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SAN DIEGO (AFP) - US wireless technology titan Qualcomm is rolling a new-age version of old-time broadcast television onto what analysts say is an unpredictable but inevitable mobile TV landscape.

The California firm's MediaFLO subsidiary has spent an undisclosed fortune and about three years building a digital broadcasting network and partnerships with television studios, mobile phone service carriers, and handset makers.

Even though a government-mandated shift from analogue to digital television signals won't take place until February, MediaFLO already broadcasts mobile television in more than 50 US metropolitan areas.

“A lot of gray hair and wrinkles have been put together building this system,” MediaFLO senior direct Cullen Childress said Wednesday during an interview at the broadcast operations center in San Diego.

“We want TV in mobile telephones to be as common as cameras in telephones.”

Qualcomm bought a television channel frequency several years ago and added a portion of the 700 MHz spectrum during an historic auction in April by the US Federal Communications Commission.

MediaFLO began television broadcasts to Verizon mobile telephones slightly more than a year ago and recently made a deal with AT&T to do the same for the US telecom giant's subscribers.

Unlike television programs sent to mobile telephones via individualized Internet connections, MediaFLO broadcasts can be picked up a fashion similar to the way rabbit-ear TV antennas receive analogue signals.

“It's a portable version of your home TV,” said MediaFLO product management vice president Mike Coad.

MediaFLO currently provides ten television channels for mobile viewing and subscription to the service costs 15 dollars (US) monthly.

“MediaFLO is going to face some challenges,” said In-Stat principal analyst David Chamberlain. “People really want mobile video, unless they have to pay for it on a subscription basis.”

While MediaFLO offers all-you-can eat programming, people seem happy with a “snack” model that lets them download select shows online and watch them when they choose, said Telecom Media and Finance Associates president Tim Farrar.

“The question is really to what degree people have a desire to consume a lot of mobile TV,” Farrar told AFP.

“It is hard to see people wanting to pay on a subscription basis as opposed to downloading something from iTunes to watch while waiting at an airport.”

Handheld devices built exclusively for broadcast television viewing make more sense for ad-supported programs because telecom carriers are eliminated from the equation, Chamberlain said.

Advertising-based mobile television is feasible, as long as a large portion of telecom customers watch shows, analysts say.

“Right now, there is no evidence of that kind of demand” Farrar said.

Mobile television services in Japan and South Korea, where deployment of the technology is far ahead of the United States, report paltry adoption rates.

Qualcomm makes computer chips crafted to receive television broadcasts in multiple signal formats and is hustling to make them standard components in mobile telephones.

MediaFLO believes that if television-capable mobile phones are ubiquitous, users will yield to the temptation and then it will be a matter of figuring out what pricing models are best for business.

“Cast a wide net and you will be able to sell them on premium packages,” Coad said.

MediaFLO is dabbling with allowing broadcasts to be routed to home televisions, computers, and systems built into vehicles.

The National Association of Broadcasters is testing using US television station networks to send digital programming to mobile devices in a move that threatens to challenge MediaFLO.

Major electronics makers LG and Samsung recently announced they are backing the association's format.

“I think we are in for an interesting battle down the road,” Jupiter Research analyst Neil Strother told AFP.

“I think Qualcomm is in a pretty good position. It is not trivial to broadcast television to a wide audience.”

Even if faster wireless Internet services promised in the US increase the popularity of mobile video from websites such as YouTube and Hulu the broadcast television model is expected to endure.

“I think it's pretty compelling in certain scenarios,” Strother said. “Whenever you have time to kill and want to watch a little TV it is convenient. But, how much is it worth?”

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Time Warner Cable Inc plans to offer subscribers an easier way to bring Internet video to their television screens as part of an overall home networking system, Chief Executive Glenn Britt said on Friday.

“Right now it's pretty hard to get Internet stuff on your TV,” Britt said at the Sanford C. Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference in New York.

“We're actually going to have equipment we make available to subscribers,” he said. “It's actually going to be a new wireless cable modem that will allow you to network everything in your house.”

Britt gave few specific details on how the service would work or when it would be available.

“Within a relatively short time … it's going to be very easy to get Internet TV on your big screen TV,” he said, estimating it would take between one to two years to popularize such technology already sold by the likes of Apple Inc.

Apple TV lets users take a movie downloaded to their personal computer and watch it on their television screen.

TiVo Inc lets many of its subscribers select Web video from providers such as The Onion, the New York Times and CNET Networks. The video is downloaded from the Internet to a TiVoset-top box for viewing later.

