This sums up much of my thinking - I hold a few and swing trade a few and even trade intraday sometimes ......

I think there is a lot of slack that management can cut out of the costs and would also anticipate sector consolidation ..... good value currently and have been holding their own in a falling market. Lot of US interest.

ains


Edited by Dominic White
(Filed: 08/02/2003)


Texting makes MmO2 sexy but it's also risky

More and more Britons are discovering the joys of textual intercourse. In the month of December, we fired off more than 50m mobile messages a day, and next Friday (that's Valentine's Day, folks, in case you'd forgotten) we'll send considerably more than that.



It emerged this week that the chief beneficiary of this craze is MmO2 . BT's former mobile phone division revealed that it gets a higher proportion of revenues from texting than any of the other three operators.

Revenue from messaging grew at its fastest rate ever in the last quarter, up 19pc, and data services as a proportion of MmO2 's revenue rose to 17.7pc from 15.6pc.

More good news was the rise in MmO2 's average revenues per customer. ARPUs, as nerdy analysts like to dub them, grew by 5pc to 243 in the UK and by 9pc in Germany to 212.

MmO2 now has 19.1m subscribers and in Britain it may be the smallest player, with 11.9m users, but it is growing faster than its rivals - testament to the success of its rebranding from BT Cellnet.

Only 114,000 of its 503,000 new UK subscribers were higher-spending contract customers, but MmO2 claims its pre-pay customers have started spending more than before.

Customer growth in Germany, which continues to be dominated by T-Mobile and Vodafone, is less impressive and the MmO2 share price ascribes little or no value to this part of the business.

That seems unfair, given the fact that the group has attracted higher-spending customers and has made a decent fist of turning the operation around. An eventual sale or merger is almost as inevitable as a disposal of the Dutch unit, which is losing customers.

MmO2 's larger rival Vodafone is trading on a free cashflow yield of 6pc, while at 49p this week, MmO2 's equivalent valuation remains negative. It might not have Vodafone's scale or profitability but there is room for upside. A risky buy.

O2 suspends email-to-phone service
10:51 Wednesday 19th February 2003
Graham Hayday, silicon.com


The mobile phone operator is making 'improvements' to its email-to-phone service, resulting in the service being taken offline
O2's email-to-phone offering has been temporarily suspended as the company carries out what it describes are "improvements" to the service.

By the time of publication the mobile operator had been unable to provide any information about the nature of the "improvements" or when users can expect the functionality to return.



The full notice which greets anyone now trying to use the online service says: "Unfortunately, we regret that the 'Email to mobile' service has been temporarily suspended. Don't worry -- the service is not being completely withdrawn, but is offline whilst essential improvements are carried out. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause, but are confident that the service will resume shortly."

This isn't the first occasion O2's customers have had such problems.

One silicon.com reader said: "It was good until Genie 'upgraded' about two years ago since when it has been, at best, erratic. The worst time was January last year when [O2's] entire email service (Web/WAP/POP3) was down for a week or so."

Meanwhile, O2 -- which sponsors the England rugby team -- is appealing for the safe return of some life-sized cardboard cut-outs of several players which have gone missing in mysterious circumstances.

According to a report on Planet Rugby, O2 produced the figures as part of an MMS promotion which took place during the games against Australia, New Zealand and South Africa last November. The company invited supporters to have their picture taken next to their "heroes".

O2 had hoped to continue this marketing activity during the Six Nations championship which kicked off last weekend -- until it emerged that the cut-outs had been stolen.

O2 is appealing for news of the figures. A spokesman is quoted as saying: "Whilst O2 does not condone theft in any shape or form, we have decided to create a cardboard cut-out amnesty. If the cut-outs are returned safe and sound to Twickenham, there'll be no questions asked and we'll say no more about it. However, we understand if you cannot bear to part from your heroes -- just let us know that they're safe."

02/19 05:17
MMO2 May Use EDGE Technology to Cut Network Building Costs
By Dex McLuskey


Cannes, France, Feb. 19 (Bloomberg) -- MMO2 Plc, the fastest- growing U.K. wireless carrier, may cut the cost of building networks by adopting technology that allows data to be carried faster on existing systems, Chief Executive Peter Erskine said.

MMO2's Global System for Mobile Communication, or GSM, networks may add Enhanced Data-Rates for GSM Evolution, or EDGE, technology to increase data capacity and speed, Erskine said in an interview.

