Sprint Signs Partners for XOHM WiMAX Location-Based Services

Sprint announced a set of partners for launching location-based services (LBS) over its forthcoming XOHM WiMAX networks.


Sprint said its XOHM location-enabled mobile experience will span a range of devices such as laptops, mobile Internet devices, media players, cameras and car navigation. Specifically, XOHM is enabling web services application programming interfaces (APIs) so a broad collection of service developers and device partners can use location to offer increased utility for XOHM members. XOHM will offer these location capabilities with a corresponding privacy policy to make sure XOHM members are informed about how XOHM will handle their data. At launch, a XOHM portal will offer location-based content from leading brands including:

• uLocate Communications, which is the primary partner in building XOHM's location enabled mobile experience, is providing its WHERE platform and leading friend finding application Buddy Beacon to connect XOHM customers with their favorite people, places and things. Through WHERE, XOHM users will have access to local information including restaurant reviews, news, events, weather and much more. Select launch partners on the WHERE platform include Yelp, Eventful, Topix, NAVTEQ and Accuweather.



• Yelp, a Web site for local business reviews, will provide relevant user reviews and ratings for anything local, from restaurants to doctors and more. The reviews can be searched and sorted by category or shown in a map view, with access to Yelp.com for details on any of the three million local reviews.



• Eventful will provide users with listings of local events displayed in a map view. Customers can select sub-categories of interest, search for events and click through to Eventful.com to get more event information and purchase tickets.



• Topix will provide local news based on current location as a summary, with an option to read full stories and others at its site.



• NAVTEQ will offer XOHM customers NAVTEQ Traffic real-time local traffic and commuter updates with links to the Traffic.com Web site for additional detailed construction, incident and drive time information.



• AccuWeather will provide three-day forecasts based on users' current locations. An easy link to AccuWeather.com mobile Web site gives more forecast details, radar/satellite images, and more.



• Google will contribute Local Search capability along with additional features and functionality from Google Maps.



• Openwave Systems will provide the location platform that enables XOHM partners to use location to provide valuable services.



• Autodesk will provide a standards-based interface and geospatial services, such as addresses, ZIP code and city/state information, to enhance location within the XOHM network.

http://www.xohm.comhttp://www.sprint.com

• Sprint has selected Mformation Technologies' mobile device management (MDM) solution to provide seamless device management capabilities for new WiMAX-capable mobile devices as part of the XOHM WiMAX mobile broadband initiative.



• Sprint has selected DragonWave's IP backhaul solutions for its XOHM-branded WiMAX mobile-broadband services in North America. Specifically, DragonWave's Horizon Compact and Horizon Duo products will be deployed initially in the Baltimore/Washington and Chicago markets.



• Sprint has selected Bridgewater Systems as the network access control vendor for its forthcoming nationwide XOHM WiMAX Network. Bridgewater is the incumbent supplier of Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA) services to Sprint's existing CDMA 3G network and will now extend its solution to support XOHM as well. Within Sprint, Bridgewater will provide concurrent support for 3G and 4G networks from a common infrastructure as Sprint begins to commercially deploy the XOHM WiMAX network in 2008.



• Nokia Siemens Networks is supplying its Subscriber Data Management (SDM) solution for deployment in Sprint's XOHM WiMAX Broadband Network. The solution, which includes the Apertio One-NDS (Network Directory Server), will enable Sprint to operate a Subscriber Profile System (SPS) based on a single, real-time common subscriber database, eliminating the inefficiencies of multiple databases and reducing administration and cost.

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EU Roaming Rates to Fall

As of the end of August, it will become cheaper to make or receive calls while travelling in the European Union.


The price ceiling for roaming calls (the Eurotariff) introduced by the EU in 2007 will fall from €0.49 to €0.46 per minute (excluding VAT) for making a call and from €0.24 to €0.22 per minute (excluding VAT) for receiving a call while in another EU country.


