Ericsson and AT&T Wireless completed the first WCDMA/UMTS call in a live network environment in the Americas. With initial packet data speeds up to 384 kbps, the call demonstrates true 3G capabilities, which include quick downloads of such bandwidth-demanding applications as E-mail with attachments and streaming audio and video.The joint effort is part of a trial of the first 1900 MHz UMTS/WCDMA system in the Americas, which will have more than 100 cell sites in the Dallas area by the end of the year.

Ericsson is providing the complete WCDMA/UMTS network — the core network, the radio access network and mobile terminals. The small-sized Sony Ericsson test units used are based on technology developed by Ericsson Mobile Platforms.“We will continue moving forward in our quest to provide customers with the most advanced wireless services in the world,” said Rod Nelson, chief technology officer for AT&T Wireless. “There is a tremendous level of support by vendors, carriers and developers in bringing true 3G service to the United States.”“It’s really exciting to take what we’ve learned from our laboratory trials and apply those lessons to a live network environment,” said Angel Ruiz, president and chief executive officer, Ericsson Inc. “In other parts of the world, we’ve seen live tests before in the 2 GHz band.

But this is a landmark in the development of UMTS/WCDMA in the 1900 MHz frequencies and its progress in the Americas.”

Ericsson Technology Licensing announced that it has signed a licensing agreement to provide its latest Blue tooth radio core, the K-D1, to National Semiconductor, a premier analog company focused on the market for wireless handsets. National plans to introduce products incorporating Ericsson’s radio next year.The Bluetooth radio core K-D1 from Ericsson gives National Semiconductor a Bluetooth design solution that can be completely ported into its manufacturing process.

This enables National Semiconductor to differentiate products for different manufacturing processes and different market segments.“National’s broad portfolio of Bluetooth products, from chip sets to modules to accessories, will be enhanced by our licensing agreement with Ericsson,” said Jean-Louis Bories, Executive Vice President of National Semiconductor’s IA and Wireless Division. “We are strong believers in Bluetooth and the added value Bluetooth solutions provide customers in applications such as mobile handsets and PDAs. ““By signing a licensing agreement with National Semiconductor, one of the world’s top semiconductor companies, we have taken a big step toward reaching our goal of integrating our Bluetooth solution into mass market consumer products,” says Maria Khorsand, President of Ericsson Technology Licensing. “This puts new fuel into the Bluetooth market - where the demand for chips is expected to grow more than 300 percent next year.”

The fourth generation radio is the latest in Bluetooth radio design and features complete on-chip integration of the radio front end using a 0.18-micron RFCMOS process with some key features as lowest external components count and no radio sensitive external components. The package includes evaluation hardware and design database, as well as simulation results and schematics. Furthermore, qualified samples manufactured in the foundry mother process are also included. This has been proven to accelerate the process of porting and to minimize engineering efforts.

Nokia Game finished on Friday, 29 November with an exciting musical finale. This year, the theme was the ins and outs of the music industry. Players took on the role of a start-up music band that tries to become famous as soons as possible and release their first single via a multimedia message (MMS) to mobile phones. Using “Fames”, the Nokia Game currency, players were able to buy the necessary Assets, such as Studios, Composers or PR Agencies, to enable them to become famous.
In addition, several online games gave players the chance to show off their skills and gain valuable experience for the final.“This year’s Nokia Game was a huge success with over one million players registered. And the collaborative spirit of previous years was present again, with players connecting, competing and collaborating to reach the finals, ” said Pekka Rantala, Vice President, Marketing Services, Nokia Mobile Phones. “A big thank you to all of the players who took part this year. We hope that they were both entertained and inspired by their journey into the music industry.”Nokia Game is an interactive adventure provided by Nokia that was played from 11 to 29 November in nine languages across 25 countries.

Throughout Nokia Game, the players received clues and information via the Internet, SMS, chat, interactive voice response (IVR) calls and mini-movies distributed over the web. In addtion, the UK band Idlewild rolled a giant set of inflatable dice in locations across Europe and the dice results changed the way in which the game developed.The top 10 to100 players in each country will each win a special new Nokia 3650 phone with integrated camera, video player and camcorder. The winners will be among the first in their region to own and use this new phone.

