Neolectum - Mobile applications - Broadband technology - Satellite communications - Smartphone - Cellphone - Wireless-

 

4G World Conference and Expo – Chicago, 15-18/9/2009

Focus on Mobile Broadband Technology and Advancement of the Mobile Internet

Trendsmedia announced a program of industry leading keynotes and global sponsors for its 4G World Conference and Expo, focused on the rapidly expanding mobile broadband and mobile Internet markets.  The 4-day event will be held at McCormick Place in Chicago, September 15-18, 2009. 

4G World is the industry’s largest conference and expo to encompass the entire ecosystem of next generation networks supporting high-speed broadband and full mobility, Anywhere Internet access, mobile content, applications and transactions.  The event will showcase the first 4G mobile broadband networks being launched in 2009 using mobile WiMAX technologies and the evolution of 3G mobile networks to support the mobile Internet using HSPA and LTE technologies.

Reflecting the vast scope of the 4G landscape, Trendsmedia has created a conference agenda that features over 150 speakers and includes executive summits, technology workshops, training seminars, and other ancillary special events and association partner programs that will create the world’s most comprehensive event covering the emerging 4G marketplace.

These programs include: • WiMAX World® 2009
• Mobile Internet World™ 2009
• 4G Network Backhaul Summit
• 4G Femtocell and Picocell Summit
• WiMAX, LTE and Backhaul Technical Training
• Wireless Broadband Operator Workshop: Network Infrastructure Investment and Economic Stimulus
• Mobile Excellence Awards Special Press Event
• 4G World Innovator Awards
• 15th Annual WCAI International Symposium, including:
o GDC Wireless Broadband in Emerging Markets Summit
o Broadband and Wireless Policy Summit

The conference will highlight 4G network operators and pioneers who will discuss both the technical challenges and business issues surrounding their company’s network evolution towards 4G.  Some of the 4G wireless industry leading keynote speakers representing the most influential vendors and carriers include: • Keith Cowan, President, Strategic Planning, Corporate Initiatives & CDMA, Sprint Nextel Corporation
• Kris Rinne, SVP – Architecture & Planning, AT&T
• Neville Ray - SVP of Engineering and Operations, T-Mobile USA
• Dennis Sverdlov, CEO, Yota
• Len Lauer, EVP & COO, Qualcomm
• Sue Spradley, President, North America, Nokia Siemens Networks
• Bill Morrow, Chief Executive Officer, Clearwire
• Dr. Hung Song, Vice President, Samsung Electronics Company Ltd.
• Fred Wright, SVP and General Manager, Motorola
• Tzvika Friedman, CEO, Alvarion
• Ulf Ewaldsson, VP and Head of Ericsson’s Product Area Radio, Ericsson
• Michael Rocca, Group Managing Director, Telstra Networks and Services
• Suraj Shetty, VP-Service Provider Marketing, Cisco
• Zeus Kerravala, SVP, Yankee Group

Trendsmedia is pleased to acknowledge the extensive industry support of 4G World, which comprise over 250 corporate, association, media and analyst sponsors and exhibitors. These include official Corporate Hosts Motorola and Qualcomm. Flagship service provider sponsor: Clear.  Premier sponsors: Alvarion, Cisco, Ericsson , Juniper Networks, Nokia Siemens Networks, Samsung, Sprint. Platinum sponsors, Comverse, Gigaset, Redline Communications, Sequans Communications. Gold sponsors: Acme Packet, Agilent, Alcatel-Lucent, Alianza, Comsys, DragonWave, GCT, Handmark, Huawei, Metropolitan Area Networks, Proximetry, Qwest, Third Screen Media, WiChorus, ZTE USA, Inc. Contributing sponsors: Accenture, Aperto Networks, Aricent, Continuous Computing, InnoPath, Redsky, SOMA, VoLGA. Backhaul Summit sponsors: CFN Services, DragonWave, Qwest. Femtocell and Picocell Summit sponsors: Aricent and Continuous Computing. • 8-6-09

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Development strategies

Amid crisis, policymakers embrace mobile banking to reach unbanked poor


Despite regulatory challenges and the financial crisis, policymakers are embracing mobile banking as a means of providing financial access to the unbanked poor. More than a billion people worldwide lack bank accounts, but do have mobile phones, providing a dramatic opportunity to achieve greater financial inclusion, according to officials meeting near London today.


