FCC speed test application available for ANDROID

The Federal Communication Commission released its speed testing app today. It’s out for Android now, with versions for iOS and other platforms in the works. The app will help the regulatory agency crowdsource speed data for all US carriers. Grab it here!
When you install the app, it automatically checks your phone’s connection speed in the background when the device is not in use. You can see the performance of your data provider using the app. It allows the FCC to gather a wide amount of data on cellular carriers nationwide.
This all depends on the app’s adoption by consumers, of course. If it isn’t used by a wide sampling of Android users, than the speed data wouldn’t be very helpful. But if this catches on, the FCC will be compiling some very useful data. Data that will be very helpful for consumers trying to make a choice about which carrier to go with.

source: http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/14/5105090/fcc-launches-android-mobile-speed-test-app

China Mobile LTE Deployment Contract winner- Ericsson

Ericsson has finally joined the list of companies that it has been selected by China Mobile (CMCC) to deploy LTE TDD in 15 key provinces in China. These provinces are home to 63 percent of China's population and include the top three provinces in terms of GDP.

This is the first phase of the world's largest LTE TDD network deployment. Ericsson will deploy radio access networks based on its multi-standard RBS 6000. For the core network - which will be used for China Mobile's nationwide mobile network covering 2G, 3G and 4G - Ericsson has been selected to upgrade its installed base, equal to a market share of 40 percent in User Data Management (HLR/HSS). In addition, Ericsson has been awarded 20 percent market share in Evolved Packet Core.

The scope of the contract also includes network design and optimization services.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

Jan Signell, Head of Ericsson Region North East Asia says: "We are pleased that our LTE TDD technology and services leadership are recognized by China Mobile. Our leading LTE TDD networks will bring unparalleled network performance to users and create new opportunities for innovations with connected devices and applications. We have been a trusted partner to China Mobile since its introduction of 2G and are committed to supporting the world's largest LTE deployment."

The deal is aligned with the 11 percent market share in radio access networks awarded earlier in the China Mobile central purchasing process in September. The deployment has begun.

source : http://www.cellular-news.com/story/63063.php

Up- gradation from 2G (second generation) to 3G (third generation) and now current 4G

With the consistent growth in the mobile users, technically mobile (cellular) companies were facing a huge increase in MS Traffic (increase in Erlangen). The more traffic among all these was of data; speaking on the side of the mobile users is INTERNET.

INTERNET or data services has incredibly hold the world of internet on the move, for the fulfillment of the demand 3gpp (third generation participation project) has taken a step forward from the previous 2G. This step was required because the limited trough-put (data rate) of the air interface of 2G. This limitation was because of the limited access of the allotted band and the modulation scheme of the air interface although on the side of the base station BS was never limited with the dedicated E1. This has shown that transmission to the BS was with the capabilities to hold high through put but air-interface was not.

While 3G was in progress for launch, it was for the first time the concept of TDMA (time division multiplexing) was left behind with the new technique of WCDMA which was an enhancement over CDMA. While developing 3G standards before its all release, the concept was to somehow make the air-interface more widen to achieve high throughput to meet the commercial demand. In 3G modulation scheme of high symbol rate were introduced, with QPSK to QAM. In 3G SSM (spread spectrum modulation) was introduced for the first time in mobile communication this has widen the bandwidth associated to a user, providing him higher data-rate for internet access.

Although 3G has provided higher data-rate for internet access including voice but still the service we call DATA ON THE MOVE (DOTM) was behind and people still prefer to have fixed line services for connecting to internet. Fixed line service including DSL lines, OFC, Leased Lines and PTP (micro wave short distance). The weight on the arms of 3G was still high to compete the market commercially and considering all these 3gpp has taken a next step with the release of HSUPA+ and LTE which has triggered the market with more catches of Traffic and has now becoming a wide application part for VPN, a foot step into business.

Kirusa Captures the Imagination of Ghanaians With Celeb Connect Service

Kirusa, the leader in voice and social media solutions for mobile users in emerging markets, announced a partnership with Makeba Creates, a leading celebrity agency in Ghana. This partnership enables top celebrities like John Dumelo, Efya, Mzbel, Reggie Rockstone, amongst others, to more personally engage with their fans in their own voice.