``It's a much lower investment cost'' than so-called third generation faster wireless services, Erskine said. ``I'm not saying it's nothing, but it's not a lot of money.''

European mobile operators are seeking ways to make more money from existing networks after spending more than $100 billion on permits to offer so-called third-generation wireless services. The companies have introduced games and photo messaging to tempt customers to spend more. Existing networks need to be upgraded to allow such data to be transferred quickly.

EDGE technology allows data such as e-mails to be transferred at speeds as much as five times faster than on General Packet Radio systems, Mike Short, Chairman of the U.K. Mobile Data Association, said in an interview. U.S. operators, such as AT&T Wireless Services Inc., already use EDGE because they can't get additional radio spectrum for faster services, he said.

MMO2 won't consider adding EDGE to its networks until handset makers such as Nokia Oyj, the world's biggest maker of mobile phones, can supply devices that allow subscribers to make calls on both EDGE-enabled networks and 3G systems. London-based MMO2 will begin 3G in Germany by the end of 2003 and in the U.K. in the second half of 2004.

``Some of the vendors are saying they're getting EDGE handsets, but we're yet to be convinced,'' Erskine said. ``Once we can see that there is a reasonable range of handsets that will use EDGE and migrate to 3G then we're very interested.''

Nokia has introduced a phone, the 6200, which uses EDGE and which is also compatible with third-generation networks.

MMO2's shares, which have lost 22 percent of their value in the past year, fell as much as 2 percent, or 1 pence, to 48.75p and were trading at 50p as of 9.30 a.m. in London.

see bbc for fulll story


Mobiles 'let you control your life'

By Jane Wakefield
BBC News Online technology staff in Cannes


Mobile phones are used by people to decide how and when they communicate with the rest of the world, say researchers.
The findings are the result of a three-year study into the evolution of consumer mobile behaviour, entitled Me, My Mobile and I, by a team at Lancaster University in the UK.

The report, presented at 3GSM World Congress in Cannes, suggest that mobile devices are increasingly offering people a way to control their relationships, location and self-image.

This idea likely to provoke mixed feelings of fear and excitement in operators determined to exploit the potential of mobiles by offering a wide variety of services.

flat with sector and market marginally up - US futures marginally off fair value

ains



20 Feb 2003 09:33 GMT

Mobile industry struggles in wireless Web

By Lucas van Grinsven
CANNES, France (Reuters) - Tens of billions of dollars are riding on the future of fast, mobile Internet services, but industry leaders leaving the world's top wireless trade show are still struggling to justify the investment.

At the annual huddle on the sunny French coast, the 28,000 visitors as usual overloaded the local mobile phone network, underlining that the young industry still faces basic problems as it seeks to rekindle sales with advanced, data services.

European mobile carriers have sunk over 100 billion euros in third-generation (3G) wireless networks, but they no longer seem convinced that video and fast wireless access to corporate information will push up revenues.

"Operators (in Cannes) suggested an unwillingness to invest heavily in 3G until more signs of life for mobile data services emerge. In general, there is a lack of conviction in the return on investment of new mobile data services," said Jeffrey Schlesinger, a U.S.-based analyst at UBS Warburg.

As exhibitors and visitors pack up their stands and bags for another year, Motorola Inc -- the U.S. telecoms equipment group -- acknowledges the problem.

"The business model still has to evolve," handset chief Tom Lynch conceded in an interview with Reuters. Asked if consumers will ever use enough video services on their mobile phones to pay for the investments, Lynch shrugged: "To be determined."

Wary about predicting consumer appetite for potentially costly new services, companies are pooling resources. They have too much to lose after taking one of the largest gambles in corporate history on an untried technology.

"3G technology is ready. The thing is now to turn it into a mass market product," said Kurt Hellstrom, the head of the world's largest mobile network maker, Ericsson of Sweden. "Many different players need to work together," he said.

COMPLEX COOPERATION

Mobile communications have grown into a business with one billion users across the world largely because 15 years ago, European companies decided to back a single technology standard known as GSM (Global System for Mobile communication).

This means a person in London can now send a text message from a mobile phone to a friend in Hong Kong.

But now that the industry needs to take this model to the next step, by enabling consumers to send pictures, play games, get their calendars and receive email on tiny mobile devices -- and cooperation is increasingly complicated.

Despite alliances between providers of software, hardware and services announced in Cannes, analysts are sceptical about any end to traditional recriminations between operators and vendors about who is to blame for delayed services.

