According to Michel van der Bel, chief operating office at Microsoft for the Greater China region, Microsoft’s Windows Phone market share now sits at 7% in China. At last count, Apple’s share of the smartphone market in China was 6%, Emerce reports.

“We have only just begun,” van der Bel said. He continued, noting that the combination of Windows Phones and Windows 8 tablets will help Microsoft succeed in the Chinese market. “Our smartphone and tablet-pc are hybrid, making them suitable for the consumer, but also easy to insert within an existing company infrastructure. This will allow us to better anticipate the consumerization of IT than many competitors.”

The first Windows Phone-powered smartphone for the Chinese market launched less than two months ago.

[Via WMPoweruser]

Source: http://www.bgr.com/2012/05/18/windows-phone-market-share-china-apple-iphone/

Be careful how you list names on your cell phone! This lady has changed how she lists her names on her mobile phone after her handbag was stolen. Her handbag which contained her mobile, credit card, purse…etc…. was stolen..

20 minutes later when she called her husband, from a pay phone telling him what had happened, hubby says ‘I received your text asking about our Credit Card PIN number and I’ve replied a little while ago.’

When they rushed down to the bank, the staff told them all the money was already withdrawn. The pickpocket had actually used the stolen hand phone to text ” hubby ” in the contact list and got hold of the PIN number. Within 20 minutes he had withdrawn all the money from the bank account.

Moral of the lesson:
Do not disclose the relationship between you and the people in your contact list. Avoid using names like Home, Honey, Hubby, Sweetheart, Dad, Mom etc……
And very importantly, when sensitive info is being asked thru texts, Always CONFIRM by calling back the person

Also, when you receive a text from friends or family to meet them somewhere, be sure to call back to confirm that the message came from them. If you don’t reach them, be very careful about going places to meet ‘family and friends’ who text you……………….

PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS!

Source: A post from Sreenidhi S K , Director, Oscar Murphy Life Strategists P Ltd on j4b

4G networks are already operational in several countries, including a Telstra roll-out in Australian cities.

And 4G devices have begun to appear on the market, including versions of several high-end Android phones and Apple’s new iPad.

Gen-i services division boss Chris Quin told NBR ONLINE there will be at least four large businesses on the trial: Mainzeal, Mitre 10, Kiwirail and Countdown/Woolworths operator Progressive Enterprises.

Mainzeal says it will use the technology for more data collaboration on the go, and mobile video.

Some consumer customers will also be on the trial. Telecom says people will be able to register interest through its website.

The most 4G-friendly spectrum won’t become available until a 700MHz government auction later this year (below).

Telecommunications Users Association boss Paul Brislen told NBR that sub-1000MHz frequencies were best for 4G, but that TelstraClear had achieved 10Mbit/s to 20Mbit/s download speeds with its 1800MHz 4G network.

Mr Quin – soon to become Telecom’s acting CEO – said Telecom would use its 1800MHz and 2600MHz spectrum in the trial. The company was preparing to bid on 700MHz spectrum later this year.

NBR understands Vodafone will shortly announced its own 4G trial, utilising 1800MHz spectrum.

In the US, where many have encountered 4G speeds for the first time using the new iPad, there have been a number of instances of bill shock.

With 4G bandwidth, a consumer could rip through a month’s data cap in two hours if, say, downloading a movie.

Mr Quin said corporates were already on “bucket of data” plans that saw one large amount of mobile data shared among many users, with economies of scale.

This approached scaled down to smaller businesses. Telecom would be keeping a watching brief during the trial.

An RFI has just gone out seeking potential partners for the trial, which will late place later this year.

Auction pending
Around December, the government will auction spectrum feed up by the analogue-to-digital switchover.

All players are manoevering for an inside advantage.

2degrees, for example, wants a special allocation “at a fair price” to help it expand against more established rivals; an iwi group has a Treaty claim on the airwaves up for bidding, and Kordia, Motorola and Tait – usually rivals – have teamed to pitch for a big increase in spectrum reserved for emergency services (a key market for their respective digital radio networks).

