But that plan is now on hold.

“While Facebook works to create a better Facebook Home experience, they have recommended that Orange in France and EE in the U.K. hold off on launching the HTC First at this time,” a France Telecom-Orange representative told AllThingsD.

Facebook is saying that it wants to work on retooling Home before it renews its effort to get the software preloaded on new devices. “As a result of customer feedback, Facebook has decided to focus on adding customization features to Facebook Home, and will limit support for new devices at this time,” Orange said.

At the launch of Facebook Home, the social network talked about a program to get more phone makers to preload the software. It showed a slide listing other hardware partners, including Samsung, ZTE, Lenovo, Sony, Alcatel One Touch and Huawei, in addition to launch partner HTC.

Neither AT&T nor HTC has commented directly on sales of the HTC First, though the carrier has dropped the price to 99 cents with a contract, down from the initial $99 sticker price.

Whether the HTC First will ever see the light of day in Europe remains unclear, though Orange said it still wants to work closely with the social network.

“Orange remains committed to bringing our customers the newest and best mobile experiences, and we will continue to build on our strong relationship with Facebook to provide these new experiences in the future,” the carrier said.

Among those also carrying the HTC First will be France Telecom-Orange, which plans to sell it in France and in the United Kingdom, through its EE joint venture.

The HTC device is the first in a series of phones that will come preloaded with the Facebook Home software introduced by the social network on Thursday.

“We have been working for months and months with Facebook,” France Telecom-Orange’s Yves Maitre said in an interview. AT&T will start selling the HTC First for $99.99 on April 12; Orange said that its launch will come this summer, with pricing and an exact date to be announced later.

Orange and AT&T are among the carriers and hardware makers that are part of a program Facebook has to get the software onto new device.

Other partners listed on Thursday include Chinese phone makers Alcatel One Touch, Huawei, ZTE and Lenovo, as well as giants Sony and Samsung.

And whereas Orange executives are known for talking about how challenging some of their other hardware partners can be, Maitre said Facebook has been very open to input from carriers.

“It has been a great collaboration,” he said. “It has been a lot of fun to work with them and that is not always the case.”

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“Apple has [become] more flexible, paying more attention to everyone else, probably a little less arrogant than they used to be,” France Telecom-Orange CEO Stephane Richard said during a dinner with reporters in Barcelona on Monday. Characterizing today’s Apple with the same company under Steve Jobs, Richard said, “I think they are probably a little more under pressure, and it is quite nice.”

And while carriers are rooting for Mozilla, Microsoft, BlackBerry and mobile Linux to emerge as rivals to Android and the iPhone, there’s no way the market is large enough to support that many competitors.

“There is probably not room for everyone,” Richard said. “But all of us hope that among those initiatives, at least one will be able to emerge as a third ecosystem.”

It is observations like these, made during a media dinner on Monday night, that make Richard a popular interview among nearly all the journalists on the wireless beat.

Naturally, Richard reserved some of his most pointed commentary for bemoaning what he and other European wireless firms see as the over-regulation of the telecommunications industry on the continent.

He called one particular regulator “dumb” and said another, while holding a decent view of the marketplace, appears powerless to improve the situation.

Richard compared the near-monopolies of Facebook and Google and the Apple-Samsung duopoly to the highly competitive wireless carrier market in Europe, which he said features more than 100 companies. “We are living through incredible competition; they are not living through competition. That’s it,” he said. He implored regulators to prevent further companies from entering the crowded market.

At the same time, Richard acknowledged that this is a case he and other European operators have been making for years.

“It is a little tiring to sing the same song,” he said.

As for the ecosystem battle, Richard said that Windows Phone has a “very difficult” road to truly compete with iOS and Android. Richard said devices running the Microsoft-developed operating system are neither better designed nor cheaper, nor do they offer a better application experience than iOS or Android. Put simply, Windows Phone is good but lacks a “wow” factor, Richard said.

“The Nokia family in my opinion is nice, but there is no ‘wow’ effect,” Richard said. “When you have a market with very steady players like Apple and Samsung, you need to have a ‘wow’ effect.”

Making things worse, he said, hardware makers have generally been selling Windows Phones for the same price as the more popular devices.

BlackBerry, too, has a tough road, Richard said, though he praised the work of CEO Thorsten Heins and the new leadership there.

“He is doing a great job, but I am not sure they will be successful,” Richard said. “At least they have a basis of very faithful users, which is not the case of Nokia.”

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But here at AllThingsD we want you to have a pretty good idea what to expect even before things kick off in Barcelona. We’ve been noodling around to find out what all the big companies have planned for next week. And, as we noted yesterday, plenty of companies aren’t waiting to spill the beans.

So here’s a company-by-company look at what to expect. And this is just the start of our Mobile World Congress reporting. Ina Fried and Bonnie Cha will be in Espana to put things into context and dig around for more dirt.

Apple

As usual, the Cupertino-based company will be the talk of the town and yet nowhere to be found.

AT&T

AT&T is using the stage in Barcelona to talk about its progress in moving mobile beyond the phone. On the business side, Ma Bell now has a half-billion-dollar business helping companies add mobile products such as rugged devices and embedded cellular technology. At the show, AT&T is working with OnAsset to embed cellular modules for high-value package tracking.