"Go back two years, and commentary on mobile services had a uniform message: operators had promoted services well in advance of their arrival, prompting disappointment all round," said Chris Alliott, London-based telecoms analyst at Nomura.

"This year at Cannes we can't help but feel that services are arriving faster than operators know what to do with them."

He pointed at video messages, shown here as the key application for which fast networks are needed, even before the industry has figured out how to send still pictures between different handsets across Europe.

But at least the paralysis of last year, when the mobile market was suffering from its first revenue decline after a decade of stellar growth, has been replaced by hope.

"A year or two ago people were still feeling sorry for themselves in the industry. Now they are cleaning up their balance sheets, changing management, forging partnerships," Nokia Mobile Phones vice president Erik Anderson told Reuters.

"It's not optimism but pragmatism," he said.

SEEKING PROOF

This is certainly true for the handset makers. Four of the top five handset makers were profitable again in 2002, compared with just two in 2001. But it has also become a market in which mobile phone makers are less willing to take risks.

Japan's leading mobile operator NTT DoCoMo admitted here that had it not splashed out 40 billion yen in subsidies for handset makers to develop another ten 3G models, the phones would not have arrived.

"Since the 3G handsets are not selling very much ... makers were not able to get a return on their investments," DoCoMo's Chief Technology Officer Kota Kineshita told Reuters.

It is not up to operators to decide if 3G is worth it. Businesses also need to figure out if they want to invest the millions needed to give their employees access to email and business applications on expensive mobile devices.

Microsoft says a company recoups its costs if employees are in the field at least 30 percent of their working week.

For those who see no future for 3G, network vendors here came up with a once-heralded but since forgotten intermediate technology called Edge -- also known as 3G Lite.

Edge enables almost the same services as 3G but video is of lower quality and the speed, while faster than current networks, is still slower than fully-fledged 3G.

It is certainly cheaper to upgrade networks with Edge, for which no new radio spectrum and radio base stations are needed. The Chief Executive of British mobile operator mmO2, Peter Erskine, said Edge could delay fully-fledged 3G further.

"A year ago hardly anyone had heard about Edge. Today everybody is talking about it," he said. Still, the largest network vendors believe Edge will have no impact on sales.

20 February 2003

Telegraph brings mobile in-house
Justin Pearse

The Telegraph Group has launched an in-house mobile marketing initiative, with plans to integrate SMS into its existing print, outdoor and online ad offerings.

The first major campaign from Hollinger Telegraph New Media is an integrated aboveand below-the-line push for retailer Muji.

The company has partnered with Brainstorm to license its ASP mobile marketing solution M-Brand, enabling the full development of mobile marketing campaigns.

'This shows just how the mobile marketing industry is moving on,' said Brainstorm CEO Craig Massey. 'More and more companies, such as media owners and ad agencies, will realise they can bypass specialist mobile marketing agencies.'

This is a position agreed on by HTNM strategic development manager Robert Bridge. 'The early mobile stuff was fairly basic so we wanted to take the tools in-house, with a guiding hand,' he said.

The company is now looking to develop tailored integrated advertising packages, in particular to add interactivity to its print ads.

'We want to use mobile more and more so that a reader can react immediately,' said Bridge. 'It's potentially a very good mechanic for lead generation, enabling readers to reply to, say, car ads.'

It also plans to build its own database of mobile users.

Product news
received on 21 February 2003
from Zyray Wireless

Baseband puts new spin on dual-mode 3G handsets
The rapid development of dual mode GSM/GPRS and WCDMA handsets is a significant step closer following the introduction of Zyray Wireless' Spinnerchip 1.0 WCDMA baseband processor solution.

The rapid development of dual mode GSM/GPRS and WCDMA handsets is a significant step closer following the introduction of Zyray Wireless' Spinnerchip 1.0 WCDMA baseband processor solution.

Sampling began ahead of schedule and a complete dual mode WCDMA and GSM/GPRS solution was demonstrated this week at the 3GSM World Congress in Cannes.
Proven to connect to a majority of market-leading GSM/GPRS baseband solutions, Zyray's Spinnerchip 1.0 single chip WCDMA FDD baseband processor began sampling last month.


The solution uses a standard memory interface to connect to existing GSM/GPRS baseband processors.

O2 reaffirms its committment to 3G
21/02/2003
O2 Ireland has reaffirmed that it will meet the 3G rollout requirements of its licence here, despite Peter Erskine talking about delays at 3GSM.