For its part, Vodafone has revealed an “out-side in” strategy, pledging to use 4G spectrum to expand mobile networks in rural areas – many of which are currently starved for cellular service – before upgrading its urban networks.

The 4G spectrum auction is expected to raise $200 million to $300 million directly (assuming the government doesn’t accommodate any of the various demands for cut-price or free access), with the government claiming $1.1 billion to $2.4 billion in indirect “digital dividend” benefits such as cheaper mobile network rollouts and more efficient broadcasting (assuming these benefits are passed on to customers).

Lots more bandwidth – but lots needed
4G promises dramatically faster speed, but the extra bandwidth could be rapidly soaked up as roughly the same amount of mobile customers each download a lot more data.

Earlier this year, Telecom CMO Jason Paris said the amount of data sloshing through Telecom’s mobile network during November doubled against the same month a year ago.

In February, it tripled year-on-year.

In August, Vodafone told NBR mobile data traffic on its network had grown from around 60 terabytes in June 2010 to 135TB – or 135,000 gigabytes – for the month of June 2011.

More by Chris Keall

Source: http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/telecom-trial-4g-ck-118713

The first draft of the national telecom security policy says the government will enact laws to enable enforcement and security agencies to get legal access to information on a real-time basis. Mint has seen a copy of the draft.

The government will also provide tools and train the agencies so that they are better able to analyse the data travelling on telecom networks, the draft says.
At the same time, the systems, processes and regulations should ensure “that privacy of individual is not transgressed without valid reasons provided in the law and development needs of the country are not hampered”, says the draft, which has been circulated to various ministers for comments.

A policy on telecom security needs to be reasonable and have adequate checks and balances in place, according to Aditya Sondhi, a lawyer who has filed a petition in the Karnataka high court questioning the extra-constitutional status of the Intelligence Bureau, and seeking a legal regime to govern and regulate it.

“Firstly, the policy itself is a draft and is yet to receive approval of the government of India. In any case, it contemplates the enactment of appropriate laws for the purpose of surveillance,” Sondhi said. “Once such laws are enacted, the laws would need to pass the test of reasonableness and also contain sufficient checks and balances so that any such information is obtained only in specific cases of national interest, and that there is no undue violation of the privacy of the citizens.”

Privacy and security concerns over voice and data carried on telecom networks have received increased attention in India in recent years.

The government has had differences with Blackberry phone maker Research In Motion Ltd over the encrypted message and email services the firm provides to customers.

The government, fearing that such encrypted services can be used to plan and execute terrorist strikes, threatened to ban the providers of such services if they failed to accommodate the legitimate demands of law enforcement agencies. The government was planning to have rules for encryption data access, Mint had reported on 12 January.

It now seems to have softened its stand. “If a technical solution exists for a problem, it should generally get precedence over regulatory framework,” the draft policy says.

Concerns over privacy also came under the spotlight when tapped telephone conversations between corporate lobbyist Niira Radia, politicians, executives and journalists were leaked.

The government had also started drafting a telecom security policy after the home ministry and the Prime Minister’s Office in 2010 expressed concerns over the import of telecom equipment from China. The government feared that equipment from China might have embedded spyware that could send back sensitive information to the source.

India largely depends on other countries for telecom equipment.

Demand for telecom equipment in India is expected to be worth $70-100 billion in 2015, according to a 2011 report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and consultancy firm Ernst and Young.

The market for wireless infrastructure equipment is estimated to be $8-10 billion and equipment worth Rs. 190 billion were imported in 2009, it said.

The latest policy draft says that without the involvement of the private sector, which serves to more than 80% of the people, it is difficult to secure network data and information. “Private players will be involved fully, unless there is an element which cannot be shared with them,” it says.

India has the second largest telecom network in the world and ranks only after China in the total number of phones.

The draft put the onus on enterprises to secure their networks.

