MOA News
3-21 February, 2003

3 February, 2003

US iDEN carrier Nextel said it will broaden distribution of RIM's BlackBerry handheld to its mid-sized markets starting immediately. The companies announced that the model 6510 unit costs US$500, which they characterized as an "introductory price."
Ericsson posted a Q4 loss of SEK8.3B on sales of SEK36.7B; the loss included SEK6.3B in restructuring costs. For the full year the company reported SEK145.8B in sales and a loss of SEK19B, a somewhat improved bottom line from 2001. "While we believe that the worst of the market decline is behind us, the market remains unpredictable," said CEO Kurt Hellstroem, adding that Q1 sales may well decine compared to Q4 as they often do. On the bright side, the company said its order book has risen substantially compared to Q3.
NTT DoCoMo announced that its quarterly ARPU dropped 4% compared to a year earlier. The company said that customers spent an average of ￥8200 per month for the period which ended on 31 December. DoCoMo also noted that it had added 712K subscribers during the quarter, raising its total subscriber base to 42.9M users. However the company's share of the cellular market dropped .7%.

4 February

The fire department of New York City has awarded a contract for BlackBerry services to RIM and Consilient Technologies. FDNY said it has used Consilient's MX software to connect the department's Novell GroupWise server to RIM's Enterprise Server. The system has been in pilot for several months and is now being rolled out among headquarters staff. The commercial details of the agreement were not disclosed.
More details are emerging about DoCoMo's lackluster results with its FOMA service. The company said it added 16K subscriber in the three months ending December, bringing the total subscriber base to 152K. The company has changed its subscriber goal several times, but has stood fast on its latest estimate of 320K by the end of March. DoCoMo also said that while the monthly ARPU for all its cellular services is US$68.16 monthly revenue for FOMA subscribers is $64.40.
Handheld developer Danger said it has attracted another US$35M in funding from several venture funds. The company said it still has one quarter of the proceeds from its earlier round. Danger's first product is marketed by T-Mobile as the Sidekick.

5 February

Norway's Telenor Mobil has cut prices for its 802.11 and GPRS services by as much as 50%. Customers will now pay NOK.10 per kilobyte up to the first 500KB for GPRS service each month, and NOK10 per megabyte for the first 20MB of WLAN service. Telenor has guaranteed that customers will never pay more than NOK900 per month for either service.
The federal budget presented by the Bush administration yesterday earmarks several billion dollars for a spectrum relocation fund which would be used to move defense radio systems. The White House said the costs of moving military radio systems to other parts of the spectrum would clear the way for advanced services and could cost as much as US$2.5B over five years, beginning in fiscal 2005.

6 February

Ericsson announced that its board has named Carl-Henric Svanberg president and CEO, effective 8 April. Kurt Hellstr?m will retire at the end of this year. Svanberg is currently CEO of Assa Abloy, which he has turned into the world's largest lockmaker since joining the firm in 1994. Ericsson also noted that Svanberg will become a significant shareholder, purchasing SEK100M worth of shares.
Market analysts at UBS Warburg issued a research note showing that the GPRS version of RIM's BlackBerry handheld is not selling well in Europe. The firm said that carrier mm02 had sold 40K XDA handhelds but only 16K RIM devices through the end of December. Warburg said they "remain concerned about the overall size and demand" for wireless data and they are "increasingly wary of potential pricing pressure in the market as competitive products [to BlackBerry] start to gain traction."

7 February

The division of infectious diseases at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins Medical Center has launched a version of its ABX (antibiotic treatment) Guide on RIM's Mobitex-based handhelds. The guide, available for free, provides information to specialists and primary care physicians on more than 175 diseases, 215 drugs and 125 pathogens. The BlackBerry client, developed for Hopkins by Primate, includes complete access to the Guide database and will automatically update the local information with the latest antibiotic updates to the Guide as well as details of U.S. Food and Drug Administration recalls.
Telecommunications regulators in Norway said they will ease the terms for network coverage by the two remaining UMTS spectrum licensees in exchange for a fee. The two licensees, Telenor and NetCom, are required to cover 40% of the population by 2005; the regulators have proposed that the carriers offer service to 30% of the population by 2006. The amount of the fee has not been specified. The Norwegian government also said it would attempt to sell its two remaining UMTS licenses at auction.

