Mobile phone market turns corner in Q3, more gains likely in Q4

FRAMINGHAM, USA: The worldwide mobile phone market saw mild sequential growth in the third quarter (3Q09), according to IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker. Year-on-year growth remained negative, but improved from the first half of 2009. Mobile phone shipments totaled 287.1 million units worldwide in 3Q09, down 6 percent from a year earlier, but up 5.6 percent from the second quarter.

"The mobile phone market is showing the first signs of improvement since the onset of the economic crisis," says Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC's Mobile Devices Technology and Trends team.

"During the third quarter, we saw a number of channels promoting older devices at significantly lower prices. For many, this was enough to spur demand and push volumes higher. Now that we have moved into the fourth quarter, vendors are setting the stage for further gains by launching their flagship devices to meet pent-up demand."

"Although some regions are still reeling from problems associated with the economic crisis, the third quarter served to cleanse the channel while providing the signs of stability necessary for additional improvement in the fourth quarter," says Will Stofega, research manager of IDC's Mobile Devices Technology and Trends team.

"Despite the outlook for a slower economic recovery, we think vendors should increase R&D spending as well as engage in a broad portfolio review in order to ensure the best competitive stance as the market recovers."

Regional analysis
The North American market posted mixed results for 3Q09. The United States posted positive results, with converged mobile devices and prepaid handsets once again driving growth.

Meanwhile, the Canadian mobile phone market declined for the third straight quarter despite double-digit converged mobile device growth. The tepid Canadian economy, shrinking traditional phone segment, and inventory clear out by the largest service providers led to the market's weaker three-month performance.

The Latin American mobile phone market did not experience a strong recovery in 3Q09 as expected. Longer replacement cycles, anemic user demand, and decreased handset subsidies in select countries all negatively impacted shipment volumes during the quarter.

Challenges are expected still as Mexico, one of the key countries in Latin America, will experience a 'perfect storm' of tax increases for telco services, personal taxes, and value-added taxes, which will all negatively impact handset sales.

The Western European market showed strong signs of recovery. For the first time this year, both traditional mobile phone and converged mobile device shipments increased year over year as well as sequentially. The price erosion from converged mobile devices and low-end handsets contributed to this vitality along with the new feature phones from LG and Samsung targeting mid-tier segments.

In CEMA, the market continued to recover from the previous three months but was still depressed in comparison with a year ago. Nokia lost ground in converged mobile devices while LG gained on rivals with double-digit growth as total market volumes continued to decline.

The third quarter was a weaker than anticipated in Asia/Pacific, with total shipments down slightly from a year ago. Key emerging markets, including China, India, and Indonesia, all posted slight declines, signaling that recovery may take longer than expected. Still, demand for converged mobile devices was strong, posting double-digit increases year over year.

Top five mobile phone vendors
Nokia experienced continued pressure during 3Q09 in its Devices and Services group. The company reported a 20 percent decrease in revenue, ASP decline, and a shortage of components across its product portfolio.

Even its tight hold on the converged mobile device category was loosened as the company cited a market share decrease from 41 percent to an estimated 35 percent. This did not keep Nokia from enhancing its services arm, acquiring cellity, Doplr, and assets from Plum Ventures.

Samsung reached a new record by shipping more than 60 million units in a single quarter. This puts the company well within reach of achieving its goal of shipping 200 million units in 2009.

Driving growth was a combination of touchscreen-enabled and QWERTY messaging devices going into developed markets as well as key models within emerging markets. Looking to 4Q09, Samsung is poised to launch strategic converged mobile devices running on Android and Linux.

LG Electronics breached the 30 million unit mark for the first time in its history. Nearly half of those units sold for less than $100, making them handsome purchases for carriers. Still, the company was vulnerable in Korea and North America.

Moreover, the lack of converged mobile devices and handsets for prepaid services prevented LG from capitalizing on growth opportunities in these segments. LG expects to launch Android and Windows converged mobile devices in 4Q09, while boosting its profile in India and China, improving its competitive position in the near term.

Sony Ericsson marked Hideki Komiyama's final quarter as president of the company. During his tenure, Sony Ericsson realized improved operational efficiencies and cost reduction to increase profitability.

However, the lack of entry-level devices during the economic recession left the company vulnerable as its competitors were able to keep up with shifting demand. That trend appears to continue as a list of mid-range and high-end devices are set to launch in 4Q09 and Bert Nordberg, head of Ericsson Silicon Valley, assumes Komiyama's position.

Motorola slipped to fifth place, but in the process the company reported progress in its restructuring campaign. In addition to reducing its operating losses for the second consecutive quarter, Motorola announced its much anticipated Android-powered converged mobile device, the CLIQ/DEXT, as well as its new DROID.

The company announced that it would shift its resources towards converged mobile devices and away from traditional mobile phones in 2010, a move the company hopes will improve gross margins and reduce operating losses.Source: IDC

291.1mn mobile handsets shipped in 3Q-2009

NEW YORK, USA: “The outlook for mobile handset markets continues to improve”, says Jake Saunders, ABI Research’s VP for Forecasting. “While 3Q-2009 showed a YoY 6.5 percent contraction in shipments to 291.1 million, 2009 should close out with only a 4-5 percent contraction (to 1,138 million for the year).”

Handset vendors are starting to mutter confidently of 4Q-2009 cash tills jingling to the tune of robust handset sales. In 3Q-2009, North America and Asia-Pacific helped to spearhead a recovery. In North America, the avid enthusiasm for smartphones was the driver. In Asia-Pacific, recovery in the local economies has been stoking interest in upgrades.

Market shares are starting to thaw. Nokia saw its market share slip from 38.3 percent to 37.3 percent in 3Q-2009. Samsung continues to steam ahead, raising its market share to 20.7 percent. Despite some very novel handset model introductions in 2Q-2009, LG’'s market share softened in 3Q-2009 (10.9 percent).

All of the other vendors either held their ground or lost a small amount of market share. The prime exception is Apple: its iPhone range of smartphones increased its market share from 1.9 percent to 2.5 percent. There have been arguments that Apple’'s limited handset line-up will constrain growth, but for the mid-term, ABI Research does not expect any slowdown in Apple’'s market-share growth.

“Despite the successes of the iPhone operating system, the leading player in the smartphone OS market is still very much Symbian (48 percent), followed by Blackberry (18 percent),” notes practice director Kevin Burden.

“The ‘dark horse’ in all this is Android.” This week Motorola announced the launch of its navigation-friendly “Droid” handset. As the list of vendors committed to releasing Android handsets expands, product momentum should translate into increased Android sales. ABI Research estimates Android could capture 10 percent of the smartphone market by 2014.

Smartphones are not the only handset segment to drive the market. GPS is also becoming a very desirable feature of handsets. By the end of 2009, ABI Research estimates, 21 percent of all handsets shipped this year will have onboard GPS.

Global handset shipments fall 4 percent in Q3 2009, but return to growth expected in Q4

BOSTON, USA: According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, global mobile handset shipments fell 4 percent year-over-year, to reach 291 million units in Q3 2009.

The rate of decline was slower than the previous quarter, as the market edged toward recovery. We forecast the handset industry to return to positive growth in the fourth quarter of 2009, signaling an end to the recession.

Bonny Joy, Senior Analyst at Strategy Analytics said: “Global mobile handset shipments fell to 291 million units during Q3 2009, down 4 percent from 304 million units in Q3 2008. The four-percent shrinkage was a noticeable improvement on the average decline of 11 percent recorded during the previous three quarters between Q4 2008 and Q2 2009. The handset market is edging toward recovery.”

Neil Mawston, Director at Strategy Analytics, added: “We forecast 300 million handsets to be shipped worldwide in Q4 2009, growing 3 percent from 294 million units in Q4 2008. We believe that this will be the first time the industry has returned to positive growth since Q3 2008, signaling an end to the handset recession after four quarters of decline. Consumers and handset vendors are gradually regaining a little confidence.”

Other findings from Strategy Analytics’ Q3 2009 Global Handset Market Share Update report include:

* Samsung shipped 60.2 million handsets worldwide and captured a record 21 percent market share in Q3 2009. Samsung now sits alongside Nokia and Motorola as the only three vendors to have passed the 20 percent threshold during the past decade;

* LG Electronics shipped 31.6 million handsets worldwide during Q3 2009, for 11 percent market share. The South Korean vendors Samsung and LG captured almost one-third of the entire global handset market between them. Attractive touchscreen handset portfolios and a growing retail presence have been the keys to the companies’ success;

Apple shipped a healthy 7.4 million iPhones worldwide in Q3 2009, for a record 2.5 percent market share. Apple is expanding its distribution networks into all major regions worldwide and this is driving its volume growth.

Global Mobile Handset Shipments and Marketshare – Top 5 VendorsSource: Strategy Analytics

ADC and Tyco reach FTTX licensing agreement

MINNEAPOLIS, USA: ADC announced that Tyco Electronics has taken a license to certain ADC patents directed to fiber-to-the-premises (FTTX) technology.

The licensing agreement between the two fiber optic connectivity market leaders settles existing litigation between the companies. ADC’s patents relate to fiber distribution hubs, optical splitter modules and fiber drop terminals that are widely deployed in the FTTX environment.

For ADC, the license provides acknowledgment of the company’s FTTX patent portfolio by another industry leader in the FTTX market. “ADC has an industry standard license available to our FTTX portfolio,” said Jaxon Lang, vice president Global Connectivity Solutions Americas for ADC.

“With Tyco Electronics agreeing to take a license to ADC’s portfolio, it provides recognition of the value of our portfolio by companies making fiber distribution hubs and fiber drop terminals for the FTTX market.”