But web-to-TV technology is still in its early days, due in part to the complexity of making web video look good on higher resolution TVs.

Consumers may also be hesitant to navigate the thousands of web sites that offer unique video, and to buy more equipment in addition to paying monthly cable or satellite fees.

Major cable operators have had success spreading such technologies among their large pool of subscribers, including the digital video recording technology that originally made TiVo famous.

Shares in Time Warner Cable, which recently announced plans to separate fully from Time Warner Inc by the end of the year, rose 2 percent to $30.57.

(Reporting by Michele Gershberg; Editing by Derek Caney)

GENEVA (AFP) - Brazil, India and South Africa have lodged an appeal against a decision to grant international standard recognition to Microsoft's Office software package, a standards agency overseeing the case said Friday.

“The appeals were filed during the course of the week,” said Jonathan Buck, head of communications for the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).

The IEC and fellow standards agency the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) will now spend 30 days evaluating whether the appeals meet the necessary criteria.

If so, the appeals will then be considered by the technical appeals committees of both organisations, Buck said.

He added he could not give details on the content of the appeals because of the confidential nature of the process.

Last month, a vote by national member bodies of ISO approved recognition of Microsoft Office by a 75 percent threshhold, following a previous vote in September 2007 when 26 percent of members opposed the move.

Microsoft said in April that the vote was a “clear win for the customers, technology providers and governments that want to choose the format that best meets their needs”.

GENEVA - Brazil and India have appealed a decision to make Microsoft’s Office Open XML format an internationally recognized standard for electronic documents.

The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) said Friday that three countries have now formally protested last month’s approval of the standard.

South Africa complained last week that the balloting procedure conducted by the Geneva-based IEC and global standards body ISO was poorly conducted and rushed.

Microsoft wants the file format used in its Office 2007 program to be approved as an open standard so that it can apply for lucrative government contracts that require this designation.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - European wireless carriers have sharply raised prices for making and receiving calls outside the European Union to compensate for regulator-imposed lower tariffs within the EU, a market research firm said.

Informa Telecoms and Media said on Friday roaming charges had risen as much as 163 percent since the EU capped rates last year at 0.49 euros ($0.76) a minute for making calls abroad in the 27-nation bloc and 0.24 euros for receiving them.

The average price of a call home by an Italian subscriber in Russia was 3.67 euros a minute in 2006, but this has risen 25 percent to 4.58 euros, Informa said.

For customers in most European countries, the cost of roaming in Africa, China, India, Japan, the Middle East, Russia and the United States has risen, the Informa data showed.

There are exceptions however — roaming in Russia became 36-40 percent cheaper for customers from Germany and France.

For British subscribers, roaming rates were flat or fell 6 to 10 percent.

Angela Stainthorpe, the report's author, said the British market was very competitive with five operators. 3 UK, owned by Hong Kong conglomerateHutchison Whampoa Ltd, was also aggressively marketing its low-cost offers.

“It is mainly 3 UK which is bringing the price down so significantly against everybody else's,” she said.

(Reporting by Niclas Mika, Editing by Richard Hubbard)

Work to migrate Europe to the net’s new addressing system must speed up, says the European Commission.

The call to action is contained in a plan sent to the European Parliament urging governments and top websites in the region to head the migration.

It warns that internet-based innovation could be derailed as the current pool of addresses is used up.

The plan sets a target of 25% of net users in the EU to be using the new system by 2010.

Aiding innovation

“This is very much a case of a stitch in time saves nine,” said Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for the information society, in a statement unveiling the plan.

Ms Reding said futuristic technologies already being adopted, such as smart tags, intelligent street lighting and heating systems, were already projected to boost demand for IP addresses 1,000-fold - perhaps beyond the current system’s ability to cope.

Europe could face a “crisis” when the older system ran out of addresses, she warned.

Currently, Version 4 of the Internet Protocol (IPv4) is used to ensure that data travelling across the net reaches the right destination.

The IPv4 scheme makes available about 4.3 billion addresses - a total predicted to run out in 2011.

By contrast, Version 6 of this scheme (IPv6) provides, in effect, an unlimited number of addresses.

The “huge address space provides a platform for innovation in IP-based services and applications,” said the commission in its plan.

The steps outlined in the plan are intended to build on the work already done to get Europe using IPv6.

For instance, Geant, the high-speed data network linking many European research centres, is already 100% IPv6 compatible, said the plan.

Governments should migrate their core networks to IPv6 and add a requirement for it to public procurement contracts, said the plan. It also wants the top 100 websites in Europe to be reachable by IPv6 by the 2010 deadline.

