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To: 49thMIMOMander who wrote (8768)	1/11/2001 3:58:49 PM
From: Eric L	Respond to of 34857

re: Messaging "Format War" - More background >> Nokia Freely Licenses Its Ringtones Specification - Ensuring Format Wars Simon Buckingham Mobile Lifestreams 5 December 2000 Nokia announced today that "Nokia opens the specification for ring tones and mobile phone logos for free licensing" with the details: "Nokia has today announced that it will make the extended and updated Smart Messaging specification available to the industry without a license fee." Mobile messaging is evolving beyond text by taking a development path from SMS (Short Message Service see www.mobileSMS.com) to EMS (Enhanced Messaging Service see www.mobileEMS.com) to MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service, see www.mobileMMS.com). In the post text, pre multimedia world, there is a format wars imminent- Enhanced Messaging Service (EMS) as standardized by the 3GPP (Third Generation Partnership Project) and supported by Ericsson, Magic4 format supported by several major and minor handset vendors and Smart Messaging, supported by Nokia and now being freely licensed. 2001 will see this "format war" erupt as all 3 formats find a footprint in the marketplace. It is unlikely that Nokia’s move to open its smart messaging format will be successful- Mobile Lifestreams has been told confidentially by many major and minor handset vendors that they have already committed to the other formats of Magic4 and EMS, so it looks as if Nokia took the measure to open up its proprietary protocol six months or so too late. But this is a classic spoiler tactic to muddy the waters and attempt to dilute support for the other formats and delay deployment of them. Mobile Lifestreams had hoped that Nokia would support the standards defined standard- EMS- however Nokia did try to submit some changes to EMS that were rejected by the 3GPP so its move to open up smart messaging is partially understandable in this regard. Multiple formats complicates inter-phone messaging and content creation. It looks as though the mobile industry has still not fully recognized the need to cooperate to create markets and then compete to divide them. Given that mobile messaging is the most important and profitable sector of the mobile Internet, this is a negative and worrying development. << - Eric -

To: 49thMIMOMander who wrote (8768)	1/11/2001 3:59:36 PM
From: Eric L	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 34857

Finland Iced! >> ICELAND: If it's cold, get a mobile phone... 29 Nov 2000 Electronics Weekly Iceland has overtaken Finland as the country with the most mobile phone subscribers per head of population. According to a survey by EMC World Cellular Database, 75.8 per cent of Iceland's population has a mobile phone compared to 73.7 per cent of Finland's population. << EMC Note: Though low in absolute terms (population of 276,000) observers consider Iceland to be a technologically sophisticated market, quick to adapt to new products and services. Some believe the country is on track to be one of the first cashless societies in the world, with the majority of the population conducting its banking online. One other factor behind the high penetration level, cited by local mobile operators, is that mobile services in Iceland compare favourably on price with other European countries. - Eric -

To: 49thMIMOMander who wrote (8768)	1/11/2001 5:03:39 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 34857

<But to "analyse" GPRS and WAP separately is just a way of saying one hasn't understood the whole thing..> I guess that means that GPRS is DOA too then! No wonder there is a tone of '3G is a lemon'. Of course a failure of a different technology doesn't mean 3G will fail, but I can imagine the concern. If WAP was a mad crazy success, then 3G would surely be a huge winner. Now we are in Globalstar mode with 3G; Iridium [WAP equivalent] crashed so we wait to see whether Globalstar [3G equivalent] can swing it. I wonder how many people will worry that using Globalstar and 3G in the same sentence, twice, is like giving 3G last rites. Plus again in that sentence. That's three times...yikes... I think that 3G will be a huge success. But I think Globalstar will be too. Mqurice

To: 49thMIMOMander who wrote (8768)	1/11/2001 5:35:54 PM
From: rf_hombre	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 34857

llmarinen: About GPRS and WAP Neither one is really anything without the other, this is a must to consider when thinking about either one From the air interface standpoint, WAP makes use of an existing GSM control channel called Stand Alone Dedicated Control Channel (SDCCH), the same channel incidentally is used for GSM call setup. SDCCH's are also used as bearers for SMS. From an implementation standpoint, no new air interface hardware is required. A wap server and a few hundred hours of configuration and programming and voila, you have Le Wap. GPRS on the other hand, is a different kettle of fish. For one, all base stations must be upgraded with packet control cards and in fact, the air interface channel used is the same used in GSM for voice. Then there are serious fixed IP infrastructure costs with at least 2 gateway serving nodes per GPRS operator. In the former case, you can accomodate WAP and SMS by stealing a few setup channels from the pool normally available for voice. Normally not a huge redimensioning effort. For the latter, you have to totally revisit your cost model as you will be shifting high return voice channels to less profitable IP traffic. So IMO, WAP and GPRS are really quite seperate entities. You can have both, none or either one.