Updated 12:34 p.m. PDT to correct the attribution of the cellular phone tracking story. The story that focused on the privacy issues was written by Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press.
Cell phone usage tracked in an undisclosed industrial nation revealed a majority of users tend to remain close to home for months at a time, according to a study conducted by Northeastern University and cited Wednesday in the journal Nature.
While the study of 100,000 cell phone users in a country outside the U.S. demonstrated that 75 percent remained within a 20-mile radius of their home over a six-month period, the study, nonetheless, raised privacy issues, according to an Associated Press report on CNN.com. The users didn't agree to participate in the study--such nonconsensual tracking would be illegal in the United States, according to a Federal Communications Commission source quoted in the AP story.
Albert-Lazio Barabasi, co-author of the study and director of Northeastern's Center for Complex Network Research, acknowledged he was concerned about the privacy issues when conducting the research, but that the phone numbers provided by the carrier were altered to conceal the users' identities. The report could not state the exact location of the users, but rather only the cell tower that was receiving and transmitting phone calls and text messages, according to the Associated Press story.
The Nature article noted that the research may aid urban planners in developing appropriate resources and could also inform epidemiologists on the potential path that viruses may take in a given population.
AT&T's wireless network has just gotten a little faster.
The company announced on Wednesday that enhancements to its HSPA, or High Speed Packet Access, third-generation cellular network will allow wireless laptop users to upload and download content from the Internet faster than they can with 3G services from other carriers.
The top three major wireless operators, AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint Nextel, have been touting the speeds and feeds of their 3G wireless networks for more than a year in an attempt to lure profitable business customers to their wireless laptop services. These services, which cost about $60 a month, are ideal for road warriors who need consistent high-speed wireless Internet connectivity anywhere.
Until now, they've all offered similar speeds. Verizon and Sprint use a CDMA-based technology called EV-DO. They advertise download speeds of about 600Kbps to 1.4Mbps and upload speeds of between 500Kbps and 800Kbps. And until today, AT&T's 3G network offered similar speeds.
Now AT&T claims it is offering downloads of 700Kbps to 1.7Mbps and uploads of 500Kbps to 1.2Mbps. The faster speeds are the result of an ongoing network upgrade. AT&T uses a GSM-based technology called HSPA. It has recently finished upgrading 275 markets to the latest version of the technology known as HSUPA, which provides faster upload links. The company had already deployed HSDPA, which provides faster download speeds.
As the company upgrades to the faster upload speeds it looks like it's also tweaked its download performance. Last month, the head of wireless for AT&T said that the company will offer theoretical network download speeds of 20Mbps as early as next year as it continues to upgrade and tweak its network. Of course, the real world network performance is far less than this and users can expect to get average download speeds between 4Mbps and 6.6Mbps.
AT&T plans to continue upgrading its network to reach 350 major markets by the end of the year. Sprint and Verizon already serve these market, so AT&T still has some catching up to do. But AT&T is already in most of the major cities. The company also recently started offering free Wi-Fi in its 17,000 Wi-Fi hot spots as an added bonus to its cellular wireless laptop users.
To take advantage of the new fast speeds, customers will need HSUPA-equipped gear. AT&T currently offers four LaptopConnect adapters in either USB, PC Card, or Express card form.
Cisco Systems said Wednesday that is has invested in a U.K.-based company called IP.access, which has developed gear to boost cell phone signals indoors.
Details of the deal or how much of a stake Cisco has in the company have not been disclosed.
IP.access makes devices called femtocells, which boost cell phone signals indoors to provide better in-building cell phone coverage. Femtocells offer wireless operators a cost effective way to improve network coverage. Several wireless carriers around the world have already begun using the technology. Sprint Nextel announced last year it would offer its Airave femtocell product. And IP.access says on its Web site that it already has deals with several network operators including T-Mobile USA, Smart in the Philippines, Telfort (now KPN) in the Netherlands, and Telefonica O2 in the Czech Republic.
It's not surprising that Cisco would be interested in a femtocell company. Cisco, which has traditionally provided carriers with IP infrastructure equipment, has also been bulking up its wireless offerings in the last few years. It's biggest acquisitions so far have been in the Wi-Fi market, most notably Linksys and Airespace. But it's moved into other wireless technology, too. In September it bought Cognio, a company that has developed technologies to better manage wireless spectrum. And in October it acquired the WiMax equipment provider Navini for $330 million. As more of its customers go mobile, Cisco sees an important opportunity. And femtocells, like Wi-Fi routers, offer another way to provide mobility indoors.
Other large technology companies have also taken an interest in femtocell technology. Last year, Google invested an undisclosed amount in a femtocell company called Ubiquisys.
IP.access has been around since 1999 when it was spun out from TTPCom, a cellular infrastructure company later acquired by Motorola. In the last couple of years, the company has been out raising money from venture capitalists, and it counts Intel Capital among its investors.
Think of it as an SMS message with a lot of zeros.
