Despite protests from broadcasters, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) next week will begin testing devices that will allow Internet service providers to utilize unused spectrum for wireless broadband service. The commission on January 24 will kick off a four-to-six week lab test of equipment that will allow ISPs to access this spectrum, known as “white spaces.” That will be followed by an additional six-week field test period, the FCC said. At issue is the transition from analog to digital TV signals. In an effort to free up spectrum for public safety use, Congress has ordered TV broadcasters to shift their signals from analog to digital by February 2009.
A La Mobile, a San Ramon, CA based open source handset software development, has deployed Google’s Android platform into an HTC Qtek 9090 smartphone. The company is touting it as the first functioning Android-based handset. The company included in the suite of applications a Google browser, phone dialer, audio player, maps, camera, games, calendar, contacts manager, calculator, tasks manager and notes. “While mobile Linux has made steady progress in the industry since 2006, Google’s advocacy with the unveiling of the Android framework further substantiates the position of Linux as a major mobile operating system alongside Windows Mobile and Symbian,” a la Mobile’s president and CEO Pauline Lo Alker said in a statement. Read the full story here.
In his first major speech since taking control of Yahoo last June, Mr. Yang announced the launch of a new upgraded mobile home page for cellphones, an updated version of its mobile portal Yahoo Go as well as new software tools to help outside developers design applications and widgets to work in conjunction with Yahoo’s mobile offerings. Yahoo also announced new partnerships with News Corp.’s MySpace, eBay Inc. and Viacom’s MTV network, which will see those companies use Yahoo’s development tools to create mobile applications users can access through Yahoo.
Mobile Web: So Close Yet So Far – New York Times ON the surface, the mobile Web is a happening place. There’s the iPhone in all its glory. More than 30 companies have signed up for the Open Handset Alliance from Google, which aims to bring the wide-open development environment of the Internet to mobile devices. Nokia, which owns nearly 40 percent of the world market for cellphones, is snapping up Web technology companies and has made an eye-popping $8.1 billion bid for Navteq, a digital mapping service.
Given that Asian countries are taking the lead in mobile software applications (in Sri Lanka, already using open source), this is a very exciting development. LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE – LBO A Google-led international alliance announced Monday it is releasing open-source software that will free developers to bring the full power of desktop computing to mobile devices. The Open Handset Alliance bills “Android” as the first comprehensive mobile operating platform that software developers are free to adapt in any ways they wish for video, audio, social networking and other features. “We are developing a very open system and will distribute all the codes to allow people to innovate on mobile devices,” Google co-founder Serge Brin said in a conference call with the press and other alliance members. “I’m really excited about this and I can’t wait to see what the next generation of innovators is able to do with these tools.
It is high time that Asian spectrum managers started thinking about more efficient use this valuable resource. In Search of Wireless Wiggle Room – New York Times Having missed the opportunity to include these provisions in the coming auction, the F.C.C. will have another chance this year to create cheaper wireless broadband services.
Can dinosaurs dance? Oct 11th 2007 | From The Economist print edition Responding to the Asian challenge ARE consumers in India and China too poor to afford high-quality Western goods? That used to be the old idea of doing business in these countries as firms offered watered-down versions of their products at reduced prices. Mr van Houten, of chipmaker NXP, says Indian and Chinese consumers are forcing multinationals to design sophisticated products that more closely meet their needs, and this is making firms operating in Asia better innovators. By recruiting ingenious local engineers and designers in places like Bangalore and Beijing, and paying close attention to trends and practices in the market, firms are coming up with products and services that can be sold in other parts of the world too.
Miguel Helft October 11, 2007, New York Times For more than two years, a large group of engineers at Google have been working in secret on a mobile-phone project. As word of their efforts has trickled out, expectations in the tech world for what has been called the Google phone, or GPhone, have risen, the way they do for Apple loyalists before a speech by Steve Jobs. But the GPhone is not likely to be the second coming of the iPhone and Google’s goals are very different from Apple’s. Google wants to extend its dominance of online advertising to the mobile internet, a small market today but one that is expected to grow rapidly. It hopes to persuade wireless carriers and mobile-phone makers to offer phones based on its software, according to people briefed on the project.