In its patent case, ADC alleged that Tyco Electronics infringed various ADC patents, including ADC’s U.S. Patent Nos. 7,200,317 (“the ‘317 patent”), 7,233,731 (“the ‘731 patent”) and 7,407,330 (“the ‘330 patent”), which are directed to fiber distribution hubs, and ADC’s U.S. Patent Nos. 7,397,997 (“the ‘997 patent) and 7,400,815 (“the ‘815 patent”), which are directed to fiber drop terminals.

Tyco Electronics also asserted one of its patents, which was assigned to ADC as part of the settlement.

Strategies for mobile industry to maximize rural India opportunity

HYDERABAD, INDIA: According to a new report from Ovum, rural India presents significant growth opportunities for the mobile industry. However, due to low ARPU and the higher cost of providing services in rural India, operators face the challenging task of serving these areas profitably.

”Due to huge population base, low teledensity and strong socio-economic developments, rural India is becoming an important growth frontier for the mobile industry”, said Amit Gupta, Principal Analyst, based in India. However, half of the rural population is too poor to afford even the cheapest handset, and among those who can afford one, a mobile phone is likely to be a family device as opposed to an individual one.

“Despite a huge rural population and low teledensity, the addressable market in the short to medium term is less than 200 million unique subscribers out of a total population of more than 800 million.” explains Gupta, author of this research.

While low spending power of end customers has adverse impact on adoption and ARPU, limited electrification, a lack of backhaul and the poor state of road connectivity make deploying and operating a wireless network in rural areas expensive. Therefore, mobile business case in much of rural India is very challenging.

To overcome these challenges, operators need to shift their primary focus from increasing ARPU and penetration to maximising total revenue and profit from the servable rural subscribers.

It can be achieved by adopting a comprehensive rural strategy comprising service and product innovation and operational excellence; partnering with the government, non-government organisations and non-telecoms players; and employing local entrepreneurs. “These levers are mutually reinforcing and can help industry players to meet the dual objectives of increasing revenues and reducing costs,” adds Amit Gupta.

The industry’s success in rural India so far can be attributed to efforts in the areas of service and product innovation, operational excellence, partnering with non-government organizations, and employing local entrepreneurs. “However, we believe that the industry needs to further explore partnership opportunities with the government and non-telecoms companies,” said Gupta.

Amit Gupta says: “Operators can circumvent the poverty constraints of rural India to a certain extent by forming partnerships with the government and non-telecoms companies to charge them, rather than the poor end customers, for providing mobile services”. “The government and non-telecoms companies get a reliable medium to connect with rural India, and operators get new revenue streams. It’s a win-win solution.”

CSR, Realtek deliver Bluetooth v3.0 + HS and 802.11n into PCs and netbooks

CAMBRIDGE, UK: CSR announced that it has partnered with one of Taiwan’'s leading wireless communication IC design houses, Realtek, to deliver a family of Bluetooth v3.0 + High Speed (HS) and 802.11n module designs for the PC and netbook markets

These CSR PC BlueCore-based designs support the latest Bluetooth SIG specifications to enable high data transfer speeds by using the PC’s Wi-Fi radio to cope with larger file sizes.

In addition to its implementation of the CSR9000 platform, already driving Bluetooth v3.0+HS in embedded markets, CSR is now also enabling complete wireless solutions for the PC market using the CSR PC BlueCore in partnership with Realtek.

The PC and netbook markets are a growing opportunity for CSR’s Bluetooth silicon. This partnership with Realtek forms an integral part of CSR’s ongoing strategy in the PC market and elsewhere to provide the benefits of Bluetooth and other short range wireless technologies to as many customers as possible.

Bluetooth'’s huge success and high attach rate in mobile devices has been down to its ease-of-use, power-efficiency and flexibility. Bluetooth v3.0 + HS builds on this success with the Alternate MAC/PHY (AMP) specification which combines the best of two technologies; the familiar interface and the option of low-power operation inherent to Bluetooth, and the speed of Wi-Fi.

Thanks to the AMP architecture defined by the Bluetooth SIG, these new modules can switch between CSR’s PC BlueCore Bluetooth radio and Realtek’s Wi-Fi radio seamlessly while transferring small or large files such as word documents or videos from a notebook to a handset. In this way the modules can ensure maximum speed and power efficiency while only presenting one unified interface to the user.

“CSR was amongst the first companies to qualify a Bluetooth v3.0 + HS product and this partnership is the next step in delivering the high-speed, power efficient data transfer rates of Bluetooth v3.0 to the PC and netbook markets,” said Anthony Murray, Senior Vice President of CSR’s Audio and Consumer Business Unit.

“Our strategy through this partnership is to give our customers the flexibility to combine our best-in-class Bluetooth platform with their preferred Wi-Fi supplier.”

“Thanks to the partnership with CSR we can offer our customers a low cost and highly effective way to integrate the latest Bluetooth and Wi-Fi technology,” said Luke Huang, Vice President of Realtek Communications Network Business Unit. “CSR is a market leader in Bluetooth and its silicon contributes to our module delivering industry-leading connectivity to PC and netbook users.”

Realtek'’s 802.11n single-chip in 65nm LP process technology combines with CSR’s PC BlueCore to enable fully designed PCIe half minicards with high speed Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to benefit PC and netbooks users.

CDMA Development Group becomes market representation partner for 3GPP

DENVER, USA: The CDMA Development Group (CDG) today announced that it has been accepted as a Market Representation Partner (MRP) by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). Under this strategic marketing partnership, the CDG agrees to facilitate the interworking of CDMA2000 and LTE technologies on behalf of the CDMA community to support future LTE deployments.

Likewise, the CDG's status as an MRP strengthens 3GPP's LTE advocacy amongst existing CDMA operators as they seek to expand their market leadership by complementing their 3G CDMA offerings with OFDM-based technologies.

At a signing ceremony, Perry LaForge, executive director of the CDG, said: "The CDG is pleased to accept this role as an MRP for 3GPP. CDMA2000 operators will be among the first to augment their 3G CDMA networks with LTE, and representing the interests of 3GPP to the CDMA community will help ensure that the technology succeeds commercially."

At least a dozen CDMA2000 operators are already making plans to deploy LTE for next-generation mobile broadband services. Verizon Wireless has set an aggressive timeline for its LTE deployment, planning to launch in two markets by the end of 2009 and 30-35 markets by the end of 2010.

These operators will continue to rely on their CDMA2000 1X networks for circuit-switched voice services and 1xEV-DO networks for ubiquitous mobile broadband as they supplement their current 3G services with LTE.

The CDG will draw upon a decade of experience as an MRP with the 3rd Generation Partnership Project 2 (3GPP2), where it has helped define market requirements during the development of several CDMA-based standards.

The CDG brings a unique perspective to the standards development process for LTE and LTE Advanced, particularly for addressing interworking between OFDM and CDMA2000 technologies to meet the needs of these first-adopter CDMA operators.

ZTE announces DOCSIS compliant EPON solution for US market

DENVER, USA: ZTE USA Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of ZTE Corp., announced the availability of its industry-leading DOCSIS compliant Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON) solution, which allows multiple system operators (MSO’s) to deploy optical distribution network architectures for residential, commercial and mobile backhaul applications.

The new solution enables MSO’s to leverage their fibre resources to deploy EPON based multi-play services without any changes to the existing DOCSIS-based back-office system. All new EPON services are provisioned with MSO’s existing mature DOCSIS back-office system.

ZTE'’s highly integrated network equipment and new DOCSIS control plane enables MSO’s to compete with the telecommunication operators in the overlay market, maximize revenues on new services and future-proof existing networks, delivering savings on routine maintenance, operational costs and other additional capital expenditures.

ZTE’s DOCSIS compliant EPON solution allows MSO’s to deliver additional customer services via adaptable optical network units (ONUs) that support HSD, VoIP, video (IPTV or RF overlay) and mobile backhaul services.

Now MSO’s are able to take a more competitive approach to the market by offering value added service capabilities to support residential, commercial and mobile backhaul applications.

Symbian Foundation welcomes Fujitsu as new board member

TOKYO, JAPAN & LONDON, UK: Fujitsu Ltd and the Symbian Foundation announced Fujitsu’'s appointment to the Symbian Foundation board of directors.

Fujitsu joins wireless carriers AT&T, Vodafone, NTT DOCOMO, silicon providers ST Microelectronics NV and Texas Instruments, and handset manufacturers Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and Nokia as an Appointing OEM Member on the Symbian Foundation board.

Fujitsu has accepted all rights and obligations of a foundation Appointing OEM Board Member that includes supporting the foundation with both a financial commitment and active participation on the four foundation Councils that govern the development of the Symbian Platform. Fujitsu brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise in the open source community and many technological firsts on Symbian.

Japan is one of the most advanced mobile markets in the world. Symbian is the platform behind the FOMA MOAP(S) phones on the DOCOMO wireless network in Japan.

Fujitsu contributed to the development of MOAP(S), and to date, more than 40 million Symbian-based phones have shipped in the Japanese market. Working with the Symbian Foundation, Fujitsu will address future market requirements and platform advancements that enrich the Symbian mobile user experience.

"We believe Fujitsu will continue to bring a wealth of experience in making consumer focused multimedia handsets with new user experience to the Symbian Foundation drawing on the successes of the innovative firsts Fujitsu has offered on Symbian," said Lee Williams, Executive Director, Symbian Foundation.

“Fujitsu is pleased to join and contribute to the Symbian Foundation as a Board member. With eight years' experience in developing Symbian OS based mobile phones and commercializing cutting-edge mobile phones for NTT DOCOMO, we will further drive activities to develop the foundation and the Symbian platform,” said Nobuo Ohtani, President, Mobile Phones Unit, Fujitsu Ltd.

