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Feb 05, `08 — This Slashdot article highlights future of the Internet in the US. “Time-Warner is now mulling a plan to charge a per-gigabyte fee for internet service. A leaked memo reveals they’re now watching how many gigabytes customers use in a ‘consumption-based’ pricing experiment in Texas, which we discussed early last month. The announced plan was that they were considering a tier-based approach, as opposed to per-gigabyte fees.”

Steven Levy of Washington Post reports, “If you are an Internet-crazy movie lover in Beaumont, Tex., life may soon take a miserable turn for you.

Time Warner Cable, which also sells broadband via its Road Runner service, has chosen your city for a pricing experiment.”

Mr. Levy further adds, “Time Warner’s move illuminates some of the troubling issues facing the United States in the Internet era, where, in terms of penetration, we are in 24th place — behind Estonia — in the international broadband competition.

The news broke about Time Warner’s plan from a leaked internal memo that company spokesman Alex Dudley confirms as genuine.”

More at Slashdot, WashingtonPost.

Feb 05, `08 — Three global record companies, Universal Music Ltd, Sony BMG Music Entertainment (Hong Kong) Ltd and Warner Music Hong Kong Ltd, have launched legal proceedings against China’s top Internet search engine Baidu.com, accusing it of violating copyright by giving access to music files, International Federation of the Phonographic Industry said in a press release on Monday, Feb 04.

* New legal proceedings brought against Baidu
* Copyright infringement actions against Sohu and its associate company Sogou
* Yahoo China in breach of copyright violation judgment

After months of fruitless negotiations, legal proceedings have been filed on Feb 04, against the China’s biggest internet company, Baidu. Separate actions have also been brought against Sohu and its associate company Sogou. Meanwhile, Yahoo China faces fresh proceedings following its refusal to comply with a landmark ruling in December confirming it violated Chinese law by committing mass copyright infringement.

All of the Chinese companies involved operate similar services based on delivering music to their users via “deep links” to hundreds of thousands of infringing tracks on third party sites, with the aim of driving their own advertising revenue. Such services have been confirmed as in breach of copyright by the December judgment of the Beijing Higher People’s Court. Each of them is a driver of copyright abuse in China, where the huge potential for the online music sector is being stymied by copyright theft.

China has potentially the largest online music-buying public in the world with as many broadband connections as the United States. Currently, however, more than 99 per cent of all music files distributed in the country are pirate and China’s total legitimate music market, at US$76 million, accounts for less than one per cent of global recorded music sales.

Monday (Feb 04)’s actions follow in the wake of a decisive judgment against Yahoo China in December 2007 by the Beijing Higher People’s Court. The court’s finding that Yahoo China’s music delivery service is illegal under Chinese law sets a precedent for cases against similar operations in China.

Three record companies have now filed proceedings against Baidu. The new claims have been filed with the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court by Universal Music Ltd, Sony BMG Music Entertainment (Hong Kong) Ltd and Warner Music Hong Kong Ltd. The three companies are asking the court to order Baidu to remove all links on its music delivery service to copyright infringing tracks that they own the rights to.

Action is also being taken today against Sohu and its associate company Sogou, which operates a similar service. Sogou makes profits through advertising that appears on the service and through sponsorship. Sogou also actively induces and encourages copyright infringement by means of recommendations and charts, while Sohu provides deep linking services through its associate company.

Sohu is the official sponsor of internet content service (ICS) for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

The legal action is being brought by four record companies: Universal Music Limited, Gold Label Entertainment Limited, Sony BMG Music Entertainment (Hong Kong) Limited and Warner Music Hong Kong Limited. The cases were also filed at the Beijing No.1 Intermediate People’s Court. They follow four prior notices that were sent to both companies from July 2007 onward.

The claims against Baidu, Sohu and Sogou will be served on the respective companies by the court after the Chinese New Year.

Meanwhile, Yahoo China has still not complied with the December ruling made against it by the Chinese appeal court. As a consequence, the plaintiffs in that case have now filed execution proceedings against Yahoo China, asking the court to force Yahoo China to comply with the earlier judgment.

More at International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.