The reassurance came as the chief executive of its parent, mmO2, said it is considering using slower Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Environment (EDGE) technology in the rollout of 3G.

Although slower than the WCDMA platform which many 3G companies are delploying, EDGE is a cheaper alternative and will allow the company trim its overall expenditure on 3G.

MMO2 chief executive Peter Erskine told the 3GSM World Congress in Cannes that because of the delays and expense related to 3G deployment, the company is considering EDGE. O2 Ireland spent E114m acquiring its Irish 3G licence which runs for 20 years. According to an Irish Independent report, an O2 Ireland spokesperson said that the company had yet to make a final decision on the deployment of EDGE but that all options were being considered.

Not having much effect as OOM is outperforming sector and market at plus nearly 3%



CSFB UPGRADES VODAFONE AND CUTS MMO2

Investment bank Credit Suisse First Boston has upgraded mobile phone giant Vodafone VOD.L to "outperform" from "neutral" but has downgraded sector peer mmO2 OOM.L to "neutral" from "outperform".

Analysts at the bank said Vodafone was gaining market share and also had the potential to reveal a 6-7 billion pound share buy-back, possibly at its annual results in May.

But CSFB said it expected mmO2 to remain volatile in the short term and did not expect a takeover of the whole group in the near future. As well as downgrading the stock, CSFB cut its price target on mmO2 to 50 pence per share from 75p.

Separately, Morgan Stanley also sounded a bullish note on Vodafone, raising its target price to 131p from 128p and reiterating an "overweight" rating on the stock.

"The primary driver for the increase in estimates is higher revenue forecasts from the December KPIs," analysts wrote in a research note.

Credit Suisse First Boston upgrades its recommendation on Vodafone Group PLC and downgraded smaller rival mmO2 PLC, dealers said.

Vodafone was upgraded to 'outperform' from 'neutral' by the broker, which kept an unchanged price target of 125 pence. It also downgraded mm02 to 'neutral' from 'outperform', cutting is shareprice target to 50 pence from 75. On mmO2, CSFB worried that the sale of the firm's lossmaking O2 Germany unit could be delayed until 2004 or 2005. This led the broker to cut its breakup valuation to 60 pence per share, to reflect the ongoing drag on free cashflow. It also made a 6.1% downgrade to medium-term EBITDA forecasts, citing recent events including the Oftel decision to lower connection charges.

CSFB thinks the sale of mmO2's German operations will be delayed after the firm signed a deal to pay to T-Mobile 137m to gain the right to roam on T-Mobile's 3G network in Germany in the future. This deal puts mmO2 in a position where it is now prepared to fund the build in Germany to 25% population coverage this year, CSFB reckons.

It believes the firm is under no pressure to sell until it has to provide capital expenditure for a 50% population roll-out, which could be two years away. "A takeover of the whole group also does not look imminent to us," CSFB added. CSFB's moves also follow presentations from both mobile phone companies yesterday at the Cannes GSM conference.

Yesterday in Cannes, mmO2 chief executive David Finch presented on mmO2's current performance and prospects. He reportedly confirmed the firm's target of 10% service revenue growth and 30% EBITDA margin guidance for the UK business in 2004. Finch also told analysts that long term investment levels are expected to be lower than recent history and said that mm02 remains open to all options for its Dutch and German businesses. Goldman Sachs was pleased, saying the presentation "reinforced ...confidence in management's control of the business and its pragmatic approach to mmO2's strategic options - both regarding 3G and consolidation". The US broker reiterated an 'outperform' rating on mmO2 shares and left forecasts unchanged.

Mobile firms 'got off lightly'
By Dominic White (Filed: 24/02/2003) Telegraph

Britain's mobile phone operators, who have been ordered to cut the cost of calls between networks, narrowly escaped more punishing proposals that would have forced them to make an immediate one-off reduction of 50pc.

The Competition Commission last month told the four operators to cut so-called "termination charges" by 15pc with immediate effect, and make similar reductions each year for the next three years.

Operators attacked the proposals as unfair. At least two are preparing to take the commission's investigation to judicial review. Vodafone is expected to file documents in the High Court this week.

It has now emerged that the commission originally proposed an immediate halving of termination charges followed by annual reductions, a move backed by the National Consumer Council.

A one-off cut of such size would have made it hard for operators to adjust their handset subsidies and call prices to compensate for the loss of revenue from termination charges.