Under the present EU Roaming Regulation prices for roaming calls will go down a last time on 30 August 2009 to €0.43 per minute for making calls and to €0.19 per minute for receiving calls while in another EU country.



The European Commission noted that these price reductions are the result of the EU Roaming Regulation, proposed by the EC in 2006 to curb the excessive roaming charges consumers had to pay for roaming calls (on average €1.15 per minute at the time.


The EU Roaming Regulation which will expire in 2010, is currently under review.http://europa.eu

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Deutsche Telekom Reaches 10 Million DSL Customers

Deutsche Telekom T-Home division welcomed its ten millionth DSL retail customer. With resale customers included, the company now has a broadband customer base with over 13 million lines.


In its domestic broadband market, T-Home took a share of over 40 percent of the new broadband customer market for the seventh consecutive quarter -- winning around 340,000 net new retail DSL customers.


Deutsche Telekom also announced plans to expand domestic broadband network, including further rollouts of VDSL. Deutsche Telekom has already upgraded over forty cities to the VDSL network. During a second phase of rollouts, another ten cities will be joining them this year. The company said it will soon be able to provide broadband coverage across 96% of Germany, including rural areas.


"Deutsche Telekom is aware of its responsibility for Germany, and is equipping virtually the whole country with fast Internet lines. At the end of 2008, we will be supplying 96 percent of all households with DSL, in over eighty percent of them with lines featuring speeds in excess of 2 Mbit/s. In concrete figures, this means that 400,000 more households will be connected to the high-speed network in 2008 -- a good 140,000 of them in areas that were previously without the service," Timotheus Höttges, member of the Board of Management responsible for T-Home Sales & Service at Deutsche Telekom.http://www.telekom.com

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Marvell Posts Q2 Revenue of $843 Million, up 28% Year-on-Year

Marvell Technology Group reported record net revenue for the second quarter of fiscal 2009 (ending Aug 2) of $842.6 million, an increase of 28 percent over $656.7 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2008, ended July 28, 2007, and a 4.8 percent sequential increase from $804 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2009, ended May 3, 2008.


GAAP net income was $71.4 million, or $0.11 per share (diluted), for the second quarter of fiscal 2009, compared with a GAAP net loss of $56.5 million, or a loss of $0.10 per share for the second quarter of fiscal 2008. In the first quarter of fiscal 2009 GAAP net income was $69.9 million, or $0.11 per share (diluted).


"The results for our second quarter were better than we had anticipated. We demonstrated significant year over year revenue growth, sustained profitability and excellent free cash flow generation," said Dr. Sehat Sutardja, Marvell Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "We also continued to realize recurring benefits from our improved efficiency which combined with our revenue performance enabled us to achieve increased sequential growth in gross and operating margins."
http://www.marvell.com/

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Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom Sees ADSL Decline as FTTB Takes Off

Chunghwa Telecom, the incumbent operator in Taiwan, reported a decline in Q2 of 126,000 ADSL subscribers to 3.5 million. This decline was offset by growth in FTTB subscriptions, with 148,000 net additions to around 0.8 million over the course of Q2, bringing the total number of broadband subscribers to 4.3 million on June 30, 2008, a 3.4% increase compared to the same period of last year.


As of the end of June 2008, the number of ADSL and FTTx subscriptions with a service speed of greater than 8 Mbps reached 1.38 million, representing 32.1% of total broadband subscribers. In addition, Chunghwa reached 508,000 MOD (IPTV) subscribers, with 73,000 new subscriptions added during the second quarter.


Some other highlights for Q2:

• As of June 30, 2008, Chunghwa had 8.8 million mobile subscribers, slightly up quarter-on-quarter by 0.63% compared to 8.7 million on March 31, 2008.



• Chunghwa remained the leading mobile operator in Taiwan. According to statistics published by the NCC, at the end of June 2008, the company's total subscriber market share (including 2G, 3G and PHS) was 35.6%, while its revenue share was 33.6%.



• Chunghwa had 306,000 net additions to its 3G subscriber base during the second quarter, recording a 11.8% rise in the total number of 3G subscribers to 2.9 million on June 30, 2008.