Feb 03, `08 — As Swedish prosecutors fixed their sights last week on The Pirate Bay, an Internet file-sharing service that is a scourge of the movie and music industries, the operators of the site responded by hoisting a defiant, digital Jolly Roger, reports the IHT.

The Pirate Bay, on its blog, called for a celebration saying, “This week we’ve hit some magic numbers. We’re tracking over 1 million torrents. We have had over 10 million simultaneous peers on the trackers. We’re at 2.5 million registered users (and they are active as well).”

The 100th post on the Pirate Bay blog further adds, “In case we lose the pending trial (yeah right) there will still not be any changes to the site. The Pirate Bay will keep operating just as always. We’ve been here for years and we will be here many more.”

The Wires writes, “Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi, one of the four Swedes charged in Sweden on Thursday, said in a telephone interview that the site has set up a clandestine, double-blind operation with its servers spread throughout the world — and out of reach of the Swedish authorities.

“The Pirate Bay is not in Sweden,” the 29-year-old Kolmisoppi said. Where are the servers?

“It’s a distributed system. We don’t know where the servers are. We gave them to people we trust and they don’t know it’s The Pirate Bay,” Kolmisoppi said. “They then rent locations and space for them somewhere else. It could be three countries. It could be six countries. We don’t want to know because then you’ll have a problem shutting them down.” More at IHT, theWired.

Feb 03, `08 –This Slashdot article reports on a new Italian copyright law, in which the Italian parliament may have mistakenly legalized sharing music over P2P networks.

The new copyright law, passed by both houses of parliament, would allow Italians to freely share music over the Internet as long as it is free of charge, at low resolution or “degraded,” for scientific or educational use, and only when such use is not for profit.

Excerpts of the Slashdot article:
According to Italian lawyer Andrea Monti, an expert on copyright and Internet law, the new Italian copyright law would authorize users to publish and freely share copyrighted music (p2p included). As Monti says in the interview, those who wrote it didn’t realize that the word “degraded” is technical, with a very precise meaning, which includes MP3s, which are compressed with an algorithm that ensures a quality loss. The La Repubblica.it article in Italian, and Google translation is here. More at Slashdot.

Feb 03, `08 — This Slashdot article writes about Time Warner internet access subscribers in Texas complaining of connectivity issues on Apple’s iTunes support forum.

“Starting on Thursday, January 31st, Time Warner subscribers in Texas starting experiencing connectivity issues to the iTunes store to the point where the service wasn’t usable. General internet traffic issues haven’t coincided with these problems, and many folks have reported that the store works as normal when they head to the nearest mega-bookstore and use their ISP instead. Time Warner has announced that they’re going to begin trials of tiered pricing in one local Texas market, but I’ll be darn sure to switch my provider if I hear the slightest hint of destination/content based tiers instead of bandwidth tiers.”

Excerpts from the Apple - Support - Discussions:

Thread starter post by user “kmcippant”:

iTunes Store Very Slow Posted: Jan 31, 2008 8:33 PM

I was impressed last week when I downloaded an entire album in under 10 minutes, now the store is very sluggish. I could not preview any tracks without it buffering 8 times and now it is taking me 10 minutes just to download one song. The rest of my internet is working fine.

Please check on your servers.

User “ranpritch” writes:
Same problem here in Euless, Tx (suburb DFW). Started to buy movie last night. Estimated download 36 hours. Stopped & started the download several times, but to no avail. Now, almost 24 hrs later the movie is half the way downloaded! I have checked my Time Warner cable speed & get pings from west & east coast from 4.8 to 6.0 mbps. I can normally download movies from ITunes in 15 to 20 minutes. Downloads from other sites are normal. What gives?!

User “hondo01″ writes:
I am also experiencing the same issues with iTunes. It keeps trying to rebuffer the stream with songs or videos. I am using iTunes 7.6 (29) with Mac OSX 10.5.1. I also have a windows machine with iTunes 7.5 loaded and it now does the same thing. I have tried taking both systems off the wireless router and plugging directly into the broadband router and still get the same problems. I have noticed that most all of these threads are from users in Texas. Is everyone using Time Warner Roadrunner? Just curious if this could be an ISP problem.

