November 2007 Archives

Verizon Wireless, announced the XV6800 is available online and through Verizon Wireless business sales. The XV6800 will be available in Verizon Wireless Communications Stores on Dec. 5.

The Verizon Wireless XV6800 delivers messaging capabilities, including Windows Mobile 6 Professional, which provides instant access to the Internet, calendar and contacts, tasks, e-mail, and much more. Also included are advanced phone features, such as a 2.0 megapixel camera with flash and video capture, and support for Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents, as well as PDFs. It

• 2.8” 240 x 320 64k-color touch-screen
  
• Built-in WiFi 802.11 b/g capability
• Slide-out QWERTY keyboard
• microSD(TM) memory card slot with support up to 4 GB
  
• Windows Media(R) Player 10 Mobile
  
• Bluetooth v 2.0 for mono and stereo headsets, hands-free, serial port, and OBEX profiles; object push and synchronization

Verizon Wireless customers have the benefit of using the XV6800 as a modem for notebooks when they subscribe to Verizon Wireless’ BroadbandAccess Connect — which runs on the nation’s most reliable wireless broadband network — to send and receive data.

The XV6800 is available online at www.verizonwireless.com today for $449.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate and a new two-year customer agreement. Business customers may contact a Verizon Wireless Business Sales Representative at 1-800-VZW-4BIZ to purchase the device.

Verizon Wireless, and LG Electronics announced today the newest flavor of Chocolate by LG - Blue Ice. The Chocolate in Blue Ice includes the same features chocoholics have come to love, such as vibration feedback on the touch-sensitive keypad, navigation wheel with classic red trace motion lighting, and a microSD™ memory card slot that supports up to 4 GB of memory. Other features include V CAST Music, V CAST Video, VZ NavigatorSM, a 1.3 megapixel camera, speakerphone and Bluetooth.

Chocolate by LG in Blue Ice is available today for $79.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate and new two-year customer agreement at Verizon Wireless Communications Stores within Circuit City. It will be available at Verizon Wireless Communications Stores and online at www.verizonwireless.com on Friday, Dec. 7.

Google announced today that it will apply to participate in the Federal Communications Commission’s upcoming auction of wireless spectrum in the 700 megahertz (MHz) band.

They say the spectrum will free up airwaves for more efficient wireless Internet service for consumers.

BlackBerry Curve (8300 8310 8320) Rated 4 out 5 by Wireless and Mobile News Review of Reviews

Ads for the BlackBerry Curve say that it has beauty and brains There are three curvaceous BlackBerry models; the 8300 (the first), 8310 (GPS /AT&T) and 8320 (Wi-Fi/T-Mobile).  Reviewers do agree about the beauty of the devices and give the most accolades for the brains of all models for spectacular email functioning, the keyboards, sharp cameras and good call quality. The reviewers favor the 8310 for GPS and the 8320 for Wi-Fi access.

The place where these devices shine is in email and text functions.  The preloaded software functions well and if you opt for a GPS model, you will never get lost. BlackBerry Curves received praise for stereo Bluetooth, trackball and ease of use. The prices with a contract range from $199 for AT&T customers to $249 for T-Mobile customers. Wirefly offers a free  AT&T BlackBerry Curve for new and existing customers

Google Maps for mobile new feature has a new “My Location” feature that can find the approximate location of the mobile user  without GPS by cell towers, saving users typing and time. 

This information then can be combined with local search helping users find, restaurants, gas stations and coffee house nearby.

To give Google Maps for mobile with My Location a try, text “MYLOCATION” to 33669, or go to www.google.com/gmm in your mobile browser.

Verizon today announced plans to develop and deploy its fourth generation mobile broadband network using LTE - Long Term Evolution - the technology developed within the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards organization.

The selection of LTE provides Verizon and Vodafone joint owners of Verizon Wireless an opportunity to adopt a common global access platform with compatibility to existing technologies of both companies. Trials will begin in 2008.

“Today’s 4G announcement, coupled with our Open Development initiative announced earlier this week present a major growth opportunity for Verizon Wireless,” said Doreen Toben, chief financial officer of Verizon. “Fourth generation’s higher data speeds will usher in a new era of wireless applications and appliances, all of which can benefit from connecting to the nation’s premier wireless network.”

