A recent server crash at Dailywireless (sorry about that), has taught me a lesson — enjoy life, friends, and the summer holidays.

Dailywireless is taking the day off. Happy Independence Day (text). And Canada Day, too. Summer is grand.

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The Notice of Funds Availability (NOFA) for the broadband portion of the Recovery Act has been released. In the 121-page document (pdf), the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) and National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) will dole out some $7.2 billion in broadband grants and loans. Arstechnica has a good summary of the highlights.

The Department of Commerce’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) is looking for projects that fit into three categories: Broadband Infrastructure, Public Computer Centers, and Sustainable Broadband Adoption. The Department of Agriculture’s Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP) will distribute grants and loans to broadband projects for areas that are at least 75 percent rural and lack “sufficient access”. In this first round of applications, closing on August 14, 2009, some $4 billion will be available: $2.4 billion for BIP and $1.6 for BTOP. There are two more rounds still to come.

According to the NOFA:

RUS and NTIA conclude that “broadband service” should be defined as the provision of two-way data transmission with advertised speeds of at least 768 kilobits per second (kbps) downstream and 200 kbps upstream to end users.

The RUS and NTIA say this broadband speed facilitates the use of many currently common broadband applications (e.g., web browsing, VOIP, and one-way video), allows for consideration of cost-effective solutions for difficult-to-serve areas, and is the most technology-neutral option (because it encompasses all major wired and wireless technologies).

Companies will have to follow the FCC’s Net neutrality policy, which prohibits companies from deliberately blocking or slowing Internet traffic on their networks so that competitors are not run out of business by network operators, explains C/Net.

The government will accept applications from private firms, nonprofit groups, and state and local governments for the first allotment of $4 billion from July 14 through Aug. 14. The winners will be announced in early November, and the grants are expected to be distributed within 30 days. The other two rounds of funding are expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 2010.

USTelecom, the broadband lobbying arm of big phone companies like Verizon and AT&T, said it was still analyzing requirements, but didn’t like the “open access” provisions. “We are concerned that some of the new mandates seem to go well beyond current laws and FCC rules,” USTelecom President Walter McCormick said.

“Clearwire has made no decision regarding broadband stimulus funding,” a company spokesperson told Unstrung.

Craig Settles has a preliminary take on the rules and their potential impact.

The Obama Administration is committed to the $7.2 billion “broadband stimulus” provisions of the Recovery Act. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, are key figures in its administration.

Secretaries Locke and Vilsack head the federal departments which are mandated by Congress to disperse the $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus monies prior to October 1, 2010. The Recovery Act directed the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) and The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA) to expand broadband access to unserved and underserved communities across the U.S. The result is the RUS Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP) and the NTIA Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP).

Applications will be accepted beginning July 14, 2009, through 5:00 p.m. EDT on August 14, 2009. The complete details of this Notice of Funding Availability are available at http://www.broadbandusa.gov.

FCC Actions, Grass Roots Wireless, Radio Policy News, Spectrum News | No Comments »

The iPhone has inspired a 2nd economy, says Chubby Brain, with over $100 Million going from VCs to iPhone startups.

When the iPhone was initially released in mid-2007, there were only 500 applications available for download. Today, less than two years after the iPhone’s launch, there are more than 50,000.

Apple reports over one billion downloads. Multiply that by a buck.

After a look into the ChubbyBrain database, we identified $102.49 million in total VC/angel investment divided amongst 17 iPhone application startups (as of June 29, 2009).

Perhaps this $100M+ number isn’t surprising given conversation that the iPhone may be bigger than the PC, but over $100 million in the span of less than two years for iPhone predicated startups is noteworthy.

Or perhaps for some of you, this number is a lot less than you expected?

Our $100 million number focuses on those startups who are tethering themselves in a large way to the iPhone platform.

So far, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers leads the way with $50 million committed across six startups. This is, in large part, due to the $100 million iFund they launched in March 2008 with the specific goal to target the quickly expanding iPhone app market.