Google

Google never made any huge announcements at Mobile World Congress, but its circus-like booth was always a big attraction. Alas, there will be no free smoothies, trips down the slide or pin-trading this year.

HTC

The Taiwanese phone maker made its big news earlier this week in New York, but is expected to have its usual presence at the show, though it won’t have a huge news conference.

Immersion

The haptics company is showing off new ways of adding touch feedback into mobile devices, including the ability for phone makers to more deeply integrate feel into their user interface.

Intel

Intel is showing off its dual-core processor, and is also expected to announce some new phone designs and tout its work in emerging markets.

LG

Similar to last year, LG is making a slew of announcements just ahead of the show. Over the past couple of weeks, the Korean manufacturer has debuted the LG Optimus G Pro, Optimus L Series II, Optimus F5 and Optimus F7. Still, the company might have a thing or two left up its sleeve. A press conference is scheduled for Monday morning.

Motorola

Mobile World Congress has never been a big show for Motorola, and that’s not going to change this year. So, for those of you who were hoping for your first sighting of the Google-Motorola X Phone, sorry to disappoint.

Nokia

With its flagship Lumia 920 still in the process of being introduced around the world, expect Nokia to concentrate its efforts around expanding its Windows Phone lineup to better combat the threat of low-end Android. That also means beefing up the company’s Asha mobile phone business, which has been seeking to evolve from feature phone to an entry-level smartphone. The Finnish phone maker has a press conference set for Monday morning.

Nvidia

The chipmaker plans to show off the Phoenix, a reference-design phone built around the Tegra 4i, the company’s first processor with LTE capabilities built in.

Orange

France Telecom’s wireless unit is debuting several new devices under its own brand, including the Lumo — the first Orange-branded LTE phone — and the San Remo, a large-screen 4.7-inch smartphone. A third phone, the Orange Nivo, targets younger buyers and first-time smartphone buyers.

Qualcomm

The Snapdragon 800 chip was announced at CES in January, but Qualcomm will use Mobile World Congress to show off some previously undisclosed abilities of the chip, including always-on voice control and even faster device charging.

Samsung

Samsung used to put on over-the-top press conferences at Mobile World Congress (think aerial acrobats and dance troupes). But the company started to scale back last year, preferring instead to launch flagship products like the Samsung Galaxy S III on its own. The case will be the same for the much-anticipated Galaxy S IV, but it’s rumored that Samsung will unveil the Galaxy Note 8.0 tablet in Barcelona.

Sony

Sony introduced its latest flagship smartphone, the Xperia Z, at CES in January, so the chances of seeing another high-end handset are slim. That said, the company does have an event planned for Monday morning. It’s quite possible that Sony may use that time to reveal additional markets and availability for the Xperia Tablet Z, which has currently only been announced for Japan.

Visa

Visa is announcing a new “Visa Ready” program on Friday, designed to turn potential technology rivals into partners. The program will see Visa certify payment hardware and NFC devices to work with Visa’s infrastructure. Expect more specific partner announcements in Barcelona.

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The custom Baidu browser is to be pre-installed on new Android devices sold through Orange in Africa this year.

It’s specifically designed to compress data and give users easy bookmarks to Web services like Wikipedia, Facebook and Twitter.

The aim is to serve a fast-growing group of mobile Internet users; Orange said demand for Android in Egypt doubled in the second half of 2012.

The partnership also gives Baidu a chance to show that its understanding of emerging markets, developed in China, can be applied to the rest of the world.

Baidu had officially launched its Android browser in China in September 2012, where the mobile browser leader in China has historically been UCWeb.

The new Baidu-Orange browser is a separate project that was exclusively designed for Orange, said Xavier Perret, Orange VP of strategic partnerships and business development. Perret wouldn’t disclose terms of the agreement, but said it was more about user experience than revenue.

The browser is launching today in Arabic and English and coming soon in French.

Starting next year, Orange will offer Lookout’s software standard on Android devices in France, Slovakia, Spain and the United Kingdom.

“By investing in Lookout we are ensuring that we will continue to help keep our customers safe in the future, and that the Orange & Publicis initiative with Iris Capital is supporting a company that is positioned to become a global leader in the digital economy,” Orange Executive VP Paul-François Fournier said in a statement.

Lookout says that 40 percent of its new activations are coming from outside the U.S.; it plans to open offices next year in both Tokyo and London

France Telecom’s Orange unit is announing Libon, an app aimed at offering visual voicemail, texting, high-quality calling and other services on any network.

The free iOS app is the company’s latest entry in the so-called market for “over-the-top” services that offer calling and other features once seen as part of the core telecom market. An Android version is due out next year.

Orange will also offer a paid premium service that provides an hour of international calling, full voicemail transcription and other features.

Like other carriers, Orange is trying to compete with services like WhatsApp, which are already eating away at core calling and texting services.

The French carrier, via its labs, has been testing a product called On Voicefeed, which offers the ability to have custom voicemail messages, depending on who is calling — say, one for your boss, another for your partner, and a third for everyone else.

The challenge for services like Libon is getting enough scale to make them interesting. France Telecom says its existing test services will help provide a base.

“We’ve got a very good stab at building up that network,” Orange’s Giles Corbett said in an interview. Corbett acknowledged that getting scale, rather than a list of features, is the key to this business.

