Enhancing mobile comms in the home – are the Irish networks ready for it?Apple’s iPhone may have grabbed this year’s mobile industry hype all for itself but another technology with a much broader reach is on its way.

A femtocell is a mobile base station small enough to be located in the home. The low-power unit can support around four mobile devices simultaneously and boosts the mobile signal for better call quality.

It combines the cellular network with a home broadband connection, allowing operators to offer cheap or free mobile calls.

“It dramatically improves the coverage and capacity of your connection. If you’re getting bad service or dropped calls, then femtocells solve that completely,” says Rupert Baines, marketing chair of the Femto Forum trade group.

“With data services, if you’re looking at YouTube on an iPhone or checking email, it’s much faster – it’s like getting broadband on your phone,” he says.

Femtocells don’t require anyone to upgrade their mobiles. “There are two billion handsets worldwide, any of which will just work with this technology. That’s a huge reason why we’re optimistic about it,” says Baines.

The first wave of the technology is aimed mainly at residential users, but newer products in development will support greater numbers of users and integrate with PABX phone systems, making them suitable for businesses.

Next week, US carrier Sprint will launch one of the first live femtocell services. Consumers will pay an additional $4.99 premium on their monthly bills to make free, unlimited calls when in range of the base station, which costs $99.99.

It’s still early days for femtocells – ABI Research estimates the amount of units shipped this year will be around 100,000.

The company says the technology will really only begin to take off in the latter part of next year, with units shipping in serious volume by 2010.

Different business models will emerge as the technology matures. Steven Hartley, a senior analyst with Ovum, suggests Sprint’s price plan may deter some users.

There may also be issues with the ‘handover’ from the mobile network to when a person enters their home and is in range of the femtocell, adds Hartley.

For these and other reasons, many operators are still testing the technology. More than 20 femtocell trials are underway around the world, so it is possible there may be some developments in the Irish market by next year.

According to ComReg, mobile operators here don’t have to apply for a separate licence to operate femtocells, but under the terms of their existing agreements, they are obliged to notify the regulator where each base station is located.

To date, ComReg has had no requests from any operator in Ireland. A spokesperson for Vodafone Ireland says the group is actively looking at femtocell technology and is carrying out technical feasibility studies with several suppliers and commercial evaluation in other markets.

Majella Fitzpatrick, a spokesperson for O2, says the company is monitoring developments at its parent, the Telefonica group, which is running trials in the UK, Spain and the Czech Republic.

She confirms there will be a trial here before any launch could happen. “The capabilities of the fixed-line network are different and the customer requirements are different, but having said that, we would learn a huge amount from the other trials so we’re not starting from scratch either,” she says.

As O2 doesn’t own a fixed-line broadband network, this may be a limiting factor in delivering femtocell services in Ireland. “It’s not so straightforward,” Fitzpatrick says.

Few people may know about femtocells now, but a survey for Motorola found some 40pc of Europeans were interested when told of the benefits. The question is, how soon will Irish consumers be able to see the technology for themselves?

I reckon we have a major war shaping up here. You may well have read (since it’s all over the internet) that the 3G iPhone was finally announced yesterday, ending months of speculation about what it will be like and so on.And here it is, in all its glory (source: Engadget Mobile)

So, what’s it like, is it any good, and do you want one? Well, there’s an easy way to describe what it’s like. It’s an iPhone. But with a 3G antenna in it, and a GPS unit, and a higher capacity battery. Other than that, it’s the same iPhone we all know and love (or loathe, depending on your viewpoint). So, it’s got the same zippy, zingy interface, the same massive screen, the same OSX operating system (with Safari web browser) and the same camera (which isn’t necessarily a good thing, as it was never that good a camera on the original).

Basically, Apple fans will love it, non-Apple fans will probably not, just as they didn’t like the first one. However, there’s one big clincher that might change a few minds:

The new price.

O2 are saying on their site that you’ll be able to get the 3G iPhone (the 8Gb model) FREE on a £45 per month (or above) tariff. Compare that with the price of the original, at about £300, and it seems Apple have learned some lessons about pricing!

