''Freshmen'' enters japanese mobile market

Fast and flat. No, it's not fat.

Japanese mobile market enters eMobile , a mobile arm of japanese ISP eAccess, with main points of its offer , aimed at business customers.

E-M ONE at the glance:

- mobile broadband plan - HSDPA ( all-you-can-eat ) for a fixed fee of 50 $ a month ,
- Sharp widescreen PDA / smartphone with Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system,

Also packed into the device is 802.11b/g wireless LAN, Bluetooth and a tuner for Japan’s mobile digital television broadcasts.

If eMobile can successfully attract customers in Japan through aspects such as price and speed, it may offer a breath of fresh air for the japanese mobile industry's stale phone and data pricing schemes.

Vodafone Marches Across India

An uneasy friendship

We know Vodafone recently bought Hutchinson's stake in Hutch Essar Limited, India's fourth biggest mobile operator, but we still don't know who and how this venture will be run.

Arun Sarin, India-born Vodafone's CEO, tours India in the private jet, and tries to convince Essar's representatives ''this is fair game''.
Shareholder agreement is still unsigned.

Vodafone has already committed to invest two billion dollars in a "couple of years" for expansion of Hutch-Essar in India as part of efforts to become the country's largest mobile operator with a target of 100 million subscribers.

Emerging market rings.

According to Hindustan Times and given Sarin's quote there:

"ROIC (Return on Investment Capital) test met in year five and Internal Risk of Return would be around 14 per cent,”

Boris Nemsic serves on the GSMA management board

Mobile Tszar Boris

Boris Nemsic, at the moment CEO of “Telekom Austria Group”, has been chosen to become a member of the Management Board of the World GSM Association with a two-year term of office.
Congratulations.
I would call him ''our man'' :)
Among other facts, his work left a huge mark here in Croatia and practically he was one of the most infuential people building ''mobile crazy'' nations in the Southeastern Europe.
In November 1998, he became CEO of Vipnet, the first private mobile communications operator in Croatia.
His official profile is here.

Tele2 Croatia loss of 300 million Kuna for 2006.

Sales of calls just not enough. How about data plans ? Chief, should we go or let it go ?

Tele2 Croatia, third mobile operator in Croatia, reported loss of about 300 millions Kuna ( about 40,8 million Euro ) for 2006 .
Wow.

I wasn't aware they are loosing so much money. Tele2 AB Group reported financial results for 2006., and croatian chapter contributes with 1/5 of overall losses.
At the end of last month, they had 300,000 subscribers.
They begun with operation in October 2005.
The main philosophy for Tele2 in Croatia is '' simple and cheap ''
( just like everywhere else ).

For such a bad financials, they blame roaming costs.
Tele2 is using VIPNET's infrastructure ( second biggest mobile operator in the country ).

Tele2 is my mobile operator and I own ''golden number'' ;)) I was among first users in Croatia of their network. I own SIMs of all operators, naturally. ;))

Via: Suvremena.hr

Mobile operator's cool shoulders

Party line

As much as iPhone didn't impress myself on the very first day it was showcased, another strong voice from mobile carrier community ( Australian Telstra Senior Executive Greg Winn ) thinks along the same line.

Sydney Morning Herald and The Age quoted Greg Winn:

“I think people overreacted to it”,

“There’s an old saying - stick to your knitting - and Apple is not a mobile phone manufacturer, that’s not their knitting”

“Cingular is not a global company,”

"You can pretty much be assured that Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and ZTE and others will be coming out with devices that have similar functionality."

However, Winn did say that the iPhone would probably be a successful initially.
We shall see.

Smudge your iPhone

iPhone fans always kept their fingertips clean and their nails nicely clipped. Are they gay ?

Try iSmudgenator , a flash based iPhone simulator that was inspired by Jon Hicks post.
Smudge your iPhone. Over and over again  Fun. :))

Mobile phones should be clean just like a clean sunglasses, cause you know, now it's a lifestyle device.
You can't socialize with dirty phone screen. Could you ?
If I ever touch that iPhone... :)

I am still ''worried'' and want to hear woman's experience with iPhone ? Those with large nails ? Anybody ?
Nail-to-phone practice ? Doesn't seem to be looking like good experience.