A senior source at one of the operators said: "Symbolically, the original proposals would have been worse than the final result." Mobile phone company share prices would have come under huge pressure, he said.

The commission wrote to the four operators - Vodafone, mmO2, Orange and T-Mobile - last summer setting out the plans. This led to a fierce campaign and lobbying of the Government, which got a 22.5 billion windfall from auctioning next generation mobile licences.

Operators are now kicking themselves for going to the commission, after rejecting far less swingeing proposals by Oftel, the telecoms watchdog.

They have two main complaints: the commission's final findings do not take into account the 22.5 billion, and do not specify how fixed-line rivals such as BT should pass on to consumers the reduced charges they will pay to access mobile networks.

If i can get this at 50p i`ll be taking out a massive short, its a no-brainer
Target price 20p

Seems a strange approach - waiting for 50p when they are at 48p .... when you expect 20p .... go for it - short them now and wait for 20p



ains

Ains

I like getting the top
Know what i mean?
I think that they will possibly never see 50p again so i may move soon

Mobile bosses cautious over 3G

By Jane Wakefield
BBC News Online technology staff


Third generation telephone networks have taken a backseat in speeches by the bosses of two of the UK biggest mobile operators.

O2 boss fed up with regulation
The chief executives of both O2 and Orange delivered keynote addresses at the annual 3GSM conference in Cannes last week but neither seemed to have 3G uppermost on their minds.

Peter Erskine, head of O2 used the Cannes platform to complain about recent demands from UK telecoms watchdog Oftel that mobile operators slash the costs of making calls to other networks.

Coupled with European regulatory attempts to reduce the costs of making foreign calls, Mr Erskine said it added up to too much interference in the industry.

Growing up

Describing it as "small picture thinking" Mr Erskine accused the regulators of stifling creativity and competition.

"It is a constant battle between regulators and operators and places us in uncertainty," he said.

It was time, he said, to let mobile firms stand on their own two feet.

"There has been talk of the mobile industry being in its infancy but such comparisons have outlived their usefulness," he said.

Regulation, he said should be "colossally light-touch" and looked to new super regulator to adopt a hand-off approach to the mobile industry.

Sharing networks?

Mr Erskine reaffirmed O2's long-term commitment to 3G, describing the technology as "too extraordinary, too life-enhancing" not to happen,

But he also hinted that the industry was about to go through a period of consolidation with mergers and partnerships.

O2 could favour network-sharing rather than rolling out its own dedicated 3G network, he said.

He said that 3G was no longer a field of dreams adhering to the philosophy that if you built it, users will come.

"Now the attitudes are more pragmatic and led by market demand," he said.

People power


We might suggest ways customers might like to use services but at the end of the day they will be defined and deployed by the street

Jean Francois Pontal, Orange
The new focus on customer demand and need was central to the speech made to the Congress by Orange's outgoing boss Jean Francois Pontal.

He compared the challenges facing the mobile industry as those faced by the music industry, a need to keep a constant eye on what ordinary people were doing.

"The next big thing is here already, in clubs, warehouses and bedrooms," he said.

Despite the best-laid plans of operators to move users to multimedia services, the real decisions will be made at grass-roots level he said.

"We might suggest ways customers might like to use services but at the end of the day they will be defined and deployed by the street," he said.

Old-fashioned voice was likely to remain the core business for mobile operators for the next decade he said.

Mr Pontal admitted that Orange was not at the bleeding edge of 3G rollouts.

"Clearly we won't be first with 3G but it is not about the technology, more what the technology can do for people," he said.

He urged incoming boss Solomon Trujillo to keep his mind fixed on the voice business as the company moved forward.

Technology UK
02/24 23:25
Cell-Phone Prices Drop After Release of New Models, Nikkei Says
By Rajat Bhattacharya


Tokyo, Feb. 25 (Bloomberg) -- NTT DoCoMo Inc., KDDI Corp., and J. Phone Co. have cut prices for their mobile phones fitted with cameras by as much as 80 percent after a surge in inventories following the release of new models, Nikkei English News reported.

Some cell phone models released last year are on sale for 1 yen, Nikkei said, without citing anyone. Some large retailers are selling KDDI's au-brand video-camera model at 70 percent below the brand's introductory price last year, the report said. KDDI is Japan's second-largest mobile phone operator.

NTT DoCoMo's D251i handsets are selling below 5,000 yen ($42), down 80 percent since they were introduced last July, the newswire said. Models introduced last July by Vodafone Group Plc's J-Phone Co. are selling between 1 yen and 100 yen, it said.