User “sundevil86″ writes:
I’m a Roadrunner user from Texas too! And I did NOT upgrade to 7.6 yet. Same problem as everyone else, VERY sluggish iTunes performance–but NO problems with streaming media from any other sites. So it may be an ISP problem in part, but is still only affecting iTunes.

User “bdskip” writes:
Experiencing the same issue with TWC in Arlington as well…did notice that a 10:00 podcast downloaded in about 7 seconds, yet a single 3:00 song purchase takes 15 minutes or longer to download.

Not sure what any of that means, but I’m beginning to think TWC is somehow throttling bandwidth related to music and video content on iTunes.

More at Slashdot, Apple Support Discussions.

Feb 01, `08 — Four men who run one of the most popular file-sharing sites in the world have been charged with conspiracy to break copyright law in Sweden, the BBC reported on Thursday.

Pirate Bay does not store music and video files on its own servers, but instead helps users share them on the internet. The website acts as a directory of the files used by the BitTorrent file-transfer protocol.

“It’s not merely a search engine. It’s an active part of an action that aims at, and also leads to, making copyright protected material available,” public prosecutor Hakan Roswall told Reuters. “It’s a classic example of accessory — to act as intermediary between people who commit crimes, whether it’s in the physical or the virtual world.”

Pirate Bay told the news agency that the people running the site cannot be held responsible for how its directory services are used. The website is said to have between 10 and 15 million users around the world and is supported by online advertising.

Police seized computers in May 2006, temporarily shutting down the website.

Prosecutor Hakan Roswall said the website was commercially exploiting copyright-protected work because it was financed through advertising revenues. According to the Pirate Bay website, its users are currently downloading close to a million files.

On the site, a statement says: “In case we lose the pending trial (yeah right) there will still not be any changes to the site.

“The Pirate Bay will keep operating just as always. We’ve been here for years and we will be here many more.”

In an interview with the BBC’s technology programme Click last year Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde said: “I think it’s okay to copy. They get their money from so many places that the sales is just one small part.”

The other three men facing charges are Carl Lundstrom, Frederik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg. If convicted, the four men could face a maximum of two years in prison.

The website had up until 2006 based its servers in Stockholm, but moved some to the Netherlands after a raid in May of that year by Swedish police, who seized equipment and held three people for questioning “on suspicion of breaking copyright law or abetting the breaking of copyright law,” authorities said. The site was taken down for a day, but was soon up and running again.

Moves against the site have been backed by entertainment industry groups, including the Motion Picture Association of America and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. More at BBC News.

Jan 01, `08 — Nathan Ramella explains his ARCwelder Project at Google code:

Through a technique dubbed “Go Fighting Tabby!”, or GFT for short, you can gain root access on an Archos 605 wi-fi running 1.7.13 firmware and execute arbitrary programs in its embedded Linux environment.

This is the first step to gain access to the running Linux operating system, which until now has not been possible.

Using the GFT technique, you can install the ‘ARCwelder’ package which will allow you to ssh into the Archos 605 wi-fi and run unix commands from a shell.

Currently ARCwelder only provides an ssh package, however in time more packages may be included as they are tested and verified as working, some customization is necessary to ensure that they work on the embedded system, so the term ‘hack’ is definitely applicable.

More at ARCwelder Project.

SEATTLE & NEW YORK –BUSINESS WIRE– On Dec 27, `07 Amazon.com and Warner Music Group announced that DRM-free music audio downloads from Warner Music Group are now available to customers on Amazon MP3, Amazon’s a la carte MP3 digital music store where every song and album is playable on virtually any personal digital music capable device.

Beginning Dec 27, songs from WMG’s digital audio catalog will be available for purchase and download from Amazon MP3. In addition, Amazon and WMG will make available to consumers digital music products such as album bundles containing exclusive tracks.

Warner had been holding out against using the format because MP3 tracks are easier to share between users and may be freely burned onto CDs.

Amazon’s download store is a major competitor to Apple’s iTunes, which uses Digital Rights Management (DRM) to restrict the use of some of its tracks.