The NY Times asks, Is there a $100 million mobile app out there? That what Chip Hazard, a general partner at Flybridge Capital Partners, asked a panel of mobile industry veterans during the National Venture Capitalist Association annual meeting in Boston earlier this year.

Rich Miner, one of the managing directors of Google Ventures, the recently formed venture capital arm of the company, said the issue was still a murky one.

They’ll make the guy in the garage happy and some angels very happy, he said. But venture capitalists want to be able to sell the company to another company or to the public in an initial public offering to get a return on their investment. “I’m not sure those venture style exits exist,” he said.

But who cares, really, as long as iShoot’s creator Ethan Nicholas brought in $800,000 in five months on his creation.

MocoNews mentions the small Australian developer Firemint which sold over 700,000 copies of its $0.99 iPhone app “Flight Control” since its March debut, netting the company some $693,000.

AdMob says Apple has sold a total of 30 million combined iPhones and iPod touches. Their data suggests that about 75 percent of those are sold in the US with two-thirds of the combined iPhones and iPod touches using the mobile Web or applications. That results in a total of 15 million mobile Web users for Apple in the US. Give or take. T-Mobile reported last month it sold 1 million Android phones in the U.S. since the G1’s launch in October 2008.

Until recently, there has been no realistic way for individual programmers to make serious money on their own. Most of the software market is dominated by big companies, and the traditional distribution method for independent developers — shareware — isn’t conductive to striking it rich.

By contrast, iPhone App Store, Android Market, Blackberry App World, Windows Mobile Marketplace, Palm App Catalog and Nokia Ovi Store are opening new frontiers. They provide a platform for marketing, selling and distributing software; all a developer needs to provide is a good idea and some working code. The Guardian explains How to become an iPhone developer in eight easy steps.

Related Dailywireless articles include; Amazon Buys Stanza E-book App, Location-based Apps: Bigger Than iFart, Verizon iPhone Next Year?, Fourth Screen: Thinking Outside the Box, ATT Family Tracking — & More Tracking Apps, Sensor Nets Get Social, App Store: One Billion Served, Bar Code Redirects to Stories, iPhone Skype, Android Flash, Smartphone users: 100M by 2013, Android Market: Open for Business, Mobile World Congress: Handsets, iPhone: Money Machine, Palm Pre: Looking Good, iPhone Apps May Cost $30K to Develop, iPhone: 10 Million Sold, Apps Store: Red Hot, Mobile World Congress: HSPA, WiMAX & LTE Faceoff, Nvidia: Turbo Boost for Android and WinMobile, Netbooks Embed Broadband, The 8 Megapixel Phone, Handsets: Open, Open, Open, Cisco Beamforms Russia & Kazakhstan, TeleNav Does Turn-By-Turn on Android and 2009 Mobile World Congress.

Android, Applications, Society & Telecom, iPhone | No Comments »

Dell is betting that location services will be a hit in netbooks and next week will offer the Dell Wireless 700 location solution for their Mini 10 netbook in the United States. It provides turn-by-turn navigation.

The $69 add-on is a hybrid WiFi/GPS Mini PCI-E card/software package, and combines location based information using the Skyhook positioning system and A-GPS (when a signal can be acquired).

The hardware part is an internal GPS card with built-in Wi-Fi locationing. It can calculate your position using Wi-Fi access points or using GPS satellites. The Dell Wireless 700 is powered by Broadcom's A-GPS and Skyhook Wireless' Wi-Fi position solutions.

The Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS) can determine the location of Wi-Fi enabled devices using a signal beacon known as a MAC address, notifying nearby devices of their presence. WPS refers to the mapped locations of millions of Wi-Fi MAC addresses to pinpoint the device location. WPS is complementary to GPS. It works best indoors and in urban areas, while GPS is limited by physical obstructions of ceilings and tall buildings.

On the software side, the Dell Wireless 700 location system features CoPilot navigation software to provide turn by turn directions. I offers things like 2D and 3D map views, lets you save up to 50 addresses for one trip, offers trip optimization to provide the most efficient route, can provide instant detour information when you encounter expected delays and provides continuously updated information about the trip.