Infinera brings efficiency to metro CATV networks

SUNNYVALE, USA: Infinera will provide a live demonstration of its new ATN metro WDM edge platform and its interworking with Infinera's market-leading DTN platform at the 2009 SCTE Expo, the leading trade show for the cable television industry.

The new ATN platform brings the benefits of Infinera's Digital Optical Networks architecture to the edge of the network, providing cable operators with a seamless end-to-end managed WDM solution. The DTN platform is well established as a class-leading digital transport solution for cable networks.

With the introduction of the compact and flexible ATN, Infinera now provides an end-to-end solution for cable operators as well as traditional carriers. Infinera products are now carrying live traffic across all segments of the DWDM market.

The ATN is designed to offer seamless integration with an Infinera DTN network with a common network management system, enabling end-to-end service provisioning and service visibility. By eliminating back-to-back transponders at network interconnection points, an ATN/DTN network delivers savings in capital expenditures, while extending Infinera's well-known ease of operation to the metro edge.

An ATN network, in combination with a DTN network can offer end-to-end integrated OTN bandwidth management for traffic transiting the network, leveraging Infinera's integrated digital bandwidth management.

The ATN also provides a best-in-class, high-density platform for stand-alone metro C/DWDM applications, including video and broadband backhaul, commercial service extension and data center connectivity. The ease of operation and powerful management software provide robust network management options from the smallest to the largest networks, enabling operators to minimize network operational expenditures.

The Infinera ATN is a compact, metro optical transport platform delivering up to 40 DWDM or 8 CWDM wavelengths on a single fiber pair. Utilizing flexible Service Interface Modules (SIMs) with fully pluggable line-side and client-side interfaces, the ATN offers flexible configurations to simplify and accelerate network deployment.

The ATN has been designed to offer best-in-class density and power consumption in a small form factor. It is designed to support all metro transport services, including Ethernet, SAN, SONET/SDH, OTN and video services.

Mobile computing devices, handsets drive 409 million unit Wi-Fi device market

BOSTON, USA: The number of Wi-Fi systems shipped per year grew from 59 million units in 2005 to 409 million forecast to be shipped in 2009, a seven-fold increase, driven by notebook PCs, Smart Phones and Wi-Fi gaming consoles.

According to the Strategy Analytics report, “Connected Home & Portable Devices: Global Market Forecast and Outlook,” shipments of Notebook and Netbook PCs, all equipped with Wi-Fi, will grow at the expense of desktop PCs; while at the same time, higher-stream 802.11n systems will serve the multimedia needs of consumers in the home.

“Now that IEEE 802.11n has received ratification as a global standard, Strategy Analytics expects to see strong sales of 11n-enabled devices. By the end of 2010 they will ship in more than half of all Wi-Fi systems” said Peter King Director of the Connected Home Devices Service.

He continued: “This will enable Wi-Fi to drive deeper into the consumer electronics range of products. An initial market dominated by computing and gaming becomes a much more evenly-spread, Wi-Fi-connected market.”

Aurora Networks debuts RFPON, GEPON CPEs for cable market

DENVER, USA: Aurora Networks, Inc. has introduced GEPON CPE and RFPON CPE (customer premises equipment) devices for the cable market, solutions that will help cable operators evolve their networks for an all-fiber future.

The CPEs are debuting at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo 2009, taking place Oct. 28-30 in Denver. The devices are part of Aurora Networks’ slate of award-winning RFPON solutions, recognized throughout the industry for enabling cable operators to take advantage of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) architectures. The solutions also allow operators to future-proof their systems by providing a seamless migration path for the inclusion of PON services.

The RFPON CPE (CP8016U-55-42) and GEPON CPE (CP8000N-66-45) are designed for outdoor and indoor mounting, a unique feature given that most similar devices can only support indoor applications. The devices can be utilized in both residential and commercial settings and the CPEs are IEEE 802.3ah (EPON) compatible.

The RFPON CPE provides all of the functionality of Aurora Networks’ traditional RFoG CPE, but with 1610 nm upstream wavelength for PON compatibility. The GEPON CPE, with 1310 nm upstream wavelength, is the first such device in Aurora Networks’ CP8000N family and is designed to co-exist with the company’s new RFPON CPE. With the company'’s Node PON™ OLT module, operators can now benefit from a one-stop shop as they roll out GEPON services.

The RFPON and GEPON CPEs provide additional support for Aurora Networks’ RFPON solution, which took honors as the top video/data/voice last mile transmission technology in Cable and Satellite International magazine’s annual awards held on Sept. 11, 2009, in Amsterdam.

Dr. Roger Blakeway, president of SCTE Europe and a member of the CSI Awards judging panel, said he was impressed with the RFPON platform’s ability to allow cable operators to cost-effectively upgrade to a more energy-efficient next generation network. “The product provides a simple and compact solution to providing all-fiber architectures, and the associated ‘green’ credentials made it an obvious winner,” Blakeway said.

Aurora Networks’ RFPON platform supports cable operators in their deployment of FTTH networks. These solutions are customized for operators as they extend fiber-supported service offerings into new residential, business park and multi-dwelling unit markets.

The products are compatible with RF over Glass (RFoG) and standard PON-based applications, allowing cable operators to roll out advanced FTTH networks without changing the integrity of their headend or back-office technology.

Zeugma releases SDK for Zeugma Services Node (ZSN)

VANCOUVER: Zeugma Systems, a supplier of open telecommunications solutions for broadband service providers (BSPs), released a software development kit (SDK) for its flagship product, the Zeugma Services Node (ZSN).

The SDK leverages the scalable and fully federated compute grid which is inherent to the ZSN, allowing service providers and third parties to quickly and easily develop custom applications capable of running directly within the ZSN. This capability provides visibility and control over network resources heretofore not possible in a carrier-grade broadband aggregation, subscriber management, and edge routing device.

The Zeugma SDK provides APIs that give applications direct access to the subscriber management, routing, traffic management, and compute capabilities within the ZSN. Using these APIs, applications can “push” rules down into the data plane, instructing deep session inspection (DSI) technology to copy or intercept certain traffic flows up to the application for analysis and processing.

Applications are also able to dynamically modify traffic management aspects of the data plane with individual per-subscriber, per-session granularity. Zeugma’'s SmartBoost application, developed using the SDK, exemplifies the ease with which new service-enabling applications can be deployed.

Michael Howard, principal analyst with Infonetics Research, views the ability to rapidly develop and implement new applications as “an essential feature for Telco 2.0 network operators.

It has been proven many times over that closed development systems are inherently limiting-opening these systems to innovation from multiple sources is a prerequisite for operators to realize Telco 2.0 goals. Zeugma is ahead of the pack with the first SDK we’ve seen for carrier-class broadband edge equipment.”

According to Zeugma vice president of engineering Jeff Dillabough: “The ability to host diverse application sets directly within the Zeugma Services Node sets it apart from other broadband edge network equipment. And the availability of published APIs and a full SDK allows Zeugma, our customers, and even third parties to exploit this capability in novel ways.”

The ZSN can be configured with up to 12 compute blades, providing a high-performance, scalable pool of network-based application resources. A special framework, the Zeugma Open Application Sandbox (OAS), allows any combination of applications to simultaneously run in a protected environment.

Among other tasks, the OAS ensures that misbehaving applications are unable to adversely impact other applications or the underlying data plane. The Zeugma SDK is the companion software development tool for the OAS.

The Zeugma SDK is available now.

Global wireless carriers reach beyond phones for growth

BOSTON, USA: Across the globe, wireless carriers seek innovative ways to expand the use of their wireless networks, focusing on the potential of eBook readers, mobile internet devices, portable navigation devices and game consoles.

The Strategy Analytics Connected Home Devices (CHD) Service predicts 79 percent growth in the installed base of embedded WWAN 3G and 4G enabled consumer devices up to 2014, as described in “Wireless Connected Home & Portable Devices: Global Market Forecast Data Table.”

According to Peter King, Director of the Connected Home Devices Service: “The world’'s leading wireless carriers, such as AT&T and Verizon, already have agreements in place to provide wireless connection to new consumer electronics (CE) devices. With this positive scenario:

* The CE community benefits from the carrier experience in services; and
* The carrier benefits from the manufacturers’ experience in consumer electronics.

The early partnerships have begun with eBook Reader and Portable Navigation Device vendors,” continued King. “By next year we will start to see a much wider range of wireless-enabled consumer electronics devices.”

David Mercer, Vice President of the Strategy Analytics Digital Consumer Practice, added: “This initiative by the wireless carriers signals a significant change in mindset. Previously regarded as a very conservative community, these innovative agreements are designed to drive more network usage and demonstrate the start of a new era for wireless carriers.”

Nokia well-placed for enterprise mobility growth

LONDON, UK: Despite the heavy consumer slant given to announcements at Nokia World 2009, Nokia remains very active in its approach to its enterprise business, not only through its lineup of enterprise devices, but also through its work with ISV and mobile operator partners.

Nokia positions the E Series offering effectively with business customers, according to the new Strategy Analytics Wireless Enterprise Strategies service report, “Commoditizing Enterprise Mobility: An Analysis of Nokia’'s Wireless Enterprise Strategy.”

With over 5 million E71 devices shipped--and 4.7 million shipped in Q2 2009 alone--Nokia aligns its successful E Series smartphone portfolio most effectively with wireless carriers, and Through its Mail for Exchange offering, Nokia offers the most popular enterprise applications, such as direct access mobile email. However, North America, now the world’s most important smartphone market, remains an area of weakness.

“Nokia’'s wireless enterprise strategy is clearly to promise best-in-class devices which map to clear customer usage profiles and customer channels. These apps promise compatibility and support for most commonly used enterprise software needs in organizations; they focus primarily on the top 20 enterprise applications, i.e., email, front office, unified communications (UC), sales force automation (SFA) and field force automation (FFA),” commented Andrew Brown, Director of Wireless Enterprise Strategies and author of the report.