“Either you get scale quite rapidly or you don’t,” he said. “It’s got to be millions very rapidly, and growing into tens of millions.”

The two companies sent out an invitation to the media on Wednesday for a London event to take place Sept. 18.

Intel has been aiming to grab a bigger share of the mobile market. Most of its early wins have been with smaller phone makers or carriers looking to offer their own brand of phones built around a reference design that Intel had created.

Most recently, Intel announced plans to work with Russia’s MegaFon, following similar deals with India’s Lava and France Telecom’s Orange unit.

However, the Motorola partnership has been described as a deeper, multi-year deal, and I’m hearing these phones will use Motorola-created designs.

It will be interesting to see how the Intel arrangement fares now that Motorola is in Google’s hands.

As has become de rigueur for such announcements, the invite offered only the barest of logistical details, adding: “Let us take you to the edge.”

Most Android phones have been powered by chips from Nvidia, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments, though Intel is not alone in wanting to get in on the action. Broadcom has been pushing hard to go after the low-end smartphone market.

The latest company to fit that bill is MegaFon, a lesser-known but fast-growing Russian cellphone operator. Later this month, the company plans to start selling a modified version of Intel’s smartphone reference design.

The MegaFon Mint, as the phone will be known, will go on sale Wednesday for 17,990 rubles, roughly $550.

MegaFon joins carrier Orange and Indian device maker Lava among those selling the Intel-designed phone under their own brands.

Intel has also announced a deal with Motorola, though the first phones under that partnership have not yet been announced.

And when it comes to the company’s major markets in Western Europe, Maitre said things are in pretty good shape. Windows Phone, Android and iOS have paved the way for a solid set of options for both high-end devices and even midrange ones, often sold prepaid and, in some cases, under the Orange brand name.

But when it comes to serving the next 6 billion potential smartphone customers, Maitre said that none of the major operating systems is really lightweight enough from either a cost perspective or from the amount of bandwidth consumed.

In an interview Thursday, Maitre likened it to when he was growing up in France and his family had a two-cylinder Citroen. He idolized the huge eight-cylinder cars coming out of Detroit in the 1970s. And while those cars did enjoy a moment in the sun, the world realized that with more cars out there, gas wasn’t unlimited.

In the end, the car makers like Toyota that created fuel-efficient vehicles fared better.

While conventional wisdom is that low-cost Android devices will bring smartphones to the developing world, Maitre says even Google’s OS is too resource intensive. It may have started out as a four-cylinder or six-cylinder car, he says, but with the latest Ice Cream Sandwich release it is every bit the gas guzzler that iOS and Windows Phone are.

Maitre said that Orange is committed to building 3G networks in all of its markets, but that it needs more energy efficient vehicles, if you will.

“I cannot run an eight-cylinder car because it is too expensive,” said Maitre, a senior vice president at France Telecom’s Orange unit. The average selling price of phones in Orange’s developing markets is $54. And while customers might be willing to spend an extra $30 to get a smartphone, they can’t spend another $100.

“If we are not in a position to give them a smartphone at $80, we will miss the six billion,” Maitre said, adding that Orange is committed to having smartphones that hit that price. “If I cannot have Microsoft on it, if I cannot have Android, if I cannot have iOS, then I will look somewhere else, mostly likely in China,” Maitre said.

Already the company is looking at a variety of options including Mozilla’s Boot-to-Gecko project and mobile Linux options like Tizen, in addition to low-cost Android variants coming out of China.

Phones also must become more bandwidth-efficient, Maitre said, because, like gas for cars, bandwidth is a limited commodity.

Today, he said, there are about a billion people crowding the airwaves, most of whom use less than one gigabyte of data per month.

“Tomorrow, seven billion people will use bandwidth and all use [in the range of] five or six gigabits,” he said. “The bandwidth will start to become a very valuable resource.”

However, some deductive reasoning suggests that it will be Lava, a little-known Indian company that Intel announced in February as one of its early customers.

Lenovo and France Telecom’s Orange also plan devices this quarter, but both of those companies have announced dates for later in the quarter. Lenovo’s first Intel phone is coming in May, while Orange’s is expected in June.

Intel is hoping to make a dent in a market that until now has been dominated by the likes of Qualcomm, Texas Instruments and Nvidia.

“We have ambitions to not be a minor player here,” CEO Paul Otellini said back in February.

Part of Intel’s strategy has been to create a near-complete reference design that aspiring players — like Lava — can use to quickly get into the smartphone game.

Intel also announced a longer-term partnership with Motorola Mobility, though it has yet to convince most big-name phone makers to adopt its chips.

Intel, which is looking to crack the phone market, announced a few new partners on Monday, as well as plans to speed up its chips.

France Telecom’s Orange unit and Indian cellphone maker Lava International both plan to sell devices based on the reference phone design Intel created. China’s ZTE will also use Intel chips as part of a multiyear partnership, with its first Intel-based device slated to ship in the second half of this year.

“This is the first step,” ZTE Executive VP He Shiyou said at an Intel press event in Barcelona.

The Orange phone will go on sale first in France and the U.K. this summer.

At January’s Consumer Electronics Show, Intel announced that Motorola and Lenovo would use its processors. Intel had promised it would have more to say in Barcelona.

