With Android firmly established in the smartphone domain in developed countries, Huawei and others now seem poised to bring such smartphones also to emerging countries, with hardware that has quite a different price point. $80 for a current IDEOS device from Huawei, a price point that seems afordable to quite an audience for example in … Continue reading Android and Africa from Someone Who Knows
There are quite a number of mobile devices on the market now boasting Bluetooth 3.0 support. But exactly which new features this encompasses remains a puzzle. None of the reviews I have seen so far from those devices have been able to establish if the central feature of version 3.0, i.e. the integration of Wi-Fi … Continue reading Bluetooth 3.0 and Wi-Fi Integration
Ever since I read this book on how mobile networks have spread in Africa and discovered Eric Hersman's blog on technology and life in Africa in the process, I've been following his stories of what's going on there. In case you are planning a trip to Kenya and wonder how to best stay connected to … Continue reading How To Stay Connected in Africa
The air interface is the scarcest resource of a mobile network and the industry is therefore not only looking to improve peak data rates but also to improve efficiency under everyday conditions. Voice calls are and probably will remain for quite some time to come the most popular mobile service so reducing the overall amount … Continue reading How Many Voice Calls Can You Squeeze Into 1 MHz?
Since I read "less walk more talk" I've become more aware of how mobile communication changes Africa. It's my impression that so far, voice, person to person SMS messaging and some information services again based on SMS (e.g. what are the prices for a certain goods in a certain city) have made the most impact. … Continue reading Grameen, Google and MTN start Mobile Services in Uganda
…I was asked today. A clear opinion here: Yes and no. Yes: When I reviewed some of the future chipsets for my recent book it was clear we are moving to processor speeds beyond 600 Mhz, built in camera hardware units of those chipsets supported resolutions of 10-12 megapixels and a touch panel interface was … Continue reading Can One Deduce From Chipset Specs How Future Devices will Look Like?
A non-technical blog entry today addressing the question many have asked me before: Why am I running this blog? Obviously, I like to write and I like to share stuff I have learnt or that I think about with other people. My thinking and learning, however, is not self contained, i.e. I don't just sit … Continue reading About Open Innovation and External Input
In today's 3G networks, voice calls are often in the so called “soft handover state”, which means that the radio network controller sends and receives the data for a voice call to and from several base stations simultaneously. The mobile then receives the voice call data stream from all three cells simultaneously and combines the … Continue reading LTE Advanced and Cooperative Network MIMO
You might have noticed my earlier post on my upcoming Oxford University course on LTE Services I'll be doing together with Ajit Jaokar after Easter. In addition to that I am happy to announce that I've also been invited to speak at this year's Forum Oxford Future Technologies Conference on Friday, April 24, 2009. My … Continue reading I’ll be Presenting at the Forum Oxford Future Technologies Conference
2008 was full of events, news, thoughts and new insights and part part 2 of "Things that 'Moved' Me" captures the blog posts which left a remaining impression on my in the second half of this year.
July
I've been in Paris a lot this year on a client location which is in a new office quarter. While there is good coverage outside, I often found it lacking inside and I was wondering when the three mobile operators would finally upgrade their networks to give good coverage also inside the buildings. In the meantime, at least some of them seem to have moved and coverage has markedly improved. Also, the month brought some more LTE voice gap thoughts and musings on why the small screen suddenly becomes big in places such as the metro. Earlier in the year, Nokia has released a sub 100 euro phone with a great screen and OperaMini pre-installed and in this post, I was looking at what is still missing for mobile Internet access for the mainstream. And finally, I noticed that Orange must have probably upgraded or changed the configuration of their EDGE and 3G networks in France, as my N95 suddenly stopped rebooting frequently when connected to the Internet.