• Mobile VAS revenue for 1H 2008 was NT$3.4 billion, a 31.7% year-on-year increase, with SMS revenue up 24.9% and mobile Internet revenue up 58.2%.



• At the end of June 2008, Chunghwa's fixed-line subscribers totaled 12.9 million.



• Chunghwa's total consolidated revenue decreased by 0.6% to NT$50.0 billion in Q2



• Internet and data revenue grew by 0.8%; ADSL & FTTB revenue decreased by 0.7% in Q2



• Mobile revenue decreased by 2.7%; Mobile VAS revenue increased by 28.3% in Q2



• Net income totaled NT$12.5 billion, an increase of 0.1% in Q2.

http://www.cht.com.tw

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Broadcom Joins WirelessHD Consortium

Broadcom announced its support for the WirelessHD consortium as a promoter company with a mutual goal of helping to enable wireless connectivity for streaming high definition (HD) content between consumer electronics devices and displays.


WirelessHD is dedicated to the advancement and enhancement of the WirelessHD standard, which has specified the unlicensed, globally available 60 GHz frequency band to enable wireless uncompressed high definition, high-quality video and data transmission. WirelessHD provides a high-speed wireless digital interface that will enable customers to simply connect, play, transmit and port their HD content in a secure manner at speeds as high as 4 Gbps in real time.http://www.broadcom.comhttp://www.wirelesshd.org/

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Dasan Networks Buys Out NSN Share, Companies Sign OEM Deal

DASAN Networks, a leading network equipment supplier in Korea, will acquire all of Nokia Siemens Networks' shares in Dasan Networks which represent 56.13% of all the shares of the company. With the acquisition completed these Korean investors will hold 60.83% of the shares of the company. The remainder of the shares are held by various shareholders.


Dasan's product portfolio includes IP-DSLAMs, Ethernet switches and FTTx solutions.


The companies plan to continue close cooperation through an Original Equipment Manufacturer- and Original Design Manufacturer agreement. Dasan products will remain part of NSN's broadband access solution.http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.comhttp://www.dasannetworks.com/

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Microsoft's Mobile Device Manager Available for AT&T Users

Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008 (MDM) is now available to AT&T business customers who use smartphones running Windows Mobile 6.1. The solution provides security, mobile Virtual Private Network (VPN) and software distribution for Windows Mobile devices. AT&T customers using Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphones now have secured access to applications, files, corporate data and other information that is located on the corporate network and previously inaccessible without a secure VPN connection.


AT&T also announced the availability of the MDM Early Adopter QuickStart Program that was developed cooperatively by AT&T and Enterprise Mobile and is an exclusive offering designed to assist AT&T customers with deploying the Microsoft mobility solution. The MDM Early Adopter QuickStart Program enables enterprises to try Mobile Device Manager's abilities to manage mobile devices, define access rights, provide additional security features for data transmissions, coordinate over-the-air software updates and protect the corporate network from unauthorized access.

http://www.att.com

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Ericsson Wins Exclusive GPON + IPTV Deal for King Abdullah Economic City

Ericsson announced an exclusive contract to supply broadband solutions for the planned King Abdullah Economic City, a massive development along the coast of the Red Sea backed by over $26.6 billion in funding. The five-year sole-supplier partnership agreement with Emaar, developer of the smart-city project, is the first for an end-to-end fixed network in Saudi Arabia for Ericsson. The residential area in the city is planned to include 260,000 apartments and 56,000 villas housing a future population of 2 million. Financial terms were not disclosed.


Ericsson said the project represents its first GPON- enabled IPTV contract in Saudi Arabia, the first fiber optic contract and the first fixed-network IMS contract where Ericsson provides systems integration and network rollout services. The contract brings together products from Ericsson's major acquisitions - Entrisphere, Marconi, Redback and TANDBERG Television - and the company's telecom services portfolio.http://www.ericsson.comhttp://www.kingabdullahcity.com/en/

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