Sony BMG is now the only major recording group not signed up with Amazon MP3, which is only available to US customers at present.

Amazon launched its MP3 download store in September after reaching agreements to sell unprotected tracks from Universal Music Group and EMI. More at Amazon.

Little Rock, AR — The world’s biggest retailer, Wal-Mart, has closed its video downloading service less than a year after it started selling films online.

The retreat for Wal-Mart, which accounts for about 40 percent of all DVD sales, follows the company’s 2005 decision to abandoned efforts to build an online DVD rental service. The world’s largest retailer instead turned its rental service over to Netflix.

It stopped the service on Dec 21, according to a message on the discount chain’s video download website. Wal-Mart said the decision had been forced by Hewlett-Packard withdrawing the software running the site.

The move ends a challenge to Apple’s iTunes store, Amazon and Netflix to win customers who rent films over the web.

The market for online video downloads has become very competitive with video rental chain Blockbuster buying Movielink over the summer to expand into this area.

Beijing, China — Dec 20, `07 –The international recording industry today hailed a landmark Beijing court ruling confirming that Yahoo China’s music delivery service violates Chinese law by facilitating mass copyright infringement.

Yahoo China, part-owned by one of the world’s biggest internet companies, Yahoo, runs an operation enabling users to search for, play and download pirate music without ever leaving its website. Yahoo China’s appeal against a guilty verdict in April was today dismissed by the Beijing Court.

The decision is made under new Chinese copyright laws which entered into force in 2006. The Court separately ruled on a similar case against internet company, Baidu which had been brought under the previous Chinese copyright laws. The ruling confirmed that Baidu participated with and assisted third party sites in transmitting infringing music, but under the old laws Baidu was not liable for copyright infringement.

Music search services such as Yahoo China’s and Baidu’s, which “deep link” users to hundreds of thousands of pirate tracks, are a huge drain on efforts to develop a legitimate music market in China. Despite enormous market potential, music sales in China totalled US$76 million in 2006, less than one per cent of the global recorded music market.

Over 99 per cent of all music downloading in China infringes copyright, and services such as Yahoo China and Baidu account for the bulk of the problem. More at IFPI.

LOUISVILLE, Colo –BUSINESS WIRE– Dec 19, `07 — In a major milestone for the cable industry, CableLabs has awarded qualification status for Data over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) 3.0.

DOCSIS 3.0 specifications enable downstream data rates of 160 Mbps or higher and upstream data rates of 120 Mbps or higher.

Casa Systems received “silver” qualification while Arris and Cisco received “bronze” qualification for their cable modem termination systems (CMTS) headend gear. The announcement comes at the conclusion of the recent test wave in which the first products built based on the DOCSIS 3.0 specifications were formally evaluated.

The headends were tested under a tiered program that was created as a way to encourage CMTS makers to submit gear for testing earlier than they otherwise might. CableLabs also offered suppliers numerous informal interoperability events where vendors work together in CableLabs’ facilities to test and evaluate their implementations of the specifications.

“This technological achievement is a great step for our industry,” said Brian L. Roberts, Chairman and CEO of Comcast Corp., and Chairman of the CableLabs Board of Directors. “CableLabs rapid certification effort will enable companies to begin to develop products that will support the rapid deployment of DOCSIS 3.0 services in 2008.”

To achieve these higher data rates DOCSIS 3.0 describes a methodology for channel bonding in both the upstream and downstream directions. A minimum of four channels, each with throughput of 40 Mbps, is specified. DOCSIS 3.0 also incorporates support for the Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6).

IPv6 is the next generation of the Internet Protocol and greatly expands the number of Internet addresses that cable operators may use, allowing them to provide consumers with more IP-based services. In addition, DOCSIS 3.0 is backward compatible with all existing DOCSIS products.

IPv6 also will allow cable operators to effectively manage the proliferation of devices that are capturing consumer interest, including portable media players, cellular phones, gaming consoles, PDAs and others. More at CableLabs.

