Wednesday Telecoms Digest

FIXED:
* Dial-up: court blocks Telecom Italia’s cut-rate flat-fee offering
* LLU: Telekom Slovenija launches
* DSL: 1&1 launches ADSL2+ (’16 Mbps’) in Germany (on Telefonica network?); Siemens acquires Harbour Networks router assets (China), $110m cash
* Voice: NTT’s MPEG-4 ALS (audio losless coding) approved

WIRELESS – CELLULAR:
* MVNO: Tesco Mobile (UK) and Telfort (Netherlands) reach 1m subs; FastWeb interested
* 3G: Thailand postpones auction to 2007; Partner plans luanch 06H1
* HSDPA: Vodafone plans handset launch, demo at CES (Samsung, Qualcomm); Nortel and Option achieve 3.6 Mbps datacards; Samsung launches 3.6 Mbps phone
* License: Serbia revokes Mobtel license for giving control to Kosovo company, is put under control of Telekom Serbija
* Spectrum: US will reallocate 90 MHz of government spectrum (cost: $936m), auction 45 MHz (between 1710 and 1755 MHz) summer 2006 (no date for 45 MHz between 2110 and 2155 MHz yet) for commercial use (data, possibly WiMAX); India plans allowing spectrum trading
* Budget operator, SIM-only: Aldi Talk (on E-Plus, 300k subs) plans relaunch Jan 06 with lower rates
* IPO: North-West Telecom (Russia) plans
* TV: Samsung launches T-DMB handset (‘SPH-B2300 Swing DMB Phone’)
* Radio: Motorola unveils ‘Rokr E2’ for ‘iRadio’ (upload from PC; 7-10 $/mo)
* LBS: Skyhook (WiFi positioning) teams up with Tele Atlas to improve coverage in urban canyons and indoors

WIRELESS – SHORT-RANGE BROADBAND:
* WiFi: draft proposal expected for 802.11v (includes devices; improved load balancing will enable wVoIP; ratification expected 2008); The Cloud launches clouds in 7 UK cities for BT Openzone, O2, SkypeZones and Nintendo WiFi subs
* UWB: Belkin (‘CableFree USB Hub’) and Freescale/Gefen (‘Wireless USB Extender’) plan products spring 2006

WIRELESS – LONG-RANGE BROADBAND:
* LMDS: Spanish Competition Tribunal opposes Telefonica’s buy of stake in Iberbanda
* WiMAX: Orbitel plans launch in Colombia 06Q2; GlobeTel orders network in Russia from Internafta, $600m (30 cities in 27 months); MetroMAX launches in Russia (with Airspan)

CONVERGENCE:
* Double play: DBD (WiMAX) and O2 offer WiMAX/cellular bundle ‘SmartDuo’ in Germany from 27 EUR/mo
* VoIP:
- Yak launches (2 c/min in N-America); TelCove plans enterprise launch with technology from ECG
- CableLabs receives 30 responses to peering FfI (October 2005)
- Skype and Kodak launch ‘Kodak Photo Voice’ (slide show with audio)
- convergent handset deals from Skype: Ascalade Comms, D-Link (USB Phone Adapter for existing corded and cordless phones), Panasonic (cordless phone for traditional and Skype calls), Creative (standalone phone without PC connection), Netgear (device), Vtech (USB Phone), Ipevo (USB phone cordless handset)
- convergent handset deals from Vonage with Panasonic (standalone cordless phone), D-Link (adaptor), Uniden (corded or cordless phone without PC connection)
- Motorola launches C51 (cordless phone, with WiFi and cellular), SBV5400 (cable modem with VoIP and WiFi) and Residential Seamless Mobility Gateway (RSG) family (router with WiFi and VoIP)
- Symantec acquires IMlogic (enterprise IM)
* wVoIP: Motorola unveils C51 (cordless, cellular, VoIP with adapter)
* Unified messaging: Softbank BB, Japan Telecom and Microsoft cooperate in business market alliance (Enhanced VoIP Services: VoIP, email, internet access, groupware, presence, IM, desktop services, network infrastructure)
* IPTV:
- Jazztel launches ‘Jazztelia TV’ in Ardoz (local VoIP 15 EUR/mo; 20 Mbps; basic TV 3 EUR/mo (promo 1 EUR/mo through May 2006), expanded package 8.5 EUR/mo)
- KT Corp plans launch 06Q2
- Telefonica’s Imagenio reaches 200k subs
- BellSouth plans satellite distribution with SES Americom

MUNIBROADBAND:
* FTTH: North Kansas City (Miss) plans launch July 2006, Time Warner Cable loses court case against it; Nuenen (Netherlands) has 80% of 7500 trial subs move to official for-pay service
* BPL: Current Comms plans VoIP for Cinergy (Cincinnati) 06Q1