Brown continued, “While Nokia continues to dominate in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) business smartphone market, competition in North America is more rigorous and will require even more investment and focus over the coming year to make any significant breakthrough.”

Hello Humans: DROID by Motorola arrives next week

BASKING RIDGE & LIBERTYVILLE, USA: High-speed Web browsing, voice-activated search, customizable large screen, access to thousands of Android applications and hundreds of widgets and the best 3G mobile network in the country: DROID by Motorola arrives on Nov. 6.

Verizon Wireless, the company with the nation’s largest wireless 3G broadband network, and Motorola Inc. unveiled DROID by Motorola, the first smartphone powered by Android 2.0. DROID by Motorola features the brainpower and breakneck speed of a modern smartphone, designed to outperform where other smartphones fall short.

“We’re proud to work with Verizon Wireless and Google on the first smartphone to feature Android 2.0,” said Sanjay Jha, co-chief executive officer of Motorola and chief executive officer of Motorola Mobile Devices.

"DROID by Motorola delivers a rich consumer experience with warp-speed Web browsing, a mammoth screen, and Motorola’s expertise in design and voice quality. Combined with Android’s open, flexible graphical user interface and the power of Verizon Wireless’ 3G network, DROID is a smartphone that simply doesn’t compromise.”

“This is an exciting announcement for Verizon Wireless, as the DROID by Motorola is the first device that we are bringing to market under our ground-breaking strategic partnership with Google,” said John Stratton, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Verizon Wireless. “DROID by Motorola gives customers a lifestyle device with access to more than 12,000 applications that will help them stay in touch, up to date and entertained, using the best 3G network in the country.”

DROID by Motorola has a solid exterior, intelligent interior and is one of the thinnest full-QWERTY slider phones available. It is a no-fuss, high-tech, location-aware, voice-recognizing, over-the-air updating, multi-tasking machine – and it is available just in time for holiday wish lists.

With DROID by Motorola, you can:
Zip through the Web: Access the Internet at 3G speeds via the nation’s largest and most reliable 3G network or from any Wi-Fi hotspot. The multi-window HTML browser with a massive processor delivers the Web the way you expect.

See it all in cinema-style: View the Web, e-mail, Google Maps, videos and more in widescreen on a brilliant 3.7” high-resolution screen. Boasting a width of 854 pixels to reduce the need for side-to-side panning and more than 400,000 pixels total, DROID has more than twice that of the leading competitor.

Run multiple applications at once: Customize your DROID with thousands of applications and hundreds of widgets available on Android Market. Toggle back and forth between up to six applications at a time to juggle the universe and your apps.

Perform Google Search at the speed of sound: Simply tell DROID what you’re looking for using voice-activated search, and it will serve up Google search results based on your location. If you want more, simply type what you’re looking for into the search bar on the home screen and DROID will also search content on your phone, such as apps and contacts, and the Web.

Capture moments: Snap digital camera-quality photos with a 5 megapixel camera loaded with the works, such as a dual-LED flash, AutoFocus and image stabilization, or capture your friend’s antics in 16 million colors with DVD-quality video capture and playback. Store it all on the included 16 GB memory card, so you always have it on hand.

Multi-task like a master: Keep tabs on all your messages with integrated Gmail and Exchange e-mail pushed directly to you, but don’t let them get in your way. With the handy Android notification panel, go straight to the message or simply ignore it, and get back to the task at hand. And, a smart dictionary learns as you type and automatically includes your contacts.

Get where you need to go with Google Maps Navigation (Beta): DROID is the first device with Google Maps Navigation, providing turn-by-turn voice guidance as a free feature of Google Maps. It’s powered by Google and connected to the Internet. Use voice shortcuts and simply say “Navigate to [your destination],” and you’ll be on your way. See live traffic, use Street View or satellite imagery to view your route, and get access to the most recent maps and business information from Google Maps without ever needing to update your device.

Pre-loaded applications and enhancements to Google Mobile Services:
Google Maps: With layers in Google Maps, view geographic information, such as My Maps, Wikipedia, and transit lines, right on the map.

Gmail: Multiple accounts support and undo for common operations.

YouTube: One-touch recording and playback from homescreen widget or app, one-touch sharing with friends, and the ability to view your own uploaded videos and high-resolution videos.

Google Talk: Easily switch between chats, search your chat history, and preview pictures and videos sent by links.

Android Market: Browse and download applications created by third-party developers.

Calendar: Ability to see who has R.S.V.P.’d to your meeting invitations.

Facebook: Syncs Facebook contacts to your address book, and a live widget gives the ability to update status and view latest updates from friends.

Amazon MP3 Store: Download the latest tracks over the air.

Verizon Wireless Visual Voice Mail: Delete, reply and forward voice mail messages without having to listen to prior messages or voice instructions.

DROID by Motorola will be available in the United States exclusively at Verizon Wireless Communications Stores and online on Friday, Nov. 6, for $199.99 with a new two-year customer agreement after a $100 mail-in rebate.

Customers will receive the rebate in the form of a debit card; upon receipt, customers may use the card as cash anywhere debit cards are accepted.

Experience the all-new DROID by Motorola at www.droiddoes.com.

To get the most from DROID by Motorola smartphone, customers will need to subscribe to a Nationwide voice plan and an Email and Web for Smartphone plan. Nationwide voice plans begin at $39.99 for monthly access for 450 minutes and an Email and Web for Smartphone plan is $29.99 for monthly access.

3i Infotech launches eMudhra SecMsg -- India’s first PKI based secure SMS service

MUMBAI, INDIA: 3i Infotech Consumer Services Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of the global IT company 3i Infotech Ltd, today launched the eMudhra SecMsg, a revolutionary mobile solution designed to secure the SMS channel of communication and thereby taking mobile messaging beyond basics.

Messages sent using SecMsg are encrypted using a globally accepted, strong encryption method called PKI, to ensure that the messages are decrypted only by the intended user.

While SMS is one of the most preferred modes of communication, businesses and banks are very conservative in using the SMS channel, considering the related security and confidentiality issues. SecMsg provides a layer of security that banks and businesses can consider for sending and receiving very important and confidential messages through the SMS channel.

SecMsg is an easy-to-implement solution that takes only minutes to install and supports most mobile devices. Peer-to-peer secured messaging, communication of confidential and important information, and authentication of online transactions are a few usages of SecMsg. It is easy to integrate SecMsg with any application, may it be a core banking application or be a debit card management solution.

Indigenously built, the patent-pending solution SecMsg will provide banks, insurance companies, online broking companies and government agencies a secured communication platform for sending critical and confidential data to their customers using the existing SMS channels.

Ravi Jagannathan, MD & CEO, 3i Infotech Consumer Services Ltd. said: “We have recognized the prominence of the mobile based delivery channel, not just from a business perspective, but also from a socio-economic perspective of financial inclusion. With our latest offering of eMudhra SecMsg, we aim to protect financial and confidential information of consumers, by securing mobile messages and thereby prevent them from cyber crimes.”

Mobile business customer growth fastest in Asia-Pacific

NEW YORK, USA: Driven by economic growth in India and China, the number of mobile business customers in the Asia-Pacific region will grow at a CAGR of 4.2 percent reaching nearly 300 million by 2014, according to new ABI Research forecasts.

Says practice director Dan Shey: “Demand and supply drivers are coming together to grow the mobile business customer base. Mobile networks are expanding and are being upgraded to 3G and 4G. There is a growing services economy with a highly mobile, educated, and low-cost labor pool. Finally, the Asia-Pacific region is in the best position to accelerate out of the world financial crisis and grow economically.”

The new market data set shows:
* The number of self-employed customers will grow slightly faster than public/private sector customers; however ARPU growth from the self-employed will lag due to lower adoption of data services.
* While ARPUs will decline as lower-income workers adopt mobile services to serve business needs, certain segments will experience income growth. Average customer revenues will rise in the finance, insurance, and the scientific and technical services sectors due to greater adoption of mobile broadband services.
* Revenue growth will be 13 percent higher in the medium and large businesses segment compared to the SOHO and small business segment.

Shey concludes, “The Asia-Pacific region is on the cusp of a new stage of economic growth. Mobile telecommunications will be a key growth enabler for the business segment and a pivotal contributor to this region’s competitiveness in the world market.”

Hitachi EPON equipment used in growth of mobile backhaul and business services

SANTA CLARA, USA: Hitachi Communication Technologies America Inc. (HCTA), the only vendor offering a comprehensive line of EPON, GPON, DePON™, MW-PON™, and RFoG equipment announced that its EPON solutions are supporting the growth of mobile backhaul and business services.

Recent successes in delivering service for mobile backhaul are driving the use of EPON in service provider networks. The industry is increasing the use of fiber technologies to access cell towers and business customers.

PON technologies were created to make efficient use of fiber and recent deployments of Hitachi'’s EPON for mobile backhaul have proven their value in cellular networks. This trend will continue along with the need for bandwidth and cell tower density.

“Our experience demonstrates that using EPON for fiber access to cell towers will deliver the quality, bandwidth, and redundancy required for this rapidly growing application,” said Jeffrey Stribling, VP of PLM and Customer Service for HCTA. He added, “Over the past two years our EPON solutions have supported the growth of wireless offerings for service providers in key U.S. markets.”

According to recent data provided to the Metro Ethernet Forum by Infonetics Research, Inc., the business case for Ethernet in Mobile Backhaul applications is strong. A combination of: 1) increasing bandwidth needs, 2) strong mobile subscriber growth, 3) cost advantages over PDH connectivity, and 4) the availability of Ethernet interfaces on new base stations, makes EPON a serious contender for mobile backhaul applications.