10 February

Wynd Communications, a division of wireless ASP GoAmerica, announced that it has acquired the assets of Deafwireless, the largest deaf-owed wireless company in the US. The companies will combine their operations to offer a wider variety of wireless products and services to deaf and hard of hearing consumers.

13 February

MOA extends our congratulations to Cingular for its outstanding WAVE 2003 conference in Las Vegas. By our unofficial headcount over 1200 wireless data afficianados attended the event at the Mandalay Bay hotel.
During the conference Cingular outlined its plans to expand coverage for its Mobitex network, calling Mobitex a "powerhouse" technology. In his address on Tuesday Cingular COO Mark Feidler said that while GPRS remains firmly in the company's plans "there is no better wireless data technology" than Mobitex. Bill Clift, Cingular's chief technology officer, when asked about migrating customers to GPRS from Mobitex said that "devices and applications will drive customers to GPRS and EDGE, we won't."
Cingular and Good Technology announced that more than 500 companies have adopted Good's enterprise wireless email platform. The companies said that GoodLink increases productivity while reducing costs and is attractive to enterprises who wish to expand their messaging systems.
RIM co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis donated a combined C$23.5M to Canada's Center for International Governance Innovation (CIGI). The center, based in RIM's home town of Waterloo, ON, operates as an independent center for scholarly research, focused on improving the stability and security of the international economic and financial system. RIM said the donation fulfills an initial pledge of C$30M made by RIM's leaders to found the center.

19 February

The patent infringement lawsuit between NTP and RIM heated up again last week when NTP accused RIM of unfairly lobbying the US Patent and Trademark Office. NTP, which won a judgement of US$23.1M against RIM in November said that RIM had sent information to the director of the PTO; the director subsequently ordered a reexamination of the patents. According to an article in the New York Times it is rare for the director of the PTO to order patent reexaminations; during the past 20 years 2M patents have been granted but the director has ordered a second look only 150 times.
Mexico's GSM/GPRS carrier Telcel said it will offer RIM's BlackBerry handhelds, however no commercial details, such as pricing and availability, were announced. Telcel began to offer GSM service late last year and said it will have nationwide coverage by the end of 2003.
Research firm EMC published statistics showing that less than one percent of the world's mobile phone subscribers use GPRS services. According to the firm 4.3M people use GPRS, and half of the user base is in Europe. There are 1.13B mobile phone subscribers worldwide.

20 February

Numerex launched a new vehicle location and recovery service in the US which combines GPS services with the company's cellular control channel technology. If a stolen vehicle is equipped with MobileGuardian its alarm system will send a message to a customer's pager or cell phone; the customer then can use a secure Web site to locate the vehicle and either disable it remotely or notify authorities. Numerex said the service is now available in Florida and Georgia and will be rolled out nationwide this year.

21 February

A US court of appeals has ordered that the patent at the heart of the lawsuit between Palm and Xerox be reexamined to determine if it is valid. Palm was deemed by a lower court to have infringed on a handwriting recognition patent held by Xerox, and the appeals court upheld that judgment. However the court said that Xerox' patent was broad and may thus be invalid; the appeals court then ordered a lower court to analyze the patent.
US iDEN carrier Nextel said its revenues for 2002 rose 24% to US$8.7B; net income rose to $1.38B compared with a loss of $2.62B in 2001. The company also announced that it was cash flow positive for 2002, generating $122M. Nextel said it added 1.95 net new subscribers during the year and that its ARPU was $69 per month.