The announcements with Orange and Lava, in particular, show that Intel is having some success with its strategy of not only offering chips, but also a ready-to-go phone design that customers can use to get quickly into the Android smartphone business.

The company also offered up a look at where it is headed on the chip side.

“It wouldn’t be an Intel presentation if we didn’t show a road map,” Intel CEO Paul Otellini quipped at the briefing with reporters.

Intel said its Z2460, formerly code-named “Medfield,” will run at up to 2GHz. Meanwhile, the company announced a successor chip, which will sample in the second half of the year and ship in products next year. That chip, the Z2580, is designed to double Medfield’s performance. The company also announced plans for a lower-end chip aimed at “value” smartphones that can sell for less than $150 unsubsidized.

Otellini promised that his company will bring its legacy of performance, but won’t sacrifice on battery life, promising 14 days of standby time.

“We take battery life seriously,” he said.

Intel has also inked a deal with Visa to ensure that its phones are ready for mobile commerce, and Visa has certified Intel’s reference design as working with its payWave effort.

Intel faces steep competition in the mobile chip business from current leaders Nvidia, Texas Instruments and Qualcomm, in addition to others looking to crack the market, such as Broadcom. The company has been trying to get into the business for some time, but last year began showing a slim Android design it said would, at long last, get it into the game.

Asked what might prompt more bigger-name cellphone makers to adopt Intel chips, Otellini said that the initial products from some of these smaller partners should “light a fire” under the likes of Samsung.

“We have ambitions to not be a minor player here,” he said.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120227/intel-announces-more-phone-customers-plans-for-speedier-chips/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120124/orange-to-bring-free-wikipedia-access-to-cell-users-in-africa-and-middle-east/ http://allthingsd.com/20120124/orange-to-bring-free-wikipedia-access-to-cell-users-in-africa-and-middle-east/#comments Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:44:01 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=166997 Mobile carrier Orange said on Tuesday that it plans to offer mobile customers in Africa and the Middle East free, unlimited access to Wikipedia.

Orange said it plans to roll out the free service over the course of 2012 to customers in 20 countries, with access in the first countries launching early this year. The service will be available on any phone with an Orange SIM card and the ability to view the mobile Web, with no data plan required.

“In countries where access to information is not always readily available, we are making it simple and easy for our customers to use the world’s most comprehensive online encyclopedia,” Orange Executive VP Marc Rennard said in a statement. “It is the first partnership of this kind in the world where we are enabling customers to access Wikipedia without incurring any data charges.”

Sue Gardner, the executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, said the partnership with Orange will give Wikipedia access to millions who have not had it.

“Wikipedia is an important service, a public good, and so we want people to be able to access it for free, regardless of what device they’re using,” Gardner said.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120124/orange-to-bring-free-wikipedia-access-to-cell-users-in-africa-and-middle-east/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111116/nokia-lumia-800-launch-going-fine-thanks/ http://allthingsd.com/20111116/nokia-lumia-800-launch-going-fine-thanks/#comments Wed, 16 Nov 2011 23:09:31 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=145000 Nokia launched its new Lumia 800 smartphone Wednesday to a welcoming reception in the United Kingdom, according to early reports.

Orange, for example, said preorders for the Lumia have been higher than for any other Nokia handset in its portfolio, including the N95 and 5800.

Now, while some of the interest in the Lumia 800 is almost certainly due to Orange’s “Get a free Xbox when you upgrade” promotion, it’s clear that there are other reasons as well. The handset’s slick design, gorgeous display and sophisticated integration of Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS have won it early accolades that we haven’t heard around other Nokia hardware in quite some time.

Said Nokia spokesperson Ray Haddow, “The level of preorders, as well as reaction in shops today, lead us to be very positive about the launch of the Nokia Lumia 800.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111116/nokia-lumia-800-launch-going-fine-thanks/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111115/orange-friends-facebook-in-effort-to-boost-smartphones-feature-phones/ http://allthingsd.com/20111115/orange-friends-facebook-in-effort-to-boost-smartphones-feature-phones/#comments Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:00:26 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=144340 France Telecom’s Orange unit plans to start selling a range of home-grown phones with dedicated Facebook buttons and tight integration with the popular social network.

The three new devices are part of an effort that the French carrier hopes will increase its appeal to both younger phone buyers and those in emerging markets in Europe and Africa.

The phones will start showing up in a handful of markets next month, arriving in most countries early next year. One of the phones is a low-end Android phone, while the other two are even less expensive feature phones. All three are made by TCL Communication Technology, the Chinese company that acquired the Alcatel device business and brand name.

In an interview, Orange’s Vice President of Devices Patrick Remy said that despite the growth of smartphones, nearly half of customers are still leaving its stores with something other than a smartphone.

“We strongly believe we can do a better job, and we need to do a better job,” Remy said. The new Facebook-centric phones are one of several strategies that Orange is trying, an effort that also includes placing support staff in its stores to help new smartphone users, and efforts to help cull the masses of apps in the Android Market for those who may be intimidated by the selection.

Each of the phones is tightly integrated with Facebook’s existing software for Android and for feature phones. Earlier this year, Facebook acquired Snaptu, an Israeli company that focused on bringing the social network to feature phones.