The Hitachi EPON solution leverages the benefits of mobile backhaul and business services on the same EPON network. Both applications require similar features. Hitachi’s EPON equipment supports ITU-T Y.1731 service management, which focuses on end-to-end service performance. Critical features for voice traffic support provided by Y.1731 include frame delay, delay variation and frame loss measurements as well as monitoring and test capabilities for SLA verification.

New features in the Hitachi EPON system enable up to 40 percent latency reduction compared to standard EPON. This capability was developed to support voice applications. The Hitachi EPON equipment is also MEF 9 and MEF 14 certified to insure network performance and interoperability among heterogeneous equipment.

Voice quality is another area where Hitachi EPON has proven successful. 3G and 4G mobile networks have significant buffering capabilities designed into the wireless equipment. However, 2.5G systems, by far the most numerous today, have no buffering and can tolerate approximately 8ms of one-way delay.

Of this budget, approximately .5ms is introduced by the EPON equipment. An additional 1.5ms is used for TDM-to-Ethernet conversion, leaving 6ms for the rest of the IP network. This EPON performance has proven to be just as reliable as T-1 PDH networks in transporting high quality voice traffic.

Resilience is another innovation in the Hitachi system. Path redundancy can be achieved using diversely routed fiber. When there are two fiber paths to the cell tower Hitachi’s solution can provide “hitless” redundancy. Using Hitachi EPON in this configuration, with Circuit Emulation Services, there is no data loss or delay when switching from the primary to the secondary path. This feature is important in supporting strict SLAs.

“We know that Ethernet access is replacing T-1 access for SMB and Enterprise customers and believe that this situation will be replicated as Ethernet becomes common for mobile backhaul connectivity.” Stribling continued, “Our EPON systems have the advanced software features that enable mobile backhaul and other new Ethernet applications.”

Mobile operator MTN faces challenging future in Africa

BOSTON, USA: MTN'’s second attempt at a merger with India’'s Bharti Airtel collapsed at the end of September, leaving the world’'s 13th largest mobile operator competing with regional and global operators for share in the rapidly consolidating African and Middle Eastern markets.

Strategy Analytics predicts that MTN will ultimately need to expand outside of the region, but its near-term strategy will focus on building its African base, as described in its recent report, “MTN: Sticking to Africa After Failed Bharti Deal?”

MTN faces strong competition in Africa from international giants like Vodafone, active in key markets like South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, and Egypt, and Orange, which has operations in more than a dozen African countries. In addition, regional operators like Zain and Etisalat have significant presence on the continent and have been aggressive in building their positions. Even China Mobile is rumored to have an interest in Africa.

“The opportunities in Africa are not a big secret,” notes Tom Elliott, Director of the Strategy Analytics Emerging Markets Communications Strategies service. “Global operators with the resources to invest for the long-term know that this potential for growth and volume simply does not exist anywhere else.”

MTN is currently largely concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa, and thus expansion into East or North Africa will bring it into head-to-head competition with some very strong and well-funded competitors. “MTN has done well in some challenging, low ARPU countries,” says Phil Kendall, Director of the Strategy Analytics Wireless Network Strategies service, “Although MTN may be able to bring its skills to new markets, it won’t do so unopposed.”

ZTE announces 2009 3Q results

SHENZHEN, CHINA: ZTE Corp. has announced its 3Q results ended 30 Sep 2009.

During the reporting period, ZTE succeeded in gaining further inroads in the market segment comprised of multi-national carriers with its LTE, UMTS and GSM products. This success was attributable in large part to leveraging opportunities presented by the need for network construction in emerging markets against the backdrop of an improving global economic environment.

The Group reported 2009 revenue to-date from principal operations of RMB42,843 million (USD 6.274 billion), representing growth of 41.27 percent as compared to the same period last year, while net profit attributable to the parent company grew 46.13 percent to RMB1,192 million (USD 175 million). Basic earnings per share amounted to RMB0.68 (USD 0.10).

In the third quarter, the Group reported revenue from principal operations of RMB15,136 million (USD 2.216 billion), representing growth of 42.81 percent as compared to the same period last year, while net profit attributable to the parent company grew 58.18 percent to RMB409million (USD 60 million). Basic earnings per share amounted to RMB0.23 (USD 0.03).

In terms of market development, the Group reported substantial growth in operating revenue largely attributable to large-scale 3G network construction in the domestic China market.

In tandem with carrier requirements for fusion and complementary technologies, ZTE has placed more emphasis on integrated product and service strengths and superior price performance ratios, laying solid groundwork for overall business growth and further market share gains.

Internationally, the Group was well-geared for a stronger competitive position on the back of its cost advantage, financing resources and customization abilities. The changing competitive landscape also provided strong opportunities for breakthroughs in key markets and product areas.

Product-wise, ZTE’s carrier network segment reported year-on-year growth of 47.32 percent, which was driven mainly by revenue generated from sales of the company’'s 3G network equipment, optical transmission products and data communication products.

Revenue from terminal products also grew by 38.67 percent, which was in line with sales growth for 3G products. Revenue from the Group’s telecommunications software systems, services and other products grew by 17.85 percent, reflecting primarily growth in the sales of fixed terminals.

Looking to the final quarter of the year, the Group will pursue its strategies in greater depth with a focus on enhancing its capabilities in strategic applications and operations. Continuing to leverage opportunities presented by the changing competitive landscape, ZTE will continue to strengthen cooperation with mainstream international carriers.

Core to ZTE'’s strategy will be to seek increased presence in key markets such as Western Europe and North America while reinforcing its position in the China 3G market, incorporating balanced and sustainable business development.

FCC: ‘Make better use of airwaves’; xG technology: ‘can do’

FT. LAUDERDALE, USA: The head of the Federal Communications Commission recently observed that the nation'’s airwaves are being asked to carry an ever increasing amount of traffic and that it will be necessary in the future to make better use of our airwaves.

To date, cell phone conversations have technically required the use of licensed airwaves -- that cost carriers billions of dollars -- in order to function.

Today, however, advances in technology have produced mobile devices that are capable of handling cell phone conversations using free airwaves. Not only do these devices avoid the high cost of access to the airwaves, but they also save money by placing calls across the Internet instead of relying upon the traditional telephone networks. What'’s more, these devices also add capacity to the nation’s overloaded cellular infrastructure.

An example of one company working to make such devices available is xG technology. xG has deployed and is operating a mobile demonstration network in Ft. Lauderdale.

According to Rick Mooers, CEO and board chair: “We have developed a new technology that bypasses the traditional cell phone networks to bring lower calling costs to the market. This disruptive technology is going to shake things up a bit. While some may not want it to see the light of the day, xG’'s xMax mobile network offers the only viable alternative to existing incumbent networks.”

It is clear why the xG model has garnered so much attention when you contrast xG’'s zero cost of spectrum with the $4.7 billion that Verizon recently spent to obtain nationwide licensed spectrum just in the 700MHz, Block C auction.

Not included are Verizon’s cost of towers, base stations or any other costs associated with deploying the system. In real terms, the xMax network is only a fraction of the cost of a traditional cellular system. By making better use of unlicensed spectrum future cell phone service can be offered for a fraction of current rates.

By designing its xMax all-IP network from the ground up to use either free unlicensed, as well as licensed spectrum, the company is opening the door to potentially cause a major shift in investment, business models and services in the cellular industry.

xMax is the product of xG Technology's extensive R&D activity, a $100 million international effort that involves companies in the US, Europe and Asia. xG's patent portfolio, which now includes 50 US and more than 100 international patents and pending patent applications, is being developed with the goal of bringing lower-cost communications to consumers.

Dell and Juniper Networks to collaborate on next-generation networking

ROUND ROCK & SUNNYVALE, USA: Dell and Juniper Networks Inc. announced an agreement to offer networking solutions under Dell’'s PowerConnect brand that enable customers to deploy a common network management platform and network operating system to help reduce operating expenses.

In addition, the companies plan to work together on open, standards-based solutions for virtualized data centers and deliver technology solutions using Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE), also known as Data Center Bridging (DCB) and iSCSI to improve network economics.

As the notion of traditional, physical data center boundaries extend to virtual environments, customers must adapt to a variety of technological challenges including virtualization, security, bandwidth utilization and network management.

By signing this original equipment manufacturer (OEM) agreement, Dell and Juniper intend to deliver a secure network infrastructure - from a customer’'s traditional data center out to its branch offices, remote workers, customers and business partners - that can dynamically adjust to meet these challenges and provide orchestrated management of users, workloads and data – avoiding single-vendor lock-in.

Dell also plans to market, service and support Juniper’s high-performance networking solutions to its large enterprise, small and medium business customers and public organizations.

The products Dell will deliver under its PowerConnect brand include the Juniper Networks MX Series services routers, EX Series Ethernet switches and SRX Series services gateways, all running JUNOS Software. Dell expects to make these products available to customers via its direct and PartnerDirect channels.

Smartphone market driven by OS wars and feature migration

SCOTTSDALE, USA: While iPhone shipments are growing quickly, smartphones based on the Symbian operating system remain dominant and will continue to grow over the next several years, reports In-Stat. However, Symbian will wane, resulting in a drop in net Symbian-based smartphone shipments in 2014.

Meanwhile, the basis of competition will change from the OS to the functionality and “user experiences” that the phone can provide. The advanced feature sets of smartphones continue to evolve as users demand capabilities such as touch screens, increased camera resolution and Wi-Fi connectivity options.

“In-Stat believes new OSs such as Android and Maemo will cut away at Symbian market share,” says Allen Nogee, In-Stat analyst. “Although there are relatively few open source OS-based smartphones in the market today, the open source OS momentum is difficult to ignore. After years of hype, it is easy to see that 2010 will be the year of Android.”