In a presentation at the Churchill Club in Santa Clara, California, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said that a 3G Apple iPhone will be available next year, reports Barron’s blogger Eric Savetz.

AT&T announced a number of holiday offerings including free downloads of holiday ringtones, answer tones, a new mobile game and Tone E-Cards.

The holiday ringtones and Answer Tones are available from AT&T free of charge and include:

• Ringtones: Jingle Bells, The Dreidel Song, and Noche de Paz
• Answer Tones:, Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree by Cyndi Lauper, Wizards in Winter by Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Feliz Navidad by Jose Feliciano
• Game: Santa’s Tower Bloxx by Digital Chocolate

To obtain the free offer, customers send a text message with the word GIFT to the number 7230. They will receive a text message with a link to download their free tone or game. Normal data usage charges apply during download.

Anyone with an AT&T wireless phone can use a Tone E-Card, which make great last-minute gifts. The Tone E-Cards, valued at $9.99 or $19.99, can be ordered online at http://www.att.com/tonecard. After the receiver gets an e-mail alert with their PIN code, they can shop for ring tones or graphics at MEdia Mall and redeem their gift by entering the eight-digit code in the Coupon/Tone Card Code field on the Ringtone or Graphic Purchase page.

According to an article in the Boston Globe  Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority commuters are testing a system in which commuters are notified by text messages or email when their train subway, train, bus or commuter boat routes they use during their usual commute times is delayed. The service is called T-Alerts and is being tested by 3,000 commuters.

MIS Sciences Corp., provided the service for MBTA and alerts for transit systems in Washington D.C., Toronto, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Bank of America announced it has reached a record 500,000 active mobile customers, after launching the service six months ago. According to a recent TowerGroup report, the number of Bank of America mobile customers is more than all other U.S. banks combined.

Bank of America, introduced mobile banking in March to consumers in selected markets and expanded the service across the country in May. Bank of America is promoting its mobile service with online demonstrations and television commercials.

With Bank of America mobile banking, customers can use phones that have Internet access to:

• Check balances on their checking, savings and credit card accounts, as well as mortgages and home equity lines held with Bank of America.
• Pay their bills and e-bills.
• Transfer money between accounts and to other Bank of America customers.
• View transactions for checking and savings accounts, mortgages and home equity lines, including posted and pending transactions.
• Access directions to ATMs and banking centers.

According the AP News reports, Cyber University in Fukuoka Japan, will be offering a mobile phone class on the mysteries of the pyramids. Cyber University usually conducts class online with a lecturer and PowerPoint presentation the mobi class will only include the PowerPoint slides wit a lecture voice-over.

Cyber University, opened in April after receiving government approval to give bachelor’s degrees and currently has 1,850 students.

The virtual campus is 71 percent owned by Softbank Corp., a major Japanese mobile carrier, which also operates broadband and other online services.

Mobile classes will be available for free to the general public, but may be only viewed on Softbank phones with access charges applied.

Mobile phones are popular holiday gifts, with more consumers acquiring a new mobile in December than any other month, reported M:Metrics.

Popular devices such as the iPhone and  Nokia N95 are expected to sell well. According to M:Metrics, Sony Ericsson's k810i and Nokia's N95 post the highest satisfaction scores in Europe, while the LG EnV and iPhone vie for the top position in the United States.  Other holiday phones selling in the U.S. are the LG Voyager, and T-Mobile Shadow.

Samsung announced today the development of its new single-chip radio frequency identification (RFID) reader for mobile devices. Embedded RFID reader chips can provide consumers with product or service information retrieved from RFID tags incorporated in items such as movie posters, clothing, and museums or tourist exhibits.

According to market research firm RoA Group, the global demand for mobile RFID is expected to grow from $26.9 billion in 2007 to $701 billion by 2010, for a compound annual growth of 196 percent.

Verizon Wireless  announced that it will allow customers use their own devices on the Verizon network by the end of 2008.