Canadian vendor Research In Motion (RIM) has been stepping up its presence in the mass market of late, focusing on applications that will help its BlackBerry device appeal to the mass market. Following on from the launch of a Facebook application for its devices last week, the mobile email shop introduced the first music download service for the BlackBerry on Thursday.

The announcement was made at the launch of Vodafone’s mobile music launch in London, which, based on Omnifone’s Music Station, will see BlackBerry users on the Vodafone network able to download unlimited tracks to their devices for less than £8 per month.But just round the corner at the BlackBerry Alliance Members conference, RIM’s Peter Heath, director of alliances, told the audience that the BlackBerry was becoming more of a ‘prosumer’ device as more and more people realised it could be used for “more than just email”.

Heath revealed that RIM now has more than 10.5 million BlackBerry users and more than 700 partners developing applications for the device. At present, 78 per cent of RIM’s revenues come from hardware but 15 per cent come from services and that figure is set to grow with the increase in usage of more consumer apps like MMS and Instant Messaging.

On Thursday, RIM also made its BlackBerry Pear 8130 available to CDMA subscribers for the first time via Verizon’s network in the US.But analysts warn that RIM is facing increasing competition in the business space as Microsoft gets its act together. Ovum analysts, Adam Leach and Jessica Figueras said that Microsoft’s announcement of support for Active Directory in the next release of Windows Mobile could be bad news for BlackBerry.Windows Mobile 6.1 devices, due in the market around the middle of 2008, will also be manageable through a new server product, the System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008 (SCMDM).

The offering will allow IT administrators to manage mobile devices in the same way that they manage other IT assets.”Microsoft’s dominance in corporate office IT infrastructure has not yet translated to dominance within the fledgling market for corporate mobile IT infrastructure. That could change,” the analysts said.

Swisscom will massively expand its mobile data network, in a series of stages. From mid- November, Swisscom customers will be able to take advantage of much higher speeds - up to 7.2 Mbps for receiving and up to 1.4 Mbps for sending data - thanks to HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) technology.In a second stage, the HSPA network will be expanded to provide coverage to 70 per cent of Switzerland’s population by the end of the year. Stage three will see HSPA becoming available on the entire UMTS network from mid-2008, extending coverage to 90 per cent of the population. By mid-2008, Swisscom will have invested tens of millions of francs in its mobile broadband network.Currently, Swisscom already supplies 45 per cent of the Swiss population with HSPA.

By the end of the year, coverage will have increased to 70 per cent. Thanks to further expansion, HSPA will be available on the entire UMTS network from the end of June 2008, giving Swisscom customers almost everywhere ultra high-speed mobile access to the Internet, e-mails or company data.Sending and receiving data faster while on the moveBut Swisscom is not just expanding its network, it is also making tangible improvements in terms of speed.

Throughout the whole HSPA network, the upload bandwidth speed will increase from the previous maximum of 384 kbps to 1.4 Mbps, which will considerably accelerate the sending of e-mails with large file attachments, for example. The maximum data download speed will be 3.6 Mbps. In addition, around 20 locations will be equipped with a double download bandwidth by the end of 2007 - with another 120 locations to follow by mid-2008. This will enable users in these densely populated areas to download data at speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps. As a basis for comparison: the most commonly used DSL connection in the fixed network offers a speed of 3500 kbps (3.5 Mbps).

Telstra has launched a new “super receptive” mobile phone which it recommends for handheld use in rural areas across Australia. The handset is being supplied by China’s ZTE.The Telstra 165 ‘Country Phone’ is one of two new WCDMA (Next G) handsets being added to the growing ‘Blue Tick’ range of rural specific phones.

The other new Blue Tick handset is the Nokia N95, which will be in stores from mid-November.”The Country Phone is the first Next G handset with a pullout antenna and it’s built to meet the demands of Australia’s tough outdoor conditions.

The handset’s bigger design incorporates a large, easy to use key pad to accommodate even the biggest of fingers and the phone is protected in rubber casing, is dust proof, shock and liquid resistant,” Telstra Country Wide Group Managing Director, Mr Geoff Booth, said.