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:
* Shipments of smartphones with touch screens will more than double from 2008 to 2009.
* RIM OS has been gaining market share in the non-enterprise segment, speaking to the importance of clever hardware design in the segment.
* The total smartphone market in 2014 will be 412 million units.
* Shipments of smartphone with accelerometers will grow to over 350 million units by 2014.
* Over 52 percent of a smartphone's cost is made-up by displays (touch screens), baseband and apps processors, and software and licensing make-up. Clearly, making a phone “smart” has significant cost impacts.

Symbian launches Mobile Publishing Program

LONDON, UK: The Symbian Foundation announced today the launch of Symbian Horizon, the publishing program for Symbian developers, at the Symbian Exchange and Exposition 2009 (SEE 2009).

Developers can now sign up for the program to have their applications listed in the Symbian Horizon Directory, processed through Symbian Signed, and published to a growing list of application store partners. The goal of Symbian Horizon is to help developers bring their applications to the largest mobile market in the world in a cost effective way.

This publishing program is now being scaled up to process thousands of applications in 2010.

Horizon demonstrates Symbian’s commitment to improving the developer experience, including helping developers build applications, place them in a variety of global stores, and provide marketing support.

The Symbian Foundation created Horizon in response to developer concerns that there were too many challenges and costs associated with developing and publishing a Symbian application to the global market of potential customers. In addition to reducing these costs, Symbian and its members seek to improve developers’ access to global markets through translation and localization assistance.

Since the initial launch plans were announced in July 2009, Symbian has processed an initial group of 50 applications and is helping these developers sign and submit their products to mobile application stores worldwide. A total of five stores now support Symbian Horizon.

Along with the initial stores announced, Ovi Store by Nokia, Samsung Applications Store and AT&T’s MEdia Mall, two new stores are now participating: China Mobile’s Mobile Market, and Sony Ericsson’s PlayNow arena.

“We recognize that developers face many challenges in bringing their products to market on Symbian devices,” said Lee Williams, Executive Director of the Symbian Foundation.

“In particular, the diversity of application stores in our ecosystem increases the burden on developers by requiring multiple submission and review processes. But this diversity can also offer an advantage over competitors’ closed systems, where applications sometimes receive arbitrary or commercially motivated rejections.

“Symbian Horizon retains this advantage while reducing the burden by becoming a conduit to multiple stores, helping developers reach the largest global mobile market in the world more efficiently.”

There are three ways developers will be able to participate in the publishing program. Available today, all developers can have their Symbian Signed applications appear in the Symbian Horizon Directory free of charge.

The goal of the directory is to provide a complete guide to every Symbian Signed application, as well as where they can be downloaded or purchased. The directory is live in beta, showcasing an initial group of applications and allowing developers to submit other applications that have already been signed.

Secondly, over the next few months the Symbian Signed process will be revised, providing developers with the option of automatically adding an application to the Symbian Horizon Directory. Developers will be able to register online and edit their application and developer profiles, providing both stores and consumers with complete information about their products.

Finally, the Symbian Horizon publisher program will begin to increase the number of applications processed through Symbian Signed and submitted to application store partners over the next few months. In addition to the first group of 50 applications, another 50 applications will be processed through the review and signing process and submitted to all participating stores at no cost to the developer. A comprehensive program designed to process thousands of applications will be launched in 2010.

In developing the Symbian Horizon program, a careful analysis of the costs of processing applications has been completed and it is clear that this program will require a significant investment.

In the course of the next few months, Symbian will be hosting an open conversation (on http://ideas.symbian.org) to explore options for funding the program. This is a critical issue for the Symbian ecosystem to address and the solution will ultimately depend upon collaboration from many contributors, including existing Symbian members, application stores, and the developers themselves. The plan for this program will be developed collaboratively with the input from all of these constituents.

Forum Nokia India announces annual developer conference

BANGALORE, INDIA: Nokia today announced the Forum Nokia Developer Conference’09 to be held on the 7th December 2009 at the Taj Residency, Bangalore.

Titled ‘Unlock Star’, the conference aims at leveraging the limitless possibilities of the mobile device to drive developer success. D Shivakumar, VP and Managing Director, Nokia India, along with Ms. Purnima Kochikar, Vice President, Forum Nokia and Developer Community, will deliver the opening keynotes, addressing leading software developers, network operators and content partners about Nokia business and technological development opportunities.

Registrations for the conference are now open at www.nokiadevcon.in. Aimed at bringing together attendees from across India to learn, share and explore the latest in application and content development, integration and distribution opportunities for Nokia devices and services, the forum will enable developers to utilize the potential of Nokia’s Ovi Store by ensuring easy access to publish applications and content to millions of Nokia devices.

The conference will further help developers acquaint themselves with dynamic technology platforms for creating truly compelling user experiences, equipping them with new skills, new connections, and new ideas to create future technologies. The event would also have information sharing sessions by Industry, Business and Technology experts.

According to Purnima Kochikar, Vice President, Forum Nokia and Developer Community, “The Forum Nokia Developer Conference will provide in-depth information on both the technical tools required to build innovative mobile apps, and the distribution channels such as the Ovi Store required achieving commercial success for the apps.”

She said: "The convergence of mobility and the internet is creating unprecedented opportunities to create innovative mobile apps that transform the way we live and access information. The Indian developer is uniquely positioned to leverage this opportunity.

"Forum Nokia is excited about partnering with and supporting this vibrant community of developers to find success not only in the Indian market but also in the markets worldwide. This conference will be the first step in creating a highly collaborative ecosystem that will grow and thrive by sharing best practices and setting a high bar for innovation.”

Developer attendees can also schedule one-on-one meetings at the Summit with Nokia technology and business experts to answer open questions. In addition, Forum Nokia’s Technology Expert would share the latest mobile technologies and platforms that promise to substantially broaden the software development and business horizons of mobile developers attending the event.

Over the last decade, Forum Nokia has been working extensively with the developer community in India, providing them all necessary support in terms of tools and distribution channels to bring them at par with the international community.

Today, Forum Nokia has over 180, 000 registered developers in India and accounts for the single largest concentration of incoming web traffic on www.forum.nokia.com from any country.

European triple play operator pricing markedly more expensive than operators in Asia

UK: The latest Triple & Quad Play Journal from Tariff Consultancy Ltd finds that operators still experimenting to find the right mix of mobile and fixed network consumer bundle. Additionally European Triple Play operator pricing has fewer TV channels than its US equivalent, and is markedly more expensive than operators in Hong Kong and Japan.

The bundling of fixed Broadband, Telephony and IPTV Triple Play packages for households is set to become more complex with the introduction of mobile services creating a so called Quad Play package, the latest edition of Tariff Consultancy's Triple & Quad Play Journal finds.

"Triple Play operators continue to experiment with the right combination of fixed and mobile packages," comments Margrit Sessions, Managing Director of Tariff Consultancy Ltd. "As a result the market for Quad Play packages is highly fluid with more operators offering mobile services both as a promotional tool and as a separate service."

Operators are uncertain whether to focus purely on Mobile Broadband or mobile calls as part of the combined package and continue to fine tune their offerings. But the trend is toward quad play services in most markets, either as a complete package or as an optional service. Other operators are also beginning to offer Quad Play including PCCW in Hong Kong with its Netvigator service and Verizon has introduced its first mobile call plan with its existing Triple Play FiOS portfolio.

The latest TCL Triple & Quad Play Journal main findings are:

• In most European countries the headline Broadband speeds are higher than those available in the US. Prices of triple play bundles are lower in Europe by around 10 percent.

• In the US, the main triple play package consists of a much higher number of TV channels from 100 channels to almost 400 in contrast to Europe where the largest number is from 70 to 90 channels as part of a premium package.

• In Asian countries like Hong Kong, the triple play operator is offering high broadband speeds with rates of 200 MB or more for the same as 20 MB services. The average Japanese and Hong Kong Triple Play services remain 40 percent less than ite European equivalent.

• In Hong Kong and Japan, the trend is for triple play operators to provide broadband access speeds based on fibre for the same price points with providers such as PCCW, HKBN and KDDI offer 1 GB triple play services (1000 MB) services at highly competitive rates compared with European providers.

"Our survey of different triple play markets worldwide underlines just how much bundled services need to be tailored to meet the expectations of users in each country to succeed," comments Margrit Sessions.

Although the headline triple play rates in Europe appear lower than the US, in reality, North American purchase decisions revolve around replacing the TV providers with competition from Cable TV and Satellite providers setting the competitive landscape for the telecoms triple play bundle.

"Large TV bundles are the norm in the US which underline the difference between American and European households," says Margrit Sessions, "as all US triple play operators cater for the multiTV household requirements, a segment that the European triple play operator has only just started to address."

Finally, the development of triple play services provides a warning that even with FTTH access the battle will remain based on for the most part on price unless the telecoms operator can differentiate its service on superior quality and service applications.

ACCS announces CDAC-ACCS Foundation award winners for 2009

BANGALORE, INDIA: ACCS, the Advanced Computing and Communications Society, today announced the winners of the prestigious CDAC-ACCS Foundation award for 2009 honoring advances in computing and communications sciences.

The award recognizes their outstanding dedication and support to the body of science in Networking and Communications. Their contributions have been instrumental in influencing networking technologies while defining new standards for teaching and research in graduate education.

The CDAC-ACCS Foundation Award will be presented at a plenary session of the annual Advanced Computing and Communications Conference (ADCOM) on December 14, 2009 at the J. N. TATA Auditorium of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

The 2009 CDAC_ACCS Foundation award winners are:
Dr. Raj Jain of Washington University in St. Louis, USA -- for his role in influencing the growth and impact of Networking technology.

The Award recognizes his career contributions that have breadth across computer science and engineering. Dr. Jain is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and is a Fellow of the IEEE and the ACM and is the recipient of numerous honors. He is the author of the classic and award winning book: "Art of Computer Systems Performance Analysis".

