Mobile Convenience for Real Estate

Mobile phones are once gain offering new business opportunities for seamless communication of information. This particular one deals with the real estate business which can be extended to other businesses too. Intercounty Mortgage Network, based in Hazlet, is providing special signs on properties marketed by BetterhomesNJ.com / VRI Realtors that allow potential buyers to send a text message on their mobile phone, enter an identification number for the property, and receive a return message with information about the property they are interested in. Potential buyers also receive info on special financing programs. They can pull up in front of the house, send a message, and receive property information in seconds. This offers a unique opportunity for retailers where every product can have some sort of RFID tag and RFID enabled phone can access the info about a particular product by sending an SMS or automatically received product information.

KPN's Mine IPTV powered by SURPASS

KPN, Dutch telecom company has launched an IPTV service based on Siemens' end-to-end, open-architecture and multivendor IPTV solution SURPASS . "Mine" IPTV allows KPN customers to watch TSTV (Time Shifted Television) from Netherlands' three public TV channels for up to 10 days after they have been broadcasted. Customers can also record 100 hours of programming on his PVR supplied by telco plus they can also enjoy the video on demand service. They can select broadcasts from 65 TV and 60 radio channels using an electronic program guide (EPG). KPN is also planning to offer interactive TV applications on "Mine" IPTV which will include an interactive channel provided by Netherlands' three largest football teams, Ajax, Feyernoord and PSV. Mine TV is a complete turnkey IPTV solution, including DRM and subscriber management system (SMS). SURPASS's middleware component is provided by Myrio which has been acquired by Siemens. Based on same solution "SURPASS" Begacom has also launched its IPTV services. KPN is sing a flexible EN5930 encoding system (provided by TANDBERG Television) which can simultaneously transmit both MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 AVC standard definition television. KPN will begin transmitting MPEG-2 content and will make smooth transition to MPEG-4 AVC once all technicalities are addressed. TANDBERG Television will provide a head-end system that will help in seamless transition to MPEG-4 AVC. KPN will be able to double the number of channels it delivers, after this transition.

Download-to-own Content by BT

NBC Universal has has announced its partnership with BT for its IPTV scheduled to be launch this autumn. NBCU content will be available via the BT Vision IPTV/DTT set-top box. This partnership will also be for online download service by British Telecom. Both Universal Pictures UK and NBC Universal International Television Distribution will make a range of their film and TV content available via the BT Vision service. The first phase of the deal will have 150 Universal titles on a new online store that BT is launching at the end of this month, allowing users to download titles on the same date as their DVD release. Price will range betwee £6.99 and £16.99 for a digital title. Beauty lies in the availability of content via online as well as offline route as customer can download the content as well as will receive the same content as a DVD in the post. BT has already some separate contarcts for IPTV with BBC Worldwide, Paramount, Warner Music Group, National Geographic Channel, Hit Entertainment, Nelvana and DreamWorks etc.

M-Commerce by Paymate India

Soon the mCommerce is going to be reality shock for banking and boon for cellular industry. After mChq from ICICI and Airtel, Paymate India is planning to offer m-commerce services targeted at top restaurants. Mumbai will be the test bed for this service where the services will be operational in next 20-45 days. Initially it will be targeted up-market restaurants where the customer will be more tech savvy and hence willing to opt the service. Service will be used by users by making a transaction via text messaging. Both credit and debit card transactions can be performed without requiring him to enter the numbers. For this Paymate India has collaborated with Citibank and Euronet to launch the service. To use PayMate, Citibank customers need to sign up for this service with the bank by simply sending 'PayMate' as an SMS to 2484. The customer will be called back and registered for the service following which they can conveniently shop at Rediff, Naukri, Cleartrip, Jeevansaathi and 99 Acres for their products. Once the user registers with his bank to start using the Paymate service, he will be able to start paying bills through the mobile with no additional charges except some premium for SMS. The model is based on the recommendations by Ernst & Young; which provides the security measures for both the bank as well as the customer. Paymate is a spin-off from Coruscant Technologies and it has just received a first round funding of $5 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Ram Shriram's Sherpalo Ventures. Paymate India has a substantial addressable market in India, with over 45 million credit/debit cards, 440 million bank accounts and lastly, 100 million mobile subscribers. Considering the addressable market and convenience offered by mobiles it is no longer that debit and credit cards will soon be out of pockets.

China Telecom: IPTV with UTStarcom

UTStarcom has signed a follow-on contract to deploy its RollingStream end-to-end IPTV solution with China Telecom, the largest fixed-line telco in China. The IPTV network is initially designed to reach 51,000 users in Shanghai with a population of 18 million. Growing number of broadband customers in Shanghai provide a solid base for the triple play package extensions in the city which is approaching 2 mn subscribers in the first quarter of 2006. Previously, China Telecom had selected UTStarcom to deploy an initial 5,000-user IPTV network in November 2005. China Telecom is planning to offer subscribers a service package of live broadcast television, videos-on-demand and interactive features like time shifted television (TSTV) and network PVR capabilities.