"Mobile banking services offer millions of poor people a route out of poverty by helping them to improve their incomes and pay for healthcare and education. It is vital that policymakers ensure that the needs of the poor are central as they develop regulation for this innovative and emerging sector," said Mike Foster, UK Minister for International Development.

To promote effective regulation of mobile banking, CGAP, DFID, and the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) have organized the second Global Leadership Seminar for high-level policymakers and regulators who set policy for branchless banking, including mobile banking.

"Mobile banking holds great potential, and CGAP is encouraged to see that governments everywhere are being deliberate and thoughtful as they merge the domains of finance, payments, and telecom to create a framework that balances customer needs with concerns around security and prudential regulation," said Elizabeth Littlefield, CEO of CGAP, a microfinance centre based at the World Bank.

Seminar participants represent countries where branchless banking is growing quickly, or is poised to do so soon: Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, India, Kenya, Maldives, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia.

Core issues around regulating mobile banking

Mobile banking is a triangle, with customers and providers joined by local merchants that act as the crucial interface between poor people's electronic value on their phone and the cash economy in which they live. Special challenges these services present for policymakers include the following:

• Allowing nonbank third parties, such as local merchants, to conduct cash-in/cash-out ?transactions and interact directly with customers.
• Adapting the anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism rules (AML-CFT) so they are based on real risks and are adapted to the realities of transactions conducted through remote agents.
• Figuring out the right regulatory space for the issuance of e-money and other stored-value instruments (particularly when issued by parties other than fully licensed and supervised banks).
• Determining how to ensure effective consumer protection (on a variety of fronts).
• Making sure payment systems are open to all players and adequately supervised.
• Getting the balance right in competition policies; the right incentives for pioneers to get into the branchless banking business without allowing customer-unfriendly monopolies.

Source: World Bank (9-3-09)

The Alliance for Finance Inclusion is a global network of policymakers in developing countries that provides its members with the tools and resources to share, develop and implement their knowledge of evidence-based financial inclusion policies that deliver tangible results. Established in September 2008, the Alliance is managed by GTZ (German Technical Cooperation) with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

CGAP is an independent policy and research center dedicated to advancing financial access for the world's poor. It is supported by over 30 development agencies and private foundations who share a common mission to alleviate poverty. Housed at the World Bank, CGAP provides market intelligence, promotes standards, develops innovative solutions and offers advisory services to governments, microfinance providers, donors, and investors. CGAP's Technology Program is supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

DFID, the Department for International Development: leading the British government's fight against world poverty. DFID supports long-term programmes to help eliminate the underlying causes of poverty. DFID also responds to emergencies, both natural and man-made. DFID's work aims to reduce poverty and disease and increase the number of children in school, as part of the internationally agreed UN Millennium Development Goals.

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TOP - Cover -

Annual Mobile Money Summit - Barcelona

Mobile Money Shows Great Economic and Social Momentum

The GSMA announced at the Second Annual Mobile Money Summit, that the first three applications to the Mobile Money for the Unbanked Fund have been approved. The first three projects are diverse and explore

• the potential for mobile money in a market where no deployment currently exists;
• the viability of deploying a proven mobile money model in a marginal community which represents a completely new customer segment and
• the diversification of a distribution network to further extend the reach of an existing mobile money deployment.

“These projects will not only provide mobile money services to the unbanked, but they will also provide valuable insights into business viability and user behaviour for the rest of the mobile money industry,” said Gavin Krugel, Director GSMA.  “Based on updated research findings being released at the Mobile Money Summit and conducted with the microfinance centre CGAP, there will be 1.7 billion unbanked customers with mobile phones by 2012. From the research we believe that mobile money has the potential to deliver up to US$5 billion in direct revenues for mobile operators by 2012 on the basis of being adopted by up to 364 million unbanked customers.”

