In the consumer world of multimedia handsets, DRM or digital rights management is a dirty word. DRM is the name for the software that encrypts all the high end video that comes to a handset and stops you from using it on other devices right? Well it used to be. That may be about to change.
There are lots of things wrong with what we call “old” DRM, which was prohibitive, but still many hurdles before “new” DRM comes into play, which will protect movies from being ripped off, but will no longer stop consumers moving them easily between devices. But if reports emanating from the US this week are correct, one major step, which may make all the difference, is about to be taken.
Sony Pictures will embrace a new approach, and bring with it almost all of the Hollywood studios, and by association virtually every broadcaster and content owner. The system is being called Open Market and it is a generalized DRM framework which can both support the concept of domains and can work with multiple DRM technologies.
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Posted by Peter on August 29th 2008 in General, Music Phones, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Vodafone, iPhone
We always go on about how tough it is that the UK cannot get its hands on decent mobile TV services, mostly due to a lack of spare spectrum for DVB-H or other broadcasting services, but there turns out to be more than one way to skin a cat.
A year ago a small US company called Broadcast International introduced a completely new concept in video over a constrained network like a DSL line or better still a switched cellular connection. The idea is fairly simple to describe, but tough to build, it takes 5 or 6 different approaches to digitizing video – using different encoding algorithms - and digitizes and compresses video using all of them in parallel, and picks the outcome with the lowest bit count to use for each frame produced. Previous approaches used one standard encoding approach like MPEG2 or MPGE 4/H.264.
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Posted by Peter on August 22nd 2008 in 3G, General, Mobile Broadband, Orange, Smartphones, Vodafone
You may have wondered just what has been the problem with handset companies like Nokia getting their hands on quality music and video for their handsets and portals such as its Ovi portal. If Apple can do it for the iPhone, why can’t other handset companies or operators like Vodafone, do it for themselves. They seem to be managing with music, but not quite so much with video.
Well one of the issues that it always comes down to is something called Digital Rights Management software, something that consumers have come to hate, because it usually means not being able to do what you want with the content that you’ve paid for.
Studios won’t release legal TV and film content, and record labels won’t release music unless a company like Nokia can complete a security audit, showing that it is looking after the content properly and that the device won’t be another place for content to leak onto the internet (okay, so most of it has already leaked there, but that’s content owners for you).
One of the most DRM celebrated efforts, driven by Nokia and Vodafone, but backed by almost everyone in wireless who matters, was the Open Mobile Alliance DRM completed in 2004, written to be royalty free, so that phone companies and operators would have to pay nothing.
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Posted by Peter on August 21st 2008 in 3G, General, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Orange, Samsung, Smartphones, T-Mobile, Vodafone, iPhone
Following in the footsteps of rivals O2, Orange and T-Mobile, Vodafone has announced that it will be raising the cost of making a call by a third on its pay-as-you-go tariffs.
Vodafone’s 11 million PAYG customers will see the cost of a standard call rise from 15p to 20p a minute as of next month, as the UK’s second biggest mobile phone company attempts to claw back some of the revenue lost due to stricter EU regulations on roaming charges and mobile termination rates – charges mobile networks levy on each other and fixed-line operators to call mobiles – which make up about 20% of Vodafone’s overall revenue. Pay monthly customers will also feel the pinch if they use more than their assigned number of monthly minutes. Extra minutes will rise from 12p to 15p.
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Posted by ellie_mears on August 19th 2008 in General, O2, Orange, T-Mobile, Vodafone
The UK market is already one of the most competitive in the world for mobile services and now Swedish flatpack furniture store Ikea is likely to drive down prices still further. The company will launch its prepaid mobile offering, Ikea Family, initially to lure holders of its loyalty card with super-cheap rates and a SIM-only deal. However, next year it plans to offer the service to the general public, and move into 3G and web applications, and it has already added some low cost Nokia handsets for those who sign up online.
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Posted by Peter on August 14th 2008 in Carphone Warehouse, General, O2, T-Mobile, Vodafone
The mobile music market is becoming hyper-competitive and the UK is one of the biggest battlegrounds for the fight against iTunes. As Microsoft apparently considers teaming up with Nokia to boost Zune, the operators are trying to grab a bigger piece of the action. This week, Vodafone and O2 will both announce new offerings, and both now provide multiple mobile music services, giving consumers wide choices but probably confusing them too.
