Nokia unveils two new addition to the well received N-series segment - Nokia N79 and Nokia N85 . N79 model is a candybar model and is a successor to N78 model while the dual slider N85 is a successor of N81 model. Both the N79 and N85 are high-end phones comes up hhigh-end multimedia features, such as a 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, works with Nokia Ovi service and includes the N-Gage gaming platform, photo sharing, and Nokia Maps. Both the phones are expected to be release worldwide in the fourth quarter.

Nokia N85:

The Nokia N85 is dual slider designed for mobile entertainment, gaming and sharing multimedia content. It comes up with 2.6″ OLED screen and is highly optimized for watching videos and playing games. It boasts N-Gage gaming with 10 games pre-installed, Music player with in built FM , 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics. Handset also has geotagging capabilities using the integrated GPS, Nokia maps 2.0, Three months integrated license for turn-by-turn voice navigation, 3.5G HSDPA high-speed connectivity, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0. Nokia N85 comes with an 8GB microSD card. Nokia N85 is expected to be priced around Rs. 30,000 - Rs. 35,000 in the Indian market.

Nokia N79:

Nokia N79 is described as a “technology powerhouse,” equipped with a 5.0 mega pixel camera (with dual LED flash and video light), high-speed connectivity, the Symbian OS, superior Web browsing capabilities, at least 10 pre-loaded Nokia N-Gage videogame titles, an onboard music player, an FM transmitter, and integrated navigation. One interesting feature of Nokia N79 is the three interchangeable Xpress-on smart covers. Covers comes in Light Sea Blue, Espresso Brown, Olive Green, White, and Coral Red colurs. Each N79 handset is supplied with a random trio of covers plucked from those available colours. It comes up with 50Mb internal memory and can be expanded upto 4 GB using microSD memory card.Nokia N79 will be priced around Rs. 24,000 to Rs. 28,000 in the Indian market.

Momail, world’s smallest mobile email, has made an entry into Indian market with its popular mobile email product. This mobile email product will collect mails from different mail services including Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and delivers it to the users cellphone mail client. Thus user can read all mails in a single inbox and effectively handle multiple mail accounts in their mobile phone.

Momail doesnt require any special client or softwares to be installed in the users mobile phone. All it needs is registeration to their service and based on handset model, it will deliver the settings to the user’s mobile. Momail´s patented MMOPE-technology (Mobile Message Optimization & Protection Engine) optimizes all emails, including attachments and hence the delivery will be fast and effecient. Users can also login to Momail’s website and access their mails using the webmail interface also. Momail releases only beta version of the product in India and is offering the service for absolutely free of cost at this stage.

Signup and tryout for their service by registering for the beta service in their website

Smart Broadband Services partners with state owned Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Limited (MTNL) to  offer personalized IPTV services in New Delhi region. Smart broadband services will provide the Set top box for accessing the IPTV services and using the high speed Internet connection from MTNL, customers can connect their television with the set top box to watch television channels and enjoy the personalized interactive features. Smart brodband services plans to add additional features like personalised stock ticker, interactive viewing, email and chat, travel information, weather in the near feature. However no information is available about the set top box cost and the tariff for the interactive services. MTNL is already providing the IPTV services in the region at a monthly rent starting from Rs. 60.

The concept of mobile service providers tieups with the manufacturers and their offering of handsets at a subsidized price or bringing the handsets on a exclusivity deal is nothing new and is very common in basic mobile models. Now after the iconic iPhone, the trend catches with high end mobiles too. Idea cellular has now tiedup with Nokia to offer the much expected N96 smartphone. Though there is no exclusivity deal like iPhone, Idea cellular is planning to introduce attractive offers and innovative tariff plans to pull the prospective buyers. Not only to Nokia N96, Idea cellular is planning to introduce plans and offers for other Nokia models too. This will be a win-win strategy for both Idea cellular and Nokia.

“We are pleased to partner with Nokia in leading the industry to bring customers a complete suite of Idea communications, browsing, content and Internet services. This is a logical step for Idea to take, as it will further help augment our customer experience. These high-end Nokia handphones are known worldwide for their versatility and utility” , said Sanjeev Aga, MD Idea Cellular.

* In July, mobile operators, both GSM (global system for mobile communications) and CDMA (code division multiple access) together, added 9.22 million subscribers, which is the highest ever additions in a single month till now. The previous best was 8.94 million in June.

* Bharti Airtel with 2.69 million new subscribers was the biggest gainer during the month. Vodafone Essar added 1.7 million new subscribers while Reliance Communication got 1.5 million new CDMA subscribers. Both Idea Cellular and Tata Teleservices added just over a million wireless users in July.

* In the fixedline segment, the subscriber base has decreased further to 38.76 million as against 38.92 million subscribers in June as subscribers prefer to take a mobile connection. However, there are no signs of a revival though industry experts reckon that introduction of services like broadband and IPTV could improve the business case for fixed line telephony.

* The broadband subscriber base has reached 4.57 million with 19 lakh new subscribers in July. Broadband user base has almost doubled from 2.47 million in July 2007.