For Google, Advertising and Phones Go Together – New York Times Google wants to extend its dominance of online advertising to the mobile Internet, a small market today, but one that is expected to grow rapidly. It hopes to persuade wireless carriers and mobile phone makers to offer phones based on its software, according to people briefed on the project. The cost of those phones may be partly subsidized by advertising that appears on their screens. Google is expected to unveil the fruit of its mobile efforts later this year, and phones based on its technology could be available next year. Some analysts say that the Google project’s affect on the wireless industry is not likely to be as profound, at least initially, as that of Apple’s iPhone, whose revolutionary look and features have redefined consumer expectations for mobile phones.
TelecomTV – TelecomTV One – News The problem with this view is that Google has, apparently, already tried and failed several times to get a satisfactory price on capacity from existing trans-Pacific cable providers. The company certainly understands the unit costs of fibre networks as it already owns such infrastructure in the continental United States and, as the world’s Internet leviathan, is reportedly frustrated that it can’t get a decent price on the trans-Pacific route – although that is hardly surprising given that most of the capacity on such pathways is controlled by the very Tier 1 telcos that regard Google as a freeloader and undeserving beneficiary of much of the value of the Internet economy. Google doesn’t want to build a cable to sell bandwidth to third parties (although that could be a natural consequence and corollary of its plans), but because, as a voracious generator and recipient of Internet traffic, it wants to control its own destiny . And as our Friday report indicates, Google doesn’t want to build the cable unilaterally. Rather it would much prefer to share the price of construction and deployment with consortium partners so it can gain access to a fibre pair on […]
AFP (via Google) Home to some 1.5 billion people, South Asia is paying a high price to access the Internet as service providers have been slow to deliver cheaper broadband connections, analysts say. The region has embraced telephones, mobile phones and computers and India has a flourishing software and outsourcing industry, noted industry watchers at the first South Asia Broadband Congress here earlier this month. But South Asia has lagged behind in hopping onto the broadband bandwagon, observed Sanjay Gupta of India’s Midas Communication Technology. Powered by ScribeFire.
Gadget Maker or Service Provider? Firms Start to Overlap – New York Times “Devices alone are not enough anymore,” Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, chief executive of Nokia, said last week in London as the company announced plans for a digital music store, a game service, social networking links and other mobile Internet initiatives, grouped under a new brand, Ovi. “People want more; they want the complete experience.” Meanwhile, a Google spokesman declined to comment on reports that a “Google phone,” or “G-phone,” was imminent. Such a device would take the Internet company into a business that has long been dominated by Nokia, but that has been shaken up by the recent introduction of a high-profile newcomer, Apple’s iPhone.
Google has refused to deny mounting speculation that it is working to produce its own brand mobile phone. Reports suggest that the web giant is developing a series of”GPhones”, centred on its mobile services, such as search, e-mail and maps. In a statement, Google said it was working with carriers, phone makers and content providers to “bring its services to users everywhere”. The firm would not say if its efforts included plans for a handset. The Google statement said: “What our users and partners are telling us is that they want Google search and Google applications on mobile, and we are working hard every day to deliver that.
A partial victory for those making the case for open wireless networks (Carterfone 2). F.C.C. Hands Google a Partial Victory – New York Times The Federal Communications Commission moved cautiously Tuesday toward creating a more open national wireless broadband network, handing a partial victory to Google, which was pushing for more competition in cellphone services.
Behind the Google led attempt to free up the mobile networks for all attachments (Carterfone 2), there appears to have been a scholarly article, a Law Review article of all things! This was after many had written requiems for law review articles saying they were getting too esoteric to be of any use. When Mobile Phones Aren’t Truly Mobile – New York Times Then, in February, Timothy Wu, a law professor at Columbia University, published an influential paper, “Wireless Net Neutrality,” which made a well-supported case that the government should compel wireless carriers to open their networks to equipment and software applications that the carriers did not control. Mr. Wu called his proposition a call for “Cellular Carterfone,” referring to the 1968 Carterfone ruling by the F.
True to form, Google is proposing a radical rethink of the entire basis of the wireless industry. And it is putting real money behind its ideas. All that is in the way seems to be the FCC. Google Pushes for Rules to Aid Wireless Plans – New York Times “When you go to Best Buy to buy a TV, they don’t ask whether you have cable or satellite,” said Blair Levin, a former F.C.