His illustrious career spans three decades as a networking visionary and his pioneering contributions has had significant effect on the practice of computing and communications today.

Dr. Anurag Kumar of Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India – for his contributions to the analysis, optimization and control techniques in communication networks. The Award recognizes his outstanding scholarship in communication sciences and his effect on academic research and training in Electrical Engineering.

Dr. Kumar is an alumnus of IIT, Kanpur and is a Fellow of the IEEE and the Indian National Academies of Engineering and Sciences. He was the recipient of the 2008 Indian Institute of Science Alumni Award for Excellence in Engineering Research.

"The CDAC-ACCS Award highlights the essential role of computing and communications in the technology-driven world," said ACCS President Dr. K. Rajan. "Dr. Jain and Dr. Kumar are innovators that have influenced how we use communication technology today. They are the role models for students and computing and communications professionals in India." he noted.

The Award instituted in 2004, by the Advanced Computing and Communications Society (ACCS) and the Center for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC), fosters the development and dissemination of the theory and applications of Computing and Communications sciences.

CDAC-ACCS Award is given to the outstanding contributions and accomplishments that have had a significant and demonstrable effect on the practice of computing and communications.

Aastra unveils high end touch screen phone

SCOTTSDALE, USA: Aastra, a leading company at the forefront of the enterprise communication market, reset the standard for premium IP phones with the launch of the Aastra 6739i, its most advanced desk phone to date. The company unveiled the new color touch screen phone today to hundreds of telecom resellers and service providers at the BroadSoft Connections executive conference.

In an increasingly competitive business climate, executives need access to the highest quality communication technology available to facilitate personal communications and collaboration. The feature-packed Aastra 6739i is a market-leading touch screen business desk phone, delivering high quality enterprise communications with advanced features, such as Bluetooth and dual Gigabit Ethernet.

The Aastra 6739i offers an exceptional user experience with its large, high quality color touch screen combined with an intuitive interface and navigation menus. For unrivalled voice clarity, the Aastra 6739i brings high definition sound with Aastra Hi-Q™ audio technology combined with full wideband handset and speakerphone hardware.

Extending Aastra’'s commitment to interoperability, the 6739i is part of Aastra’s 67xi SIP desk phone series. These are designed to integrate and deploy easily with Aastra’s own IP systems as well as all leading SIP compatible IP call managers, making them appeal to a wide range of SMB and enterprise customers.

“Business communications needs have evolved, and executives are demanding the best features and usability without having to make a huge up-front investment. The Aastra 6739i offers high definition audio quality and a full range of functions to a market that is continuing to demand best-in-class technology at a competitive price,” said Simon Beebe, Vice President of Product Management, responsible for SIP phones at Aastra.

Samsung, Handmark in global venture fund for mobile game development for Samsung application store

KANSAS CITY, USA & LONDON, UK: Samsung Electronics and Handmark, a leading creator and distributor of mobile applications and services, announced the launch of a new Global Venture Fund to invest in companies and/or individuals with innovative, market-changing game ideas for next generation Samsung mobile phones.

Companies and/or individuals selected will receive up to $250,000 each to fund the development of winning ideas.

The fund will be managed by Handmark out of its Kansas City and London offices in partnership with Samsung Electronics. The companies are searching for games that best showcase Samsung mobile phones and the advanced features they offer. Both current and new content ideas are encouraged, taking timing and cost into consideration.

“We know there’s a wealth of great ideas out there waiting to be discovered,” said Chris Barnett, senior vice president of Global Sales and Strategic Partnerships for Handmark. “This is a fantastic opportunity for anyone, including big brands, mobile developers or any individual with a unique, creative idea to make it a reality.”

“Samsung recognizes the importance of content and applications for today’s mobile phone users,” said Ho Soo Lee, executive vice president for Samsung Electronics’ Media Solution Center. “We are pleased to broaden our partnership with Handmark to help lead the Global Venture Fund, using their expertise to support us capturing great ideas and raise the standard of mobile innovation.”

In addition to funding those selected, Handmark will also provide assistance with development, testing and certification, as well as distribution of the application through the Samsung Application Store.

385 million ultra mobile devices to ship in 2014

NEW YORK, USA: ABI Research expects the Ultra Mobile Device (UMD) market – that is, the shipments of UMPCs (Ultra Mobile PCs), netbooks, MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices) and mobile consumer electronics devices combined –- to achieve a 385 million unit size in 2014.

The diversity of form factors and device types we see today will likely continue as vendors look to meet each audience’s unique preferences.

“Consumers and business buyers are only recently accustomed to the netbook feature set,” says senior analyst Jeff Orr. “Regardless of vendor, the majority of today’s netbooks ship with Intel processors and Windows XP into developed markets.”

As uptake continues, developing markets will become the larger opportunity leveraging both ARM-based processors and Linux operating systems. The premium netbook category will also be established, offering larger screens and greater choices in connectivity solutions. Given little distinction today in feature-set and a relatively small price band, brands are differentiating themselves on aesthetics and build quality.

Pocketable MIDs remain a far more interesting product segment to watch, says Orr, as the market is still emerging. While the most common product design remains the tablet form, competing form factors such as models with slider keyboards, clamshells and touch-screen-only interfaces are gaining in popularity.

“However, there is a danger that the MID market will disappear before it gets the chance to mature, as smartphones increase in popularity and mimic most if not all tasks performed by MIDs.”

One can also expect the line distinguishing MIDs from smartphones to blur as MIDs add voice: Nokia has equipped its latest “Internet Tablet,” the model N900, with cellular voice capabilities, for example.

The LTE business case: plan now to avoid the rush

Jeremy Green, Practice Leader, Mobile, Ovum

UK: As with the affairs of men, there is a tide in the affairs of mobile networks. More or less once every ten years that tide comes in, bringing with it a new technological generation.

Right now the LTE tide is turning to flood, with the technology moving from definition to implementation. Commercial launches of LTE networks are expected to start in 2010, with early deployments from NTT DoCoMo, Verizon and TeliaSonera.

No new sources of revenue
The introduction of LTE is provoking sharp feelings of déjà vu. Many of the claims being made for the technology are eerily reminiscent of those made for 3G ten years ago, some of which -– in particular the suggestion that higher data speeds will enable new sources of revenue for mobile operators –- are no more likely to be true now than they proved to be then.

The issue of rollout strategy also has a certain ‘retro’ flavour. As with 3G, there is the question of whether to go for a rapid and wide rollout so that LTE is quickly co-extensive with the existing network, or to go for a much slower and more targeted rollout, using LTE to provide increased data capacity in the locations where it is most needed.

From both a marketing and a technical perspective, faster rollout appears to make most sense. The history of mobile communications from Rabbit to Wi-Fi shows how hard it is to sell a service which requires user behaviour to overcome limited coverage; and the efficiency gains which LTE promises are undermined by the need to maintain parallel architectures associated with a gradual rollout.

Technology not yet ready for wholesale replacement of the existing mobile network
However, not all technical factors point in the same direction. LTE’s support for legacy services such as voice telephony and SMS (or rather, the absence of a well-defined mechanism for such support) means that it cannot yet effect a wholesale replacement of the 3G network. The phased introduction of devices, beginning with data-only devices, tends to support the same conclusion.

Commercial and financial considerations also point in the opposite direction. A fast rollout and rapid replacement of the existing network will be very expensive, and there is little evidence of new revenue streams enabled by LTE to justify it.

Investors and lenders are generally unimpressed by the business case for a rapid rollout, both as a result of the current financial climate and as a reaction to the disappointed expectations that 3G would enable new revenue streams for mobile operators.

Eventually most mobile networks will almost certainly implement LTE, just as they did 3G; only niche players with a very carefully defined strategy aimed at low-end customers can afford to stay off the LTE bandwagon permanently.

For most operators there are few advantages to early LTE deployment
For most players, there is no need to rush headlong into implementation. A few operators with specific technology migration concerns or capacity issues may have grounds for an early move to LTE; others can afford to wait until implementation and operational issues are resolved and the business case improves.

CDMA operators with LTE ambitions will have to assess what they want to do with their existing CDMA assets. This may range from shutting down the network to go to HSPA before moving to LTE, to operating two or three networks in parallel (CDMA/LTE or CDMA/HSPA/LTE).

It isn’t necessary to do everything at once or soon. There are few first-mover advantages at the moment, as the entire LTE environment and business case is not yet mature. However, it’s crucial to have a top-down strategy with a clear vision of what LTE is for; this will drive the business case and thus the rollout plan, which in turn is needed to drive the most pressing issue – spectrum acquisition.

Here the only certainties are partial coverage and dual-mode operation for some years to come, and eventual replacement of the 2G/3G network to ensure ROI. At the same time, all intermediate steps should factor in the eventual migration to LTE, so that investments and incremental improvements to the network are LTE-ready.

Sequans powers Alvarion’s BreezeMAX Extreme product line for mobile WiMAX

CUPERTINO, USA & PARIS, FRANCE: Sequans Communications, leading WiMAX chipmaker, announced that its chips are being used by Alvarion for its recently released BreezeMAX Extreme Mobile WiMAX 802.16e product line.

The BreezeMAX Extreme solution is designed to speed up the deployment of broadband wireless services in multiple markets, including rural, residential, and business broadband, video surveillance, public safety, government, and smart power grid.

“Our partnership with Sequans allows us to bring an optimized solution for these specific market segments and lets customers maximize the utilization of their spectrum,” said Ofer Karp, president, Wireless Business Division, Alvarion. “The carrier class BreezeMAX Extreme supports advanced antenna and interference mitigation techniques, resulting in leading performance and an improved business case for a variety of markets.”