In early 2008, the company will publish the technical standards the development community will need.  Any device that meets the minimum technical standard will be activated on the network. Devices will be tested and approved in a $20 million state-of-the-art testing lab which received an additional investment this year to gear up for the anticipated new demand. Any application the customer chooses will be allowed on these devices.

MultiMedia Intelligence reports the worldwide unit shipments of multimedia feature rich mobile phones will exceed 300 million units in 2008, outnumbering shipments of TV sets.

Multimedia phones have at least 1 megapixal image capture, MP3 audio, video Playback, Java, USB, Bluetooth, 16-bit screen color, QVGA resolution, WAP and MMS. Revenue from these handsets will be over US $76 billion.

Also noted in the study, “by 2011, the number of handsets with touch screens will approach 200 million.”

In a new study from Gartner, worldwide sales of mobile phones to users in the third quarter of 2007 reached 289 million units, a 15% increase from the same period last year. The top five vendors increased their market shares and accounted for 81.6 per cent of the global market share.

Sales by Manufacturer

1. Nokia remained the top seller with 110.2 million units reaching a market share of 38.1 per cent in the third quarter of 2007.
2. Samsung went from the number 3 vendor to the the number 2 vendor due to weak Motorola sales selling 41.8 million units .
3. Motorola’s market share dropped 7.6 percentage points from the third quarter of 2006, relegating the vendor to the No. 3 position, after selling 37.7 million units.
   
4. Sony Ericsson’s positive performance continued in the third quarter of 2007 as sales reached 25.4 million units.
5. LG sold 20.5 million units in the third quarter of 2007 and reached a market share of 7.1 per cent.

Sales by Region

• North America sales to users reached 45 million units in the third quarter of 2007, a 10.3% increase from the same period in 2006.
  
• Sales of mobile phones in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa reached 49.6 million units in the third quarter of 2007.
  
• Asia/Pacific, mobile phone sales rose to 101.8 million units, a 26% increase from the third quarter of 2006.

Cricket Communications, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Leap Wireless International, Inc., has selected Starent’s ST16 multimedia core platform solution to provide multimedia services to subscribers.

Cricket is a wireless cell phone service provider, offering customers and local businesses flat-rate, unlimited service over an all-digital wireless network. Starent Network’s multimedia core platform will enable Cricket to enhance its current offering of mobile applications such as text messaging, picture messaging and games, and to prepare for the next-generation of multimedia applications.

Starnet solutions deliver the high capacity, high availability and high performance required by today’s multimedia broadband 3G networks and are readily upgradeable to respond to evolving 4G radio networks.

Two companies have joined forces to create a way to monitor patients via RFID skin patches and mobile phones. Smart, wireless, RFID skin patches for identification and diagnostic applications are now being manufactured by Frank Sammeroff Ltd., who has formed a strategic alliance with Gentag, Inc. for the production of the patches.

“By combining cell phones with RFID skin patches, we feel that medical errors in hospitals worldwide can be reduced significantly, resulting in major cost benefits,” announced Dr. John Peeters, the founder of Gentag.

The patented solution combines disposable skin patches with RFID tags and cell phones and will allow physicians and nurses to use their cell phones or wireless PDAs to update medical charts, time of patient visit, drug administration, and also be immediately warned about possible drug interactions, prior to drug delivery.

AT&T and LG Electronics launched the new Shine by LG, in time to be in stores Nov. 23, “Black Friday.” The Shine by LG is a sliding pone that features a silver exterior and comes with video, music and camera features and a 2.2-inch mirror LCD screen.

Additional features on the Shine by LG include a 2.0-megapixel camera with video record and Bluetooth2.0 capability for music and voice. The body of the Shine by LG is an elegant metal body surrounding a mirror LCD screen.

The Shine sells for $149.99 after a two-year contract-activation agreement and a $50 mail-in rebate. It was not shown in the 50% off all phones ad that appeared in newspapers and has already ended.

