Best Buy Co. Inc. is looking to step up its European mobile phone business with a $2.14 billion investment.

The American retail giant is in the process of acquiring a 50 percent stake in The Carphone Warehouse Group plc’s mobile retail operations, creating a joint project that will help launch the Best Buy brand across the Atlantic. The new company will operate 2,400 stores in nine European countries under both companies’ brands in addition to Carphone Warehouse’s mobile virtual network operator service in every country except France.

Both companies have said they hope to expand Carphone Warehouse’s existing European footprint and will be rolling out new stores under the Best Buy name by the start of next year. The UK based retailer will maintain its fixed-line telecom business.

The deal will help solidify an 18 month relationship between the two companies that seeks to join Carphone Warehouse’s strength as a high street retailer and Best Buy’s sourcing and distribution expertise. This relationship signals Best Buy’s desire to expand beyond mobile phones and in to the broader world of consumer electronics.

Carphone Warehouse’s CEO Charles Dunstone said, “we have been working closely with Best Buy for nearly two years and it is clear that we have very complementary culture, skills and assets — it’s a perfect match. … Best Buy brings demonstrable expertise in merchandising, sourcing and customer service: that should help us accelerate the evolution of our business towards the broader connectivity market. We bring local knowledge, infrastructure and the expertise in linking services to product: that should help them push into larger-format consumer electronics retailing in Europe.”

The deal should be completed, on approval of Carphone Warehouse’s shareholders, by August 30th.

The long-rumored national mobile WiMAX partnership between Sprint and Clearwire is now official, both companies have announced.

The new company will be called Clearwire, of which Sprint will own 51 percent. Intel, Comcast, Google, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks combined are investing $3.2 billion based on a $20 estimated per-share price when Clearwire opens on the NASDAQ when the deal reaches completion later this year.

Dan Hesse, Sprint’s president and CEO said in a statement: “We’ve made an excellent start developing XOHM WiMAX services. Contributing those advances to a strongly backed new company – in which we’ll hold the largest interest – provides Sprint with additional financial flexibility and allows Sprint management to leverage and focus on our core business.”

“Additionally, the agreements allowing the new company and our cable company investors to bundle and resell Sprint’s 3G wireless services strengthen the distribution of our current services while reducing the complexity and enhancing Sprint’s cable relationships,” he added.

Clearwire CEO Benjamin Wolff also commented: “Given the complexity of this transaction, we have taken the time and effort to do it right, by thoughtfully leveraging the resources and opportunities that we and our investors are bringing to the table.”

Clearwire plans to reach around 130 million people in the United States by the end of 2010. The company will use Sprint’s towers, fiber network and IT support.

Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks and Clearwire will become wholesale resellers of sprints 3G wireless voice and data services with Google handling the web service side of the business and be the official search partner for Sprints mobile services. Intel will work with component suppliers to embed WiMAX chips in to the Centrino 2-based devices such as laptops and other Internet appliances.

Wolff becomes CEO of the new Clearwire, with Sprint’s Chief Technology Officer Barry West serving as president.

More than 10,000 people have registered for Livecontacts, a free friend finder service that launched on April 15th. Livecontacts is offered by Findwhere who are the global leader in precision tracking technology. Other companies on the market charge around $2.99 a month for similar software but Findwhere firmly believe that the service should be free.

Jaap Groot, CEO of Findwhere comments: “The proof is in the numbers. People really care about this type of solution, and they don’t want to pay for it…
We look forward to continuing to serve them through our free buddy finder and services that provide security and peace of mind.”

With the Livecontacts application, individuals use their mobile phones to make their current location known to their trusted contacts and can then track their friends who are also using the service. The location of the user is found by GPS and can be switched on or off as required.

Over the coming months, Findwhere will integrate its free location data with a large range of social applications.

Frank Gruber, a well known technology analyst noted, “Livecontacts is taking the same approach that Craigslist took to democratize the online classified advertising space by offering users what is traditionally a paid geographic data service for free.”

Livecontacts works on any mobile network operator in the world. Findwhere plans to extend Livecontacts to iPhone in the coming months. Further more, Livecontact users will soon be able to upgrade to findanywhere’s new peace of mind service’s for the mobile phone, including speed reporting for teen drivers, location tracking for elderly parents and even a panic button to alert desired recipients in emergency situations.

A good feature of Livecontacts is that it is device and network agnostic, so users don’t have to be on the same network o share their location. The buddy finder can tell between domestic and international roaming therefore reducing data charges. Frequency settings determine how often a Livecontact’s user’s location is transmitted and this optimizes battery life through smart power management.