Skyhook Wireless combines GPS, cell tower and Wifi location data. Their Loki service is a browser plugin that comes preconfigured for Internet Explorer and Firefox. It works with Loki-supported sites to improve local search functionality by providing you details from nearby restaurants store locations and your friends' location information from supported social media sites like Flickr, Loopt and  BrightKite.

Initially, it will support Windows XP. Vista and Windows 7 support will come later. The Mini 10 is the first system that we'll offer with the optional Dell 700 Wireless location solution.

Chips, GPS, Location Services | No Comments »

Sprint will be the first operator to launch a 3G femtocell in the United States, reports Unstrung.

“Just like Sprint was the first with 2G, we’ll definitely be the first in the 3G space as well,” Mathew Oommen, VP of device and technology development, tells Unstrung. “We’re not talking about trials; we’re talking about full commercial service.”

AT&T also plans to deploy its standalone 3G femtocell nationwide by the end of this year. (See AT&T on Track for Femto Launch).

Meanwhile, Vodafone UK launches Europe’s first 3G femto service this week, while Singapore’s StarHub launching its Home Zone service in November last year, making it the first UMTS femto service. StarHub’s HSDPA femtocell base station from Huawei can support speed up to 7.2 Mbps.

Femtocells allow mobile operators to extend their cellular coverage in the home and office environment. Like a WiFi access point, they plug into DSL or cable modems but connect via 3G licensed frequencies rather than WiFi.

AT&T’s first femto product is said to be supplied by Cisco, which uses a femto module from ip.access, which uses picoChip’s femto chipset. But there is no official word on AT&T’s femto supplier.

For AT&T, the motivation for pursuing femtocells is the potential for revenues from new services, reduced churn, and off-loading data traffic onto femtocells (through DSL).

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Comcast will bundle Clearwire’s 4G wireless service, the company said today.

Comcast, the largest cable operator in the U.S., will launch the new service in Portland, Ore., and expand the service to other Comcast cities later in the year, including Atlanta, Chicago, and Philadelphia.

Called High-Speed 2go, Comcast will sell 4G wireless access as part of an Internet bundle. To entice new subscribers, Comcast is offering the new 4G wireless with its 12 Mbps download cable modem service, plus a free 802.11g router for $50 a month for the first 12 months. The data card used for the 4G wireless, which fits into a laptop, costs $99. But subscribers who sign up for the package with a two-year commitment get the data card for free.

Comcast will be bundling the WiMax with cablem modem service for $49.99 per month for the first year. This gives consumers 12 Mbps at home and up to 4 Mbps while on the go. For $69.99 a month, users can get the same services and nationwide 3G access. Existing customers with the “Triple Play” package can get 4G access for an additional $30 a month.

Comcast is selling two different data cards and service plans:

• Comcast High-Speed 2go Metro service uses a 4G-only data card giving customers the fastest wireless service within the 4G metro coverage area. The Metro device operates only in a 4G service footprint.
• Comcast High-Speed 2go Nationwide service delivers the fastest metro 4G service plus coast-to-coast access on Sprint’s national 3G network. The Nationwide device automatically switches between available 4G and 3G networks.

Sprint’s cellular customers currently can ge 3G data for about $60 per month. For about $20 more a month ($80/mo), Sprint also offers access to its 4G Clearwire network.

“We are trying to get those consumers, who may not have chosen Comcast’s broadband services in the past, to see that they can get the best and fastest in-home and wireless service from Comcast. But we are also trying to make sure we can keep the customers we do have from going to a competitor,” said Catherine Avgiris, the company’s senior vice president and general manager of wireless and voice services.

The largest Multiple System Operators in the United States are Comcast, with 24 million video customers and Time Warner Cable with 14.6 million. Both cable operaters plan to offer mobile WiMAX in association with Clear. Cox Communications, the 3rd largest cable operator in the US, with 6.2 million customers, plans to offer wireless cellular service using their own dedicated 700 MHz and AWS frequencies.