The new Orange phones are separate from the work Facebook is doing on a higher-end HTML5-based platform, announced earlier this year.

Orange isn’t the first to tap the popularity of Facebook in an effort to boost smartphone sales. For much of this year, HTC has sold two phones — the Salsa and ChaCha (known as the Status in the U.S.), both with dedicated Facebook buttons. INQ Mobile also sells a Facebook-centric phone, though it has yet to be made available in the U.S.

Orange already sells the ChaCha, as well.

“The ChaCha is a great device with a good level of integration,” Remy said. But, he added, with the lower price of the Vancouver smartphone, Orange is “opening up some additional and new opportunities.”

With the Android device, Orange is looking to offer both a low-priced device and low service pricing. In Romania, for example, Orange plans to charge just 9 euros a month for a plan that includes unlimited use of the Facebook app, along with a bundle of voice minutes, 200 text messages and 60MB of data.

Orange plans to sell the pricier of the two feature phones for less than 60 Euros unsubsidized, and the lower-cost one for less than 40 euros.

In all three cases, Remy said, the goal is “making sure that Facebook was only one click a way whatever you are doing with your phone.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111115/orange-friends-facebook-in-effort-to-boost-smartphones-feature-phones/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111010/t-mobiles-bobsled-now-running-on-iphone-android-and-the-web/ http://allthingsd.com/20111010/t-mobiles-bobsled-now-running-on-iphone-android-and-the-web/#comments Tue, 11 Oct 2011 04:01:14 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=130777 Aiming to find some new territory to conquer, T-Mobile USA said on Monday that it has expanded its Bobsled IP calling service to run on Android and iOS devices.

T-Mobile notes that 20 percent of calling is currently done using IP telephony; that figure is expected to reach 40 percent over the next three years.

“We want to embrace the opportunity to get our fair share of that market,” T-Mobile Senior VP Brad Duea told AllThingsD. It doesn’t hurt that T-Mobile has the smallest share among major U.S. cellular carriers, or that it doesn’t have its own landline phone business, as do Sprint, AT&T and Verizon. “We don’t have a legacy landline business to protect,” Duea said.

T-Mobile launched the Bobsled service earlier this year, initially focused on calling between Facebook friends. The company had a little trouble getting off the ground, as Facebook took issue with the way T-Mobile was marketing it. It was eventually relaunched in May.

With the latest expansion, the service now allows calling via mobile devices as well as through Mac and PC Web browsers. Calls are free not only to other PCs but also from any device to any phone number in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico, Duea said. T-Mobile also has a group and text messaging component to Bobsled, which is currently available on three T-Mobile Android devices, and is coming soon to any Android or iOS device.

“With IP (telephony), we can extend our reach beyond our market, literally into other countries,” Duea said. T-Mobile isn’t the only carrier that sees such calling services — dubbed “over-the-top” services — as a way to expand their markets to new geographies. France Telecom’s Orange, for example, has an app called ON Voicefeed that aims to get into VoIP calling by providing a custom voicemail service.

T-Mobile is particularly interested in offering calling to young iPod touch owners, who might then be interested in T-mobile service when they get their first phone. (Of course, T-Mobile also hopes to be acquired by AT&T before that happens.) The company plans to eventually issue Bobsled customers their own phone numbers, so they can receive calls from any phone.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111010/t-mobiles-bobsled-now-running-on-iphone-android-and-the-web/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110908/vodafone-becomes-latest-carrier-to-set-up-shop-in-silicon-valley/ http://allthingsd.com/20110908/vodafone-becomes-latest-carrier-to-set-up-shop-in-silicon-valley/#comments Fri, 09 Sep 2011 00:00:31 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=118766

Even if they don’t offer wireless service in the U.S., it has become fashionable for overseas carriers to establish a beachhead in Silicon Valley.

It makes sense, given that many of the hottest wireless apps and services are being developed here, not to mention the fact that the region is home to both Apple and Google. The latest to hop on the trend is Vodafone, which on Thursday is opening a research and development facility in Redwood City.

“It’s a corporate objective to accelerate innovation of products,” center director Fay Arjomandi said in an interview on Thursday.

The goal is that once Vodafone has decided to work with a partner, that company’s service will be running in user trials in a Vodafone market within nine months.

The facility offers office space to partners, as well as a sample Vodafone network to allow them to develop and test their products. Companies can stay for several months or just a day or two, Arjomandi said.

“We’re here in Silicon Valley to identify the best and brightest,” said Rick Rasmussen, who heads operations and logistics for the new facility.

Vodafone, which is a part owner of Verizon Wireless, is also partnered with that company on the new center. Its facility will also have a Verizon test network; Verizon’s facilities in Waltham, Mass., and a just-opened one in San Francisco, also offer Vodafone test networks.

Unlike other European carriers with a U.S. presence, though, Vodafone has no interest in offering products here, Arjomandi said. France Telecom’s Orange, for example, doesn’t offer wireless service in the U.S., but has launched some products, such as its ON Voicemail service.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110908/vodafone-becomes-latest-carrier-to-set-up-shop-in-silicon-valley/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110815/u-s-carriers-silent-on-motoroogle-but-france-telecom-gives-it-a-thumbs-up/ http://allthingsd.com/20110815/u-s-carriers-silent-on-motoroogle-but-france-telecom-gives-it-a-thumbs-up/#comments Mon, 15 Aug 2011 20:30:36 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=110211 While there is much speculation on the effect that Google’s deal to buy Motorola Mobility would have on hardware makers, another interesting question is how it will affect its always delicate relationships with cellular carriers.