Telstra Product Management Group Managing Director, Ms Holly Kramer, said while the Country Phone had a focus on utility, the Nokia N95 had all the style and sophistication synonymous with one of the world’s leading handset brands.”Incorporating advanced multimedia functionality and elegant design, the Nokia N95 is the first Nokia handset to achieve Telstra’s Blue Tick for handheld use in rural areas,” Ms Kramer said.Both new handsets offer easy 1-click content and applications including access to BigPond TV, 33 channels on Mobile FOXTEL, Sensis search services plus an array of free BigPond content such as the latest news and weather reports.

Nokia today shared its vision for technologies which will impact the future of the convergence of Internet and mobility at The Way We Live Next, an exclusive briefing at the Nokia Research Center in Oulu, Finland’s northern technology hub.The world of mobile communications is changing at an ever increasing pace” said Tero Ojanperä, Chief Technology Officer, Nokia in his key note address. “To continue to stay ahead in this environment and to develop innovative new products and services that excite consumers, companies need to embrace openness on many levels.

At Nokia, we work with experts in the academic, scientific and developer communities, and increasingly importantly, directly in interaction with our customers. Innovation can come from anywhere, and we need to have the tools and flexibility to respond to that challenge.”Presentations and demonstrations at the event highlighted areas of advanced research being undertaken by the company, many of which are in cooperation with individuals, companies and research organizations around the world, reflecting the company’s drive for open innovation and establishing a strong “beta culture” -trialing and evaluating new applications and services quickly - around the company’s products and services.

During the briefing, Nokia delivered presentations on topics including:

- Web technologies driving innovation in mobile,
- Nanotechnology and solutions for the environment
- The evolution of the Internet user experience
- Mobile payments and banking using Near Field Communications
- Future energy sources
- Smart Connectivity and the future of wireless broadband

Nokia today unveiled SEEK, the third dimension of its mobile sharing site, MOSH. SEEK allows MOSH users to make requests for content they crave and the community can then respond with suggestions or custom created content answering the ‘SEEK’. SEEK allows the rapidly growing, and global, MOSH community to connect with one another and to obtain content not yet available.

Looking for a specific mobile application but can’t find anything close? Visiting Amsterdam and want a great mobile map? How about video of a specific dive in the Maldives? SEEK it. SEEK is the third dimension in the evolution of MOSH. The first dimension was the ability to upload and share content with a global audience; the second was downloading and customizing your device; now SEEK provides the ability to seek content and interact with the community, SEEK will tap into the power of the MOSH community and provide customized responses to people’s mobile needs.Officially launching on December 14, an exclusive demo of SEEK will be seen at CTIA Wireless in San Francisco October 23rd through October 25th. MOSH, short for mobilize and share, has seen more than 6 million downloads since its beta launch on 9th August.

MOSH was built from the ground up with mobility in mind and its seamless web and mobile integration has facilitated rapid growth with 80% of all downloads happening through mobile browsers. MOSH allows content creators and technology leaders to post their content to a global audience. Focused on the sharing of mobile content, MOSH is intended for all mobile devices and is not Nokia specific.

One of the numerous Apple iPhone hacking groups claims to have beaten the latest update from Apple, which rendered many iPhones useless. The guys behind iPhoneSimFree have released an updated hack, which they claim now works with any versions of the iPhone firmware, including 1.0.0, 1.0.1, 1.0.2, 1.1.1.This means owners of hacked iPhones can now update to the latest version of the device firmware.

Previously doing so would have turned the device into a brick.In fact, the hackers claim that the latest version of their unlock software will also allow bricked iPhone owners to bring their devices back from the dead. The unlocking tool will also allow users to install third party applications on the device natively.

US chip shop Broadcom unveiled a “3G Phone on a Chip” Monday morning - a single chip HSPA processor, integrating the key 3G technologies on a low power, single 65 nanometer CMOS die Broadcom reckons the platform will allow handsets manufacturers to build 3G HSUPA phones with sleek form factors and very long battery life at a fraction of the cost of today’s offerings.

The chip designer said the platform would effectively make 3G available to the mass market. The HSUPA processor will allow consumers to download content at up to 7.2Mbps and upload content such as pictures and videos at up to 5.8Mbps.The BCM21551 3G “Phone on a Chip,” combines a HSUPA baseband, a multi-band RF transceiver, Bluetooth 2.1 EDR, an FM radio receiver and transmitter, up to 5 megapixel camera support, and 30 frame per second video with TV Out.