Communications Technology

Earlier this week we saw a deal announced that would put Blockbuster’s OnDemand video service on select Motorola phones:

Blockbuster Inc. today announced plans to feature the BLOCKBUSTER OnDemand movie download service in select Motorola phones, giving Motorola access to the BLOCKBUSTER OnDemand service and furthering Blockbuster’s digital strategy by providing its library of premium digital entertainment to mobile devices for the first time.

Through the agreement select Motorola phones will feature an exclusive BLOCKBUSTER OnDemand application, providing on-the-go download access to Blockbuster’s digital library of thousands of current BLOCKBUSTER OnDemand movies.

This may boost the OnDemand service slightly but it’s not really going to help Motorola that much. Perhaps if there are two equally priced Android handsets side by side (Motorola vs. Samsung) this might be something of a tie-breaker.

As a stand-alone offering people might pay a monthly subscription, but I’m guessing it’s part of a larger subscription package that provides access to mobile as a part of the larger offering.

Mobile video viewing continues to gain though subscription-based mobile TV will continue to struggle as an unnecessary product (unless or until the price becomes trivial or part of an upsell data package).

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RIM and T-Mobile has just announced the release of the new BlackBerry Curve 8520, a slim smartphone which is scheduled to be released on August 5. The BlackBerry Curve 8520 like all other BlackBerry smartphones provides easy mobile access to email, IM, SMS, MMS and social networking features. It boasts of a highly tactile full-QWERTY keyboard and multimedia capabilities in addition to access to music, games and other mobile apps.The BlackBerry Curve 8520 is Wi-Fi enabled and provides users with unlimited Wi-Fi access through T-Mobile’s HotSpot Calling and T-Mobile myFaves service. It also features a touch-sensitive optical track-pad for menu scrolling and navigation, and dedicated media keys at the top of the handset.

Other notable features of the BlackBerry Curve 8520 include responsive typing and navigation, 256MB flash memory, 512 MHz mobile processor, voice activated dialing, Bluetooth, 2MP digital camera with zoom and video capture, media player for music, pictures, videos, 3.5mm stereo headset jack, access to BlackBerry apps including games, entertainment, social networking and sharing, news, weather, productivity and more.

The BlackBerry Curve provides access to 10 suported email accounts including web email such as Yahoo, Windows live, Gmail and BlackBerry’s own Enterprise Server support. It also supports microSD/SDHC memory cards.

The BlackBerry Curve is an EDGE/GPRS/GSM (850/900/1800/1900 quad-bacd world phone.

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The trade body, 3G Americas is predicting that the GSM-HSPA subscriber base is expected to reach 4 billion mobile connections worldwide sometime next month.

This marks a major milestone for the industry, as no other technology innovation has ever reached a scale remotely close to its penetration level - equivalent to more than six of every ten people worldwide.

“Automobiles and telephones, followed by televisions and personal computers, have undeniably changed the world and have greatly shaped the way in which we live our lives,” said Chris Pearson, President of 3G Americas. “Wireless mobile telephony substantially exceeds the impact of any one of these major innovations. In some countries, wireless penetration levels are exceeding 100 percent, as now, not only people, but machines, are connected through GSM technology, available today on nearly 800 networks in 219 countries worldwide.”

In today’s global economy, which is overshadowed by recession, it is impressive to note that in the Americas region the take-up of the 3GPP evolution from GSM to HSPA grew by more than 19 percent in the year ending June 2009 (2Q) to 561 million subscribers with a market share of 72 percent. Globally, GSM-HSPA grew by 20 percent adding nearly 645 million new connections in the same 12 months.

Equally noteworthy is the increasing number of 3G subscribers for UMTS-HSPA which has captured an annual worldwide gain of 57 percent in the year ending June 2009, according to Informa Telecoms & Media’s World Cellular Information Service. With 377 million subscriptions worldwide at the end of second quarter 2009, UMTS-HSPA added more than 137 million new connections in 12 months.

The Latin America and Caribbean region continues to experience a remarkable growth curve for subscriptions to GSM-HSPA technologies. In fact, at the end of second quarter 2009, CDMA mobile technologies saw a decline in subscriptions while GSM technologies grew at an annual rate of 22 percent to more than 433 million connections with a 90 percent share of market.

Today, there are 49 UMTS-HSPA networks commercially deployed throughout 24 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Worldwide, 277 commercial networks offer HSPA in 116 countries. Additionally, 11 networks have been upgraded to HSPA+. According to Informa, by the year 2012, UMTS-HSPA will reach a milestone of one billion subscribers.

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