So that’s the objective view, time for my opinion… and just as with the first iPhone, I wouldn’t have one of these if you paid me. If the iPhone is you idea of a great phone, then good on ya, and I say you should get one ASAP. Mobile phones are always going to be deeply personal devices, so if you want an iPhone, you get one. I wouldn’t touch it, myself, but I can understand why others want it.

But, anyway, back to my original statement; we’re seeing a major war brewing up, I reckon, because let’s face it, none of the other big names in mobile phones are going to sit back and let Apple steal their market. And now, there’s a better chance they’ll be able to do that, because cheaper price equals more sales, and the 3G iPhone has taken the brand from the exclusive sector to the top-end of the mainstream.

And that’s where it’s going to find its big battles, because that’s where mobile phones like the HTC Diamond live, not to mention the upcoming Samsung i900, and a new mystery phone from Sony Ericsson (that no-one knows anything about, but it was leaked in a product video, and it looked awesome, and the head of product development for SE said it would be out soon) as well as their X1 Xperia. But right now, its big rival is that HTC Diamond, the phone that Jillian fell in love with while I was on holiday. And it is going to be one hell of a fight, because the HTC Diamond’s truly, truly stunning, and easily outclasses the 3G iPhone technically. Whether it’ll have the legs to take on Apple’s phenomenal brand power is something else entirely, but as it is, I know which one I’d have…

As a bonus, to anyone who’s not seen it yet, here’s the advert for the new 3G iPhone. I’ll concede it’s vastly cooler than the ads for the first one. Oh, and bonus rock points if you spot who’s doing the voiceover:

Mobile phone company O2 and high street retailer Carphone Warehouse have sold out of the basic version of Apple’s iPhone and will not be restocking their shelves ahead of the launch of the new version of the device over the summer.

There had been talk that O2, which has the exclusive rights to the iPhone in the UK, and Carphone Warehouse, its sole independent retail partner, would be left with thousands of unsold phones when Apple unveils the new version of the device later this year.

But last month it slashed the price of the basic 8GB version of the iPhone - which can store roughly 2,000 songs - by £100 to £169 and the phone has since sold out. Carphone Warehouse has also sold out of the larger 16GB version of the phone, which costs £329, although O2 still has some stock left.

Apple is believed to have stopped making the basic version of the iPhone while it puts the finishing touches to a new 3G version, which could be shown at its Worldwide Developers’ Conference in San Francisco in June.

The speculation - which Apple has refused to comment on - is that there will be a basic version of the new-generation phone in the US for $399 (£200) and a 16GB 3G iPhone for $499. But network partner AT&T is expected to subsidise the phones, reducing the price by $200 and taking the basic 3G device down to $199 (£100).

O2’s move to drop the price of its 8GB version of the current phone followed the decision of Apple’s exclusive network partner in Germany, T-Mobile, to drop the cost of the same phone to just €99 (£80). According to reports in the French press, Apple has been pushing Orange, owned by France Telecom, to drop the price of the device in its home market, where Orange is the exclusive provider, to boost sales.

Sales in the UK are believed to have outstripped those in Germany and France, with several hundred thousand sold since the iPhone went on sale in November.

But iPhone sales in Europe have been nothing like as spectacular as in the US. Over the three months to the end of March, Apple shipped 1.7m iPhones. While that figure was helped by the launch of the device in Ireland and Austria, the bulk of sales were in the US. The company is still predicting that it will sell 10m by the end of this year.

The 3G version of the phone is expected to sell better in Europe than the previous iPhone, which many users found slow to access the internet over a mobile phone network.

China Mobile Ltd., the phone carrier with more users than the U.S. has people, reported first-quarter profit rose 37 percent after it added customers at a record pace by cutting rates and offering news and instant messaging.

Net income climbed to 24.1 billion yuan ($3.4 billion) from 17.6 billion yuan a year earlier, the Beijing-based company said today in a statement on its Web site. Sales increased 20 percent to 93.02 billion yuan. Four analysts had a median profit estimate of 23.6 billion yuan in a Bloomberg survey.

Chief Executive Officer Wang Jianzhou won subscribers from fixed-line companies China Telecom Corp. and China Netcom Group Corp. (Hong Kong) Ltd. by scrapping charges for receiving calls and offering services including mobile newspapers. The company plans an industry overhaul that may increase competition.]