DENVER, CO –Marketwire– Dec 17, `07 — Consumers who long to transfer their favorite movies and TV programs from their DISH Network receivers to their ARCHOS Portable Media Players (PMPs) can now do so in record time through a simple plug-in download.

The plug-in is offered exclusively to DISH Network subscribers with a VIP722 or VIP622 high-definition receiver, and is compatible with the ARCHOS 705 WiFi and 605 WiFi players. The plug-in is available today at Archos.com. Beginning in January, the Archos 605 and 705 models will also be available at retail outlets where DISH Network satellite TV service is sold.

“The DISH Network plug-in will allow consumers to transfer content faster than real-time from their DISH Network receiver to an Archos PMP. A two-hour movie can be transferred in just a few minutes,” said Henri Crohas, founder and chief executive officer at ARCHOS. “Now DISH Network subscribers with a VIP622 or VIP722 receiver can experience the fastest transfer times to their ARCHOS players, getting them out of the house faster and enjoying their favorite TV shows anywhere and anytime.”

The exclusive ARCHOS plug-in for DISH Network customers is part of a larger strategic alliance between parent company EchoStar and ARCHOS that has been in place for almost three years.

ARCHOS 605 WiFi and 705 WiFi demonstrations, including the high-speed content transfer from DISH Network’s receivers, will be on display in the EchoStar booth — Central Hall #9020 — at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, January 7-10, 2008.

New-Generation XSPAN Delivers 11n Performance at Price Points To Enable Broad Deployment of Triple-Play Gateways.

SANTA CLARA, Calif — Dec 17, `07 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Atheros today announced two single-chip 802.11n solutions developed expressly for the carrier gateway market.

The new dual-band, 2.4GHz/5GHz, AR9220 and single-band, 2.4GHz AR9223 PCI designs join the comprehensive Atheros XSPAN family, the world’s most widely adopted draft 802.11n Wi-Fi solutions.

These latest 802.11n designs provide reliable, market-proven performance at price points that allow carriers to broadly deploy home gateways capable of supporting data, voice and video on a single wireless network.

The AR9220 dual-band, 2×2 MIMO, PCI design is ideal for high-end, multiplay gateways and set-top boxes, which must robustly support multimedia applications requiring uninterrupted throughput — IPTV, HD video streaming, VoIP calls and multi-player online gaming on the 5GHz channel-while using the 2.4GHz band for simple data networking.

This solution provides leading 802.11a/g/n performance, supporting up to 300 Mbps physical data rates and 200 Mbps of actual user throughput on both the uplink and the downlink. With the dual-band design, users will enjoy universal connectivity to any 802.11 device through their gateway or set-top box. More at Atheros.

Dec 13, `07 — A Canadian man has been shocked to receive a mobile phone bill for nearly $85,000, BBC News reports.

The 22-year-old oil-field worker from Calgary, Piotr Staniaszek thought he could use his new phone as a modem for his computer under his $10 unlimited mobile browser plan from Bell Mobility.

He downloaded high-definition movies and other large files unaware that this incurred massive extra charges. Bell Mobility has since lowered the bill to $3,243, but Staniaszek says he intends to fight the charges anyway.

“The thing is, they’ve cut my phone off for being like $100 over,” he told CBC News. “Here, I’m $85,000 over and nobody bothered to give me a call and tell me what was going on.”

Bell Mobility said they would lower the bill to $3,243 in a “goodwill gesture” to match the best data plan available for using mobile phones as a modem, the Globe and Mail reported. More at BBC News.

LOS ANGELES, CA –Marketwire– Dec 5, ‘07 — Napster has announced that it will provide music content for a new mobile music feature that will be available to customers of Japan’s leading wireless carrier, NTT DoCoMo.

Beginning on December 1, NTT DoCoMo customers who subscribe to its “Music & Video Channel” — a service that provides mobile-phone access to music and video programs — have the option to subscribe to a Napster-Tower Records music channel. The channel offers two programs that are updated weekly, each with eight to 10 full-length tracks that users may listen to up to three times during the week.