Wireless broadband provider The Cloud is taking wi-fi access technology from Devicescape to make it easy for customers to connect to the network’s 10, 500 hotspots around the UK.

The software client Mycloud will provide seamless logon to home, office, public and free networks, the company claims.

The Cloud’s business director, Owen Geddes said the company hopes to use the software to “become an umbrella for all your Wi-Fi across Europe”. He added, “It will understand how you use Wi-Fi, where you go to use it and what you use it for, so we can offer appropriate content”.

Using Mycloud is very simple. You tell the service which service you have to access and whatever passwords and encryption keys are needed. The Devicescape technology scans for SSID’s – network identifiers – that it recognises from your list, including your service providers roaming partners.

DNS protocol is used rather than the traditional login and pulls your credentials from a central store and does the legwork by the logging on to the wireless LAN for you. This ensures that your login details are no longer stored on the mobile device and removes the need for manual logins.

Devicescape’s CEO Dave Fraser pointed out that users can choose to accept or reject connecting to open hotspots.

Mycloud will be offered to Windows XP and Vista only but Devicescape has developed its own client for Mac and some mobile phones. This is great news for phone users as phone browsers often have difficulty logging on to hotspot pages.

The technology will allow network operators to shift data traffic off their cellular networks onto Wi-Fi where possible, Geddes added. He said that The Cloud already had a deal with O2 to provide iTunes connectivity for the iPhone, for instance, and that he didn’t see this changing even with 3G and HSDPA.

“Wi-Fi is faster than 3G”, he said. “Also, 80 percent of data transactions are inside buildings, and 3G’s in-building penetration is not great.

We have wireless routers, we have mobile phone systems which mirror the modern office of today and we have access to networks and data 24 hours a day 7 days a week, from almost any place on earth. But are you making the most of it?

Small businesses seem to be in a prime position to grasp the wireless revolution, cut costs and increase productivity, but has it really hit home yet?

While there are many small businesses making full use of the internet, fewer of these businesses seem to be making full use of the mobile office which is available to them, whether you are in the airport, overseas or just lounging around at home. There will obviously be times when you need a break, but if you run your own small business you will need to know when orders come in, when your site is down and other elements which can and should give you the best chance of being successful.

Those successful small businesses which you hear about in the newspapers, in the trade magazines and on the TV are the ones which embrace new technology (so long as it benefits their business and business ethic). The chance to improve efficiency should never be under estimated and while there are only so many things you can physically do in one day, sometimes just to be able to check up and monitor what is happening with you business can mean the difference between success and failure.

The wireless revolution is here to stay and after the recent sale of further bandwidth in the US we can expect bigger and better services to hit the market in the short, medium and longer term. How the business sector react and use these new services will become ever more vital. Respect and embrace new technology but never fear it!

They may be the best known of the US carriers, but AT&T have been fairly slow to market with some of the earlier technologies used by their competitors, but not now. AT&T have announced the launch of their mobile TV service which is set to hit the wireless airwaves this Sunday – in a blaze of glory if all of the hype is to be believed!

Using specially manufactured handset, customers will be able to catch a whole array of their favourite programs on their phones, on the move. AT&T have teamed up with Media FLO USA to launch the service which will include input from partners such as CBS Mobile, ESPN Mobile, CNN Mobile Live and the Comedy Central to name but a few.

Initially it will cost $15 a month for 10 channels although the price of the handsets, at between $199 and $299, may well restrict the initial take-up in the market place. It should be safe to assume that once the takeup picks up, and AT&T find other more subtle income streams connected with the service, the handset price should fall quite dramatically.

While Mobile TV is not a new concept and has been brought to the market in other areas around the world, it is the fact that this is live TV which seems to set it out from the rest. The chance to catch the latest news or your favourite program while on the move will catch the eye of many mobile phone users.

AT&T seem to be making up for some of the problems they have had in the past and the often pedestrian pace which they have embraced some of the more risky forms of technology. Are we entering a new era for AT&T? Are we entering a new era for live TV on your mobile?

It looks like we could have the answers very soon……

While the whole world seems to have been primed for the launch of Apple’s new iPhone in June, it seems that the new product may be a lot bigger and a lot better than everyone has been led to believe. Rumours believed to have come from within the Apple camp are suggesting we will soon see a 3G version of the popular handset and an attempt by Apple to tie down some of the biggest players in the technology industry to the phone. So what is happening?

Though it has been common knowledge that Apple are looking to strengthen their position in the wireless market, and take the iPhone even higher up the technology ladder, what may happen looks likely to beat any possible expectations people might have held.