Source: Businessline

After a long delay, Indian government has finally approved the guidelines for the provision of IPTV services in the country. Until now TV broadcasters are allowed to share their feeds only to licensed cable and DTH service providers, now after this new guidelines approval, broadcasters will provide the content to licensed IPTV service providers also. In addition to this, the cabinet also approved an amendment to policy guidelines for the downlinking of television channels, which will allow IPTV operators to demand the broadcasters to provide them content at the same price as cable and satellite TV operators.

IPTV which stands for Internet Protocol TV, is an interactive digital television service that uses high speed Internet connection for delivery instead of traditional cable wires or DTH service. Mostly it is bundled with Internet packages by the internet service providers. To use the IPTV service, customer will need a high speed internet connection along with IPTV modem and a Screen (TV/PC). Since IPTV delivers in digital form, quality of the channels delivered will be far better than the analog transmission systems. IPTV also provides new features including Video on demand, Timeshift TV, Interactive games and Interactive advertising.

The compulsory content storage clause is included in the new guidelines, which requires the service providers to store all the content in their local server for 90 days from the time of telecast. This clause will leads to number of interesting features including TimeShift TV. As the content are stored, the service providers can delivered the content on demand to the customers. Thus customers can be able to watch the content on his leisure time, pause, fast forward, rewind the content as per his convenience. Also storage of data will allow the government to check for any illegal content on a later time after it is relayed.

Currently MTNL alone provides IPTV services in India but in an inactive mode. BSNL is planning to launch the service for quite long. Private players including RCom, Bharti Airtel are all waiting for the new guidelines to be live. TRAI has earlier recommended to allow both licensed cable opeartors and DTH service providers to provide IPTV services without any additional license. It is not still clear whether the government has accepted this recommendation also as part of today’s approval. If it is accepted as it is, then there will be a very stiff competition in the space.

India’s leading mobile service provider , Bharti Airtel is also leading the other service providers by running the most congested network in the country. Airtel is followed by Reliance communications and Aircel. According to TRAI’s report, Bharti Airtel has 56 point of interconnections (POI) having congestion problem while Rcom has 22 congested POIs and Airtel has 21 congested POIs. Bihar, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Haryana, the North-East and Himachal Pradesh are the areas which are severly affected by having more number of congested networks.

Point of intersection (POI) is the physical place where two networks are connected. Congestion at POI’s indicate that customers in one network may need multiple trials to connect to a customer in another network. According to the standards of TRAI, a customer can face congestion problem for one call for the every 200 calls he makes and is the permissible limit for a POI. The above quoted number indicates the no. of POIs failing to meet the permissible limits. On a monthly basis, TRAI is monitoring the congestion levels at the POIs of various service providers to ensure seamless network connection.

However there is good news that no.of congested POIs got reduced in June 2008 when compared to March 2008. In March it was 275 and now the number has come down to 156. In this period, Vodafone Essar has shown an significant improvement by reducing the congested POIs count to 19 from 43.

Anil Dhirubai Ambani Group (ADAG) owned Reliance communications has launched a special prepaid pack called “Business Jaadu 135″ in Tamilnadu targetting the 5 lakh small and medium entreprise customers.  “Business Jaadu 135″ pack is priced at Rs. 135 and comes up with a validity of one month. It offers unlimited free calls to other Reliance mobiles in the state and  local calls to other mobiles and landlines at 49paise/min.

According to RCom, Most of the business professionals in the SME segment will be calling four to five associates of the business regularly and each of them will pay around Rs. 400/month for the phone bills. Now with this plan, at a rate of Rs. 135, they can call among themselves unlimited for completely free and this will save their monthly budget for mobile by 35 percent. Topups are available in the denominations of Rs 77, Rs 120, Rs 210, Rs 301, Rs 501, Rs 777, Rs 110 to continue the plan.

Reliance Communication is planning to expand the offer to other parts of the country based on the response for this plan in TN circle.

Do you believe that a  printer, a digital projector, a game controller and a touch screen phone - all possible in a iPhone sized mobile handset?. Japan based Hideo Kanbara from the KDDI Designing Studio makes it possible. KDDI has recently introduced a concept mobile phone called Ply. The idea for ply is lifted from multilayered plywood and Hideo has added separate functionality for each layer of the phone. The phone consists of 6 layers of which the top layer is the display, followed by keypad in the next layer and printer in the third layer and so on. Though the concept of the phone is far from reality, in this technology days nothing is impossible. Let us hope for it.

Mauj mobile in association with Eros multimedia has created and released  the mobile content for the soon-to-be-released Hindi movie, Hijack. Shiney Ahuja and Esha Deol featuring, Hijack movie is hitting the cinemas on September 5. Mauj Mobile has created creative mobile content based on the film’s visuals and provides ringtones, graphics, video clips, CRBTS, themes, animations and colour logos for download. Full movie songs, dialogue tones and video ringtones are also available for download. Hijack movie content is available for download in Mauj’s website

Mauj mobile, an Indian telecom solutions company had already provided similar content for the movies like Aag, Sunday and Dasavatharam. Recently Mauj has released a mobile game based on Ramgopal varma’s SarkarRaj.