Every holiday season, publications review what wireless devices and phones you should buy for gifts for Christmas, Hanuka and Kwanzaa. As part of our Review of Reviews service, we are summarizing the gift guides here:

• The most popular choices for all phones are the iPhone and the Nokia N95.
• In the music phone category, the most suggested phone is the Sony Ericsson w580i.
• For smart phones, popular choices are the Palm Centro and BlackBerry Curve.
• Favorites for teens are the LG Rumor, Palm Centro, LG Voyager and Samsung Juke.
• Most mentioned for touch capabilities are the iPhone  HTC Touch, and LG Voyager.

We will be updating our list as more Holiday guides appear. Please remember the art of gift giving is to match the present to the needs, wants, and style of the gift recipient. Keep the receipt, just in case. Most major carriers (AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint) allow returns within 30 days.

For links to original guides, continue reading.

Verizon Wireless and Kyocera Wireless Corp., announced the immediate availability of the KPC680 ExpressCard with EV-DO Rev. A technology.

The new KPC680 will allow Verizon Wireless customers to have faster access to e-mail, corporate data, the Internet and more. Powered by Verizon Wireless’ wireless broadband network, which runs on EV-DO Rev. A technology, the KPC680 gives customers increased speed, mobility, and security that helps them improve mobile business productivity. It provides the average download speeds of 600 kilobits per second (kbps) to 1.4 megabits and average upload speeds of 500-800 kbps.

The KPC680 ExpressCard is available now through business sales channels and online at www.verizonwireless.com; it will be available in Verizon Wireless Communications Stores, including those in Circuit City, on Nov. 30.

The KPC680 ExpressCard is available for $49.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate and new two-year customer agreement. Customers can get BroadbandAccess service for $59.99 monthly access with a new one- or two-year customer agreement.

The Samsung FlipShot is now available online from Verizon with a 3 megapixel camera and rotating display for or $199.99 with a new two-year customer agreement.

The FlipShot enables photo enthusiasts to capture picture-perfect moments while carrying a device that allows for full mobile phone functionality and high-quality digital photos. The handset features Bluetooth(R) capability for headsets, stereo, car kits, object push (for vCard only), basic image and basic print as well as a business card scanner.

Alltel Wireless announced that it plans to have the BlackBerry® Pearl™ 8130 smartphone from Research In Motion available in time for the holidays.

Alltel Wireless will be offering the BlackBerry Pearl 8130 for $149.99 after a $100 mail-in-rebate at Alltel retail stores nationwide and online at shopalltel.com.

Alltel Wireless, announced the launch of Axcess Family Finder, a service that enables parents to determine the location of their child’s Axcess Family Finder-capable (GPS enabled) phone from the Web or their mobile phone.

Axcess Family Finder features easy-to-use interactive maps to monitor or guide family members to specific locations. The service also allows parents to identify specific areas that their children frequent, including movie theaters and parks, by using the Axcess Family Finder Web site, www.alltel.com/familyfinder.

The service, developed for Alltel by WaveMarket Inc., is available for $9.99 a month per child application.

AT&T Inc. announced that an AT&T subsidiary has agreed to acquire privately held Ingenio, a leading provider of Pay Per Call technology. The transaction is expected to close in early January 2008.

AT&T plans to integrate Ingenio’s Pay Per Call solutions into its directory service and local search advertising portfolio, including the YELLOWPAGES.COM Network, AT&T Real Yellow Pages and 1-800-Yellow Pages. Ingenio’s Pay Per Call service is an advertising platform that allows businesses to manage their ad programs and generate valuable phone leads. The platform uses proprietary technology to provision unique published phone numbers to track calls to businesses generated by those ads, and advertisers’ fees are based on the volume of these leads.

As the carriers gear up to get you to buy more phones this holiday season.  For “buy-phones” Friday, T-Mobile is offering a free round trip flight to myFaves customers. Beginning Fri., Nov. 23, and running through Sun., Nov. 25, T-Mobile is giving away a free flight to each eligible customer who activates a qualifying two-year myFaves rate plan online or at any T-Mobile retail store nationwide.

Eligible customers will receive a booking request form for a free roundtrip flight from one of 59 departing cities to one of 10 exciting destinations including Las Vegas, New York City, Los Angeles, Orlando, Miami, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas and Washington, D.C. For more information about the Free Flight promotion please visit www.t-mobile.com/freeflight.