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Patrick Wood explains how the UK’s latest military satellite works

A significant milestone in the UK’s biggest space project is reached on Friday with the launch of the third and final Skynet 5 satellite.

The military communications platform will be lofted by an Ariane rocket from Europe’s equatorial spaceport at Kourou in French Guiana.

It will provide British forces with the secure, high-bandwidth capability they now need to run their operations.

A successful launch will complete the in-orbit part of the ?3.6bn project.

Additional work has included upgrades to ground stations and the installation of new antennas and terminals on military ships, planes and land vehicles.

Taken together, the three Skynet spacecraft - known as 5A, 5B and 5C - will provide coverage from the Americas to Asia.

The satellites match the sophistication of the very latest civilian platforms used to pass TV, phone and internet traffic - but also are “hardened” for military use and will resist attempts to “jam” them, for example.

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Malcolm Peto explains how Skynet 5 will aid UK military communications

“These satellites have technology that allows them to pinpoint communications on to particular regions of the world with absolute precision, and without interference,” explained Malcolm Peto from Paradigm Secure Communications, the company set up to run Skynet.

“You know the areas where British forces operate, and you can imagine the type of interference attempted. We can avoid that very simply, very clinically,” he said.

The new Skynet constellation will allow the Army, Navy and Royal Air Force to pass much more data, faster between command centres. The bandwidth capacity of Skynet 5 is two-and-a-half times that of the old satellite constellation, Skynet 4.

The new system will allow British forces to make use of next-generation weapons systems, such as the recently introduced Reaper drones.

These unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) are deployed over Afghanistan but are remotely piloted by RAF personnel in the US.

This is made possible only by Skynet’s ability to handle the drones’ real-time video feeds.

Other battlefield applications would include surgeons, unsure how best to treat badly injured soldiers, being able to send scan information back to the UK for a second assessment; and then using video conferencing to discuss cases.

Skynet 5 is the largest PFI (Private Finance Initiative) so far delivered to the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD). Under the PFI, the British military buys guaranteed capacity off its commercial supplier (Paradigm), which is free then to sell any spare capacity to friendly governments.

These third-party sales earn money for Paradigm and the MoD in what is a “shared gain” arrangement. The launch of the Skynet 5C satellite should provide substantial extra revenue potential.

When the PFI deal was originally set up, the MoD was only going to get the use of two satellites; but the high cost of spacecraft insurance in the early 2000s prompted project chiefs to put that money into building an extra platform instead.

“In effect we’ve self-insured,” said Mr Peto. “We’ve used the money we would have spent on insurance to build a third satellite.

“When we launch [Skynet 5C], we will have three very capable satellites to provide communications, not only for British forces but for our third-party market which makes this whole project viable.”

Paradigm hopes the money it earns over the course of its contract (which runs to 2020) will be sufficient for it to reinvest in further spacecraft with enhanced payloads.

If this is achievable, Mr Peto says, it will provide UK forces with better equipment, much faster than traditional procurement routes.

As is normal for Ariane flights, Skynet 5C will ride into space with a co-passenger - on this occasion, a Turkish TV satellite.

“We’ll be first out; the separation of 5C from the rocket occurs about 30 minutes after launch,” explained the Skynet project manager, Patrick Wood, from manufacturer EADS Astrium.

“We’ll pick it up via a ground station we’re using in South Africa. The first thing we’ll do is send a command that should be sent straight back to us, telling us the receive electronics are working. We can then send a sequence of commands to start waking up the satellite’s systems.”

It will take about a week to move 5C to its initial operational position 36,000km over the Atlantic Ocean, at 17.8 degrees West.

Friday’s launch window in Kourou opens at 2152 GMT.

After years of go-go growth, the number of people signing up for cellphone service in the USA is finally slowing.

That could spell good news for consumers as carriers turn up the marketing heat, says Craig Moffett, a senior analyst at Bernstein Research and author of a report documenting the trend.

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“When operators have no choice but to try to take customers away from each other, they have a natural inclination to sharpen the pencils and make the best offer they can,” he says.

The wireless industry added 23% fewer subscribers in the first quarter this year than it did last year. The overall growth rate - how fast the total is growing - dropped to 7.9% from 11.5%, and will “slow further from here,” the report said.

Moffett says carriers are victims of their own success. “The vision of every adult in America having a cellphone is a great aspiration until you get there. Then it raises the obvious question: Now what?”

For years, wireless was a story of heady growth. As of year-end 1995, the USA claimed 33.8 million subscribers. By December 2007 the number had jumped to 255.4 million, a sevenfold increase.