The first Napster-Tower Records program, “Napster HITS!,” will update weekly with the latest releases and most popular songs. The second, “Tower Records Must-Hear Recommendations,” will be programmed with genre playlists and older chart-toppers. Each will be equipped with links to the Napster Mobile subscription service, Napster’s a la carte ringtone store, and its full-track a la carte store.

The new programs will be accessible through 22 models of NTT DoCoMo handsets. The Napster-Tower Records channel monthly subscription cost is 315 yen ($2.90 USD) and is housed under NTT DoCoMo’s “Music&Video Channel” service, which is also priced 315 yen per month.

Related:

Nokia to Intro “Comes with Music” - 1 Year Free Music Servive -; Ovi and Cellphones with Bio-covers

Amsterdam, The Netherlands — Dec 04, ‘07 — At the annual Nokia World conference today, Nokia Oyj announced it has agreed with the world’s largest music group Universal to offer free 12-month access to Universal artists’ music for buyers of Nokia’s music phones.

The world’s top cellphone maker said it has signed up Universal Music Group International, owned by French media giant Vivendi, for its new “Comes With Music” offering and is eyeing similar deals with other labels before the offer starts in the second half of 2008.

Nokia said the new offering would differ from other packages on the market as consumers can keep all the music they have downloaded for free during the 12 month period.

“We set out to create the music experience that people are telling us they are looking for - all the music they want in the form of unlimited downloads to their mobile device and PC,” said Anssi Vanjoki, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Multimedia, Nokia.

“Even if you listened to music 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you would still only scratch the surface of the music that we’re making available. Comes with Music fulfils our dream to give consumers all the music they want, wherever they want it, while rewarding the artists who create it.”

“The financial barrier to try new music is completely removed. It fundamentally changes a lot of business logic in the music industry,” said Nokia spokesman Damian Stathonikos. The free access to new music could hurt peer-to-peer networking while also raising pressure on Apple Inc.

Nokia outlines its vision of Internet evolution and commitment to environmental sustainability:

Ovi - your personal dashboard to life
Nokia also gave further details of the upcoming Ovi Internet services environment. Ovi, meaning ‘door’ in Finnish, enables consumers to easily access their existing social network and content, acting as a dashboard to a person’s life.

“Ovi combines the mobile, PC and web environments into an easy to use experience with common user interface elements that provide consistency and simplicity,” said Vanjoki. “We started the Ovi services rollout with the individual services in navigation, music and games, and the next step is to provide an integrated experience. The complete Ovi environment and new services will be rolled out continuously throughout 2008.”

Towards greater environmental sustainability
Nokia also outlined its long heritage in addressing environmental issues and commitment to driving new initiatives in the mobile industry in areas such as energy efficiency, materials used in products, take back, recycling, and packaging. This was against the background of the launch of the Nokia 3110 Evolve, a mobile device with bio-covers made from more than 50% renewable material. The device is presented in a small package made of 60% recycled content and it comes with Nokia’s most energy efficient charger yet, using 94% less energy than the Energy Star requirements. More at Nokia.

Los Angeles, Calif — Dec 03, ‘07 — A federal judge on Monday threw out an antitrust lawsuit brought by the operator of the LimeWire online file-sharing service against a coalition of major record labels, concluding the firm failed to make its case that it has been harmed by the recording companies’ business practices, Alex Veiga of the Associated Press reported.

U.S. District Judge Gerard E. Lynch in New York ruled that Lime Group LLC failed to make its case that it has been harmed by the recording companies’ business practices, and he granted the companies’ motion to dismiss the claims.

Lynch also dismissed several claims brought under state laws “without prejudice,” which gives New York-based Lime Group the option to pursue the claims in state court.

Lime Group’s lawsuit was a counterclaim to a copyright infringement lawsuit brought last year against by record labels owned by the four major recording companies: Vivendi’s Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group Corp., Britain’s EMI Group PLC, and Sony BMG Music Entertainment, a joint venture of Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann AG.

That case, which is still pending, was the first piracy lawsuit brought against a distributor of file-sharing software after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that technology companies could be sued for copyright infringement on the grounds they encouraged customers to steal music and movies over the Internet. More at Google/AP.