Now, I must learn 101 simple strategies for dead iPhone.

State of the calling

Give me more, more and more.

Fresh data about telecom trends in Croatia become available in the media .
According to the Central Bureau of Statistics ( key facts for 2006., reference year 2005. ):

- 46,3 % more minutes in the mobile networks,
- 13,7 % less minutes in the fixed network ( 8,3 billion minutes ),
- 10,2 % less international calls for the fixed network ( 194 million minutes ),
- 47,3 % more domestic calls for the mobile networks ( 3,5 billion minutes ) ,
- 20,8 % more international calls for the mobile networks ( 128 million minutes )
- 5,1 % more SMS's send ( 2,5 billion )
- 43,2 % more MMS's send ( 14,5 million, but volume is only 0,6 % compared to SMS )

Domestic mobile calling and MMS is up, although, MMS's volume is minor.
About croatian telecom market, read more here.

Phone correspondent with SE W900i

Sakura-san reports

Croatian chapter of Sony Ericsson and Zagreb's local television Z1 made a deal for phone-reporting.
Z1's reporters will be given SE W900i phone which is capable of shooting video with 30 FPS ( 30 pics a second ) hence reproduction will be suitable for TV airing.
The reporters will stage live reporting from Zagreb's streets.
Nice deal for proactive croatian SE chapter and inovative TV project.

Mobile TV, but for offline viewing

Selling hand-potato lifestyle :)

Mobile TV, which was before some time beyond my comprehension, will most likely be success. Eventually it will be.
Add-on for normal TV viewing habit.
We are too early in the market, if we can say ''market'' at all. Tough to sell.

Who would want to look TV on a mobile phone ? Currently, the concept is not widely understood. I had a trouble for a long time and couldn't find much reason.

Well, just imagine if you have a situation where many handsets ( the time will come ) have an in-built tuner for DVB-H signal, and you get some cheap programming, you most certainly would be tempted to try it out.
At least for some porn or betting ? Don't you ? ;))

It happened to me today when I was discussing with my neighbour about digital TV ( DVB-T ).
He asked me whether I was looking to buy DVB-T reciver to get digital TV .

I wasn't much informed about DVB-T before, but indeed, we have this ability in about 60-70 % of croatian territory. You need to buy reciver and be lucky to live on the territory with signal coverage and you are good to go ( do not need to pay for any service ).

So, I felt, this can be very easy adopted for mobile phones.
The broadcasters could upgrade equipment with DVB-H specifications, and if mobile operators step in with 3G service, you need ''just'' to buy phone with DVB-H tuner ( and pay for the service, he, he ).

It'll take time to take off as a viable business, but if experience is smooth, and pricing structure done right, then we can watch in Croatia pretty soon mobile TV . Vipnet, actually, started the first croatian mobile TV with Vodafone Live .

But watching is different pair of shoes. What's the point to ''catch'' with TV programming and today's TV scheduling ?
If the ''time-shifting'' model is what we expect to be more in use these days, then why not watch it offline or watch it , at least, more conveniently ( mobile PVR ) ?
If we are watching it offline, then it's not mobile TV anymore, but on-demand content.

Maybe we could label our TV show just like we bookmark web sites with del.icio.us these days. Save it, and watch it when you have time to do so ( record, download ).

The digital standards are raging wars among providers, and handsets are still beyond mass market.
The key is user's experience and price. Attracting world class content providers will be important step as well.

Just some my messy thoughts about mobile TV.
More to learn as we go further down the mobile road.

Born in Texas

Wild , wild Wikipedia


Wikipedia missed the fact about Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus :)
Under the section ''Early life'', the unknown editor made a spoof:

He was born in Texas (or Velletri) on September 23, 63 BC with the name G-Money.

Wikipedia at its best.
Totally randomly I was looking for some fact about Roman Empire, and voila... Texas and G-Money. :)

Here's a right wikipedian ''mirror'' about him.