UMTS
UMTS

UMTS

New W950i Walkman Phone

Sony Ericsson has introduced the W950, an ultra-slim, ultra-stylish, UMTS-enabled device with 4GB of onboard storage complete with touch screen for simple navigation through music genres, playlists, individual songs or music albums. The music player within the W950 has the functionality and sound quality of an equivalent standalone device. Its 4GB storage can take up to 4,000 songs and the sound quality, delivered on high quality headphones, makes listening to music a real pleasure. A new graphic-rich interface on the Walkman player makes it easy to navigate around the music library by song, artist or playlist and now it’s possible to search visually by browsing through album covers using the stylus and touch screen.

QUALCOMM Enhances Deployment of Location Services for WCDMA

QUALCOMM announced that it has streamlined the deployment process for providing location services on WCDMA (UMTS)/HSDPA/GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks around the world. Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) Secure User Plane for Location (SUPL) 1.0 software is now offered broadly across QUALCOMM’s WCDMA (UMTS) portfolio of Mobile Station Modem (MSM) chipsets as part of the gpsOne solution, offering a consistent platform for the rollout of Assisted-GPS (A-GPS) technology and the location services it enables. Support for the OMA SUPL 1.0 protocol, accepted industry-wide, delivers significant cost-efficiency benefits for network operators deploying location services and offers wireless users a seamless experience when roaming onto other WCDMA (UMTS)/HSDPA and GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks.

Sony Ericsson Releases M600 Series

Sony Ericsson has just announced the M600 phone and messaging device [ .jpg image ]. This is a fully-specified email tool and mobile phone rolled into an extremely stylish, slim device featuring a touch screen and handwriting recognition. M600 is the second Symbian OS 9.1 and UIQ 3.0 enabled phone in the Sony Ericsson portfolio offering users great customisation opportunities and the ability to buy personal productivity and other applications from the Sony Ericsson Application Shop. New push email applications, remote synchronisation and expandable memory give owners a UMTS phone and email connectivity in a device that easily fits in their pocket – at just 15mm thick, it is one of the slimmest business UMTS devices of its kind available.

W-CDMA 900-MHz Calls Achieved

Nortel and QUALCOMM have successfully completed HSDPA calls in the 900-MHz band, a spectrum capable of delivering wireless broadband such as mobile TV, video-on-demand, video telephony and DSL-like services to rural areas. W-CDMA in the 900-MHz band is a cost-effective way to deliver nationwide high-speed wireless coverage. It achieves a 60-percent reduction in cell sites required to serve rural areas and delivers improved quality of service in urban areas by enhancing in-building penetration by 25 percent, according to the technology’s proponents.

New Fujitsu-Siemens Smartphone

According to leaks around the web, Fujitsu-Siemens will unveil a high-end smartphone loaded with features at 3GSM in March. The T800 [ .jpg image ] will roll-out a QWERTY keyboard with a 240×240 display, rumored to be running Windows Mobile 5.0 Phone Edition on a 416 MHz XScale processor. Also predicted 64 MB of RAM and 128 MB of Flash ROM for storage the new unit will supposedly offer Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) and Bluetooth 2.0 as well.

3G Network Limitations Define Mobile TV

3G Network Limitations Define Mobile TVIt’s rare for WWJ editors, a jaded bunch, to get too excited about new service announcements, but on 6 December, we jumped on this fresh Vodafone press release that seemed to herald the emergence of the rather cool, made-in-Japan ‘Vodafone Live! BB’ (BB= broadband) music- and video-download service into the Group’s European markets. Vodafone live! BB uses the ‘i-Pod model’ to get large media files onto mobile phones, avoiding network traffic fees and should be, we have always thought, a no-brainer for export to Vodafone Opcos outside Japan. Don’t mobilers everywhere want to save on packet/data fees and get audio and DVD-quality video onto their handsets?

Texas Instruments and DoCoMo JV

Fulfilling a commitment made last year to jointly develop 3G solutions with NTT DoCoMo, Texas Instruments Inc. today announced it has sampled a cost-competitive, multi-mode UMTS chipset developed with NTT DoCoMo to serve the worldwide 3G handset market. Part of TI’s OMAP-Vox architecture, the new OMAPV2230 solution is an integrated UMTS dual-mode digital baseband processor and advanced applications processor based on TI’s high-performance OMAP 2 architecture, TI’s proven GSM/GPRS technology, and NTT DoCoMo’s established WCDMA technology.

When 3G Becomes 4G

HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) is an enhancement to W-CDMA, a technology that is also referred to as UMTS, the 3G path chosen by most GSM operators around the world. Today, there are already some 75 UMTS networks in operation around the world. Globally, many UMTS operators are planning on the HSDPA upgrade, and operators that have not deployed UMTS yet are likely to go directly to HSDPA. (Ed’s Note: We’ve been following the evolution to next-gen high-speed mobile for at least 18 months now. Google WWJ for more on this topic.)

NEC, Siemens Supply Ireland 3G

Japanese telco NEC and Siemens Communications announced that they are assisting Hutchison 3G Ireland in deploying its W-CDMA/UMTS 3G network. The announcement represents the eighth Hutchison 3G network deployment that NEC and Siemens have been involved in. NEC and Siemens are the suppliers of 3G network solutions to Hutchison 3G in Austria, Hong Kong, Italy and the UK as well.

Japan Allocates 2-GHz Spectrum for TD-CDMA

Last week, the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications announced that Japan’s 2010 – 2025 MHz spectrum would be allocated solely to IMT-2000 TDD technologies. This paves the way for broadband wireless networks using UMTS TDD, also known as TD-CDMA in Japan; the first commercially deployed IMT-2000 technology for unpaired spectrum. Optimized for high-speed data, UMTS TDD is already used by operators and manufacturers worldwide and has emerged as a leading standard for Broadband Wireless Access.