iPhone 3G and 3GS to be offered by Orange UK -- official

.
Well well, turns out rumors sometimes do come true. The widely speculated end to O2's exclusivity of the iPhone is now upon us and Orange is the first competitor to throw its hat into the ring. The company has not yet released tariff pricing, but there's a tantalizingly small release window, as availability is promised "later this year." At least there's finally some competition when it comes to the iPhone in the UK, and we can also probably look forward to T-Mobile joining in on the fun. Let the price war begin!

Via iPhone Bang

Sprint swaggers, promises to be first to release 3G Femtocell in US

.
While AT&T's still claiming MicroCell will be out before the year's up, Sprint's bringing out the big words by boasting to Unstrung it'll be beating everyone to the market with its 3G femtocell solution. Company VP of device and technology development Mathew Oommen is pretty light on some of the finer details -- like actual release date, hardware supplier, pricing scheme, and pretty much every other piece of information we'd want -- but he did imply there'd be multiple options available for the CDMA EV-DO Rev. A extender, including a device more tailored for enterprise use. Look, you two can fight all you want over who gets first, but in the end, we just want our Pres and iPhones to live together and home in perfect-reception harmony -- think we can get that in time for Christmas?

Via Slashgear

So what do you think of your iPhone 3GS?

. The sun cracked over the horizon, and off we went. Like any good Apple fan boys bloggers, we camped out (in multiple places around the country, even) to pick up our iPhone 3G S. We’ll have our final, non-rushed review up sometime in the next few days - in the mean while, it’s time for you to voice up.


We’ve got our opinions, forged from the steels of writing about and playing with too many cell phones cell phones. We want to hear what you think, dear iPhone owner. Whether that new iPhone 3G S is your first stab at this whole Apple-made cell phone nonsense or you’ve been rockin’ the fruitphone since the EDGE-only days of yester-yesteryear, we want your insight.

Love it? Hate it? Share your wisdom in the comments below.

Best Buy to offer Geek Squad’s Black Tie Protection on the iPhone 3GS

. AI is reporting that Best Buy will be offering insurance on the iPhone 3GS when it goes on sale next week. Current Black Tie Protection plans range between $7 and $10, but protection for the iPhone 3GS will be significantly more. You’ll have to shell out $15 per month or $180 a year to protect your precious against drops, spills and whatever else you can throw at it. So who’s going to Best Buy to get their iPhone 3GS?



Via AI

Vision of 3G Americas from MWC 2009 (Business)

.
We saw something of the vision of Erasmo Rojas, 3G Americas, on changing technologies, radio spectrum and trends in terminals during his speech at the Mobile World Congress. Here's something about the business of the mobile world.

In the Latin American market, which rose from 13% to 78% penetration in ten years, the ARPU (Average Revenue Per User, the average revenue per user) is a point of no growth is stagnant at $ 16 some years including devaluation of local currencies and all.

Some countries go beyond the average, Venezuela, Chile, Mexico and Brazil has a better ARPU Argentina, Peru and Colombia, among others who walk with the ARPU across the floor. Clearly, the penetration is to assess the driver of each market, as shown in the graph that all countries behave the same way as penetration rises, ups ARPU.

The exception is Argentina, the only country with more than 100% mobile density and which is now approaching saturation, but that does not exceed the average revenue per user and is even a 20% lower, perhaps because there is 90% of users in prepaid mode.



In this sense Erasmo Rojas emphasized that "some countries have a clear influence of the value-added services (SMS, MMS, email, music, etc.) in its contribution to ARPU, the regional average is 14% and some countries far exceed those values. "



Venezuela, Argentina and Mexico are developing countries and are considered at odds with the use of mobile services, push email (for example the BlackBerry), navigation, mobile payments, downloads, and more. Much of this has to do with strong and still growing mobile broadband in our region.

The roll out more third-generation networks, HSPA + and LTE, will be a new momentum to penetrate the region and improving the ARPUs some operators as value-added services are data dependent.

Another axis that move up ARPU is to embed applications on SIM cards, like Gemalto and Sandisk, which have great technological innovation in the SIM cards, when placed as a Java application that runs on Windows Live Messenger.

Vision of 3G Americas from MWC 2009 (Technology)

.
Erasmo Rojas, Director for Latin America and the Caribbean of 3G Americas, attended the Mobile World Congress and kept us abreast of the news during the event from his personal view and from the 3G Americas. Moreover spoke about several issues in one of the Keynote.

According to his vision, the Mobile World Congress is an event "to those to which we must go, because it is the largest mobile event at mobility throughout the year and world-class." He also knew that the crisis is here, attended by some 47,000 visitors, a decrease of only 15% compared to 2008, there were 55,000 visitors. Keynotes were present during the nearly 3000 "C levels", CEOs, CTOs, etc, who attended presentations from manufacturers, operators, developers and awards from the GSM Association which outlined a few days ago.

The keynote of 3G Americas is focused on trends in growth of wireless technologies and networks are growing third generation in our region is evolving as the ARPU for operators in the region and on the radio spectrum is needed to continue growing.

Something interesting that came out of his presentation is that there are 41 networks and UMTS / HSPA in 20 countries in the region with 5 million mobile subscriptions, including terminals and modems, which shows the substantial growth that this industry has in this region. He also noted that HSPA + is already making its first steps first in Australia with Telstra and AT & T in the U.S. networks will develop in the coming months and keep the mobile broadband beyond what we know today.

Latin America already, with numbers up 11.4% of total 3G subscribers worldwide, thus becoming a very interesting market for manufacturers and developers:



Another novelty, and of which we had not heard in our region, is that some operators are planning to upgrade their networks to EDGE Evolved EDGE, a technology that would provide a better user experience to the people of those countries not have 3G and that when users receive a 3G roaming not feel a difference as large as twice the speed to 1.8 mbps download.