The major U.S. carriers have been silent Monday in the wake of the deal, but one major carrier — France Telecom’s Orange — tells AllThingsD that it supports the deal, with Senior Vice President Yves Maitre calling it “great news” for the industry.

“I believe it is always good to have very strong players and very integrated ones,” Maitre said in an interview. “We welcome strong competitors to Apple, and Motorola and Google will be this type of very strong competitor.”

Verizon, AT&T and Sprint all declined to comment. But rest assured, their silence does not equal a lack of interest. Though they once welcomed Android as an important counterbalance to Apple’s power, many wireless carriers have grown concerned that Google has also been exerting increasing control over Android. All have a huge interest in what happens to Android, which now makes up a significant chunk of their smartphone sales.

Google also once tried to make an end run around carriers by selling the Nexus One directly, though in recent years it has worked to restore its relationship with wireless firms.

For his part, Maitre sees Google’s Motorola deal as a continuation of a trend toward a tighter tie between phones and the operating systems that power them.

“I think the industry is going more and more vertical,” he said. “You have Apple, which has been doing vertical integration. Then we have Microsoft with the same through its partnership with Nokia.”

Maitre said competition is important, but said he is not concerned that the Motorola deal will leave Android and iPhone without decent rivals.

“The market will not let Apple and Google be alone,” he said, adding that the deal may force some of the other players in the industry to think about new arrangements, including potentially more acquisitions. “It’s difficult to say, but we may see some other partnership or takeover in the next six to nine months.”

Microsoft, meanwhile, is hoping the move will give it a needed boost in the market.

“Investing in a broad and truly open mobile ecosystem is important for the industry and consumers alike, and Windows Phone is now the only platform that does so with equal opportunity for all partners,” Windows Phone President Andy Lees said in a statement to AllThingsD.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110815/u-s-carriers-silent-on-motoroogle-but-france-telecom-gives-it-a-thumbs-up/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110627/the-data-plan-of-the-future-is-available-now-at-least-in-europe/ http://allthingsd.com/20110627/the-data-plan-of-the-future-is-available-now-at-least-in-europe/#comments Mon, 27 Jun 2011 12:00:12 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=91254 While carriers in the United States have talked about having one data plan that can be shared among a number of digital devices, one international telecom company is already putting the plan into action.

For a couple of months now, France Telecom’s Orange unit has been allowing iPad owners in Austria to share one allotment of data with a phone, while other shared data plans were recently launched in France, the United Kingdom and Spain.

Although the plans vary somewhat by country, the basic premise is the same. Users pay an extra couple of dollars a month for each additional device that shares data — similar to the way families and businesses here have long been able to share minutes between multiple phones.

“We believe that’s really a way for the future,” said Olaf Swantee, senior executive vice president for France Telecom’s Orange unit.

And while France Telecom appears to be the first major carrier to offer such plans, others are likely to follow suit. At last month’s D9 conference, AT&T executive Ralph de la Vega confirmed that some sort of shared plan is in the works.

“We’re working on one,” de la Vega said in the onstage interview. “It will be soon. I can’t comment on a quarter (when it will launch) but it will be soon.”

An AT&T representative declined to comment further. Verizon CFO Fran Shammo also said recently that company is exploring such an offer.

The move to offer such data plans could become increasingly important as carriers look to shift away from unlimited data plans, in favor of those where customers pay for a certain amount of megabytes or gigabytes. Although the concept is inherently a bit tricky for users to get their heads around, it could ultimately become more palatable if all those bytes could be shared among different devices.

Currently, the need to sign up for an entirely new data plan is acting as a disincentive for many customers to buy additional devices with built-in cellular connections. Instead, users have gravitated toward Wi-Fi equipped devices, in some cases pairing those with a mobile hotspot. Such hotspots connect to the cellular data network and then distribute that connection over Wi-Fi to any number of nearby devices. Using a hotspot, though, requires all devices being used to be nearby one another — and the hotspot is yet another device to carry around and charge.

As for the France Telecom plan, early results are encouraging. In Austria, the country where France Telecom has been offering the plans the longest, the company said that 38 percent of all iPads on its network are now using the shared data plans.

Shared data plans are just one of the moves Orange is making as digital devices and smartphones go mainstream.

Swantee said it is part of an effort to offer a broader array of services to its customers.

“We are talking to customers and not SIM cards,” he said. Over time, Swantee said, the efforts could stretch beyond rate plans and also extend to services that could be used on multiple mobile devices, as well as over landline connections.

“We really believe in the long run you will have people that want to have an experience that works across different devices,” Swantee said.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110627/the-data-plan-of-the-future-is-available-now-at-least-in-europe/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110620/as-smartphones-go-mainstream-the-industry-works-to-make-them-mom-and-pop-friendly/ http://allthingsd.com/20110620/as-smartphones-go-mainstream-the-industry-works-to-make-them-mom-and-pop-friendly/#comments Mon, 20 Jun 2011 22:10:29 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=88241 Once the purview of corporate road warriors and hard-core geeks, the smartphone is now the device of choice for the majority of phone buyers who are due for an upgrade. As a result, carriers around the world are shifting their approach in how they develop, market and sell the devices.

