Last month at the 3GSM show in Cannes telecos paraded the newest technologies and breakthroughs.

From broadband and optical components to wireless, the world of next generation
communication technology showed its stuff

Content continues to rule the 3G talk, and once again, the 'c' word shows its versatility




Mobile Content Management


When it comes to 'mobile content management' it is worth pointing out that this type of technology, despite the name, is not entirely in the same category as 'content managment', but rather closer to CRM (customer relationship mamangement).

For example, Io, a venture jointly funded by British telco BT and New Venture Partners, a corporate venturing firm, has launched a service for managing and delivering mobile content.

The label is 'mobile content management' but actually the service enables integration and management of packaging, pricing, presentation, purchase, delivery and billing for mobile content. A 'managed' service with integrated workflow management capabilities, controlled via web interfaces and able to support data-network architecture or mobile devices.


Content Based Charging

In a similar announcement Lucent Technologies and NetSpira Networks have provided MobileOne Ltd (M1), Singapore’s leading mobile communications operator, with a content-based online charging system for GPRS and UMTS services.

Paul Higgs, vice president in the Asia Pacific region for Lucent Worldwide Services, said: “Content-based charging is clearly a promising business opportunity for mobile data operators"




Mobile DRM

AIS, Thailand’s largest mobile operator with 60% market share and over 14.5 million subscribers, has contracted XIAM, to provide their digital rights management and java solution.


AIS chose XIAM based on their proven experience to provide a carrier-grade content management solution for mobile operators to offer secure content services to their subscribers. XIAM’s platform supports all digital rights management methods provided by OMA DRM industry standards to control the secure distribution of content between devices while preventing revenue loss due to illegal use.


The company also unveiled MPOS, a service to provide mobile operators with a complex mix of services and a diverse subscriber base, to proactively promote the uptake of premium services by providing a unified view, advanced profiling and intelligent recommendations.



Mobile Technology for Social Care


So much technology is already available that could have socially useful applications. It is inevitable to think how useful small handy devices would have been to avert and reduce the impact of the tsunami disaster

For example, Bundesverbands privater Anbieter sozialer Dienste e.V. (bpa) NRW, private social services provider and Soneco from Finland have agreed on piloting Soneco Call Care products. Bpa wants to enable very easy to use communication and locating services to their customers, the elderly and long term ill.

Now that's such an important application. Instead of using the technology to push commercials down teenagers mobile content pipes, the bpa NRW wants to offer to their customers easy to use communication and locating services to allow greater mobility and facilitate communication between the people in care and e.g. family members.


The user interface is very simple, one function button only. There can be pro-programmed up to three telephone numbers in the device. Each number is indicated by a particular colour. Soneco Call Care device can receive calls from any number and phone. If needed, the location of the device can be detected. Due to its small size and light weight, the device is easy to carry, e.g. hang around the neck.


Dialogue Communications, is providing the technology behind a UK initiative to help young people threatened by bullying or racial abuse.


Text2talk, a radical new service launched in Warwickshire by the local police in conjunction with other partner organisations, will allow youngsters to text to a special number and type in either “bully” or “racist”. They will then be contacted by a member organisation within five days to receive advice and support as necessary.

“Mobile technology – and particularly texting – has become a tremendously enjoyable and vital form of communication for young people all over the world and we were very pleased to have the opportunity to take part in this programme,” said Mr Paul Griffiths, Dialogue’s UK Managing Director.



Personal Identification

In a world where convergence between networks and technologies, identification and personal data sharing are key issues for mobile operators and subscribers, Oberthur Card Systems and M-Systems have joined forces to present to first ever USIM (Universal Subscriber Identification Module) card with high capacity external flash memory.

The strategic cooperation recently announced between Oberthur Card Systems and M-Systems illustrates that advanced flash memory and smart card technology can complement each other in delivering an answer to the memory requirements being demanded of modern day handsets. It also shows that high-speed data interfaces enhance overall USIM performance and high level cryptographic security can provide security at levels never previously considered feasible.


Adaptive Multirate Speech codec

According to VoiceAge Corporation the use of the standards-based Adaptive Multi-Rate speech codec (AMR) narrowband speech compression technology is seeing a rapid increase in new application areas beyond cellular telephony.


During the past 3GSM World Congress VoiceAge announced that it had been appointed as the License Administrator on behalf of Nokia, Ericsson and VoiceAge itself for the AMR-NB patent pool for non-wireless applications.
Since that time more than a dozen companies have obtained AMR-NB licenses and VoiceAge is in negotiations with many additional companies who are interested in obtaining AMR licenses for emerging innovative applications.


AMR is the best performing and most widely deployed narrowband (200-3400 Hz) compression technology in the world today. This widespread deployment together with its high quality and robustness make AMR the codec of choice and the baseline for narrowband multimedia services.


In rigorous comparative testing by standardization bodies, AMR out-performed all competitors and exceeded all requirements for robustness to packet loss, bit errors, and background noise, also demonstrating consistent performance across multiple languages, including English (US and UK), French, German, Italian, Mandarin, and Spanish. AMR supports dynamic adaptation to network conditions, using lower bit rates during network congestion or degradation while preserving audio quality.

AMR operates at very low bit rates from 4.75 to 12.2 kbps and provides toll quality speech starting at 7.4 kbps, with near toll quality at lower rates and greater robustness and better reproduction of non-speech sounds at higher rates.


“As the popularity of multimedia communication over the wireline and wireless Internet grows and as specialized devices, such as audio books or Wi-Fi VoIP terminals are added, there will be increasing demand for bandwidth-efficient high-quality speech and audio compression. VoiceAge is well positioned to fill this need with our standards-proven AMR, AMR-WB and AMR-WB+ coding solutions,” continued Laurent Amar, President of VoiceAge Corp.


Designed to allow transcoder-free connectivity between GSM, US-TDMA and PDC networks, AMR was standardized by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) in 1999 and adopted by the 3GPP as the mandator