Retailers are providing price discounts on older models to avoid larger inventories, Nikkei said. Cellular services are promoting the discounts because they want to generate revenue from image and data communication services, the report said.

by Ian Keene

Tuesday 25 February 2003

Will Wi-Fi eclipse the promise of 3G?



3G was so over-hyped, and expectations were built so high, it could only disappoint. Now the same thing is happening to Wi-Fi. But behind the hype there are real applications for each technology the difficult part is identifying what to use the technology for and when to start doing it.

The wireless and mobile market had its ups and downs last year, but it has progressed slightly.

Wireless Fidelity emerged unexpectedly, prompting rapid growth in equipment sales and a proliferation of wireless Lan hotspots.

Cellular networks eventually evolved to GPRS (2.5G), and multimedia messaging service (MMS) hit the market. But GPRS has not been successful so far, because it is expensive and is disappointing in terms of bandwidth, reliability and roaming support.

It will be hard for mobile operators to justify the cost of building 3G networks until their 2.5G services succeed. They are banking on a
good year for wireless data but voice will remain the industrys mainstay in 2003.

Operators believe faster networks will bring an uptake in data services, but complex pricing and PC-like applications that operate poorly on small handset screens will limit growth. Bar some early technology adopters, enterprise users will wait until 2004 to adopt mobile data services.

In the consumer market, MMS and picture video services will be the surprise success story of 2003. While mobile operators strive for success with 2.5G networks, 3G will see more delays.

The strength of wireless networks is that they enable business users to fill information shadows. An enterprise cannot be real-time if staff are inaccessible when new information emerges, or information is inaccessible when staff need it. But wireless networks must accommodate a mix of applications, from high frequency use/low bandwidth to low frequency use/high bandwidth.

Enterprises must compromise between speed, ubiquity and cost. The differences in Wi-Fi, 2.5G and 3G in these areas will determine where they are used and for what. Services will be effective only where they achieve the right match of technology, application and device type.

While 2.5G services are approaching ubiquitous coverage and work well for short messages, when used for PC office applications such as e-mail with file attachments, they are slow and expensive. Moving to 3G will be an improvement but it will still fall far short of a low-cost broadband service.

Wi-Fi hotspots can provide the high bandwidth and low costs per megabyte needed for PC applications. But despite the growing number of WLans in offices and at public hotspots, they will be available in few locations relative to the coverage of cellular networks.
WLans are on a roll, with Wi-Fi-certified products providing interoperability from a wide range of suppliers. Prices are low and Wi-Fi will increasingly be built into, or at least bundled with, many new notebook and PDA purchases during 2003, reaching 80% of all commercial notebooks by 2005. Demand for wireless internet access in the home, office and in public places will therefore grow rapidly.

Large, financially stable telecoms operators are displacing wireless start-ups as Wi-Fi hotspot infrastructure owners. With simple precautions and an eye on emerging security standards, enterprises can now safely and productively adopt WLan for mobile staff.

Issues with roaming from one hotspot provider to another will remain throughout most of 2003 and most hotspot users will adopt a pay-as-you-go model.

Businesses must build a policy on Wi-Fi use and communicate it to their staff. You can no longer ignore
Wi-Fi and you need to take security measures even if you do not intend to use it.

There is no single wireless technology that meets all business needs, so you must match the applications to the service. Articulate a Wi-Fi usage policy now, address the security issues and investigate where this technology can bring you tangible benefits.

See whether current GPRS services meet your needs. Test the network do not take advertised capabilities at face value. Meanwhile, wait for 3G to mature, coverage to expand and prices to stabilise.

Ian Keene is vice-president at Gartner Research

25 Feb 2003 17:07 GMT

KPN, mm02 scrap 3G linkup plans

AMSTERDAM, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Dutch telecoms group KPN KPN.N said on Tuesday it and British mobile phone operator mm02 had scrapped tentative plans to join forces in building a third generation network in the Netherlands.
KPN spokesman Marinus Potman said the two phone operators had previously signed a memorandum of understanding to explore cooperating on the rollout of third-generation mobile networks in the Netherlands, but had since decided not to go ahead.

"We signed a memorandum of understanding to explore the possibility for combined activity for 3G in the Netherlands. We came to the conclusion it wouldn't bring much synergy so we stopped the operation," Potman told Reuters.