Anam, an Irish company, allows residents in Europe to transfer large amounts from a bank account in one country, let's say the U.K., to Romania, according to John O'Donohue, managing director of Motorola Ventures International, which invested in Anam. Currently, immigrants from eastern Europe to western members of the EU use Western Union to transfer money. With Anam's cell phone service, you can save a lot on commissions.
Immigration is one of the big issues changing the cell phone market on the continent, O'Donohue said during a recent interview with Motorola Ventures executives at CNET News.com. In Ireland alone, there are 250,000 Polish immigrants. They are going to want to send money home, but also get programming and services in their own language.
Another potential big market: IPTV. O'Donohue recently met with one company that has set up a number of IPTV microchannels. One concentrates on trainspotting; one shows programs on knitting; another focuses on fishing.
The fishing channel gets 30,000 viewers. The company is now contemplating bringing its programming to cell phones.
The idea behind Motorola Ventures is to identify promising companies that ultimately help the company grow its own business. Naturally, a lot of the investments revolve around the cell industry. It invested in A123 Systems, the battery maker, and portable computer maker OQO. It also invests in specialty VC funds, such as Paladin, which invests in military technologies.
Like Intel Capital and other "strategic" funds, the group's main goal is not maximizing return on investment, but profit is still important.
"We're not strategic to Motorola if we lose money," O'Donohue said.
Federal regulators late on Thursday slapped three wireless firms, including No. 3 operator Sprint Nextel, with a total of $2.83 million in fines for not meeting a long-passed deadline for equipping subscribers with enhanced 911 service.
The Federal Communications Commission had set a December 31, 2005 date by which all mobile carriers had to ensure that 95 percent of their subscribers had location-sensitive handsets--that is, those that allow emergency responders to pinpoint a caller's location upon connection to the 911 switchboard.
Sprint Nextel and large regional operators Alltel Corp. and U.S. Cellular Corp. "failed to meet this critical deadline by a significant margin, despite the clear requirements of the commission and the needs of their consumers," FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said in a statement (PDF).
In fact, Sprint Nextel recorded only an 81 percent penetration rate and, according to the FCC, still has not reached the required levels. It was hit with the largest fine, at $1.33 million.
Alltel, which admitted it had reached a penetration rate of only 84 percent by the deadline and did not achieve the target until 17 months later, received a $1 million fine. U.S. Cellular, which reported about an 89 percent penetration rate as of the deadline and reached full compliance eight months later, was ordered to pay $500,000. Each of the companies had applied for deadline waivers but had their petitions denied in January of this year.
Martin said he considers "facilitating the ability of the public safety community to help those in need" among his agency's highest priorities and said enforcement actions like Thursday's are "a valuable and necessary tool in achieving this mission."
Each of the companies now has 30 days in which to pay up or to petition for the fee to be reduced--or dropped entirely.
Update at 3:05 p.m. PDT: Apparently, compliance with the FCC's rules relies in part on the ability of wireless carriers to force their subscribers--through incentives and otherwise--to switch to compatible phones, which
Alltel spokesman Andrew Moreau said his company "took extraordinary measures to convince our customers to swap phones, (but) many just didn't want to make the change. We believe the FCC's timetable for compliance may have underestimated customers' willingness to exchange phones." He declined to comment specifically on the FCC order because the company was still reviewing it.
Sprint Nextel spokeswoman Stephanie Walsh said her firm has faced an extra setback. In July 2004, a "software glitch" rendered the location-tracking capabilities useless in 4.7 million Motorola handsets using then-Nextel's iDEN network. The pre-merger Sprint CDMA network, she added, was poised to be the first carrier to reach the 95 percent mark.
Right now, the carrier has reached 94.7 percent compliance, Walsh said, but she declined to comment specifically on what the company plans to do about the fine, except to "recognize" it has been levied. She also said that no other wireless carrier met the December 31, 2005 deadline--although she acknowledged her company was "farther behind" than the others.
U.S. Cellular representatives did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
Beijing--How many new cell phone accounts are opened daily in China? If you guessed 200,000, you'd be right, according to Ted Dean, managing director of BDA Limited, an analyst firm that tracks Asian markets. Put another way, that's like nearly every person in Reno, Nevada, opening a new cell phone account every day.
Overall, there are 500 million active cell accounts in China, and the number will grow to around 784 million by 2011, according to BDA. The firm predicts that 239 million people will access the Internet by cell phone in 2011.
"It has begun to spread to rural China," Dean added, with around 63 percent of China Mobile's new customers coming from rural areas. When Dean first moved to China in 1994, there were 200,000 subscribers total in the country.
The numbers, he adds, are based on sim cards, and some people have more than one. Beijing citizens who visit Shanghai quite a bit, for instance, might have a card for each city to avoid roaming charges. BlackBerry owners often base their accounts in Hong Kong because that's where the service is available.
In cities, a mainstream phone might cost $40 to $60 and monthly service can be $5 to $10 a month, he said. Carriers, equipment makers and handset makers continually work to bring that down.
"You need to be pretty focused on price if you are building infrastructure for a village," Dean added.
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