About 83% of U.S. consumers have at least one cellphone. By 2010, the number will rise to 89%, Bernstein predicts. At that level, Moffett says, everybody who wants a cellphone will already have one.

For carriers, wireless analyst Charles Golvin of Forrester says it's now about “stealing your competitors' customers.”

For now, AT&T and Verizon continue to add a lot of customers - more than 1 million each in the first quarter. But Moffett says that's only because they can feed on Sprint Nextel, which is struggling with operational problems. Customers are deserting Sprint by the thousands, providing easy pickings for rivals, he says.

“If Sprint can right the ship, then subscriber numbers for the rest of the industry are necessarily going to have to take a leg down,” he says.

Carriers are pinning their hopes on wireless data, which is exploding as Web-enabled wireless devices such as the Apple iPhone start flooding the market.

At AT&T, the sole iPhone distributor in the USA, data revenue is growing by more than 50% every quarter.

Moffett says that's not enough to make up for the waning growth of wireless voice customers, who still account for 87% of revenue growth at Verizon and AT&T.

Mark Collins, an AT&T vice president, allows that it's tougher to recruit new subscribers. On the upside, he says, there are plenty of revenue opportunities. “That's why we've been investing like we have for the past three years” in high-speed wireless data and advanced video services.

And Sprint says its future is bright. “We believe the future of wireless is data, and that's our sweet spot,” says spokeswoman Leigh Horner. Sprint has teamed with Google and other backers, including wireless visionary Craig McCaw, to build an advanced wireless data network across the USA.

Dell (DELL) reported surprisingly strong quarterly earnings Thursday, a sign that the computer giant is finally turning itself around.

The No. 2 PC maker reported revenue of $16.1 billion in the quarter ended May 2, up 9% from $14.7 billion a year ago. Wall Street analysts on average had expected $15.7 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.

The news, released after markets closed, sent Dell's shares up 9% to $23.85 in after-hours trading. Before that, Dell shares had fallen 11% this year.

“Patient investors (in Dell) are beginning to get rewarded,” says analyst Bill Kreher at investment firm Edward Jones.

Dell Chairman Don Carty says his company's strong numbers weren't due to an overall economic uptick. “We are seeing conservatism in (technology) spending in the U.S., and we expect that to continue through the summer,” he says.

Instead, “we're starting to see results” from Dell's year-long turnaround plan, he says.

Dell - which once dominated the PC industry but now lags behind Hewlett-Packard - reported sales increases in every category except for desktop PCs. Net income of $784 million, or 38 cents a share, rose from $756 million, or 34 cents a share, a year ago.

Many of the increases came in key areas. For the first time, Dell's international revenue exceeded its U.S. revenue during the quarter. Dell used to rely on the U.S. business market for much of its income, which made it vulnerable to fluctuations in the U.S. economy.

Sales into four fast-growing countries, Brazil, Russia, India and China, accounted for almost 9% of revenue.

Laptop sales, another bright spot, increased 43% over the year before. Dell had been slow to recognize the growing importance of laptops, Kreher says. Now, Dell, which used to sell mainly online and via catalog, is selling computers in retailers such as Best Buy. That makes laptop sales easier, because shoppers can feel their size and weight before buying.

Dell's turnaround began in January 2007, when Michael Dell returned as CEO after Kevin Rollins resigned. The company had run into hard times, including falling market share and a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into its accounting. (Dell restated some earnings last year.)

The overhaul is ongoing. As previously announced, Dell cut 3,700 jobs in the quarter.

“We're seeing the results of Michael (Dell) returning to the helm,” says tech analyst John Enck at researcher Gartner. “He's fine-tuning all the dials.” But Enck says that Dell still has much work to do. A full turnaround “will take at least 24 months,” he says.

Asustek (Asus) is trying out its Express Gate Linux software in laptop PCs, a bid to make multimedia files and Internet access a snap for users

Express Gate allows users to bypass Windows at start-up and go directly to the Express Gate screen in just five seconds. From there, users can go directly to the Internet, play games or access music and other multimedia files. The company has equiped its motherboards with the software in the past and plans to put it in all future laptop PCs, including a few to be launched at Computex next week.

Next week, the company will show off the F8V, the first laptop PC with a hot key to access Express Gate directly instead of waiting for Windows to boot up.

From the end of June, all new Asustek laptop PCs will come with Express Gate on board, and all motherboards will come with Express Gate software on CDs so users can load it on their PCs if so desired, an Asustek representative said.