In the final quarter of 2008, AT&T U-verse added more than a quarter-million subscribers to exceed the 1 million mark. Verizon, with 1.9 million FiOS video subscribers, is now about the seventh-largest cable operator, with AT&T ranking 10th. Together, they total about 3 million subs vrs the 104 million total of traditional MSOs.

In a separate but related joint venture, SpectrumCo, an AWS bidding consortium with Cox, Comcast and Time Warner Cable, picked up 137 licenses in 2006’s Advanced Wireless Services auction (at 1.7/2.1 GHz). SpectrumCo won a total of 137 AWS licenses for $2.37 billion. Comcast’s share was $1.29 billion, followed by Time Warner Cable’s $632.2 million, and Cox’s $248.3 million. (See SpectrumCo Gets Licenses).

Cox paid $248.3 million for AWS licenses in 2006, and is transferring those licenses out of SpectrumCo and directly to Cox. Separately, they bought 700 MHz spectrum for $304M in 2008.

According to Cox Communications Wireless Vice President Stephen Bye, “Our networks will be using our AWS spectrum initially but we are looking to take advantage of our 700 spectrum. It’s a new band and the technology is still in its infancy but we’ll definitely take advantage of that as the ecosystem evolves around 700 MHz”.

“We’re going to be launching with 3G”, said Bye in an interview with Fierce Wireless. “As we build our network it is with a view to 4G. Our 3G network is there to support what handsets are available today; 4G is still some time out there in the future… and we want to be on a path to get to 4G and minimize that investment to get there.

Cox plans to offer cellphone service as well as wireless broadband access for laptops in its home markets. It will use roaming deals with national wireless providers so users can get service elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Comcast and Time Warner are stuck with their white elephant on AWS through SpectrumCo. Now Comcast and Time Warner’s 2.4B AWS investment seem redundant. They’ve got WiMAX. Maybe they can sell their excess AWS spectrum to AT&T. Mixing AWS, Mobile WiMAX and multiple flavors of cellular (including GSM, CDMA and LTE), would not make a lot of sense.

But that’s what Comcast and Time-Warner have.

Broadcasting & Cable, Cellular News, Wi-Fi News, WiMAX Deployments | No Comments »

Mike Boyd of Hillsboro WiFi and myself are providing free WiFi at Portland’s Waterfront Blues Festival again this year.

I am running my Clear residential modem into a Meraki Outdoor repeater which automatically meshes to 3 nearby Meraki repeaters. That gives us blanket WiFi coverage at the festival. We are providing free WiFi access — just for fun.

For mobile video, I have a Clear USB modem plugged into my laptop running a Logitech 9000 USB camera.

I’m tested out both Livestreaming and Ustream but was disappointed in the quality. I then contacted Livecast, out of Vancover BC because they had a streaming broadcast client that might work with my Nokia N-800. The firm was very helpful on sort notice (and on Canada Day!) to walk me through the process (which was simple). Here’s a page on Dailywireless where I hope to post stories, pictures, twitter feeds and live video. But it’s so 90 degrees right now and I’m not very motivated to do anything but sit in the shade and listen!

I’m very happy with the Livecast process. Even though I was using a new camera it was pretty straightforward. I’ll have to fiddle with the parameters to prevent overmodulation of the sound and other adjustments, but I appreciated the company’s help from the CEO on down.

I would have used my battery operated Clear WiMAX/WiFi hotspot, except I keep ruining them by accidently plugging in 12 volt power supplies.

The battery operated unit has a 5 volt input jack for external power, but I keep plugging in 12 volt wall warts. Cradlepoint’s documentation did not describe the voltage it required and, it turns out, there was no effective over-voltage protection on the unit.

The first time I ruined a clear hotspot, Clear gave me a new unit. No charge. After blowing a second unit — doing exactly the same thing — I’ve given up. I’m going to wait for a 12 volt portable unit.

Maybe I should have used a TekCharge MP2250 ($99.95), a new compact external battery for Cradlepoint mobile routers. The external rechargeable lithium polymer battery pack provides six to eight hours of runtime when no power outlet is available.