Something that drew attention, in his opinion, is the low profile for mobile WiMAX, which took the event,

MWC 09: Two awards for RIM Mobile Innovation

.
RIM has been awarded during the Mobile World Congress 2009, with two awards from the Global Mobile Awards 2009. With the largest prize in the category of "Best Technological Innovation Mobile" SurePress by technology that is available on the BlackBerry Storm, and the "Chairman's Award" from the GSMA to his co-CEO Jim Balsillie, who recognizes the outstanding contribution to growth and development of mobile communications in the world for the manufacturer of BlackBerry.

Surepress remember that technology is either revolutionary, since it allows the touchscreen BlackBerry Storm to produce a soft click and fall slightly to help the feeling of pressure to enter, offering users a very new experience to use in touch screens .

Alexander Izosimov, chairman of the GSMA, said: "BlackBerry has helped keep alive the flame of mobile data and has enabled the sector to justify their investments in GPRS and 3G, against the initial skepticism. It is difficult to imagine life before the BlackBerry. Before the revolution of the service of "push email" BlackBerry, find a point of connection and access the e-mail was a complicated experience. RIM has consistently maintained his passion for innovation and growth stimulants from those moments of achievement. It is an extraordinary story. "

It also announced the rest of the Global Mobile Awards 2009 awards, but go elsewhere.

GSMA Announces Finalists of the 2009 Global Mobile Awards

. The GSMA announced the 80 finalists in the Annual Global Mobile Awards 2009, who emerged from more than 450 proposals in 16 different categories. The awards will be presented at a gala cela the first day of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The category is more attractive is the "Best mobile device, where the nominees are Nokia E71, T-Mobile G1, the INQ1, the BlackBerry Storm 9500 and the LG KS360.

There is also a wide variety of mobile entertainment awards for games, music and video, advertising and social networking services. This year's awards incorporate several new categories, including "Best mobile service money" where there are several companies in mobile payments, and "Green Mobile Award", where the stars will be sustainable energy and solar energy.

3G licenses in China approves 3 different technologies

.
After several delays in the shape of its own 3G standard TD-SCDMA (with no royalties paid to any manufacturer) China has decided to license, in addition to its own technology, the other two technologies prevailing in the world in 3G CDMA WCDMA 2000 and the first is the most popular in North America, while WCDMA is used in Europe, Asia and Japan.

This could further boost growth in the world's largest market, as we recall that sales of smartphones in China grows at 12% per year and the teams 3G equipment is mostly middle and upper range. The market potential for the three standards is enormous, currently China has about 600 million cell phone users and is expected to be about 150 million 3G customers by the end of 2010.

According to various reports, it is expected that China Mobile, the dominant operator here, will be assigned the Chinese TD-SCDMA standard. Global standards WCDMA and CDMA-2000 are for China Unicom and China Telecom, respectively. This is due, in large part by pressure from operators and manufacturers because it is estimated to be investing over 40 billion dollars in equipment, infrastructure and terminals to start serving.

Which is deducted from the 40 billion dollars in infrastructure, the big three, Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia, will take a good part. In this regard, Nokia confirmed its support for the development of TD-SCDMA technology, driven by China and reported that they are working in a cell with S60 platform based on TD-SCDMA and will be launched in late 2009

4 billion mobile connections worldwide

. 3G Americas reported that in mid-December 2008 were able to overcome the mark of 4 billion mobile connections worldwide at the same time provide interesting information for our region, "The Latin America and the Caribbean continues to exhibit steady growth the number of consumers, up 16% over the previous year and subscriber numbers are expected to reach over 440 million, equivalent to a penetration rate of 76%. "

In November there were 39 networks UMTS / HSPA in the Americas region in 19 countries, there are now 41 networks in 20 countries, reflecting the substantial growth that has the industry in this region.

Today there are more than 100 operators worldwide, including most of the industry leaders announced their expectations of migrating networks to LTE from 2010. LTE is the next evolutionary step for mobile broadband, and uses technology based on OFDM and a core network based entirely on IP, which allows an optimized Internet experience from mobile devices.

Continues to grow strong mobile broadband in 2008

.

Samsung SGH-A637 simple but 3G

.

Motorola Z6w, one with WiFi and UMA ROKR

.

Lenovo leaves the mobile market and Dell is back with Android

. It is interesting to have two simultaneous news about companies that had their PC business of mobile phones, on the one hand definitely Lenovo sells all its mobile phone unit, but it had created many phones on the market at some $ S100 million.

On the other hand, the old Dell again but this time, hand in hand with the Android open OS is promoting Google and Open Handset Alliance. The rumor says that will be presented at the 3GSM Barcelona 2008, and perhaps help to understand or see a partnership between Dell and Google beyond G applications preinstalled on all Dell PCs.

Phone screen flexible and rolling

.

Finalente, after showing a prototype of CellularBook almost a year ago will be presented at 3GSM 2008 in PolymerVision product that promises to compete with the iPhone and Amazon Kindle at the same time would not be covered too? ;)

It is interesting to submit it that way when they were originally developed an e-ink display, "the display will have to read books, the super battery life ... and the best connectivity in the form of a mobile phone." . . And we are taking the leading mobile ebooks "

The connectivity will be 3G and are already in talks with operators, the first Telecom Italia, plans to build as the iPhone, because the logic would suggest that you buy this phone using a data plan to download and read books the phone.

Personally, I continue to draw attention because the rolling display allows you to have to transport convenience and comfort to read on a screen much bigger than we have in a phone.