Silicon TVtuner specialist,
Microtune, has laid out its plans
for world domination in the mobile
TV arena. It aims to expand its
Mobile Microtuner chip to cover
virtually every mobile TV standard
there is – except Qualcomm's
MediaFlo. That might well be a mistake as
industry watcher, Informa, has just
predicted that by 2011, DVB-H
handsets will form the bulk of all
broadcast receiver handset sales (63
per cent), equating to 73 million
units. That's followed by MediaFLO
devices with sales expected to reach
14.5 million. What Microtune will cover
includes DVB-H (already on sale), T-DMB
(as used in Germany), ISDB-T
(currently restricted to Japan), and
DMB-TH.
DMB-TH is a new one on Mobile
Insight.
The TH appears to stand for
Terrestrial Handheld. It's the
handheld standard developed by the
Chinese from their own digital
terrestrial standard – DMB-T. To date, Microtune's plans appear
to be going well. Its silicon tuner
for DVB-H, the MT226X, was built
into the first shipping DVB-H
handset in Europe – the LG-U900 from
3 Italy and the Modeo smartphone in
the USA. The main competition will come
from the likes of Freescale,
Broadcom and Philips. However,
Microtune already seems to have
developed relationships with Asus
and ATI. Its tuner chip is inside
the All-in-wonder X1900 graphics
card. Microtune's roadmap is also
interesting as it shows how the
company intends to shrink the number
of components required to put mobile
TV inside a handset or a PDA. Its
foundry partners are IBM, X-Fab and
Jazz.
HTC has finally launched its own HTC branded mobile handsets.
The company's former own brand, Qtek, will be phased out. The aim is to supply its new Windows Mobile 5.0 products to second tier and MVNO
operators via distribution. HTC promises to shoulder the burden of supporting facilities such as Microsoft's push email via its own web site and call centres.
This announcement coincided with the launch of two HTC models - the TyTN and the MTeoR. Both are claimed to be the first Windows Mobile 5.0 handsets available with 3G/W-CDMA.
The TyTN is a clamshell style device while the MTeoR has the more traditional candy bar shape. They both should start shipping in July 2006.
Although HTC's large customerbase of major mobile network operators will be
offered exactly the same products and the ability to brand them, it will be
interesting to see how they react to such handsets going through retail. HTC CEO, Peter Chou, revealed that his company is very close to shipping handsets for the joint Virgin/BT mobile TV system which will work with T-DMB. Additionally, HTC will also supply handsets that are DVB-H
compatible – which is the rival TV standard.
India is the third largest user of GSM phones - with 83 million subscribers.
That puts India ahead of the USA with 78 million GSM users but behind China with 370 million users and Russia with 145 million. The GSM Association (GSMA) is claiming that GSM and W-CDMA/3GSM now account for 82.4 per cent of all global mobile connections.
That puts cdmaOne and Japan's PDC with roughly 17 per cent of the global market. Even Qualcomm acknowledges this with its latest Q3 revenue guidance. Raising predicted handset chip sales to 55 million.
Qualcomm's saying that its W-CDMA handset shipments and average selling prices are exceeding expectations, plus demand for CDMA2000 infrastructure chips remains strong. Nothing about cdmaOne/CDMA2000 handsets doing well.
Anyway, the consequence of all this is that GSM/3GSM will very soon sign up its second billionth subscriber having taken a mere 30 months to add its second billion after the first billion took 12 years.
Still, there are only 72 million 3GSM users in the world. But the interesting bit is that GSM now has more users in developing countries than in developed countries.
The GSMA’s attributes this partly to its 'Emerging Market Handset Initiative' which delivered the first sub $30 GSM phone.
New Qualcomm CEO, Paul Jacobs, has hinted that he might have discovered a loophole in the constant saga over IPR battles over US patents. Split the company in two.
Qualcomm has fired yet another shot over Nokia's bows in the shape of a complaint to the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) over alleged infringements of six Qualcomm patents. However, in an interview given to the
FT, he expressed his willingness to break the company up. One company would handle the licensing of Qualcomm's IPR while the other half would design and sell the chips.
The cunning plan would then force Nokia to sue the IPR company while the chip company could go about its business unhindered. At the centre of this dispute is the fact that Qualcomm's IPR made its way into an international cellular standard – namely, W-CDMA. Others who added their own IPR into that standard – including Nokia – argue that Qualcomm is charging too high a price for its licensing fees.
Particularly since handset vendors who use Qualcomm's chips are charged less.
It's an interesting gamble because Qualcomm could lose out when it comes to 4G. Having just bought Flarion which has 4G technology in the shape of OFDM, Qualcomm could find its attempts to set an 'international' standard based on its IPR are blocked.