“It seems that the draft policy has covered all aspects and tried to balance everything. But it is to be seen how the final version of the policy is implemented,” said Jaideep Ghosh, a partner with consultancy firm KPMG. “While the national telecom policy is directionally appropriate in many ways, specific issues such as spectrum availability, (and the) suggested base price for auction are leading to a challenging situation for the industry.”

sahil.m@livemint.com
Source: http://www.livemint.com/2012/05/14001858/New-telecom-security-policy-se.html

The Global Financial Inclusion Database, or Global Findex, has found only 3 percent of the population in the rest of the world take advantage of money transfers through mobile phones.
In sub-Saharan Africa, take-up of mobile money services, pioneered by Kenya-based Safaricom’s M-Pesa service, has been boosted by the fact that traditional banking is hampered by transportation and other infrastructure problems.
“Money transfers through mobile phones is a form of increasingly nontraditional banking that often doesn’t require users to travel or set up an account at a brick-and-mortar bank,” according to a statement issued by World Bank.
“Such mobile banking allows account holders to pay bills, make deposits or conduct other transactions via text messaging,” the World Bank noted. Kenya, where 68 percent of adults report using a mobile phone for money transactions, has seen particularly impressive growth in this market.
According to the study, three-quarters of the world’s poor do not have a bank account, not only because of poverty, but also because of the cost, travel distance, and the amount of paperwork involved in opening one.
“Nearly two-thirds of the unbanked cite poverty as the obstacle to financial access, but about a third also blame the cost of opening and maintaining an account or the bank’s being too far away, which means long bus rides for many,” said Asli Demirguc-Kunt, the Bank’s director of development policy and chief economist of the Finance and Private Sector Network.
In markets like Uganda, mobile money transfer services have become a revenue generator, with players hotly competing for users as margins on voice services have been driven down over the years. MTN Uganda, for example, has more than 2 million registered customers after launching in March 2009. MTN reported recently that US$100 million gets transferred over the service every month.
The four mobile money offerings in Uganda including MTN Mobile Money, Airtel Money, Warid-Pesa and Uganda Telecom’s M-Sente are largely similar, allowing registered users to load money into their accounts, make transfers to other users, buy recharge vouchers as well as withdraw money.
The services have been positioned differently though. MTN positioned their offering as a way to send money to others, just like M-Pesa in Kenya.
Subsequent offerings had to find ways to differentiate themselves. Airtel’s Money, which was launched in March this year, touts itself as being much more than money transfer, allowing its users that have formal bank accounts to access them.
UTL’s M-Sente presents itself as a general payment method with “simply pay with M-Sente,” while Warid Telecom’s Pesa markets itself as the “true mobile money service,” as users can send money across all rival networks.
In addition to money transfer, other types of transactions are beginning to emerge. In March the MTN Group and Western Union took mobile money transfer global to allow the more than 2 million customers of MTN’s mobile money transfer service in Uganda to add funds to their accounts, which they can send through Western Union’s system. They can receive money via the same system from anywhere in the world.
Western Union has similar agreements with Safaricom’s M-Pesa in Kenya, Vodacom in Tanzania, Telmar Madagascar and Inova in Burkina Faso, and other such agreements are in the works.
Locally, the National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC), the water utility in Uganda, has closed hundreds of its agency offices around the country and is encouraging customers to pay their bills via mobile money services. Payments via mobile phones are also catching up in other sectors as companies realize they can cut collection costs.
World Bank Group President Robert Zoellick said that providing financial services to the 2.5 billion people who are “unbanked” could boost economic growth and opportunity for the world’s poor. Data in the bank’s survey was collected by Gallup using the Gallup World Poll Survey.

Read more: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/mobile-phone/3357295/mobile-money-transfers-reach-16-percent-of-sub-saharan-african-population/#ixzz1um8KW5FI

T-ecophone, an online second-hand phone market SK Telecom opened in July last year, had dealt in a total of 40,000 handsets as of March this year. KT also launched the Olleh Green Phone service in March in a bid to lure customers, dealing chiefly in long-term bestsellers like Samsung’s Galaxy S and Apple’s iPhone 3GS.

