OXFORD, United Kingdom—Manx Telecom, Europe's first commercial third-generation (3G) operator, has chosen Calaba's wireless directory and search engine software in an effort to provoke greater uptake of mobile data services. Manx Telecom, which turned its diminutive network on last month, said that the full-color...
MANILA, Phillipines—Short message service (SMS) technology remains a dominant force in the growth of data services in Asia, despite the availability of more advanced technologies, such as the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), a recent report by London-based analyst...
NEW DELHI, India—More operators in Africa are going in for fraud management systems to maximize revenues. Sonatel Mobiles of Senegal in Western Africa will soon deploy fraud management software (FMS) supplied by Subex Systems Limited of Bangalore, India. Econet Wireless in Nigeria and Cyprus...
Handsets/wireless devicesSonySony Electronics unveiled its CLIE handhePEG-T415 ld with reduced profile, featuring a slim design with aluminum case and enhanced infrared port for controlling audio and video equipment. The company also...
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa—MTN Nigeria recently launched its Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) services. This latest development reflects the company's ongoing drive to expand mobile telephony values beyond those of voice communication to include data transmission, said Afam Edozie, chief marketing and strategy officer for the...
HELSINKI, Finland—Nokia said it has launched a TDMA/GSM phone model, which will enable roaming in the United States, Europe and other parts of the world. Nokia believes it is the first phone with such roaming capability.The Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)-based 6340 model, which offers...
LONDON—The owners of Vizzavi Europe, a mobile portal formed in May 2000, announced a revised revenue model, along with the departure of the company's chief executive officer (CEO) and a reduction in 100 jobs across Europe.Vodafone Group and Vivendi Universal said their joint venture...
NEW YORK—The U.S.-based Wireless Advertising Association announced it will merge with the United Kingdom-based Wireless Marketing Association in order to foster the mobile marketing industry and protect the interests of consumers, the new group said.The new group, which will run under the new Mobile...
DALLAS, United States—Nokia continued its massive push for its open mobile architecture initiative by signing some of the world's largest information and technology infrastructure and application server vendors, including BEA Systems, Borland Software, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Oracle and Sun Microsystems. The move could put further...
OXFORD, United Kingdom—KPN Mobile, the financially troubled Dutch operator, will later this month start the first practical i-mode tests in Europe through its joint venture with Japan's NTT DoCoMo. The company said that some 60 national and international content sites would be made available...
JAKARTA, Indonesia—Malaysia's TimeCel recently launched an interactive short message service (SMS) quiz promotion. The promotion, called Juara Lagu 2001 SMS Quiz, runs from 1 to 14 December.Juara Lagu is Sistem Televisyen Malaysia Berhad's (TV3) annual song competition in which Time dotCom group, TimeCel's parent...
PARIS—French mobile music services company Musiwap changed its name to Musiwave. The company said it replaced the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)-focused name to better reflect the company's focus on various data technologies, such as short message service (SMS) and third-generation (3G) services.
NEW DELHI, India—The fate of a 4.5 million line GSM tender floated by the government-owned BSNL hangs in balance as the governmental Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is insisting on price re-negotiation. The three vendors shortlisted for the bid—Lucent, Ericsson and Motorola—have refused to scale...
MAISONS-LAFFITTE, France—Webraska announced it is going to supply Orange U.K. with upgrades to Orange's existing multimedia location-based services.The upgraded service will allow users to be automatically located by the network rather than having to type in their address themselves, Webraska said.Orange's initial set of...
MUNICH, Germany—Polish mobile operator PTC-Era has chosen a location-based services platform from Siemens and SignalSoft for delivery via Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and short message service (SMS). PTC-Era is the first Eastern European operator to invest in location-based services for its subscribers, according to...
HELSINKI, Finland—Nokia has signed an agreement with Omnitel, a Lithuanian GSM operator, for the supply and installation of additional switching capacity to expand Omnitel's network capacity and modernize its switching technology.The expansion, to occur throughout 2002 and 2003, will address current subscriber growth in...
TOKYO—KDDI, the second-largest mobile operator in Japan, announced it will launch location services using the global positioning system (GPS) satellite system and motion picture services with 64 kilobits per second (kbps) data speeds in early December. KDDI is losing market share in Japan, while...
BELLEVUE, Washington, United States—InfoSpace and Vodafone Australia announced they are extending their business agreement in a move to continue to work together to offer wireless Internet services in Australia.The companies began working together in April of last year and have since introduced Wireless Application...
LONDON—The WAP Forum and the GSM Association announced they will formalize and strengthen their cooperative alliance, collaborating on projects such as the GSM Association's M-Services initiative, which is based on Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) version 2.0.The two organizations said they would work together on...
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—The WAP Forum, which works to foster the growth of the Wireless Application Protocol standard, named Robert L. Brown, the former chairman of the GSM Association North American Interest Group, as the forum's new chief executive officer.As CEO, Brown will provide worldwide...
HELSINKI, Finland-Scandinavia has long been the most fertile and concentrated spawning ground for technology innovation in Europe. The torchbearers for this culture have been led by global names such as Nokia, Ericsson, Benefon and Europolitan.In 1985, Nokia's main claim to fame was as one...
DUBLIN, Ireland-European mobile operators realize they must work much harder to sell new subscriptions as GSM market penetration reaches saturation point, with no immediate sign of commercial third-generation (3G) applications to stimulate new demand. But operators firmly reject suggestions from vendor groups that they...
VILNIUS, Lithuania—Lithuania's Omnitel introduced a virtual chat service called Plepek!, which allows communications via short message service, the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and the Internet.The open chat groups include several groups on specific topics, such as automobiles and basketball. In addition, exclusive chat groups...