The word on the street is that they have already lined up an impressive team which includes :-

Cisco

If the rumours are correct, Cisco is set to introduce a new piece of software to the iPhone which will allow you to “flick” documents from your iPhone to your desktop. This should be worth seeing by itself!

Intel

Not sure how this is going to work yet but Intel are looking to tie motion sensors to maps. Sounds a bit space age, but interesting never the less.

Electronic Arts and Sega

If you are going for the mobile phone gaming market you may as well go with the best and they don’t come any better than Electronic Arts and Sega. New games are set to hit the market which will be controlled by “waving your phone in the air”.

All in all it seems that the next iPhone is going to raise the bar even further in what is become a very very competitive market place. Apple is becoming the Google of the mobile phone world, and nobody is anywhere near catching them!

In a blow for the mobile phone industry it has been revealed that mobile broadband speeds have actually slowed over the last few months, as oppose to the massive increase which many network providers have advertised. While the likes of Vodafone offer a service which offers broadband speeds in the region of 7Mbs, the average rate has been shown to be no higher than 2.3Mbs, with the lowest across the industry at a poor 1Mbs. So what is going on?

The mobile broadband industry in the UK is well behind its foreign counterparts with areas such as Singapore offering speeds which put the UK to shame. The problem for the UK consumer is the fact that companies such as Vodafone, and the rest in the industry who offer mobile broadband, prefer to highlight the maximum speeds available on their services. The actual average speed has been shown to be substantially less than some of the more headline grabbing promises. So is this misrepresentation?

The fact that the top speeds are available to some users in the network ensures that there are no legal problems with the figures quoted on websites and in the press. Coverage in some of the more rural areas of the UK is sparse to say the least, which is the opposite of the more urban areas where coverage is substantially better.

Those in the broadband industry are now suggesting that customers looking for mobile broadband should also consider the coverage of the network they plan to sign up with, which should give an idea of the speeds which might be available in their area. There is no doubt that mobile broadband is the future but there is still a long way to go before the service is really ready for the mass market.

While it will come as no surprise to see that Skype has launched its own VoIP beta for mobile phones (some 50 models in total), many are surprised that it has taken so long to get around to it. So what is happening, what will it cost you and when will it be available?

What is happening?

VoIP has been the largest breakthrough in the telecoms industry for some time, allowing free phone calls over the internet, but the transfer of the business model to the mobile phone industry has been protracted. While Skype currently have a service available with the 3 network, the rollout of the service to other networks has been very slow to say the least – and it is not even ready yet!

How much will it cost you?

There will many people reading this article rubbing their hands at the prospect of free Skype calls on their mobiles, and kissing good bye to those dread bills. However, they will be disappointed!

While the 3 network deal allows you to make free calls to other Skype users through your mobile, there are charges for those who do not use Skype. If you call a mobile or a land line you will incur the standard cost of that service – indeed if you set your Skype number to alert your mobile to incoming calls you will actually pay on both sides of the call!

Warning : Leaving your mobile Skype connected 24/7 may be very expensive!

When will it all be available?

The beta version of the new system is available now, so once the wrinkles of the new system have been ironed out and customer comments taken into consideration we should see a new “live” system. However, the chances of a “true” free Skype service are very slim at this moment in time.

While for many years we have assumed that the US would always be the largest market in every area of technology, it seems that this is not the case. They may have championed the wireless networks, they may be at the forefront of the technology but it is China who is in top spot, with India having just taken over the US and jumped into second place.

After a period in the technology wilderness the Indian market is making a massive push for dominance with mobile phone companies, internet companies and computer companies all making a major play for this area of the world. While there is still a massive gap between the rich and the poor in India, the demand for all forms of wireless technology has been amazing. Companies are literally fighting with each other to get a slice of the action with the cost of entry for companies moving higher and higher all of the time.

Official figures from Indian telecoms regulator, Trai, have stated that currently there are over 261 million wireless network subscribers in the country against figures for the US of 257 million. India has arrived and many believe that there is still much more growth to come in the short, medium and longer term.

As you might guess, it is the mobile telecoms market which has seen, and continues to see, most growth with sector leaders such as Vodafone and many US carriers very prominent in the market place. Interestingly we are still seeing major growth in landline telecom connections, something which bodes very well for the mobile phone industry with many of those likely to show an interest in the mobile phone market in due course.

While China continues to lead the way in the wireless network sector India has taken second place from the US and many believe there is substantial growth still left in the country. Can the US fight back?