MELBOURNE, Australia—As part of its expanding mobile data strategy, Telstra announced this week a three-month trial in which customers can pay for parking using their GSM mobile phones."Our customers have consistently told us they want the convenience of being able to use their phone...
HONG KONG—MSN announced a new initiative to bring its Hotmail Web-based e-mail service to mobile phones in Asia. MSN has partnered with U.S.-based Mobileway to allow mobile operators in Asia to offer Hotmail via two-way short message service beginning in mid-year.The agreement follows successful...
OXFORD, United Kingdom—Looking to build on the runaway success of short message service (SMS), two more European mobile operators have joined in the rush to be among the first to launch multimedia messaging services (MMS). Vodafone Telecel in Portugal and Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM)...
JAKARTA, Indonesia—StarHub, Singapore's third-largest mobile operator, said it has enriched content for its General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and short message service (SMS) services with the coming of the 2002 World Cup during June (see related story on World Cup under "Features"). During the...
OXFORD, United Kingdom—A joint venture between Orange and U.K.-based cable operator NTL should soon enable Orange cell-phone users to order digital content and have it downloaded via NTL's broadband connection to their homes. NTL said it is also planning to leverage its relationships with...
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico—InfoSpace Inc. announced that it is providing its wireless software and services for the launch of WAP, SMS and speech-enabled data services by Verizon Wireless Puerto Rico. The launch includes a wide range of Spanish-language messaging, entertainment and personalized information services....
OXFORD, United Kingdom—While sending e-mails via cell phones is up to 10 times cheaper than short message service (SMS), mobile operators must still charge users to receive e-mails so their networks are not swamped with messages. This viewpoint, put forward by executives from Dutch...
STOCKHOLM, Sweden—Wireless giant Ericsson continued to lead the multimedia messaging service infrastructure industry through its new deal with T-Mobile. T-Mobile will use Ericsson's MMS center to launch services in its Hungary market and plans to roll out similar services in its German, Austrian and...
NIEUWEGEIN, The Netherlands—CMG Wireless Data Solutions announced a major sale to Portugal wireless carrier Optimus for its full multimedia messaging product line.Optimus will use CMG's Multimedia Messaging Service Centre, Wireless Service Broker, Prepaid mCharger and Business Tools products.Optimus has been working with CMG since...
NEW DELHI, India—Indian GSM players this week renewed their attempts to stall the rollout of CDMA services—under the name of "limited mobility" wireless local loop (WLL)—by fixed service providers, by approaching courts to quash the government decision.The Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) and...
LONDON—Logica announced a major deal with wireless giant Telefonica Moviles to provide the carrier this virtually all its messaging products, as well as plans to jointly develop new messaging infrastructure products and solutions.Logica will offer Telefonica and its operators worldwide its short message service...
GREENSBORO, N.C.—RF Micro Devices Inc. said it has started to ship its RF2173 and RF2174 power amplifiers for two additional handsets of a top-tier multinational handset original equipment manufacturer.The benefiting handsets are dual-band GSM devices, which feature WAP 1.1, Internet e-mail, an internal antenna,...
STOCKHOLM, Sweden—Ericsson has dismissed market speculation in Sweden that its latest swing of the downsizing ax is driven by a need to attract a takeover suitor. Nokia is being linked as the likely acquirer, although students of corporate history will well recall that on...
OXFORD, United Kingdom—The boom in European short message service (SMS) traffic is forecast to peak in 2003 as other messaging technology bites into the service from 2004 onward, claims new research from Forrester. The company said that as the decline in SMS traffic occurs,...
JAKARTA, Indonesia—General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) technology will not bring killer data applications, at least during this year in Indonesia, according to industry executives.Rudiantara, head of the country's cellular association, said Indonesia's cellular subscribers experienced many new short message service (SMS)-based applications last year,...
BEDMINSTER, N.J.—Verizon Wireless said it will install a new short message service gateway from Motorola Inc. to power its Mobile Messenger service."As the nation's largest wireless carrier, Verizon Wireless will provide new interactive messaging services to its customers, and the SMS Gateway will serve...
Send press releases of new products for consideration for future "Products" updates to Global Wireless Products Handsets/devicesNokiaNokia introduced several new handsets that feature multimedia messaging service (MMS) capability, Java ...
NEW DELHI, India—Tata Teleservices, a basic services provider, will launch its "limited mobility" service using wireless local loop (WLL) technology in five circles, or service areas, in the second half of 2002. It plans to have nearly 2.5 million CDMA subscribers during the next...
MANILA, The Philippines—Leading Philippine wireless operator Smart Communications and Yahoo Southeast Asia, a leading online and wireless service provider in the region, announced the availability of Yahoo Mail for SMS to mobile-phone subscribers. Smart mobile-phone subscribers can now access Yahoo e-mail directly from their...
VILNIUS, Lithuania—Lithuanian operator Omnitel has begun a short message service parking payment service, allowing postpaid subscribers to pay for parking with mobile phones.Users send specific messages to a short number when wanting to pay for parking after placing stickers purchased from Omnitel in their...
MUNICH, Germany—The mobile division of technology giant Siemens continues to reinforce its wireless Internet offering, adding instant messaging features and a proxy server.First, the company teamed with wireless messaging company Ecrio Inc. to offer carrier customers a wireless instant-messaging service, which Siemens said includes...
MobileSpring Inc. and InphoMatch Inc., rival vendors for short message service interoperability solutions, have been working together during the past few months to ensure their cross-carrier messaging systems are themselves interoperable.The teaming comes as no real surprise. By making sure their systems can work...