Most trade for about W200,000 (US$1=W1,136), and some for less than W100,000. Telecoms guarantee quality and safe trade, which is the main factor that gets consumers to open their purses on these online shops.

Assessors check the condition of a used cell phone at SK Telecom. /Courtesy of SK Telecom
In case of SK Telecom, professional assessors are rating used phones on a scale of A+ to C, based on their appearance and condition. KT classifies used phones into “good” and “bad.”

“When we assess cell phones, we focus on 20 categories, such as power supply, display and appearance,” a cell phone assessor for SK said. “If you want to get as high a price as possible when you sell your phone, you should protect it with a screen film and case.”

The trade is bringing forgotten old phones out of the closet. According to data by market researcher Recon Analytics last year, Korean consumers replace their phones once every 26.9 months on average, about two times as fast as Japanese (46.3 months) and Italians (51.5 months). In other words, each Korean consumer throws a phone in the closet every two years.

But selling them is good for the environment because it saves resources. Mobile phones contain rare earth elements, of which there are only small reserves in the world, as well as precious metals. One mobile phone contains 11 kinds of rare earth elements like lithium, radium and zirconium, in addition to gold, silver and copper.

While a ton of natural ore yields a mere 4 g of gold, a ton of used cellphones yields 400 g. It would also be possible to extract 3 kg of silver, 131 kg of copper, 13 kg of tin and 5 kg of lithium.

Source: http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/05/09/2012050901301.html

General Manager of SMSGH Ghana, Alex Adjei Bram told Adom News in an exclusive interview that the agreement had enabled the distribution of Tecno’s world-class embedded mobile applications to users via SMSGH’s mobile content aggregation platform, dubbed the SMSGH Unity Gateway.

“By this agreement, users of Tecno mobile handsets will now be able to subscribe to services and download all applications such as games, phonebook backup and other support services available in the Tecno app store or embedded on their handset and pay 50Gp a month with their phone credit via the SMSGH platform,” the statement said.

He explained that the SMSGH platform would provide an automatic backup for all data on Tecno handsets, such that when a user loses his Tecno handset and purchases a new Tecno handset, all the lost data including phone contacts, pictures, videos, SMSs, voice recordings and other data stored on the previous handset, would be restored on to the new one.

“If you lose your Tecno phone and get a new Tecno phone you only enter your phone number and a service pin code or a password that we will give you and you have all your data restored,” he said.

Mr. Bram said users would be billed for the applications via SMSGH’s Unity Gateway managed and maintained by SMSGH.

“We are excited and challenged to have been chosen by Tecno Telecom. Being one of the fastest selling mobile handset brands in Ghana, we feel Tecno made the right choice with SMSGH as we know too well how to manage mobile services with high growth potentials,” Bram said.

He said SMSGH continued to focus on expanding its service offering to increase its footprint, as the company gained momentum on its efforts to lead mobile messaging innovation in Ghana and beyond.

Bram said beside Tecno, SMSGH provided similar services to giant Chinese phone manufacturers like GWC Partners and BoZone, both of which manufacturer software and handsets meant for the African and other markets.

SMSGH is a Ghanaian-based leading mobile content aggregation company serving over 40,000 clients in Ghana and parts of Africa, and recording between 12 and 14 million SMS traffic on its network every month. It provides Bulk SMS and Corporate SMS Solutions, and a platform to distribute and monetize mobile digital content.

SMSGH is employs some 26 young IT Engineers and Programmers, and has been in operation for the past seven years. It was one of two Ghanaian companies to have been named in Forbes Magazine’s Top 20 African Technology Start Up Companies this year.

Source: http://business.myjoyonline.com/pages/news/201205/86182.php

Earlier this year, the government came out strong on the topic of cell phone radiation and instructed all phone manufacturers to limit the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) to 1.6 Watt/Kg. SAR is the rate at which a human body absorbs energy due to an electromagnetic field. The rate set by the government of India is 1.6 Watt/Kg per 1 g of human tissue. The Federal Communications Commission in the US has prescribed the same levels for cell phone manufacturers in the US; the EU, however, is different. The new SAR levels will be in effect starting September of this year and OEMs are expected to have the SAR mentioned on the handsets going forward. The rule applies to all handsets sold in India irrespective of where they are manufactured.

