Sonera Gets Video for Wireless Phones

Customers of Sonera can now watch videos with his mobile phone, if he or she has got a phone that supports moving image. The offering of the video pilot that continues until the end of May mainly consists of news and music programmes.

The contents of the ongoing video pilot are produced by Sonera Plaza, MTV3 and Nelonen. The offering includes Sonera Plaza's entertainment service's (Kaista) music videos, MTV3's morning news and Nelonen's 4Pop. 4Pop is a popular cultural special broadcast that only focuses on one theme at a time with an in-depth approach.

Already in February Sonera launched products that transmit Internet material to the customer's mobile phone. ”We want to offer our customers an opportunity to be in the forefront of the development of mobile phone services. Along with the video pilot, Sonera's all customers can watch on their own phone, besides current news for example artists' interviews or the latest music videos, already now, although the moving image in mobile phones is only coming”, tells Product Development Manager Mikko Sairanen of Sonera.

The pilot videos can be watched with Nokia's 3650 phone that has the RealOne Mobile player installed and with other GPRS phones that have the RealOne player (it can be easily loaded from the Internet at www.real.com). A new connection address must be created for the phone, because the watching of videos requires the use of a connection type that differs from the normal WAP connection. In practise, this means the disconnecting of the WAP connection. The service guides in the definition and creation of the necessary connection.

The video pilot is available to Sonera's all mobile phone customers free of charge until 31 May 2003. No connection or monthly charges are collected for the service. The use of the video pilot is so far charged in accordance with the pilot pricing, i.e. the GPRS data transfer is free of charge (0 euros). The video pilot is seen in Nokia's 3650 phone first at the beginning of Sonera's WAP menu at the address wap.sonera.fi. In other phones, for example Nokia's 7650 phone, the pilot is found at wap.sonera.fi > uusimmat > videopilotti.

You get the WAP settings and the GPRS connection that are necessary for the use of the video pilot easily with the text message: ASETUKSET NOKIA phone model (example: ASETUKSET NOKIA 3650). The text message is sent to number 15400. The sending of the message is free of charge. The WAP services are instantly available, when the arrived settings have been recorded to the phone.

This Press Release Sponsored by AGILENT TECHNOLOGIES

TODAY'S PRESS RELEASES

Separate from our CDMA phone, we have been developing a GSM phone for various markets globally. ETSI's approval of Hop-On's application for membership gives us the opportunity to work more closely with other member companies.

NTT DoCoMo announced that the company will introduce its first Global Positioning Service (GPS) compatible handset, dubbed F661i, to the market at the end of April or later.

ARPU in Western Europe in 2002 averaged EUR31 per user per month; the number of active subscribers is forecast to grow just 5% in 2003 to 309 million.

Telstra became the first Australian mobile telephone company to offer local consumers access to mobile phone services on a 3G (third generation) network. Telstra deployed Nortel Networks Univity CDMA2000 1X technology to 3G-enable its existing CDMA wireless network.

The CDMA2000 1X Wireless Data Network, deployed by Nortel Networks, will enable Multi-Links to significantly boost network capacity to accommodate a greater number of voice calls. The network will also enable high-speed wireless data and secure Internet services like mobile Web browsing, e-mail access with attachments, and other advanced wireless services.

BenQ Co sees the potential for sales of US$30 million (about 1.3 billion baht) in its first year of operations in Thailand's burgeoning communications market.

Samsung Electronics releases the new SGH-Z100, 3G UMTS mobile phone, which features the most advanced technology with GPRS Class 8, WAP, MMS and Java.

The Samsung SGH-P400, with a rotating screen, allows users to talk, take and send pictures or data quickly and easily through a single device, with the convenience of a rotating viewfinder.

Sha-mail subscribers increased by 1 million in approximately two months, bringing the number of Sha-mail users to approximately 65% of J-PHONE’s total subscriber base.

Of the one million Vodafone live! customers, Germany now has over 375,000, Italy 190,000 and the UK 220,000. Vodafone also has an additional 420,000
customers in these markets that now own a MMS capable device*.

The new camera modules offer exceptional sensitivity for capturing great images in low-light conditions. Because they are fully integrated and require no external components, the new modules reduce time to market for handset and PDA designers.

Eurotel is Intec's first convergent mediation customer in Eastern Europe, a region with one of the world's fastest growing mobile markets. The deal, valued at over one million euros, will raise Intec's profile in the area.

NTT DoCoMo, Inc. announced that it will soon begin marketing the WRISTOMO™, the world's first commercial wristwatch-style Personal Handyphone System (PHS) mobile phone.

Powerwave Technologies recently demonstrated its latest high performance multi-carrier power amplifier (MCPA) technology for UMTS networks at CTIA Wireless 2003 in New Orleans.