nortel ES – In June, Nortel began selling off its various units and it was only a... »
PTA Annual Telecom Report 2008-09
Every year Pakistan Telecommunication Authority publish a PTA Annual Report covering all the major sectors of our telecommunication industry. The report is very useful for all those people who are either part of the telecommunication industry or are associated with it. This report also helps analyst in their analysis of Pakistan Telecom sector since... »
Another Landmark Step of PTA to Protect Consumer Rights
On the basis of recently concluded Quality of Service (QoS) Survey of mobile phone operators, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has issued Show Cause notices to five mobile phone operators of Pakistan. These results were shared with the mobile phone companies along with instructions to improve their service quality. A reasonable time was also given to... »
The State of Global WiMAX: The 2009 Report
No disrespect to Clearwire, but I’ve long maintained that the future of WiMAX, the wireless broadband technology is outside of the U.S. The end of 2009 report issued by The WiMAX Forum has only reaffirmed my belief. According to the report: There are 519 wireless broadband Internet deployments based upon WiMAX in 146 countries around... »
The 21st Century Phone
Give Charlie Stross a read on his well authored post on his blog, Charlie's Diary. My take is simply this. If you have GoogleVoice in calling party pays environment, you can eliminate a large monthly base mobile bill for unlimited minutes, because every call is received back to you after being triggered by the data... »
Gartner Says Worldwide Mobile Device Sales on Pace for Flat Growth in 2009, Increase 9 Per Cent in 2010
Stronger than expected sales in Western Europe and an acceleration in the grey market in the third quarter of this year will drive worldwide mobile device sales to end users to 1.214 billion units, a 0.67 per cent decline from 2008, according to the latest outlook by Gartner, Inc. In September, Gartner had forecast... »
Trai moves to curb Indian telecom tariff wars
Rock bottom rates and tariff wars among mobile operators might soon be a thing of the past with sector regulator Trai deciding to intervene in the market and end years of forbearance. Operators would then have to present a business case each time they come out with a tariff package. Only once the regulator... »
HotSpots Are Hot
Let’s face it, the idea of WiFi by the major mobile operators in the USA has been more trial and error, or when they chose to explore it, for the most part it was more like seeing someone dip their toes in the water in the past, as in reality only T-Mobile and to... »
How To Make Phone Calls With An iPod Touch…On The Go!
My friends at Truphone point out an interesting offering by 3 UK that is potentially very interesting as a way to save money and be constantly connected while on the go. You can basically get an iPod Touch and a 3G Wifi modem for free upon the subscription of a plan for about £24 /... »
KPN makes final offer on iBasis
KPN, a Dutch telecom group, impoved its terms for the takeover of wholesale voice provider iBasis. KPN made its final offer for 44 percent of IBasis shares for $3 a share in cash. This represented an increase from its original $2.25 a share offer it made last month. iBasis provides international long distance telephone calls... »
Will Your Cellular Company Be The Same Company In A Year?
Rethink Wireless has a trolling piece out today about the potential changing landscape in the USA cellular/mobile marketplace. I think we will see a MetroPCS/Leap (i.e. Cricket) link up next year and then a roll up of T-Mobile. Either that or first a roll up into Sprint, and then T-Mobile taking over Sprint and Vodafone... »
T-Mobile- You Got Some Explaining To Do
Yesterday, on Monday around 1230 PM I was in Silicon Valley and couldn’t call any of my staff on their T-Mobile phones. What I was getting was “sorry, all circuits are busy.” Well it seems by today, the problem I first detected had gotten much, much worse. I tried calling from my T-Mobile phone, then... »
Google and Skype Beware-You’re Getting Taxed
It seems the city of Vallejo California wants to tax texting, other wise known as SMS. So why is this important? Well if you use GoogleVoice you have the option of having your messages delivered via SMS, as well email. Skype has a similar function, as do other companies which work with middlemen like... »
Traffic Pumping or Pimping
Let.s face it, if you use GoogleVoice like I do, you have the benefit of a very reliable, easy to use, one number solution with voice mail, message transcription, with an elegant call back solution that offers convenience and capabilities not currently offered by any on the US local carriers or mobile operators in... »
EU ready for wireless broadband on GSM frequencies
The path has been cleared today for a new generation of mobile services in Europe with the publication in the EU’s Official Journal of new measures that allow 3G phones to use GSM frequencies. This follows the European Parliament and Council of Ministers’ agreement, in July (IP/09/1192), to modernise European legislation – the GSM... »
Will the Amazon / AT&T Kindle Deal Herald the Arrival of ‘Dumb Roaming Pipes’?
Dean Bubley submits: Reading between the lines of the Amazon (AMZN) Kindle 2 announcement, it seems that Amazon may have worked out a method for solving one of mobile application and device developers’ biggest problems: how to avoid hiring an army of lawyers and commercial personnel to put in place deals with 100+ mobile... »
Telco 2.0-Super Brief on Google Voice, Lattitude and Why It’s A Threat to Telcos
Earlier in the week I shared my views with some friends about why I felt Google Voice was being viewed as a threat by Apple-because it’s about the control of the data around the call, not the voice. Today the folks at Telco 2.0 shared a brief with me, that pretty much aligns with that... »
Mask and Gun or Just Very Smart?
Florian Seroussi is saying Google Voice is a Missed Robbery Attempt along the information highway. I’ll call that “highway robbery” as his post today is very thought provoking but as a former sports guy, and being it’s football season, I’d say GoogleVoice really is all about splitting the seams and throwing a touchdown... »
WiMax industry hoping for economic stimulus boost
Companies working on Wimax high-speed mobile data technology are hoping government stimulus packages inject billions of dollars into wireless broadband, boosting take-up of the new technology. WiMax has been competing for the status of next generation mobile technology, but has largely lost the battle to Long Term Evolution (LTE), which has become mobile operators’ favoured... »
Emerging Market Mobile Merger
The potential merger announced last last night Bharti Airtel of India and the MTN Group of South Africa may have shocked some folks, but not me. I’m a big believer that just like with cable television and telephony here in the USA we’re going to be seeing more and more consolidation in the mobile... »
Wireless Access Needs to Grow
Wired has a story about wireless Internet access, calling the questions as to why we have so little of it. It's timely, especially in light of the nations (and likely the worlds) looming data network access crush wirelessly until fatter pipe access becomes more ubiquitous. Let's start with some history. The mobile operators didn't really embrace... »