Vodafone already offers MusicStation, mainly on midrange handsets, and Nokia MusicStore on high end Nokia phones, providing one-click access and the distinctive user interface. On Thursday it will add Vodafone Music, which was co-developed with streaming supremo RealNetworks and is already used by Verizon Wireless, Vodafone’s US joint venture.
MusicStation, by contrast, is a managed service provided by Omnifone, and was launched late last year, in the same week as Nokia unveiled MusicStore. How can all these options appeal to customers and make money? And these three are all coming from one carrier – it is likely that all the main UK cellcos will also launch multiple music brands, not to mention those available directly from the internet or marketed directly by device makers like Sony Ericsson.
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Posted by Peter on August 13th 2008 in General, Nokia, O2, Sony Ericsson, Vodafone
Orange have announced plans to overhaul their 3G network, so that customers across Scotland, Northern Ireland and North-East England will be able to make use of faster browsing speeds and 3G services.
Orange are hoping to be able to supply customers with 3G/HSDPA network speeds of up to 7.2Mbps in the top 30 UK cities and 2Mbps for roughly 80 per cent of the UK population – this should but them on a more level platform with Vodafone, who famously shelled out millions for 3G licences, and have been, until recently, the sole providers of 7.2Mbps mobile broadband speeds in the UK. By the end of 2009, Orange also hope to have unleashed top speeds of 14.4Mbps in certain areas (read: London).
Improvements to 3G services across the country will surely help shift iPhones, that is, of course, if the persisting rumours are true…
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Posted by Tom on August 8th 2008 in Orange, Vodafone
According to one UK service RapidTV news, the German mobile TV service is about to fold, because none of the major German cellular operators would get behind it. This has direct bearings on whether the UK will ever get a mobile TV system of its own, because the UK has an even worse situation regarding mobile TV services.
There are something like 15 different technologies that can be used to deliver plain old TV to your mobile, without using any of the spectrum that is needed for talking to each other or for mobile internet usage. These come with lots of three letter acronyms and more such as DVB-H, T-DMB, China’s STiMi, TDtv, ATSC M/H, ISDB-T and Qualcomm’s proprietary MediaFLO. And that’s not counting straight forward use of streaming over the cellular channel, which is what mobile TV is today, with a poor quality picture, patchy delivery, showing just short clips.
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Posted by Peter on July 31st 2008 in General, T-Mobile, Vodafone
In the first generation of the mobile web, where users remained safely confined within operators’ walled gardens, personalization was supposed to make them happy to stay there. Even within a closed-in service like the original Vodafone Live! subscribers’ preferences could be recorded and used to deliver an experience that was specific to the user.
Now that consumers insist on roaming freely around the internet, operators are looking to keep their customers loyal by making the navigation and overall experience simpler and richer, and by delivering a personalized service even with off-portal content.
O2 is probably the UK leader in this respect and plans to upgrade its offering after the summer, and it could take some tips from US carriers, which unusually enough, are ahead of their European counterparts in personalization. Alltel has been a pioneer, using the same Qualcomm UIone technology, for adapting user interfaces to the individual user, that O2 employs. Now Sprint Nextel has launched Sprint Web, with an improved browsing experience that will set a new gold standard for operators round the world.
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Posted by Peter on July 30th 2008 in General, O2, Vodafone
When Vodafone Chief Executive Arun Sarin announced his departure from the mobile giant earlier this year, he must have been fairly confident of going out on a high after five successful years at the helm of the largest mobile company in the world.
But, with only a few days to go until he leaves, a massive drop in the company’s shares has cast a shadow over his exit.
Vodafone shares collapsed by 14% yesterday, the biggest one-day fall in the company’s history, after it reported weaker trading in the UK and Spain as well as lower than expected sales of handset equipment. Its stock market value was slashed by as much as £12 billion. The news dragged down shares of other major European telecoms companies including Deutsche Telekom-owned T-Mobile and France Telecom, owners of Orange. Shares in Sony Ericsson fell by 11% when it announced a sober outlook for the rest of the year at the results of its second quarter.
In spite of the fall, Vodafone said that results were in line with expectations, but admitted that its full year revenues were likely to be somewhere at the bottom end of the £39.8bn to £40.7bn range it had originally stated.
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Posted by ellie_mears on July 23rd 2008 in General, Orange, Sony Ericsson, T-Mobile, Vodafone