Given that the market for mobile money is gaining momentum and primarily targeting unbanked customers, the CGAP-GSMA Mobile Money Marketing Sizing Study has provided in depth research and analysis detailing: 

1. The complex financial lives of the unbanked, including a profile of their approach to saving, sending, spending and borrowing money

2. The path that prospective customers take on the road to adoption

3. The way that customers use mobile money and what they want to see by way of sophisticated offerings

Innovative mobile money services are being pioneered and showcased at the Summit. Many of these services aim to provide access to low-cost financial services for millions of people, where traditional financial services are not within their reach or readily available. In recognition of the progress that is being made in this sector, the GSMA has announced the launch of a new MMU Award.

The first MMU Award category will be part of the Asia Mobile Awards to be presented in Hong Kong at the Mobile Asia Congress on the 18 November 2009, and will recognise the mobile money service or application that has had the most significant impact on unbanked customers in developing markets over the last year, and which supports the goals of the GSMA’s MMU programme.  The Asia Mobile Awards will open for entry in early July and close on Tuesday 15th September 2009. An MMU category will also included in the GSMA’s Global Mobile Awards, which open for entry on 1st September and culminate at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February 2010.

Eligibility Criteria for the MMU Fund

The project must involve providing mobile money services to unbanked customers living on under US$2 per day

The mobile money service proposed must be innovative, market based and its development likely to be accelerated with the support of the MMU Fund

Applicants must explain why the project cannot readily obtain commercial finance or other sources of finance (including internal corporate capital allocation);

Funding must be utilised within the project timeframe of 2 years. 

The Mobile Money for the Unbanked (MMU) programme is administered by the GSMA Foundation, Inc., which is the recipient of a US$12.5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The MMU programme works with mobile operators, banks, microfinance institutions, government and development organizations to encourage the expansion of reliable, affordable mobile financial services to the unbanked. The MMU Fund exists to accelerate mobile money deployments which target base of the pyramid consumers who are unbanked. • 23-6-09

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Wireless communications

CTIA approves AT4 wireless as a CTIA Authorized Testing Laboratory (CATL) for Bluetooth^® Compatibility Testing 

AT4 wireless, continuing with its innovative concept for wireless and mobile certification, is pleased to announce that their CTIA authorized testing capability has been officially extended to include Bluetooth^® Compatibility testing services according to CTIA’s Bluetooth Compatibility Certification Program. AT4 wireless has been added to the CTIA Online Certification database as authorized to conduct this new testing capability.

The Bluetooth Compatibility testing is conducted from an end-user perspective and evaluates the implementation, integration, and interaction between two Bluetooth enabled devices that support complementary profiles and roles (e.g. Bluetooth mobile phones and accessories such as headsets or hands-frees).

Devices to go through this program must be already Bluetooth qualified mobile phones and accessories intending to be sold through the main operators in the USA. In order to be CTIA certified, these devices will have to be tested and evaluated in a CATL using criteria set forth in the CTIA Bluetooth Compatibility Test Plan. The main goal is to improve end-user experience for Bluetooth enabled mobile phones and accessories boosting the Bluetooth enabled devices market.

With this new testing capability AT4 wireless strengthens its position as one of the most complete testing & certification laboratories in the world to fulfil CTIA’s certification programs, covering the following areas: 

• Bluetooth Compatibility.
• Wi-Fi® Converged Device.
• GSM.
• OTA Performance.
• UMTS FDD.

“AT4 wireless customers can now start testing their devices according to CTIA requirements.”, says Jose de la Plaza, Telecommunications Laboratory Manager at AT4 wireless. “That completes the list of testing and certification services offered by AT4 wireless, underlining once again AT4 wireless’ one-stop-shop approach for the certification of telecommunications devices”. • 2-3-09

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