“China Mobile is penetrating new markets to get as many customers as possible and at the same time roll out new services to retain the subscriber base they have,” said Christopher Wong, a fund manager at Aberdeen Asset Management in Singapore, which oversees more than $40 billion of investments including China Mobile shares. It’s “trying to run faster than the competitors, as who knows what the government may do from a regulatory perspective.”

The company’s stock doubled last year, making it the world’s most valuable mobile-phone company, as investors bought into the dominant carrier in the world’s biggest wireless market.

Record Increase

China Mobile rose 2.4 percent to HK$134.70 at the end of trading in Hong Kong, compared with a 2.2 percent gain in the city’s benchmark index. The company’s earnings were announced after the stock market closed.

The company added 7.8 million users last month, for a total of 392.1 million. Subscriber numbers rose by a record 22.8 million in the first quarter, or an average of more than 7 million a month. Smaller rival China Unicom Ltd. on Friday said it added 1.63 million in March for a total of 167 million.

“China Mobile cut fees and traffic has gone up,” said Tucker Grinnan, head of Asian telecommunications research at HSBC Holdings Plc. He rates the stock “overweight” with a share- price estimate of HK$148.

China Mobile’s gain in subscribers hasn’t been matched by an increase in customer spending as the company focused on rural areas, where the average annual disposable income in the first quarter was 1,494 yuan, a third of the amount for urban dwellers.

The phone operator’s average monthly phone bill fell to 82 yuan in the first quarter, from 85 yuan a year earlier.

Market Share

First-quarter earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and goodwill amortization climbed 22.2 percent to 49.8 billion yuan, the company said. Ebitda was 53.5 percent of sales, up from 52.4 percent.

China Mobile has about a 68 percent share of the nation’s mobile-phone market, while Unicom has the balance. China had 565.2 million mobile users at the end of February.

As part of an industry overhaul, the government may order China Unicom, the nation’s second-largest mobile operator, to sell its bigger phone network to Netcom, analysts at UBS AG, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said last month.

Unicom may sell its smaller network to China Telecom, while the parent of China Mobile may acquire fixed-line operator China Tietong Telecommunications Corp., according to the analysts.

3G Timetable

Parent China Mobile Communications Corp. earlier this month started commercial trials of a third-generation wireless service based on a locally developed standard in eight cities including Beijing and Shanghai.

China hasn’t set a timetable for issuing 3G licenses that allow for faster downloads of video and music, or said how many it will grant.

China’s economy, which may overtake Germany’s as the world’s third biggest this year, has averaged 10 percent annual growth and expanded 68 times in size since free-market reforms started in 1978.

“The rapid growth in China’s economy and the vigorous demand for telecommunications services continued to create a prosperous environment for the group,” China Mobile Chairman Wang said in the statement.

Handset-design industry in the “world’s fastest growing economy” is expected to enter a phase of consolidation this yer due to rapid declining profit margins.

According to data from China-based market research firm ResearchInChina, average gross margins for China-based handset design companies are expected to drift down to 3% in 2008, compared to 5% in 2007 and 15% in 2006.

The reason for declining margins can be explained with two factors: first, more and more international handset vendors are entering the Chinese handset market market; and, on the other side, a lack of production differentiation among handset design companies.

Most handset design companies in China are using MediaTek’s chipset solutions, making them unable to differentiate their products from each other. To be fair, some companies have begun developing more sophisticated products, including dual-mode, GPS-enabled and 3G models as well as smartphones. However, most such devices are unable to reach an economic scale.

Last year, shipments of China-made handsets built using solutions from China handset-design companies totaled about 101 million units in 2007, and are likely to increase to 122 million units in 2008 and 142 million units in 2009.

China’s Ministry of Information Industry said the number of China’s mobile phone subscribers in February 2008 grew by a record 9.5 million from the prior month.  The agency cited reduced prices for both phones and airtime as a reason for the increase. China had 565 million mobile phone users as of February 2008.

The number of fixed-line subscribers fell 3.26 million in the first two months to 362 million, as of February 2008. The figure has decreased for seven months in a row as users forego signing up for fixed-lines and instead opt for mobile phones.

China Mobile said that half of the new subscribers were from the rural areas, which are a key source of new subscribers and a driver of growth.

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