The early period of the smartphone is probably typified by Verizon’s successful Droid campaign, which focused heavily on the technical muscle of the device. Although that campaign continues, today’s carriers are at least as concerned with how to make smartphones appear easy and approachable to those moving up from feature phones.

At France Telecom, which sells phones in dozens of countries worldwide, 45 percent of all devices sold last year were smartphones, prompting the company to create a bunch of new services aimed at making the transition easier. A quarter of its customers sign up for at least one of the Orange Care services, which range from backing up contacts to call-in support.

The company is also setting up a “get started with smartphone” service that it expects to have up and running in 13 countries by the end of this month. In 300 of its stores, Orange plans to set up “Care Corners” dedicated to offering paid-for specialist support, especially help getting started.

“We want to democratize the smartphone,” said Olaf Swantee, senior executive vice president for France Telecom’s Orange unit.

Here in the U.S., carriers and device makers are also tweaking their pitch. Sprint, for example, has focused on a set of Sprint ID packs that allow Android newbies to get up and running with a collection of apps and widgets that match their interests. The concept was first introduced at the CTIA show in 2010 with partners such as Disney, MTV and ESPN. Since then, the carrier has continued to roll out new themed collections, including a NASCAR pack, a “green” pack to go along with its first eco-centric Android device and a Relay ID pack aimed at the hearing-impaired community.

“Smartphones are already mainstream,” an AT&T representative said, noting that the company sold more than 5.5 million smartphones last quarter, with smartphones accounting for nearly two-thirds of new sales to contract customers.

At the same time, even the father of Android admits that the operating system is still geared mainly to techies.

“I would probably characterize Android as it is today as an early adopters’ platform,” Google’s Andy Rubin said at last December’s D: Dive Into Mobile conference. “It’s for the tech enthusiast and people who are married to the tech enthusiast.”

Both Google and those that make Android devices, of course, are trying to change that. Samsung, HTC, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and other Android phone makers all offer their own custom user interfaces designed to make Android simpler to use.

Microsoft, for its part, has made a big part of its Windows Phone 7 pitch the idea that it is offering a smartphone for the masses. Its early ads focused on it being a phone designed to fit into, rather than take over, one’s life.

And while the exact smartphone share numbers vary somewhat in different countries, the rise in adoption and surge in mobile data use is a global phenomenon, Swantee said.

“We have countries where the GDP is $2,500 (per person),” Swantee said. “And we have countries like Switzerland where the GDP per head is in excess of $45,000. The countries all move to these products.”

The price of the devices does tend to vary by country. While the iPhone and high-end Android devices dominate in Western Europe and North America, emerging markets have seen strong sales of lower-end devices, including offerings from Nokia and Research In Motion. Increasingly, though, Android is also playing in these countries, with devices that sell for well below $100 unsubsidized expected to be available this year. In Africa, France Telecom is selling an Alcatel-branded device that offers limited data access and costs just $25.

“Mobile Internet is quickly becoming intrinsic in many people’s life,” said France Telecom Executive Vice President Anne Bouverot. “That drives quite a similar demand (worldwide).”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110620/as-smartphones-go-mainstream-the-industry-works-to-make-them-mom-and-pop-friendly/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110227/frances-orange-hopes-to-put-the-squeeze-on-rivals-with-an-iphone-voice-mail-app/ http://allthingsd.com/20110227/frances-orange-hopes-to-put-the-squeeze-on-rivals-with-an-iphone-voice-mail-app/#comments Mon, 28 Feb 2011 05:00:03 +0000 Ina Fried http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/?p=4391 While few in the U.S. know Orange as anything other than a color or a fruit, the France Telecom mobile unit is hoping to change that with an app that improves upon the iPhone’s built-in voicemail.

At Demo on Monday, Orange plans to show off ON VoiceFeed–a program that lets users create custom greetings for individual callers or groups of callers. The idea is to be able to leave a generic message for the masses, while offering something special to co-workers, loved ones or other groups.

The app is slated to be made available for free in the App Store during the next two weeks for those in the UK, U.S. and France. Longer term, Orange can envision a business model that aims to make money by offering to return international calls using VoIP at cheaper rates than are offered by whatever carrier a smartphone owner is using.

While much of Orange is focused on fending off rivals like Skype and Google Voice that would usurp their core business, a small unit at the company–Orange Vallee–is trying to come up with disruptive apps of its own. ON VoiceFeed is not the unit’s first foray; it has also been beta testing an Android product that builds a “living address book.” That product has about 100,000 testers, Orange said.

Given that Orange’s core business generates about eight billion dollars in free cash flow, there are clearly a lot of people at the company looking to preserve that. But, with all that is at risk, it helps to have a “Plan B” and “Plan C,” says Giles Corbett, the head of the Orange Vallee unit that developed the Android and iPhone apps.

After debuting the Android app last year, Orange hoped to quickly follow with apps for the iPhone, BlackBerry and other smartphones, but underestimated the amount of time it would take to rethink what made sense for each platform. The company still hopes to expand beyond the iPhone and Android at some point.

