Welcome to your personal issue of This Week, Australia's only easy to read FREE weekly summary of the the top news stories on wireless communications in Australia and New Zealand. Don't forget if you can't wait for the latest information you can always visit our web site where This Week is updated daily. You can also visit our archive where you can see stories posted since mid-2003. Our search engine is an easy way to locate a specific topic. For those that want to know more, click through hyperlinks are embedded in each story enabling you to view the source information. Note some of these links may require you to subscribe to the publication that provides the source material.

Australia

Labor lacking in broadband reach

31 August, 2007

The opposition Labor Party's plan to spend AU$4.7 billion in public funds on a fibre- to-the-node broadband network will fail to reach significant numbers of people, businesses and public facilities that are not located close enough to an access point, according to communicatons minister Helen Coonan.

Austar in talks over the spectrum it holds

30 August, 2007

After losing the Broadband Connect tender to the OPEL consortium to build regional wireless broadband services with $958 million in federal Government funding, Austar is now in talks with Optus and several other parties about possible join ventures for the regional spectrum it owns in the coveted 2.3Ghz and 3.5Ghz bands.

Credit card of the future being tested now

30 August, 2007

Based on near field communications (NFC) technology already being used by NTT DoCoMo in Japan, Telstra, the National Australia Bank and Visa have joined forces to trial how users can pay for goods by placing their mobile phone on a reader in Melbourne at the start of next year.

CDMA customers warned to abandon ship

30 August, 2007

Telstra continues to dogfight the government about the closure of CDMA services and the full migration to its NextG network by undertaking an aggressive text message and telephone campaign warning users that it will be switched off on January 28 despite proposed legislation that will enable the Government, rather than Telstra, to decide when CDMA will shut down.

FoneZone toughs it out

29 August, 2007

Considering how competitive the mobile phone market has become, results from troubled reseller FoneZone that report earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of $16.5 million are made even more impressive for a company that witnessed its share price lose a third of their value last year.

NextG making Wi-Fi spots redundant

28 August, 2007

Even though Telstra has Wi-Fi hotspots deployed widely across the Sydney and Melbourne CBDs, the telco is canceling subscription plans from October as as a way to compel business customers to migrate to its NextG data and voice network.

SMS TAXI

27 August, 2007

Major taxi companies in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide are soon to join Brisbane in rolling out new mobile phone booking services that will make finding a ride so much easier for customers.

New Zealand

And the Mobile Music Award goes to...

30 August, 2007

As perhaps an indication of how big mobiles have become in popular culture the Telecom Mobile Music Awards are held to celebrate the number of tracks downloaded as Ringtones, Caller Tunes or full tracks that an artist has achieved with mobile subscribers over the previous 12 months.

Foreseeable delays in securing co-location access

27 August, 2007

NZ Communications chairman Bill Osborne concedes that the wireless operator may have to build new towers for all its cellsites, rather than using existing Telecom and Vodafone towers due to the delays expected as a result of Telecom's decision to spend $300 million building a W-CDMA network and its new partnership with TelstraClear.

What's new on our site?

TeleResources announces agreement with Elektrobit for distribution of their Propsim range of radio channel emulators

EB Propsim radio channel emulators are tools for air interface testing, replacing the real-world radio channel between a transmitter and a receiver. The EB Propsim product family of radio channel emulators provides realistic and repeatable test conditions for air interface testing in your lab. You can test and verify the performance and functionality of your receiver and transmitter designs, and wireless systems against deployment environment.

CLICK HERE for more information

TeleResources presents 'Look@Me™' a user generated video content platform for personal broadcasting

Look@Me™ is a market-oriented application based on Vidiator’s suite of Xenon products including the Xenon Live Encoder and Xenon Streamer. The technology has proven its stability and interoperability by major operators around the world to deliver a consistent and quality multimedia service to subscribers.

Look@Me™ as an application integrated with Vidiator’s core technologies provides an easy and fun service that takes advantage of the enormous trend of sharing and publishing user generated content. Look@Me™ is the perfect market-oriented service platform that subscribers want and the marketpace demands.

CLICK HERE for more info and to register for your free 30 day trial

Upcoming Events

Mobile Payments Asia 2007

2-4 October 2007
Bangkok, Thailand

Informa’s Mobile Payments Asia 2007 is back and promises to be bigger and even more focused this year with a comprehensive 3 day programme that will look at all the key issues pertaining to market adoption and technology advancement. Mobile Payments Asia 2007 is a uniquely valuable opportunity for participants to put across their vision of how to meet challenges and maximise opportunities faced by players and stakeholders eyeing the rich potential of the Asian mobile payments market!

For more information and to register please visit: www.informatm.com

Transport Networks for Mobile Operators Asia Pacific

8-11 October 2007
Hong Kong

Transport Networks for Mobile Operators will be led by senior transport professionals from the Asia Pacific region, who are driving network evolution and rolling out new deployments. Themed sessions include optical core evolution, 3G & HSPA deployment, 3G transport & backhaul optimisation, IP transport evolution, Ethernet RAN and MW backhaul

For more information and to register please visit: www.iir-events.com

HSPa towards LTE Asia 2007

9-10 October 2007
Hong Kong

This established event, endorsed by 3GPP, GSA and UMTS Forum, will provide current updates on the industry progress from implementation, deployment and commercialization of HSxPA networks and services as well as evaluate the future evolutions of this technology towards LTE.

For more information and to register please visit: www.informatm.com

WiMax Summit Australia 2007

22-25 October 2007
Sydney

WiMax Summit Australia 2007 is the first in the region that will bring together international and domestic service providers to evaluate best practice, assess business models and discuss the projected impact of WiMAX on the Australasian broadband market.

CLICK HERE for registration details and to receive your 15% off be sure to quote TELERE15

IPTV Australasia 2007

22-24 October 2007
Sydney, Australia

IPTV Australasia is the leading destination for the converging ecosystems of broadband and entertainment. Covering IPTV, video on demand and webTV, this event delivers the most comprehensive examination of the convergence of communications and entertainment and its impact on service providers.

For more information and to register please visit: www.terrapinn.com

IIR’s Billing & Revenue Management Asia Pacific

22-26 October 2007
Hong Kong

IIR's forthcoming Billing & Revenue Management (RM) event will provide you with the unique opportunity to hear exclusive Pan-Asian and European telecom operator case studies. Leading operator speakers will be sharing their valuable and hard won experiences on optimising Billing and RM processes for meeting the requirements of next generation services and capturing maximum revenues.

For more information and to register please visit: www.iir-events.com

Mobile Entertainment Markets (MEM) Asia

6-7 December 2007
Singapore

The mobile and entertainment industries are increasingly merging, so why not have an event which brings together the leaders of both industries. Creating ONE Market-Place for both the mobile and media spheres.

The longest standing and most established event in the global mobile content industry. With market-leading speakers representing: mobile music, games, social networking and advertising, it will be an event not to be missed.
3 days, 6 events, unrivalled networking and a multitude of opportunities to do business!

For more information and to register please visit: www.memasia.com