White Plains, NY — Dec 03, ‘07 — Nokia today applauded Verizon Wireless’ announced plans to develop and deploy a fourth generation (4G) mobile broadband network. The Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology Verizon Wireless chose is an open and global specification for next generation networks that will bring scale and efficiencies for manufacturers, choice in network equipment and device for operators, and ultimately better value and richer experiences for consumers.

Broadband wireless technologies have the power to change the way people work, live, play and communicate. As the world leader in converged devices, Nokia is dedicated to offering a wide choice of mobile devices to consumers and remains committed to openness and innovation. Nokia is proud to expand our collaboration with Verizon Wireless to develop products that allow consumers to experience the benefits of mobility and the Internet.

“Nokia has long been committed to working closely with operators in the US and around the world, and is very pleased to support Verizon Wireless in their choice of LTE as their global 4G evolution path,” said Mark Louison, President, Nokia Inc., the North American arm of Nokia.

“It is very exciting to see Verizon Wireless, one of the world’s leading wireless providers, announce their open development initiative for devices and their decision to evolve their network to the open, global specification of LTE.”

Within the next 10 years, Nokia sees that demand for an enriched mobile experience and mobile computing will continue to grow at exponential rates. LTE will help to enable faster, richer multimedia services such as multi-player gaming with rich 3D graphics and simultaneous Instant Messaging or voice calls and a host of other applications providing a much more compelling mobile experience for consumers everywhere. Nokia.

TORONTO, ONTARIO –Marketwire– Dec 03, ‘07 — Nortel has successfully tested a solution with Qualcomm that will improve the mobile phone experience for users by allowing them to continue conversations uninterrupted and avoid additional roaming charges when a caller is moving between different wireless networks.

The completion of testing between Nortel’s IMS-based Voice Call Continuity (VCC) network solution and the Qualcomm chipset solution that uses their IMS/VCC device client is a major step towards the availability of out-of-the box VCC-enabled mobile phones.

VCC helps decrease mobile phone charges by seamlessly switching voice calls, without interruptions, between WiFi and cellular networks. Airtime and long distance charges do not apply when the user roams into areas of WiFi coverage - which can be in the home, office or some public retail locations.

As an IMS-based application, VCC moves beyond traditional cellular solutions by enabling service providers to offer innovative multimedia services on mobile phones like network-based real-time, multi-player gaming, enterprise service integration and interactive blogging.

“Because Nortel’s VCC is based on IMS, it will allow operators to deploy more multimedia services compared to other FMC solutions,” said Alf Decardenas, general manager, Carrier Multimedia Networks, Nortel.”

Also, Nortel’s VCC solution supports seamless voice calling across a wide range of next-generation technologies, as well as Femto cellular access points that are able to connect to the network using residential DSL or cable broadband connections.

Nortel is a leading contributor to VCC standards and our successful completion of testing with Qualcomm illustrates that we are committed to deploying commercial VCC solutions in the market, making them available to service providers within their current networks or as they evolve to 4G solutions such as WiMAX, UMB and LTE.”

Testing included authentication, calls on cellular/WiFi, in-call handover using manual and automatic triggers and a variety of error cases. Both Nortel and Qualcomm have implemented the VCC standards defined by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), the global standard for 3G mobile phone systems.

The Nortel VCC network solution is expected to be commercially available from Nortel in the first quarter of 2008. VCC-ready devices are expected to be available from Qualcomm in the market mid 2008.

BASKING RIDGE, NJ, Nov 29, ‘07 /PRNewswire/ — Verizon today announced plans to develop and deploy its fourth generation mobile broadband network using LTE — Long Term Evolution – the technology developed within the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards organization.

The selection of LTE provides Verizon and Vodafone — joint owners of U.S.-based Verizon Wireless - - with a unique opportunity to adopt a common access platform with true global scale and compatibility with existing technologies of both companies.

Verizon and Vodafone have a coordinated trial plan for LTE that begins in 2008. Trial suppliers include Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia- Siemens, and Nortel. These suppliers, along with others in the world community, have contributed significantly towards development of the standards in 3GPP.