As for the iPhone voice mail program, users can record a custom greeting for a loved one or let their co-workers know they are out of the country without broadcasting that to anyone who calls. Corbett says the product transforms the experience for those who end up in voice mail.

“They are used to voice mail being a dead-end thing,” Corbett said. “All of a sudden it’s ‘Oh’, that’s what (so and so) is doing.”

Indeed, in testing many callers started speaking when they heard a customized greeting–assuming it was the person answering and not voice mail. Now, ON VoiceFeed messages begin with a tone to let callers know that, however personal the greeting, it is still a recorded message.

As for why Orange is testing its products in the U.S. rather than just on its home turf, Corbett noted that nearly half of Android users are in North America and that the region remains home to the largest concentration of iPhone users. Plus, he noted, the traditional geographic boundaries are breaking down with Skype and all of the similar services that sit on top of smartphones, regardless of who the underlying carrier may be.

“Telecoms are going to become much, much more global,” Corbett said.

For a better idea of how the voice mail app will work, here’s a video that Orange posted on YouTube.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110227/frances-orange-hopes-to-put-the-squeeze-on-rivals-with-an-iphone-voice-mail-app/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110204/billboards-join-wired-age/ http://allthingsd.com/20110204/billboards-join-wired-age/#comments Fri, 04 Feb 2011 12:30:14 +0000 Spencer E. Ante http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=35915 Billboards and posters are one of world’s oldest forms of advertising. Now, some marketers and start-ups say wireless technology could revamp outdoor advertising by bringing interactivity and pay-for-performance models.

Over the last few months, Google Inc., Nokia Corp. and France Telecom SA’s Orange have run pilot advertising campaigns that let a person interact with posters in bus stops, phone booths, train stations and airports in cites including New York and London.

So far, companies are using the posters as a way to distribute wireless applications or ringtones for smartphones. But outdoor advertisers and marketers say the ads could also be used to distribute games, video ads, coupons and even as a way to sell physical or digital goods and services.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110204/billboards-join-wired-age/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110128/90-percent-of-att-iphone-subs-still-under-contract/ http://allthingsd.com/20110128/90-percent-of-att-iphone-subs-still-under-contract/#comments Fri, 28 Jan 2011 12:00:07 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=56643 A metric worth mulling as AT&T’s previously monogamous relationship with Apple shifts into polyamory: 90 percent of the carrier’s iPhone users are still under contract.

That’s according to Susquehanna analyst Jeffrey Fidacaro (and AT&T, which confirmed that percentage to me), who doesn’t see the launch of the iPhone on Verizon as a catastrophic event for AT&T at all. He thinks the carrier stands to lose two million iPhone users at most to Verizon–hardly a mass exodus.

AT&T’s decision last year to accelerate upgrade eligibility for iPhone customers, making it easier for them to get the iPhone 4 when Apple released it, is proving a wise move indeed. What better deterrent to switching networks than the carrier’s $325 early termination fee?

In all likelihood, iPhone subscriber churn will be no worse at AT&T than it has been at other carriers that have lost iPhone exclusivity. As Matthew Key, CEO of Telefónica Europe, said during a February 2010 earnings call, “Ever since Vodafone has started selling the iPhone in January, we see absolutely no evidence of people leaving us, churning on the iPhone going back to Orange or Vodafone, so [we are] very comfortable with our iPhone volumes. We continue to out-trade the market and no sign of churn whatsoever.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110128/90-percent-of-att-iphone-subs-still-under-contract/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20101117/microsoft-offers-lync-to-connect-enterprise-communications/ http://allthingsd.com/20101117/microsoft-offers-lync-to-connect-enterprise-communications/#comments Wed, 17 Nov 2010 23:17:32 +0000 Voices http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=32738 Microsoft today launched Lync, the successor to the Office Communications Server and, to hear the company tell it, a great supplement or replacement for PBX systems. In addition to providing a single interface to manage instant messages, voice calls, video calls, meetings and shared whiteboard sessions, Lync integrates enterprise VoIP. Happy customers already include Boeing, Estée Lauder, France Telecom, Nikon and Orange. A free 180-day trial is available now.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101117/microsoft-offers-lync-to-connect-enterprise-communications/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101110/chinas-zte-going-tactile-in-europe/ http://allthingsd.com/20101110/chinas-zte-going-tactile-in-europe/#comments Wed, 10 Nov 2010 08:00:39 +0000 Owen Fletcher http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=32313 China’s ZTE Corp., best known as a telecommunications equipment maker but also a growing vendor of mobile phones, estimates it will ship 300,000 units of a new Android smartphone to Europe this year as sales launch in France this month, a ZTE spokeswoman said late Monday.

The smartphone, with a 3.5-inch touch screen, is ZTE’s second in France using Google’s Android operating system.

France Telecom’s Orange, which has already sold the phone in the U.K. with the name “The San Francisco” since September, will also sell the device in France as the “Tactile Internet 2? starting Nov. 18, an Orange spokesman said. It will sell the phone in France for 249 euros ($343) without any service plan and starting at 9 euros with a post-paid plan, the spokesman said.

France’s Bouygues Telecom will also sell the new Android phone as the “Blade,” the ZTE spokeswoman said.

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