The TekCharge MP2250 significantly extends the use of CradlePoint portable routers (model numbers CTR500, PHS300 and CTR350) on the go. You connect an activated USB modem; either cellular or WiMAX, for the backhaul

Tekkeon’s 5 volt battery solutions can power phones, laptops, portable media players, and many other devices. It will provide Mobile Phones with 29 hours of talk time and provide Portable Media Players with 14 hours of play time. Like all Tekkeon batteries, the unit uses visual indicators to identify the exact power level.

It includes brackets for mounting the battery to one of these routers and a bridge tip that enables connection of adapter tips required for use with other 5V devices.

I enjoyed my Clear Spot while it lasted. But I’ve also got a backup — a Cradlepoint home 802.11n router. It’s not as portable and has no battery — but it takes external 12 volts! Both the Clear AC residential modem and the Meraki Outdoor take 12 volts, so powering a venue with a few car batteries seems entirely feasible. A solar-powered OLPC webcam that can deliver the required power might also work for multi-day events.

Ustream Mobile runs live on a WiFi-enabled Nokia N-95. All day with an external battery. Livecast supports the Nokia N-800 web tablet. I picked mine up (used) for $150.

Don’t try this with a cellular carrier, though. You’d probably violate the terms of service and go way over the 5 Gig limit, resulting in stratospheric access fees. That’s where WiFi access points like Meraki come in handy - they’re easy to setup and can use DSL or WiMAX for the backhaul.

Applications, Cellular News, EV-DO/HSDPA, Gadgets, Location Services, Podcasting, Wi-Fi Deployments, WiMAX News, iPhone | No Comments »

Top mobile telephone suppliers have agreed to back an EU-wide harmonization of phone chargers, the European Commission said on Monday.

The agreement by Nokia, Sony Ericsson and others will mean phones compatible with standard charging devices are available in Europe from next year.

“People will not have to throw away their charger whenever they buy a new phone,” said EU Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen, estimating that unwanted phone accessories accounted for thousands of tons of waste in Europe each year.

The Commission said the agreement would involve the creation of an EU norm, and that the new generation of mobile phones would use a standard micro-USB socket to ensure compatibility.

The following 10 companies have signed the MoU; Apple, LG, Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Qualcomm, Research In Motion, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and Texas Instruments. The 10 companies involved control 90 percent of the European market.

The Commission hopes that as people discard their old handsets, within three to four years all data-enabled phones in Europe will be using standardized chargers. There are an estimated 400 million mobile phones in Europe, with 185 million bought each year.

The standardized chargers will be compatible only with European phones, but the EU hopes other countries will follow Europe’s lead.

Cellular News, Radio Policy News, Security | No Comments »

Sony may combine a mobile phone with its Playstation Portable gaming platform, reports Reuters. It would combine functions of its portable game player with mobile phones made by Sony Ericsson. The development is seen as a way of better competing with Apple’s iPod and iPhone, as well as Nintendo’s DS.

Sony announced greater integration between its mobile and gaming units last month via the launch of a new Sony Ericsson handset called the Aino.

The device uses a system called Remote Play, initially developed for the PSP, that enables users to control and access media content on PlayStation3 via the phone. Aino also features an 8.1-megapixel camera with geotagging capability; 3G, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity; a physical keypad; and a three-inch touchscreen.

According to the latest Gartner figures, Sony Ericsson slipped to fifth place in terms of global phone shipments in 1Q09, as its market share declined to 5.4 percent compared to 7.5 percent in the year-earlier quarter.

Seven of Apple’s top ten iPhone applications are games, and mainstream game publishers have for some time been incorporating the iPhone into their plans.

Cellular News, Gadgets, Games | No Comments »

China Mobile says less than 3 percent of its new mobile customers are using their new 3G network, suggesting that their TD-SCDMA network is suffering from a lack of compatible devices.

China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile phone operator, reports subscribers grew from 457.3 million to 488.1 million during the first five months of 2009. According to a PC World report, which cites a recent China Mobile filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the operator had 746,000 subscribers on its 3G network by the end of May, representing just 2.4 percent of total net additions since the launch of the new TD-SCDMA network on 7 January. China Mobile is listed in Hong Kong and the US, where its shares trade are listed on the New York Stock Exchange, making the company subject to regulation by the SEC.