Mm02 is active in the Netherlands through its unit 02.

KPN was not seeking an alternative partner and expected to go it alone in building the network, Potman said, adding that the Dutch company still expected to begin rolling out UMTS services in Germany by the end of 2003, as previously announced.

Mobile madness makes UK WAP happy
10:45 Friday 28th February 2003
Reuters


The troubled mobile phone companies will be laughing all the way to the bank if handset data usage continues to grow at the current rate
British mobile users downloaded 524 million Internet pages to their phones in January, jumping by a quarter on December figures, as sales of new handsets and marketing of services increased interest in cell-phone surfing.

The daily average of 17 million compares with 13.5 million in December and 12 million in November, and coincided with the sale over Christmas of hundreds of thousands of new phones geared to make mobile gaming and Internet access simpler.

Like rivals in other countries, Britain's four operators -- Vodafone, Orange, mmO2 and T-Mobile -- are very keen to increase the amount of money they earn from non-voice services.

The Mobile Data Association (MDA) said there were now around 25 million Internet-enabled mobile handsets in Britain, and it expects to see a total of eight billion wireless application protocol (WAP) page impressions this year.

The most popular services included downloads of ringtones and screensavers, with demand for games rising, the MDA said.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Text/SMS messaging totally insecure

Canary sings, "I can read your texts"

By Tony Dennis: Friday 28 February 2003, 10:41


A LITTLE BIRD working for one of the major British GSM operators has revealed to us just how insecure the whole text/SMS messaging service really is.
In order to offer SMS (Short Message Service) - otherwise known as texting - operators install an SMSC (Short Message Service Centre). Many of these SMSCs come from software specialists such as LogicaCMG or Schlumberger SEMA.

In essence, an SMSC is like a giant store-and-forward email server.

Our canary maintains that the typical time a text message stays stored on the SMSC is around 15 days. Worryingly our bird says that text messages can actually be viewed by ANY customer services advisor. " There's no password or permissions or anything," the canary adds.

"Many advisors amuse themselves on slow days by picking numbers at random and reading the messages, and then following the trail to the sender and jumping from person to person like this. It's also possible to spoof text messages through the [SMSC], and make them look like they've come from anywhere or anyone, just like with email."

More to the point if a member of the public does want to take some sort of action regarding a nuisance SMS, the operator does genuinely possess the ability to interrogate the SMSC and discover all the requisite information.

Most operators won't actually admit this to the public, as it could easily generate masses of customer complaints which would be unprofitable to pursue. The good news, however, is that if you ask the customer services department of your mobile phone company very nicely indeed, they will reveal the number for a nuisance calls bureau which can investigate SMS complaints too. So now you know.

OOM outperforming sector and market on lowish volumes - up 1.05%


ains



3G network may carry adult video

Richard Wray
Monday March 3, 2003
The Guardian

The "launch" party for Britain's newest mobile phone network, 3, will be a very mute affair this evening in keeping with the company's low-key roll-out

ADVERTISEMENT

strategy - the public cannot yet buy the phones.

Insiders say, however, that the company's soft launch may have a hard core.

The network will draw attention to what it sees as the big advantage of its 3G technology over the traditional four British networks - the ability to download, view and even send video images.

The company has already made extensive use in its advertising of its agreement with the FA Premier League, that allows it to provide video highlights of games.

But 3 has so far been reluctant to talk about other content which insiders say it has also considered making available over its network: pornography.

Insiders who worked with 3 in the run-up to its soft launch said that the company has streamed hours of pornographic material over its network. One technician who worked with BBC Technology, which 3 has contracted to deal with its video content, said the company has obviously investigated adult services.

"There was quite a lot of sex and that caused a few eyebrows to be raised at the BBC, with questions about can we really process this?" he said.

But a spokesman for 3 refused to comment on whether the company has any designs on making adult services available over its network.

He did admit that every mass media market -such as video, publishing and the internet - has tended to attract pornographers. "We are assuming that in the long run 3G will be no different," he said.

Prospective customers have been able to sign up for 3's service for just over a week. But the company has yet to fulfil any of those orders which may be delayed for several weeks.

Its three UK high street stores also recently opened for business, allowing people to see the new technology, which 3 will be retailing through selected branches of Carphone Warehouse, Dixons, Phones4U and The Link.

But while the last big launch in the British mobile phone industry - Vodafone Live - involved a gala bash, 3 is keeping itself under wraps.