Alvarion’s BreezeMAX Extreme solution incorporates Sequans’ industry-leading Mobile WiMAX semiconductor solutions. Sequans provides a comprehensive Mobile WiMAX product line that includes the award-winning SQN2130 base station ASIC and the SQN1130 mobile station system-on-chip, both of which are WiMAX Forum Certified.

Sequans’ solutions feature superior receiver sensitivity along with Sequans’ patent-pending technology, mimoMAX™, which combines a maximum likelihood decoder on the downlink with two transmitters on the uplink. The latter enables uplink MIMO for greatly improved link budget and cell coverage.

“Alvarion is the world’s most successful WiMAX system vendor because it continues to deliver solutions that provide real value to operators,” said Georges Karam, Sequans CEO. “The new BreezeMAX Extreme system packs multiple capabilities in one compact all-outdoor unit that is easy to install in rural and urban areas.”

BreezeMAX Extreme is engineered for the global 5 GHz unlicensed band and the US 3.65 GHz quasi-licensed band and it is commercially available today.

SMS growth and new apps will shake up SMSC competition

LONDON, UK: Mobile messaging provides a key revenue stream for mobile operators around the globe and despite the maturity of the market, it will continue to see good growth over the next five years according to the findings of ABI Research?s latest comprehensive study.

Between 2008 and 2014, the total market for mobile messaging will grow at a CAGR of nearly 8 percent, increasing from $132 billion in 2008 to $208 billion by 2014. But steady growth in the broad mobile messaging market masks changes that are shaking up both messaging services and the ways mobile network operators deliver, support, and charge for those services.

The business of providing Short Message Service Centers (SMSCs) – which manage SMS messaging operations – has long been one of recurring licensing and service support revenues. Operators have stayed with their legacy SMSC providers, avoiding updates to their infrastructure and opting instead to augment existing systems.

“While new networks provided opportunities for some competition between SMSC vendors, the majority of the market saw little change between SMSC vendors in existing deployments. Now, that is starting to turn around,” says ABI Research principal analyst Jonathan Collins.

Today, MNOs are increasingly investing in additional and replacement SMSC offerings. These hold out the promise of reduced operating costs and simpler equipment as well as a chance to rationalize operations that have grown in complexity over the years. New SMSCs also support a range of SMS services that deliver greater value and flexibility for users, and can cut the cost to MNOs.

“As MNOs increasingly look to support, expand and maximize revenues from their SMS services, there is increasing potential for a new wave of competition to impact SMSC vendors. Those that can best meet the cost and application demands of MNOs will have the greatest opportunity in years to increase their share of the market,” says Collins.

Symbian ahead of schedule

LONDON, UK: The Symbian Foundation announced a significant milestone in its plan to move the entire Symbian platform into open source: the release of the platform microkernel (EKA2) and supporting development kit under the Eclipse Public License (EPL).

The kernel release is nine months ahead of schedule and reflects the positive momentum behind Symbian?s ambitious platform migration plan, which began with the release of security code under EPL.

Sixteen (16) out of a total 134 platform packages have now been released into open source since the code was first made available on the Symbian Foundation servers in April 2009.

“The release of the microkernel demonstrates three vital, guiding principles of the foundation: first, the commitment of many community members to the development of the platform - in this case, Accenture, ARM, Nokia and Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) all made contributions; second, progress in fulfilling our commitment to a complete open source release of Symbian; and third, a tangible example of providing the most advanced mobile platform in the world,” said Lee Williams, Executive Director, Symbian Foundation.

“I would like to congratulate Symbian for not only making the source code of its kernel open source, but also the compiler and simulation environment,” said Andrew S. Tanenbaum, author of global bestsellers and widely regarded computer science texts including, Operating Systems: Design and Implementation and Modern Operating Systems.

“The code will be of great interest to programmers and enthusiasts of the Symbian system. It will also show many people that microkernels are widely used in important commercial environments, where both reliability and high performance are essential.”

As the 'heart' of the platform, Symbian's real-time microkernel – comprising robust, fully multi-tasking architecture – manages all system resources and frameworks necessary for the co-existence of the processes and applications that make up the complete system.

To enable the community to fully utilise the open source kernel, Symbian is providing a complete development kit, free of charge, including ARM?s high performance RVCT compiler toolchain.

The provision of the kit demonstrates Symbian?s commitment to lowering access barriers to encourage the wider development community – such as research institutions, enthusiast groups and individual developers – to get creative with the code.

The complete kit, which can be downloaded from http://tiny.symbian.org/SymbianKernel, consists of:
* Open source kernel and other complementary packages.
* High performance ARM compiler toolchain (RVCT4.0): free to developers and companies of less than 20 employees.
* Open source simulation environment based on QEMU.
* Open source base support package for the low cost Beagle Board.
* Supporting binaries.
* Hardware execution environment

Omnitron launches first PoE+ Media converter

CHICAGO, USA: Omnitron Systems Technology, a provider of Carrier Ethernet demarcation devices and media converters, announced the availability of the new OmniConverter GPoE/S Gigabit media converter.

The OmniConverter GPoE/S is a 10/100/1000 UTP to 100BASE-FX or 1000BASE-X fiber multi-port media converter, and is the first converter on the market to support the new high-power IEEE 802.3at (PoE+) standard.

Classified as Power Sourcing Equipment (PSE), the OmniConverter GPoE/S provides power to one or two Powered Devices (PDs) using the same UTP cables that carry the Ethernet data.

The GPoE/S can power a variety of IEEE compliant and non-IEEE compatible PDs, such as IP phones, wireless access points and network cameras. The GPoE/S enables powering devices in hard-to-reach locations where there is limited access to AC power outlets, or locations where AC power creates safety issues.

The GPoE/S is available in models that support both the 802.3af standard and the new 802.3at (PoE+) standard which was approved by the IEEE earlier this month. Standard 802.3af models provide up to 15.4W of power per UTP port. The high-power 802.3at models provide up to 25.5W per port for more demanding PDs such as high-power wireless access points, pan-tilt-zoom IP cameras and other emerging devices.

“The GPoE/S is the most flexible solution for powering PoE-driven devices, including those deployed in fiber-to-the-desktop applications, such as IP phones and telepresence equipment” said Doug Baar, Vice President of Engineering. “The GPoE/S supports the higher power requirements of upcoming PoE+ devices, and offers backward compatibility with today's 802.3af PoE equipment and pre-standard equipment such as legacy VoIP phones.”

A variety of port configurations are available, including single or dual SFP and powered UTP ports. Models with dual SFP ports support critical applications that require redundancy and sub 50ms switch over in the event of a fiber failure.

The standalone GPoE/S comes in a compact form factor, which can be tabletop mounted, wall mounted, or DIN-rail mounted using an optional DIN-rail mounting kit. The product is DC powered and available with an optional external 100 - 240VAC universal power adapter.

560,000 BWA/WiMAX subscribers added in Q2-09

MONTREAL, Canada, October 20th, 2009 – Approximately 560,000 BWA/WiMAX subscribers were added in Q2 2009, according to the latest quarterly report published by Maravedis as part of its leading 4GCounts subscription service (www.4gcounts.com)

The average BWA/WiMAX subscriber growth rate in Q2 2009 was 16.5 percent over Q1 2009, and there was a 74 percent year-over-year growth rate since Q2 2008. “Global service revenue growth is going up as WiMAX operators experience increase in subscriber growth, and the gradual appreciation of most currencies against the US dollar,” noted Maravedis CEO and Founder, Adlane Fellah.

“The first part of 2009 was difficult for WiMAX because of the economic recession, however in Q2 2009 we saw many operators recovering from the subscriber and revenue slowdown they experienced in previous quarters,” noted Cintia Garza, co-author of the report.

“The higher demands imposed by open Internet access on web-phones and laptops pushes incumbent operators to LTE, and Greenfield operators to more rapid returns for WiMAX deployments. With additional spectrum hard to come by, this is likely to pull in the time frame for conversions of existing spectrum. Operators’ thinking shows early signs of shifting," commented Robert Syputa, Maravedis Senior Analyst and Partner.

The quarterly report also explores the motivations for 3G operators to invest in LTE, and what challenges they will face when adopting this technology. “LTE is considered today by many mobile operators as the main option to address the need for higher bandwidth services.

"However the technology is experiencing continuous delays in terms of the availability of LTE devices and lack of harmonized spectrum; many operators are eager to continue profiting from their current CDMA/HSPA networks before they invest huge sums into next generation networks,” explained report co-author Basharat Ashai.

This quarter's summary findings
* Clearwire USA continues to be the top BWA/WIMAX operator in terms of subscriber numbers. Clearwire has stopped marketing spending to concentrate on its network buildout, but still anticipates that in the second half of 2009 it will have the largest subscriber growth.

* Q2 2009 recorded WiMAX ARPU was US$39.50 and US$121.80 for residential and business segments respectively, compared to $36.70 and $111.74 for the same segments in Q1 2009.

* Out of all BWA/WiMAX CPEs deployed as of Q2 2009, 4GCounts showed 25 percent were 802.16-2004, 23% were 802.16e-2005, and 52 percent were vendor proprietary.

* Mobile traffic is experiencing extraordinary growth worldwide. Global mobile data traffic in Q2 2009 had a monthly increase of 30 percent with respect to the previous quarter.

* HTTP browsing is the most popular application on broadband mobile networks -- both globally and in each individual region, and it is responsible for 32 percent of global mobile bandwidth.

* 45 new devices obtained WiMAX Forum certification from June to September 2009, including 18 notebooks, four cards, 12 USB dongles, and three chipsets, among other devices.

* Of the top 35 mobile operators committed to LTE tracked by 4GCounts as of Q2 2009, 37 percent are planning a commercial rollout in 2010, 29 percent in 2011, 25 percent in 2012, and 9 percent have yet to confirm their timeline.