Ever since IBM showed a wristwatch running Linux back in August 2002, obviously the OS to could potentially be used for mobile phones. What's lacking is a leading force – as Sun has been with Java.
In Japan, however, NTT DoCoMo has been an ardent proponent of Linux for phones. Indeed it has produced outlines for handset based on two platforms – Symbian and Linux.
While Fujitsu helped to build the reference for Symbian based handsets, NEC and Panasonic helped to create the Linux version.
So it's no surprise to see a new initiative to standardise Linux in mobile phones includes DoCoMo, NEC and Panasonic. Indeed Panasonic points out that it has already shipped eight million Linux based handsets.
Joining this trio to give it a more international flavour are Motorola - which also ships Linux based phones; rival network operator, Vodafone; and leading Korean handset vendor, Samsung.
This alliance has yet to decide on the prefix for what's obviously yet another industry forum. Nor have they decided exactly how others can join the game.
The motivation is obvious, though. Although Linux's rivals – Symbian and the Beast - demand licences for their OS, building and thoroughly testing a Linux OS as a handset vendor is an expensive business.
The obvious thing to do is use the same vendor for a mobile Linux. Step forward California's Montavista Software which has been supplying DoCoMo.
Guess who's invested in Montavista? Along with DoComo, Panasonic and Samsung are Siemens, Sony, Toshiba, and Ericsson. There's a whole bunch of chipmakers including Infineon, IBM Microelectronics, and Yamaha. Plus Intel, of course.
So a serious rival to the likes of Symbian and the Beast's Windows Mobile 5.0 is
very definitely in the making.
HTC's MTeoR 3G Windows 5.0 phone reviewed
THE HTC MTeoR claims to be
the first handset to hit the
market which supports both the
Beast's Windows Mobile 5.0 OS
and high speed data via 3G. A big surprise is that HTC
CEO, Peter Chou, says that HSDPA
- otherwise known as super-fast
3G – is latent within this
handset. So throughput speeds of
1.3 Mbit/s are theoretically
possible. The main reason for
purchasing this mobile handset
is the fact that it supports
Windows Mobile 5.0 Direct Push
technology. This provides
immediate synchronisation of
email, calendar and notes and
works with the Beast's latest
version of Exchange server. That fact alone helps
companies avoid rival systems
such as RIM Blackberry and Visto. Mobile Insight managed to get its
hands on a MTeoR at the launch.
Despite what the specs say, the
built-in camera appeared to be a
2 Megapixel device rather than
1.3 megapixels. To prove that the MTeor
really is in shippable form, made both a voice call and
accessed the mobile Internet. It
was even possible to view Mobile Insight site itself via 3G.
Significantly our test product
had an O2 SIM in it.
There is, in fact, an HTC
created 'Comm Manager' app
buried away inside the MTeor
which should make it much easier
to set up standard comms
facilities. Traditional
Microsoft menus for changing
cellular network settings are
notoriously difficult to work
with. Mobile Insight used the Comm Manager
facility to enable Bluetooth,
for example. And send a captured
photo from the Mteor to a
regular handset – a Nokia N70 –
via Bluetooth.
All the other regular Windows
applications are built into the
MTeoR including a Pocket MSN
client for those fans of MSN
Messenger. About the only complaint Mobile Insight had was that the pen for the
MTeor's touch screen was hidden
away at the bottom right hand
side of the unit. For those who believe –
wrongly, in our opinion – that
the best way to sync a handset
with a Windows PC is to buy a
handset which is also Windows
branded, the MTeoR will have a
definite appeal.
An anonymous handset maker was delighted when English soccer player, David Beckham, showed a big interest in
its StarTrk handset,
The company was astonished when Beck's entourage requested a pink version. Because of the new deal he has with Motorola, we surmise he wanted a pink one for his wife
Victoria (Posh Spice).
Mobile Insight is tired of losing its URLs to speculators. So it has
sought revenge. We'll be soon starting a satellite site -
www.mobilelinuxforum.com. Just in
case the industry grouping above picks that name.
In Site of the Week (by Tony Dennis)
This week Daily Telegraph
- Alex
Media companies are finally getting the hang of the mobile Internet. British
national newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, is offering its humorous carton, Alex,
to all those with a WAP phone. More to the point, the site even has an advert.
The site's creator is Graphico. You can get the cartoons by texting Alex
to 82088. Luckily the Telegraph Web site has a page which explains how you can
pay for things on the WAP site. It includes instructions for how to pay via
Paypal and Bango. Apparently this works for subscribers on international GSM
networks who can't pay via reverse premium rate SMS.