AT&T and Samsung announced the availability of the music/multimedia SLM™ by Samsung.The SLM by Samsung will be in stores beginning Nov. 23 and is their first music phone to feature Napster Mobile™.

Napster Mobile enables AT&T's wireless customers to search a music catalog of 5 million songs, preview samples of each song and purchase and download songs to their SLM in less than a minute for $1.99 a song or $7.49 for 5 tracks.

The SLM is a clamshell phone with a brushed metal case in brown or blue with lots of features including AT&T Video Share, mobile banking, AT&T Mobile Music, stereo Bluetooth® technology, a 2.0-megapixel camera with video capture, external memory microSD™, XM Radio and fast 3G HSPDA data access. The SLM has the special introductory price of $149.99 after a two-year contract activation agreement and a $50 mail-in rebate.

T-Mobile has stopped selling the Sidekick Slide, due to information confirmed by Motorola  that some phones may power off when the slide door on the front side of the phone is opened or closed.

Current Sidekick Slide owners are offered a free upgrade to a Sidekick LX, made by Sharp.

LG Venus VX8800 (Verizon) Coffee House Review by Wireless and Mobile News

The LG Venus is a dual screen phone with a lower haptical touchscreen and sliding numerical keypad with a touch of style. You can navigate features by touching the lower touchscreen that gives a vibrating  feedback.  Phone calls are made via the slide out number keypad or by voice activation.

The LG Venus is more than a stylish fashion accessory, however, it’s a phone and music player combo with enough Web access and messaging for a quick info-fix. It also packs a technical punch because it will hold an 8 megabyte microSD, a 2 megapixel camera, Bluetooth and fast EV-DO data access.

The Venus by LG features a music player that supports .mp3, .wma and unprotected .aac files as well as V CAST Video and Music. There is a side music button for music player operations. The phone has GPS and you can buy the VZ Navigator for either $2.99 for a day or $9.99 for the month. The local search feature is very helpful when coupled with GPS, a gas station, restaurant, or coffee house can be found in seconds near your GPS location. Favorite locations can be synced via the Web.

The camera is easy to operate with a good preview and video recording. Photo quality is good. Call quality was excellent. Voice commands work well, and are number “1” on the “Tool” list. All you have to say is “Call Jane” and if Jane is in your contacts, she’s called automatically or you can speak the number.

LG Venus rated 4 out 5 by Wireless and Mobile News Review of Reviews

The LG Venus is a a dual screen phone with a lower touch screen with multimedia capabilities available from Verizon.  Reviewers found the call quality, battery life, fast EV-DO data access and camera to be excellent. 

The best features of the phone noted by reviewers are it’s touch screen, stylish look, Web/messaging functionality, GPS, music player and voice activation. Some reviewers thought that it may take a while to get used to using the phone’s unique touchscreen. The phone is obviously geared towards women and reviewed by men was rated much lower.  The LG Venus has a touch of class with lots of style, selling for $199 with a two-year contract and $50 rebate from Verizon.

The average reported monthly spending for wireless services is $14 higher among customers who use a variety of features and services on their cell phone, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2007 U.S. Wireless Mobile Phone Evaluation StudySM—Volume 2. .

The study finds that owners who send and receive e-mail and text message alerts, take and send photos and videos or download music files on their mobile handsets have an average reported monthly service bill of $77. This compares to a reported average monthly service bill of $63 among owners who do not actively use these features on their cell phones. In addition, customers who most frequently use their cell phones for non-voice applications typically spend nearly twice as much for their current handset than do customers who do not use non-voice applications ($70 vs. $37, respectively).

Sony Ericsson ranked highest in overall wireless customer satisfaction with a score of 741 points on a 1,000-point scale, performing particularly well in features and battery functionality. Sony Ericsson also receives the highest ratings from customers in operation and handset durability. Samsung (728) and Motorola (726) follow Sony Ericsson in the rankings.

The Sprint BlackBerry Pearl 8130,  Motorola Q9c, and Motorola i335 will all be available starting November 23, however you can only buy the  Moto Q9c online for now.