Discussions with device suppliers have expanded beyond traditional suppliers such as LG, Samsung, Motorola, Nokia, and Sony Ericsson, as consumer electronics companies anticipate embedded wireless functionality in their future products.

“We fully support Verizon’s decision to select LTE as their next generation wireless broadband solution,” said Steve Pusey, Vodafone’s global chief technology officer. “LTE will build on the capabilities of Vodafone’s 3G broadband High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) network technology, which is available across the entire Vodafone 3G footprint.”

“Today’s 4G announcement, coupled with our Open Development initiative announced earlier this week present a major growth opportunity for Verizon Wireless,” said Doreen Toben, chief financial officer of Verizon. “Fourth generation’s higher data speeds wi usher in a new era of wireless applications and appliances, all of which can benefit from connecting to the nation’s premier wireless network.”

More at PRNewsWire.

Nov 27, ‘07 — Google wants to offer consumers a new way to store their files on its hard drives, in a strategy that could accelerate a shift to Web-based computing and intensify the Internet company’s competition with Microsoft. Says  Kevin J Delaney and Vauhini Vara of The Wall Street Journal.

The WSJ further writes, “Google is preparing a service that would let users store on its computers essentially all of the files they might keep on their personal-computer hard drives — such as word-processing documents, digital music, video clips and images, say people familiar with the matter. The service could let users access their files via the Internet from different computers and mobile devices when they sign on with a password, and share them online with friends. It could be released as early as a few months from now, one of the people said.

Google’s push underlines a shift in how businesses and consumers approach computing. They are increasingly using the Web to access applications and files stored in massive computer data centers operated by tech companies such as Salesforce.com, Microsoft and Google. Such arrangements, made possible by high-speed Internet connections between homes, offices and data centers, aim to ease users’ technology headaches and, in some cases, cut their costs.

Other companies offer various Internet-based file storage services, but most have been slow to catch on with businesses and consumers. Some offerings, such as Yahoo’s Briefcase Web-based storage service, require users to go to a Web page and click through a few screens to upload a new file and set various limits.

For its part, Microsoft offers a test version of a service called Windows Live SkyDrive with one gigabyte of free storage.

Google faces hurdles on issues such as data privacy, copyright, the economics of adding storage capacity and the technical challenges of offering service without interruption.

For Google, one advantage of offering a broad data-storage service would be to potentially draw consumers to existing Google services that compete with Microsoft’s Office applications suite, which includes Word, Outlook and Excel.

The company has been tackling technical issues including how to get the storage service to work seamlessly with software on users’ computers so it appears like just another hard drive, say the people familiar with the matter.

A document Google inadvertently released on the Web in March 2006 said it was moving toward being able to “store 100% of user data,” citing “emails, Web history, pictures, bookmarks” as a few examples. The document referred to what appeared to be unannounced Google initiatives, including one dubbed “GDrive” and said they could help compete with Microsoft.” More at WSJ.

London — Nov 27, ‘07 — The BBC, ITV and Channel 4 are to launch a joint on-demand service, which will bring together hundreds of hours of television programmes in one place, BBC News said on Tuesday.

The service is set to go live in 2008 and will offer viewers access to current shows and archive material. Plans will have to be approved by the BBC Trust and the other broadcasters’ boards, and a name for the service will be unveiled ahead of its launch.

The three broadcasters currently offer their own separate on-demand services.

The BBC’s iPlayer, ITV’s catch-up service and Channel 4oD will continue to exist along the new online “aggregator”, which will provide a complement to the established providers.

Programming from all three broadcasters will be available for free download, streaming, rental and purchase via the internet, with expansion on to other platforms planned.

John Smith, the chief executive of BBC Worldwide, said the venture was a “historic partnership” between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4.

“The new service will contain some of the very best of the UK’s content for consumers to view in one place, which will be both easy to use and great fun,” he added.

The BBC and ITV’s on-demand services launched earlier this year, with the commerical broadcaster initially concentrating on soap opera catch-ups.

Channel 4’s service offers hundreds of hours of programming from current series such as Ugly Betty to classic shows including Father Ted. Other on-demand services are offered by other providers including Five, Sky, BT Vision and Tiscali.