Category Archives: Mobile Networks

The day has arrived and lines have formed at Apple stores around the US.  If you’re in the US and have cable TV, CNBC is carrying live feeds from various cities awaiting the first sales of the iPhone.

There are Internet streaming sites also covering the launch and include live chat.  The NYC Soho Apple Store is covered live at iphonelaunch.tv.  The chat room is full, but they’ve added a second web site for chat.

Many of you already know that Scoble is broadcasting from the Palo Alto, CA Apple Store onustream.tv.   There is also a live chat available.  Scoble’s feed has been experiencing audio difficulties, but the video is not bad.  Zoomr TV is providing the equipment and using Sprint’s EVDO network for transmission of the live stream.

The first sale of the iPhone occurs at 6pm local time, so NY’ers will be able to purchase 3 hours ahead of California line dwellers.

The BREW Conference is traditionally focused on developers. Past events brought together operators, handset makers and developers working with Qualcomm’s BREW platform for the delivery of content, namely games and other applications. There were several new aspects to the conference in 2007 that distinquish it from previous years. A clear signal of the change in the conference and for BREW, itself, was the choice of Keynote speakers, notably H3 and Time Warner Music.

BREW and GSM Operators

The addition of GSM operators this year was a first for the conference. You might wonder what the attraction for a GSM operator would be in a platform designed to deliver applications to CDMA subscribers. The answer is found in Qualcomm’s move 18 months ago to break BREW into three components: UiOne, DeliveryOne, and QPoint.

UiOne has been deployed by O2, Telecom Italia and apparently there is a deal in the works between Qualcomm and Three for use of the platform (no official announcement, yet). In Europe, the UI is determined and controlled by the handset manufacturers, but UiOne places that critical aspect of the user experience back into the operator’s domain. UiOne allows for customization through theme development as illustrated by Alltel Wireless’ Celltop application. The availability of the scripting language TrigML from UiOne’s SDK makes the UI extensible. Third party theme development, enhanced discovery and web services delivery are simplified which is very attractive to operators regardless of their underlying network technologies.

Welcome Media/Content Providers

Also, a new addition to the conference this year was the participation of media companies like keynote presenter Time Warner Music (TWM). This is foreshadowing to the future of BREW plus MediaFLO. A number of other media companies were present as attendees changing the BREW audience and definitely the conference session lineup with broader coverage than in past years. The BREW Conference has been technology centric, but with the expansion of participants new topics arose focused on solutions over technology and seamless user experience as the path to monetization.

The BREW conference is underway in San Diego, CA. The attendance is strong and there are lots of applications which deliver “media”. My first observation at the conference was the following. The phrase mobile content is last year’s color, and now, all is media. Ringtones, wallpapers, logos, text messages, pictures, and of course, video are all media.

Brian Finnerty, director of devices at Sprint Nextel, reached the top of the escalator just as I walked up to it. I took the opportunity to ask him a question or two.

me: “Sprint has always been known as the carrier with the coolest phones. Why didn’t Sprint land the iPhone?”

Brian: “They didn’t ask us. Apple wanted a GSM carrier so they could launch worldwide, or internationally.”

me: “What about SIM cards for CDMA carriers? Will Sprint have SIM cards in the near future?”

Brian: “We are deploying SIM technology without the card.”

me: “When?”

Brian: “It’s working on the phone I have in my pocket, right now.”

me: “Can I see that?”

Brian: “No.”

me: “When will Sprint release it?”

Brian: “In August.”

Nextel phones use SIM cards, and the new cardless SIM solution may be one benefit that can be credited to the merger. From a consumer perspective the benefit of having a card module is the ability to move it from one phone to another or change network operators by popping in a new SIM card to an existing device. It’s unclear what the consumer benefit will be for Sprint’s cardless SIM.

In less than a week, CTIA 2008 kicks off in Las Vegas. The conference is self-proclaimed as the largest wireless conference in the world. Some might argue that “the conference formally known as 3GSM” is bigger. I’m not sure. What I can say for sure is that the big boys from the wireless industry are getting together in the desert, and this uptight overly formalized event needs a big dose of Social Media.

CTIA is an organization primarily representing the America’s carriers by a bevy of lobbyists and lawyers. It isn’t the free wheeling environment of SXSW, and certainly not the event where social media practitioners preach to the converted. All of which I believe makes it the idea event to go all out with social media and indy production. So, next week in Las Vegas Bena Roberts, founder and chief editor of the awesome blog GoMo News and I, as the newly appointed US Editor for GoMo will bring a compelling social media experience to the conference.

We kick off with an invitation only party Sunday night, March 30th at the Hard Rock Cafe to unveil our mobile video broadcast studio. An RV brightly marked will cruise up to the Las Vegas Conference Center and pick up our interviewees who will be whisked away from the saturated towers serving the CC. We’ll set up to stream from the RV and go live with a variety of pioneering people and innovative companies along side the big brands that fuel mobile content and services.

Watch GoMo News for all the up to date information on where and how to watch the broadcasts. The Sprint EDVO Rev. A network with it’s 1.8MB upload capability will provide the bandwidth we need and a couple of Nokia N95s will be the video capture devices. How are we using N95s on a CDMA network? I’ll reveal that during the week. In addition, Flixwagon is a sponsor of GoMo News on Wheels! and will be used as the service to stream from the device, store the videos and alert Twitterfollowers or Flixwagon fans that a new video is LIVE.

The interviews and product demos are designed to be informative and conversational. Our audience will be invited to join in with their own questions through chat during the broadcast. We want to encourage respectful participation and exchange. Ask your own questions, and I’ll pass along as many as I can. As a preview, Tuesday, April 1st between 9:15 and 9:30 AM I’m interviewing Louis Libin, who serves as Chairman, Political Conventions Communications Committee. The Committee is responsible for coordinating all the wireless users for the Democratic and Republican Presidentials Conventions and events surrounding the conventions. The users include the broadcasters, Law Enforcement, the organizing committees and others.

We start March 30th approximately 9PM Mountain Daylight Time, MDT, (GMT -7). See you there.

We are grateful to GoMo News on Wheels! sponsors: Flixwagon, mPulse, MCN, and Smaato. And to the GoMo News Blender sponsor JumpTap.