China’s four top phone carriers have agreed to make short messaging services (SMS) between mobile and fixed-line phones interoperable, which is expected to boost the revenues of phone and SMS operators. China Unicom Ltd. said Thursday that its parent had signed an interclearing and interconnection agreement with China Telecom Corp. and China Netcom Group to allow the exchange of SMS between mobile and fixed-line users.
Dilithium Networks, a leading provider of 3G video telephony solutions for the world’s mobile and broadband industries, announced today that Dr. Marwan Jabri, its founder and CTO, will speak at Mobile InfraTech, the only event worldwide focusing entirely on mobile network infrastructure. Mobile InfraTech addresses the current trend towards convergent architectures by adopting an inclusive policy that covers all mobile networking standards. Mobile InfraTech is co-located with the UMTS Congress, the world longest established event focusing on 3G networks, with over 5,000 participants over 8 years.
Watch out, iPod! The hottest mobile news on planet Earth this week is KDDI’s announcement of a full-song mobile download service for 3G. If the service launches as planned, the profits could be enormous for carriers and labels alike. But all is not well in Japan’s mobile music land and those pesky FTC raids are just part of the worry.Part 1 of a Series.
Mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson today reported that it had more than trebled third quarter pre-tax profits, but the market leader, Nokia, reported a 20% fall. Sony Ericsson, the world’s fifth-biggest handset maker, made gains on the back of soaring demand for its camera phones. It said it expected sales to grow further during the crucial Christmas shopping quarter.
IT researcher and consulting firm Gartner Japan has announced sales in Japan of cellular phones between January and June. Sales reached 22,133,100 units, down 8.5% over the same period last year. The company attributes the decline in sales to the fact that demand for camera phones was not as brisk as a year ago. Gartner also reports that W-CDMA phones accounted for almost 15% of total cellphone sales.
Softbank has apparently asked a Tokyo court to block the Japan government’s plan for distributing 3G spectrum to mobile phone operators, saying it would bar new entrants until 2012. The company argued the plan favoured the existing top two mobile phone operators — NTT DoCoMo and KDDI — in the 800-Mhz band used for high-speed wireless services, impeding Softbank’s mobile business plans.