Using Celeb Connect, celebrities can share their daily lives, thoughts, and emotions in their own voice with their fans. Participating stars can call or use smartphones to leave messages. These messages are then delivered immediately to fans, who can listen to what is happening in their most cherished celebrities' lives, in the celebrities' own voice, which creates a "Voice Twitter"-like experience. Ghanaian subscribers can see messages, call, and listen to what's happening over the phone, or on the web at vobolo.com, and can share with their friends on Facebook and Twitter. Further, the fans get an opportunity to speak and engage with the celebrities on-line and off-line.

The Celeb Connect service, powered by Kirusa's Vobolo™ social media platform, is currently available to mobile subscribers of Airtel, Tigo, and Vodafone in Ghana. Airtel and Vodafone users can dial 2510 and Tigo users can dial 1001 from their mobile and subscribe to the service.
There is a huge interest amongst Ghanaian people to listen to the daily happenings in the lives of their stars, with a whopping 860,000 people following John Dumelo, Efya, Mzbel, and Reggie Rockstone in the first few months. To share a perspective, these stars have 240,000+ followers on Twitter and 700,000+ on Facebook.

Makeba Boateng, CEO, Makeba Creates Ltd., states, "Kirusa's Vobolo platform is unrivaled in its state-of-the-art technology and innovative solutions. Our proficiency in our respective fields delivers a privileged service to the fans. Connecting celebrities to consumers is an inevitable development of the digital age. It has been happening online for many years now and using mobile voice is an added dimension."

Mrinal Roy, COO & Executive Director, Airtel Ghana, adds, "We have seen a tremendous response to the Celeb Connect service on Kirusa's Vobolo platform. Our subscribers all over the country are excited at this new offering where they get an opportunity to hear their favorite stars; and also an opportunity to speak with them."

Inderpal Singh Mumick, Founder and CEO of Kirusa, shared his views on the collaboration and its overwhelming success. "Bringing together our respective expertise, we, along with Makeba, aimed at bringing people closer to the celebrities they admire, and to empower them to speak to the role models they idolize on screen. The response from celebrities and from Ghanaian people has been excellent. We are in talks with religious, sports and political celebrities to present them on the Vobolo platform, and also intend to take the Vobolo platform to other African countries."

"The Celeb Connect service is not only a dream come true for the fans, but also for us celebrities to connect with their fans. By providing a "Voice-Twitter"-like experience, Vobolo has brought us one more step closer to our fans, in a way not possible with any of the other social media platforms. It is interesting to know how one's daily routine, feelings and emotions affect one's fans. They are a focal point of our celebrity existence. It is important for us to know their expectations from us. Kirusa has brought in an exquisite experience to the lives of Ghanaians, and Vobolo is a fantastic platform to stay connected with them," added actor John Dumelo.

About Airtel in Africa
Airtel is driven by the vision of providing affordable and innovative mobile services to all. Airtel has 17 operations in Africa: Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Airtel International is a Bharti Airtel company. For more information, please visit www.airtel.com, or 'like' the Airtel Ghana Facebook page via www.facebook.com/airtelgh or follow us on Twitter via the handle@airtelghana
About Bharti Airtel
Bharti Airtel Limited is a leading integrated telecommunications company with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa. Headquartered in New Delhi, India, the company ranks amongst the top 5 mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers. In India, the company's product offerings include 2G, 3G and 4G services, fixed line, high speed broadband through DSL, IPTV, DTH, enterprise services including national & international long distance services to carriers. In the rest of the geographies, it offers 2G, 3G mobile services. Bharti Airtel had over 275 million customers across its operations at the end of July 2013. To know more please visit, www.airtel.com
About Makeba Creates
Makeba Creates is a Ghana based celebrity agent. Established in 2001, Makeba Creates PR (MCPR) is a Public Relations Consultancy brand based in Accra/Ghana. MCPR focuses on its own self products as well as customized strategic campaigns in the areas of Business, Management, Fashion, Entertainment, Special Events and the Arts. For more information visit: www.makebacreates.com 
About John Dumelo
John Dumelo is a leading African movie actor and entrepreneur. He has acted in over 80 movies with elites like Ramsey Noah, Omotola Jalade Ekeinde, Ini Edo, Jackie Appiah, Majid Michel and Nadia Buari. John recently won 2013 Nollywood Entertainment Awards Pan African Actor of the Year in USA, Africa's Most Outstanding Actor 2011 at the Afro Australian Movies and Music Awards in Dec 2011 in Australia. He also won the Best African Actor Award at the African Entertainment Awards in April 2012 in Malaysia amongst several awards. In 2011, he did a Hollywood movie with Hollywood star Kimberly Ellis in Ghana and recently this year starred in a movie titled One night in Vegas alongside Hollywood actor Jimmy Jean Louis. As an entrepreneur Dumelo owns several businesses including a film school, a hotel and a real estate company. He has also positively affected over 1500 school children with educational materials across West Africa through his charity, the John Dumelo foundation.
About Kirusa
Kirusa is the leader in voice and social media solutions for emerging markets that enable mobile subscribers to "Have A Voice!" and share their stories with their family and friends across the globe. Kirusa's solutions include the hugely successful Kirusa Voice SMS service, the world's most intelligent voice SMS solution, used monthly by over 80 million mobile users in four continents. Kirusa has integrated its Voice SMS platforms deployed at carriers around the world into an Exchange Service to provide interoperability, which when combined with its cloud-based Vobolo social media platform, culminates in the extraordinary InstaVoice app for voicing. Kirusa is pioneering a suite of smartphone and social media applications that facilitate mobile subscribers in every corner of the world to connect with each other, as well as their favorite celebrities, and participate in TV polls and brand campaigns using the power of voice. Kirusa's platform provides open APIs to enable third parties to offer mobile applications. Kirusa solutions are built on its patented technology, and its highly reliable and scalable open multimodal platform, which processes over one billion events a month. Kirusa has been recognized as one of top 100 technology companies by Silicon India, and one of top 25 emerging technology companies by Smart Techie magazine. Headquartered in New Jersey and led by an experienced team of wireless telecom executives and technologists, Kirusa has offices in four continents. 'Kirusa Voice SMS', Vobolo, and InstaVoice are registered trademarks of Kirusa, Inc. For more information visit: www.kirusa.com.