The exciting thing about Sprint is that the do have the EV-DO network which is faster for data. The BlackBerry Pearl 8130 sells for $200 with two-year contract and $50 mail-in rebate.  There’s a special data plan the Power Vision BlackBerry Pack: for $30 per month added to a voice plan, allowing for unlimited web and data access, unlimited text messaging, support for 10 email accounts, plus Sprint Navigation and Sprint TV, all on the EV-DO network. the Motoroal Q9c is $150 with two-year contract and $100 mail-in rebate and the dust- shock- and vibration-resistant Moto i335  for Nextel is $ 50 with two-year contract and $50 mail-in rebate.

Vodafone and Verizon announced a global accounts partnership.

The new program allows both companies to meet the needs of global business customers, while providing a consistent approach to products and pricing. In addition, business customers served by a global account team will be able to have one contract to cover their mobile needs - in the United States, Europe and elsewhere in the world.

A federal court rejected an appeal from Vonage in the patent dispute with Verizon, making the original decision hold Vonage has to pay $120 million to Verizon.

The $120 million total settlement consists of $117.5 million to Verizon and $2.5 million to charities.

Qualcomm Incorporated announced that it has made the first phone call on a 3G chip manufactured with 45 nanometer (nm) process technology.

The next generation of CMOS semiconductor manufacturing, 45 nm technology enables chips that feature higher speeds, lower power consumption and enhanced integration, all with reduced die cost by providing more die per wafer. Qualcomm’s call was made on the first 45 nm chips received from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSE: 2330, NYSE: TSM), the world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry.

This advanced process should enable smaller, faster, more power-efficient wireless devices.

During the MMA Forum, ThirdScreenMedia did apresentation with some very interesting research about Mobile Internet usage.  We will be divulging some of the research when we have space:

As far as the Mobile Internet Accesss Location 42% of access is at home.

 

The traffic volume is higher at night.

The number one place for access is the bathroom (that’s from the seminar.)  In the discussion of the subject, it is beleived that mobile devices are used while doing other things like watching TV, eating dinner,  or …. going to the bathroom.

This is a Coffee House Test Review where we take the phone to our very hip local coffee house, show it to the finest caffienated technophiles, answer their questions and report their comments.

LG  Voyager from Verizon rated 4.5 out of 5 by the Coffee House Test Review by Wireless and Mobile News.

What does the LG Voyager feel like and how does it work?
The LG Voyager  feels strong and looks classy. It’s got a nice metal decoration around the edges and it’s not too heavy. You can operate it from the front touch screen which is set to vibration feedback or the interior screen with keyboard and navigation buttons. To switch from the touch screen to keyed screen all you have to do is open the phone and the screen appears on the inside. To move the menu items down on the touchscreen, you brush your fingers up and the menu items move down.

Los Angeles, California--- WMN was invited to attend the Mobile Marketing Association's Forum in downtown Los Angeles on November 14 (yesterday.)  We will be reporting on some the very interesting research and information about mobile marketing being done by its members.

I took the  Gold Line train to get to event and a lot of people were talking on their cell phones.  Before attempting my trip, I download the schedule and printed it out.  However, the print was so small I couldn't read it and left it at home.  I did notice that Metro has a mobile website for mobile phones to get trip information.

The MMA Awards dinner was lovely and to keep the guests busy, Limbo asked the audience to participate in a text message game to win a $250 gift certificate.  We sent text messages to number and as soon as someone else sent text to the number, we lost the prize. The person who held on to prized the longest, won. During the two hour presentation 2600 text messages were sent by approximately 100 people.  At this event it was not considered rude to be texting while others were talking!

There were some very interesting winners including a promotion for the Metro in France (to see winners continue reading.)  The most nominated company was the hyper factory and boy where they hy-y-y-yper.  The group had a wild  group spirit, cheering every time they were nominated, jumping up and down and while they cheered they actually stopped texting and browsing with their phones.

The MMA honored academic researchers.  It now has a scholarly journal and an academic outreach committee that was awarded the Overall Excellence Award. Michael Becker, EVP Business Development, iLoop Mobile, Inc. who worked on the journal and has been active in the MMA won the award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Mobile Marketing.

