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May 15, 2007
Europe Bets on Mobile VoIP: Report
By Narayan Bhat, TMCnet Contributing Editor
Perhaps the next revolution in VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) will take place in Europe, where a dozen of wireless operators are busy testing new mobile VoIP services to grab a share of the emerging mobile VoIP market, according to a online report from InfoWorld Daily.
Skype (News - Alert) Technologies, long identified with VoIP, has sewn up a relationship with mobile phone operator
Hutchison 3 Group is slated to launch a commercial wireless VoIP service. As part of the deal, Hutchison will supply high-end smart phones with Session Initiation Protocol (News - Alert) (SIP) capability and Skype help them get access to its network.
Meanwhile, Jajah, founded by an Austrian named Daniel Mattes, has already gone a step further. It launched a mobile VoIP service that lets smart phone users make low-cost and, some times, free international calls. To make a call, user simply enter Jajah's mobile Web portal through their handset's browser and enter their usernames and passwords.
Fring, promoted by Israeli entrepreneur Avi Shechter, is another peer-to-peer VoIP service that carries calls over cell phone networks in much the same way PC-based Internet telephony services transport conversations over Wi-Fi or fixed-line broadband connections.
Unlike Jajah, Fring requires users to download a VoIP application to their handsets. As of today, only Nokia's (News - Alert) Series 60 3rd Edition phones are supporting this service.
Though mobile VoIP has been operational in Europe, the issue is the quality with which it is reaching households, according to the report. As every operator is doing everything to speed up the pace of voice traffic, it looks more like a rat race to be the first.
In the meantime, operators of GSM networks are upgrading their mobile broadband networks with the help of high-speed packet access technology.
The latest feature to add this string of new wireless technology is the Internet-based television.
In Europe, Mobile phone manufacturers and network operators are vying among themselves to be the first to tune in to mobile TV. Two types of mobile TV services are competing for prime time. One streams video data over mobile phone networks; the other broadcasts video signals directly to mobile phones equipped with special antennas.
The broadcast service is attracting the most attention, largely because it offers one-to-many capability, whereas the streamed service offers one-to-one capability. Broadcast mobile TV made its debut at last year's World Cup soccer tournament in Germany, where people tested the service in and around the stadiums.
The service is already commercially available in South Korea, where millions of commuters chat, play games, listen to music, and now watch TV on their mobile phones.
Unfortunately, the commercial rollout of broadcast mobile TV services has been delayed following a debate over the selection of standards. Today there are three standards up for grabs: Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB), MediaFlow, and DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld).
DVB-H has been approved by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute and is backed by some of the world's largest handset makers, including Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Siemens (News - Alert), and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications.
Viviane Reding, commissioner of the European Union's Information Society and Media directorate general, has given the industry until this summer to agree on a standard, and she has made it clear that she prefers DVB-H.
Narayan Bhat is a contributing writer for TMCnet
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Voice over IP (VoIP) | X | | A real-time communications system that converts voice into digital packets containing media and signaling data that travel over networks using Internet Protocol....more |
Internet Protocol (IP) | X | | IP stands for Internet Protocol, a data-networking protocol developed throughout the 1980s. It is the established standard protocol for transmitting and receiving data
in packets over the Internet. I...more |
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) | X | | SIP is the real-time communication protocol for VoIP. SIP is a signaling protocol for Internet conferencing, telephony, presence, events notification (emergency calling) and instant messaging.
SIP...more |
Global Standard for Mobile (GSM) | X | | ...more |
802.11 (Wi-Fi) | X | | The IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN standard is usually referred to as Wi-Fi-Wireless Fidelity or WLAN Wireless Local Area Network. The 802.11 standard has evolved into a number of sub-standards 802.11a/b/g...more |
(source: http://voipforenterprise.tmcnet.com/feature/next-generation-mobility/articles/6894-europe-bets-mobile-voip-report.htm)
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