Bharti shifts focus in Africa from volume to value

The game has changed for Bharti Airtel in Africa. Sunil Mittal-led Bharti is now focusing on the value-oriented strategy, rather than the volume game that it played to penetrate the market initially. Africa was never a volume game, rather it was a relatively higher average revenue per user (ARPU) market.

 

In the immediate past quarter (July-September), the company has witnessed a sign of growth after three quarters. This is because; the company has shifted focus from just customer acquisitions. The strategy is now to focus on the markets with high-value customers, retail high-ARPU customers, and get users to its data-based services.

 

“Initially, Bharti needed to grab subscriber marketshare to penetrate the market which it has done. Now, it is time to inculcate value out of it,” said an analyst with a management consulting firm.

 

During the immediate past quarter, Bharti Airtel’s customer base in Africa increased just three per cent, while monthly churn marginally dropped to 6.6 per cent from 6.7 per cent in the previous quarter. During the July-September quarter, voice ARPU increased four per cent, while voice usage per customer rose seven per cent as compared with the previous quarter. Data customer base increased 13 per cent during the quarter with a 15 per cent increase in data ARPU at $1.5 while data usage per customer increased 21 per cent. Total data usage (megabites) on the network jumped 34 per cent. On year-on-year basis, data ARPU jumped 46 per cent, and total MB on network increased 97 per cent. But, voice ARPU declined 15 per cent on the year-on-year basis.

 

“Clearly, Bharti is focusing on the data based services which is under penetrated segment and would boost net realization in the coming quarters,” said a telecom analyst with a management consulting firm.

 

Meanwhile, Bharti’s net realization in Africa on both voice and data have come down during the July-September quarter. Voice realization has come down by about two per cent to US cent 3.3 and data realization (per MB) dropped by about four per cent to US cent 1.74 as compared with the previous quarter.

 

“The Africa market is coming back to growth. After three tough quarters, markets are buzzing again and showing good a growth momentum. Mobile customer base is growing again, rates are stable, mobile internet is growing and mobile commerce is booming,” said Managing Director Manoj Kohli, after announcing the quarterly results.

 

Revenue from the Africa operations rose about two per cent to $1.1 billion during the quarter, as against $1.09 billion in the corresponding quarter last year. However, the quarter-on-quarter revenue growth for the Africa business was about 5.4 per cent, primarily backed by net addition of about 2.18 million subscribers and about seven per cent improvement in minutes of usage on the network. Ebitda margins for the Africa business were almost flat, at 26.9 per cent, during the quarter.

 

Source: business-standard

BICS Enables Africa's First 4G Video Roaming Call With Royal Approval

BICS, a global provider of wholesale carrier services, today announced it has enabled the first 4G video roaming call (data roaming session) made in Africa, in the presence of HRH Princess Astrid, Princess of Belgium, on an official state visit by the Belgian Economic Trade Mission to Angola.