When the event was over, while walking back to my car on the street filled with downtown hotels, two young Australian guys looked really lost.  I had taken the train home to change and feed my dog and returned in my car because the trains don't run often enough at night.

"Are you lost?" I asked.

"We have to get back to Santa Monica," one answered.

I know they had to take the Wilshire bus, but Wilshire is a  one-way street in downtown, so they couldn't find the bust stop to get back. All I could remember is that you could call 1-800-COMMUTE, which is only available until 7:00 pm and it was too late for that. They had a cell phone but it didn't have WAP or a browser. I drove home wishing that the mobile marketers in LA would do something about making public transportation easier for everyone.  If they could get 100 people to send 2600 text messages, they could surely create a text system to help lost tourists.

The negative reports about the MVNO market fail to acknowledge that the global MVNO subscriber base grew by 24% in 2006, to reach 84m users notes.

According to Research and Markets MVNO models can be made to work, and there are MVNOs with proven track records of success, according to our their research study Rethinking MVNO and MVNE Economics. A review of the performance of MVNOs over the past five years yields a number of salient lessons on the business model, and provides enough material to establish what works — and what does not appear to work.

Another winner of the CES Innovation Award is the REDFLY Smartphone Interface System that wirelessly extends the smartphone to larger display, full keyboard,mouse and USB ports. Any applications on the smartphone are shown instantly on the new display without modification or synchronization.

Celio Corp will formally unveil the REDFLY Smartphone Interface System at the CES trade show in Las Vegas in January, 2008.

The REDFLY Smartphone Interface System is compatible with Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC and Smartphone editions and Windows Mobile 6 Professional and Standard Editions. The REDFLY Software will available for other operating systems in the future. The REDFLY Smartphone Interface System will be available for license from Celio Corp in Q1, 2008.

CTIA - The Wireless Association announced that the total estimated wireless subscribership in America officially passed the 250 million mark, reaching an all-time national high.

Growth in subscribership has more than quadrupled over the past ten years from just over 55 million at year-end 1997 to more than 250 million today—an increase of 352%.

CEA Innovations Awards winners were announced and the winners in the wireless realm are:

For wireless handsets from fuseproject, the Drop Phone SKY IM-U200.

For wireless handset accessories the Samsung Ubicell, a CDMA base station to enable cell phone users to boost reception in their homes.

Nokia announced two high-end luxury 3G phones, the 8800 Arte (1,000 euros/ $1,462) and the 8800 Sapphire Arte (1,150 euros/$1676.59.) Available in 1Q 2008 and 4Q 2007 respectively. The video demonstration of phones is titled, “The Art of Seduction.”

Along with classic beautiful metal and touch/motion sensitive capabilities, the phones feature:
Exclusive video ringtones
2.0” QVGA 240x320 pixels, OLED display with up to 16 million colors
3.2 megapixel auto focus camera with 8x digital zoom
3G capabilities
1 GB built in memory space
MicroUSB all-in-one-connector
Anti-fingerprint coating on metal and glass

Each handset comes with an assortment of mobile accessories including the elegantly designed Nokia BH-803 Bluetooth headset with Active Noise Cancellation and touch sensitive volume adjustment. To add an element of sophistication and security, each handset comes with a leather pouch with a linen-lining and a separate matching desk stand. 

The Sapphire has a genuine sapphire gem stone in the middle button and a  leather covering.

AT&T Inc. announced the launch of a mobile banking platform that will enable consumers to view account balances and history, transfer funds and pay bills from their AT&T mobile handsets for Wachovia and SunTrust customers. The mobile banking application will be pre-loaded on future AT&T handsets beginning later this year.

AT&T wireless services will be available through nearly 370 Costco locations nationwide. The services will reach more than 35 million Costco cardholders.

AT&T and Wireless Advocates are now offering AT&T’s wireless services at display counters in each Costco store location. The kiosks are stocked wit handsets, including the Samsung A437 and A517, in addition to Nokia and Motorola models.

The Samsung BlackJack will also be sold in select locations. AT&T wireless service will be sold with a waived activation fee and accessory kit, including a vehicle power adapter, ear bud and wireless case.