China Mobile admitted in the filing that it has “encountered and may continue to encounter challenges in the deployment of our 3G services, which could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations as well as our revenues and profitability.”

China Mobile is also going all out to develop converged LTE solutions utilizing time division duplex (TDD) and frequency division duplex (FDD), reports Light Reading. That will enable China Mobile to limit the time it is dependent on TD-SCDMA, help it counter the constraints of the TD-SCDMA sector’s limited ecosystem. China Mobile chairman and CEO Wang Jianzhou has previously stated that the carrier will look to launch TD-LTE (a TDD version of LTE) in 2010.

Slow take-up of its 3G services are deemed due to the relative immaturity of the TD-SCDMA standard compared to competing standards such as WCDMA, which is used by the majority of the world’s 3G mobile operators, including China Mobile’s closest domestic competitor, China Unicom moved its CDMA business to China Telecom in November of 2008.

China Unicom then merged with China Netcom, after the former sold its CDMA network to China Telecom. The newly merged company therefore has all the assets of China Netcom, plus Unicom’s nationwide GSM network with 125 million subscribers. Networks using other 3G standards (WCDMA and CDMA2000 EV/DO) have still not been launched in China, as these were delayed until TD-SCDMA was ready.

According to the SEC filing, China Mobile is counting on dual-mode handsets that support both TD-SCDMA and GSM to help spur more demand for its TD-SCDMA services by allowing users to upgrade to 3G services without having to change their mobile number. It is also planning to market laptops with TD-SCDMA data cards and home Internet access gateways to attract more 3G subscribers.

China Mobile selected ST-Ericsson’s company in China for TD-SCDMA gear. ST-Ericsson will support four of its customers to commercialize their mobile phones during 2009-2010. On January 7, 2009, China granted a nationwide TD-SCDMA 3G license to China Mobile.

ST-Ericsson, the 50/50 joint venture between Ericsson and STMicroelectronics, will develop a new low-cost platform to support affordable TD-SCDMA devices as well as high-end mobile phones, based on existing and new platforms such as the T7210, for broadband and multimedia services.

ST-Ericsson’s T7210 handset supports TD-SCDMA dual-band in 2010-2025MHz/1880-1920MHz frequencies, and has successfully completed handovers of voice and high-speed data services in order to operate optimally in Chinese dual-band network environments.

HTC will also bring its Android-powered Magic smartphone to China Mobile, HTC CEO Peter Chou told The Wall Street Journal.

China Mobile intends to sink some 58.8 billion yuan ($8.6 billion) this year alone into building out its TD-SCDMA-based 3G network to cover 238 cities across China with roughly 60,000 base stations.

The Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has awarded China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom licences for the country’s TD-SCDMA, CDMA 2000 and WCDMA 3G standards, respectively.

• China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile phone operator with 415 million customers, will use TD-SCDMA in the 2010-2025MHz band for their nationwide network of voice and low-speed data, while the 1880-1920MHz band will be used for high-speed data services using TD-HSDPA/HSUPA/HSPA+.
• China Unicom, the world’s third-biggest mobile provider, is developing a nationwide WCDMA (GSM) network.
• China Telecom has taken over the CDMA 2000 network and also has the largest single WiFi wireless broadband network with over 30,000 hotspot locations covering hotels, restaurants and transportation facilities in over 250 major Chinese cities including Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanning, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Dalian, Kunming, Wuhan, Chongqing and Xi’an.

China had 627.3 million mobile-phone users at the end of October. India is now the second largest wireless market in the world. India’s mobile operators added 11.59 million subscribers in May, taking the country’s total to 415.25 million, according to the latest figures from Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). The United States is the 3rd largest wireless market, according to the CTIA, with some 263 million mobile-phone users.

Cellular News, Corporate News, Radio Policy News, Security, Society & Telecom, Wi-Fi News | No Comments »