In an update in the Upper House of Parliament of India, the Rajya Sabha, Minister of Communication and Information Technology, Milind Deora said that cell towers radiations across the country are within prescribed limits. This information comes from tests conducted by the Department of Telecom (DoT) in India. Cell Tower radiations aren’t the only threat to environment. According to some statistics, due to poor electricity availability in rural India, nearly 240,000 cell towers run on Diesel fuel consuming close to 2 Billion Litres of fuel a year. Yes, 2 Billion Litres of Diesel to ensure cell phone connectivity. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has asked the cell tower companies to look at greener technologies. The companies believe opting for alternate technologies to run the towers will reduce their operation costs as well.

Source:http://www.zdnet.com/blog/india/cell-phones-in-india-to-carry-radiation-information/1041

This was the startling discovery made by members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology during a study visit to Nathula Pass in July last year. The Committee’s tour notes record this: “The Army personnel during the deliberations brought the attention of the Committee to poor telecom connectivity at Nathula. The Committee expressed unhappiness to learn from the jawans that they have to borrow the handsets from the jawans posted in the borders on the other side to remain in touch with their family members.”

Several private players have a presence in Sikkim but these are focused on Gangtok and adjoining areas with state-owned BSNL being the only major service provider near the Nathula outpost. However, procurement of mobile towers and telephone exchanges by BSNL for deployment near the army camp has been delayed, “For the last four years, purchase orders have not been placed,”said a BSNL official. The House panel asked BSNL to fast-track the purchase but nothing has moved so far.

Nathula in Sikkim’s East district is one of the three open trading border posts between China and India. Agreements limit trade across Nathula to 29 types of goods from India and 15 from the Chinese side after it was reopened in 2006.

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/no-network-in-nathula-so-jawans-borrow-phones-from-chinese-soldiers/945976/

It is 2am. It is a week night. You are sound asleep until the chirp of your mobile phone message alert wakes you. For a moment you think it must be something important – why else would somebody contact you at this hour? You fumble for the phone which is next to your bed because it is also the alarm primed to wake you in six hours’ time and you read, “Dominos Pizza the final countdown for 50% discount offer on second pizzas!”

It is amazing some phones survive the night without being hurled to the skirting board in sheer frustration. Whether it is the occasional puzzling text or a bombardment of unsolicited SMS messages spam texts are an infuriating part of mobile phone ownership in the UAE. Nobody is immune.

Last week the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, uploaded his own irritation onto Twitter when he started receiving a stream of unwanted texts enthusiastically welcoming him to a variety of services to which he was not subscribed.

“My apologies to Etisalat,” he wrote, “but I will tweet every message or service that I get from them until they put an end to this inconvenience.”

Seventeen hours later, with the spam still arriving, Sheikh Abdullah’s own annoyance was echoed by that of his 190,000 followers. “Everyone suffers,” tweeted Mariam Bint Mohammed.

Mobile phones are trusted and they are personal. Whatever message is sent will be delivered straight to the hand of the target audience – however broad that target is. Send enough messages and one or two are bound to hit home.

Without much in the way of spam filtering software available for mobile phones it is little wonder that Spam should have found its way onto them as well as into our email accounts. It isn’t a new phenomenon but while data protection and privacy legislation has limited the problem in North America and Europe, it is still very much a growth market in the Middle and Far East, fed in part by the bloom of daily deal websites and cheap bulk SMS packages.

There is no unified data protection law in the UAE – last year Qatar became the first country in the Gulf region to draft such a policy. But though the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) last year called for a similar law to be set down in the UAE, none exists to date.

Manish Gupta is the technical manager of Express Digital System (EDS) and its subsidiary www.smsmarketinguae.com. Since the company’s launch in 2005, Mr Gupta’s Dubai based business has seen a 25 to 45 per cent year-on-year increase in the volume of SMS messages sent out.