The video call took place during the official signature ceremony of the trade mission. It was performed between the Belgium Deputy Prime Minister / Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Didier Reynders in Luanda, and BICS' SVP Operations and Customer Services, Mr Johan Wouters, located in Belgium, using BICS' LTE signalling platform.

This milestone marks the launch of LTE roaming services from Unitel, a leading Angolan mobile operator based in Luanda, which allows customers to access LTE services while roaming in partner countries already signed-up to the BICS IPX network. The deployment confirms BICS' position as a leading provider of LTE roaming solutions.  

Mr Amilcar Safeca, Deputy CEO and CTO at Unitel commented: "This agreement with BICS will allow us to offer our customers an entirely new range of quality services when abroad. It will also allow visitors in Angola to roam onto Unitel's network with a very high speed. With its extremely fast data transmission, the technology opens a new dimension with a multitude of communication possibilities."

Unitel launched its 4G LTE service in 2012 allowing its mobile customers to utilise high performance mobile data applications, including video, voice, and messaging. Its implementation of LTE roaming is expected to further stimulate the use of new technology by mobile subscribers, contributing to Angola's rapid social and economic growth.

BICS assists mobile operators around the world address the growing demand for LTE by rapidly enabling LTE connections with their roaming partners.

Clémentine Fournier, Regional Vice President Africa, BICS said: "We have a long-standing partnership with Unitel for voice and 2G/3G roaming services. While extending this partnership to our 4G LTE roaming solution is a natural step, we are very excited to see Unitel become the first mobile operator in Africa to realise a 4G roaming session."

Daniel Kurgan, CEO, BICS said: "This landmark partnership marks the next stage of the evolution of the telecom market in Africa and the further realisation of LTE roaming across the globe, brought about by the increasing usage of Internet-enabled mobile or tablet handsets and the high workforce mobility on the continent."

About BICS

BICS delivers best-in-class international wholesale solutions to any communication service provider worldwide. Through its Mosaic portfolio, a comprehensive, flexible and innovative suite of solutions designed to be used individually, or collectively, BICS meets the existing and future requirements of the global telecoms industry.

BICS' headquarter is located in Brussels with regional offices in Bern, Dubai, New York and Singapore. We also have a satellite office in Beijing and local representation in Accra, Cape Town, Miami, Montevideo, Nairobi and Toronto. Our team continuously strives to provide our customers with the highest levels of quality, reliability and interoperability enabling them to maximise their end-user value.

With our successful consolidation strategy, and a continuing focus on technological advancement and innovation, we have achieved a world-leading position in the international Voice and Mobile Data markets.

Telecom Egypt May Buy Vodafone Local Division When 4G Is Offered

Telecom Egypt, the country’s landline monopoly, said it may buy a controlling stake in Vodafone Group Plc. (VOD)’s local mobile-phone unit when 4G spectrum is offered, to avoid a possible conflict of interests.

The Egyptian telecommunications company owns 45 percent of the unit. It has no legal obligation to sell the stake and hasn’t received an official offer before receiving an integrated license, which will allow Telecom Egypt to provide mobile services, Chief Executive Officer Mohamed Elnawawy said in an interview. The company expects 4G spectrum for faster mobile data services to be offered within 10 months to a year.

At that point, Cairo-based Telecom Egypt may have a conflict if it develops its own 4G services, which would put it in competition with the Vodafone asset, said Elnawawy. “Management may propose that we evolve with this asset and by evolve we mean being buyers or sellers,” he said by phone.

The London-based company has expressed interest in buying Telecom Egypt’s holding, a Vodafone official said last month.

Licenses that would allow Telecom Egypt to offer mobile services, while breaking its monopoly on landlines, have been delayed several times, and Elnawawy said he expects they will be issued this year. That would allow landlines to be offered by Egyptian Co. for Mobile Services, which operates the Mobinil brand; the Vodafone local unit; and Emirates Telecommunications Corp.’s Etisalat Misr division.

“We have a unique opportunity to cater to customer demand because of the integration of fixed and mobile assets,” said Elnawawy.

Telecom Egypt’s third-quarter net income after tax rose to 650 million Egyptian pounds ($94.4 million) from 636 million pounds a year earlier. Vodafone Egypt contributed 218 million pounds, according to a statement today.

Telecom Egypt’s shares fell 1 percent to 13.70 pounds as of 2:30 p.m. in Cairo. The stock has declined 3.2 percent this year compared with a 14 percent rise for the benchmark EGX 30 Index.