According to Mr Gupta, “It is our most popular initiative with email marketing coming in second place.”

Mr Gupta’s company has designed its own software which acts as a sending platform to enable the distribution of text messages across the UAE. Customers with their own databases – such as a restaurant with 5,000 customers – can simply pay to access the software online. They are given a username and password, write their messages, hit send and the texts are automatically sent out.

Alternatively those with information to send but no database who want to reach a targeted audience can access EDS’s database of clients. Mr Gupta explains, “Let’s say there is a beauty salon in the marina who want to target ladies in the area. We can tell them we’ve got 15,000 ladies in and around the marina and we can target them.”
The cost to the client is around 10 fils per message. Mr Gupta’s clients pay anything from Dh5,000 to Dh100,000, with their budget, rather than any legal sanctions, the only limit to the number of messages they send.

Mr Gupta stresses that his company advises against bombarding any numbers with messages but there is nothing, legally or contractually, to prevent anyone from doing just that. As for the content of those databases, they are gleaned from a variety of sources and come with varying levels of detail ranging from gender and age group to interests.

They are collated by an in-house team who harvest them from local trade fairs, company databases, local events and online directories. The information will have been willingly shared by the person in question at some point but, in many cases, it will have been done so without any realisation that it would find its way into the hands of brands or individuals with whom the target audience member has never had any contact, nor expressed any desire for contact. Think about it. How many times have you given your mobile phone number when making a purchase, booking tickets to an event or joining some online service?

Mr Gupta points out that customers can unsubscribe at any stage by sending a four-digit code back to any of the messages they receive. He says that once you unsubscribe from one company on his books, you are actually unsubscribing from all the companies he sends messages on behalf of.

But not all messages come with the opt-out option and not all companies are scrupulous about ensuring that when they buy or sell databases they do so with the consent of the individuals on them.

According to one senior executive at a Dubai-based media agency, “I know that some of the companies we have used have been able to buy and sell databases from other companies without user permission.” The executive, who asked not to be named, explained that SMS marketing was a tool he used in conjunction with email and web-banner campaigns but that it represented just 2 per cent of the agency’s spend and was a notoriously difficult method to measure in terms of success.

“With email campaigns you get a click rate, with SMS you only get a delivery rate. We always run the two in tandem and hope to correlate them to get some sense of whether a message has been of interest but it’s really only something we’d use for short promotional campaigns – clearance sales and so on. Events that you’re trying to drive footfall for,” the executive said.

“We always offer opt-out texts and we always use tailored databases with as much detail as possible. I’d say that’s what differentiates between SMS branding and spam.”

Over the years Etisalat and du have announced various anti-spam services. As the TRA’s executive director, Fintan Healy, pointed out last week in response to Sheikh Abdullah’s complaints, “Any customer who has signed with the telecom operator before December 30, 2009, has the option to opt out of such service.

“If you had the service before the policy was issued then you will receive the messages. However, if you joined an operator after the issuance, you would have had to apply for them before you can receive such messages.”

But, as Sheikh Abdullah’s experience and those of many will testify, they have yet to stem the flood of infuriating and irrelevant alerts. Two years ago the TRA issued a policy concerning spam in electronic communications and focusing on spam SMS for marketing purposes.

From July 2010, it was announced, both service providers – Etisalat and du – would be bound by these guidelines. Customers would not receive commercial SMS messages unless they had agreed to them and advertising SMS could only be sent between 7am and 9pm UAE time. But with no cap to the volume of texts sent from a single device a message may be sent within those hours but arrive well beyond them due to the sheer volume of text traffic. A truth to which anybody who has received notification about some beauty sale or car offer at 1am will testify.

Unfortunately for the time being the message is clear: if given the option to unsubscribe use it, don’t trust that whoever you choose to share your personal information with will use it only once or wisely and, if you use your phone as your alarm, put it on silent.

* The National
Source: http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/a-message-for-sms-market-men-unsubscribe-me#page2