Device Knowledge

Huawei implements support for OMA CP and OMA DM on Android

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 07:53:00 +0200

Huawei has implemented support for OTA provisioning using OMA CP and OMA DM on their range of Android models. This is pretty interesting news since OTA provisioning support is not available by default on the Android platform.

The ability to provision Android devices OTA is something that is very sought-after for operators. An operator wants of course to be able to send down settings to the subscribers' devices to make sure that their services can be accessed easily.

Having an OMA DM client enables the operator to not only provision the device through a client-server session (as opposed to OMA CP which is an one way method using a WAP push message), but it also makes it possible to diagnose the device in order to verify that the correct settings are installed.

Huawei U8110 - OMA CP and OMA DM enabled Android.

Read more about the industry standard OMA CP and OMA DM here.

Will your next mobile be a Maxx, Spice or Karbonn?

Wed, 19 May 2010 13:11:00 +0200

In a previous post, I mentioned a couple of Indian mobile vendors like Micromax, Spice, Karbonn and Maxx. These vendors sell currently millions of devices each month in India and are of course aiming at taking market shares from the big vendor names like Nokia, Samsung and LG.

What are the reasons behind why local Indian vendors are increasing their market shares? A few points can be identified.

Combinded affordabilitiy with features
The features on these handsets are mostly basic but some innovative exceptions exist. For example, Micromax X235 has an in-built remote control that can be used with the TV set, the DVD player or your AC. Combine these basic but practical features with a relatively low price and you have an interesting option for a mobile buyer in India.
Support for dual SIM cards
As described in a earlier blog post, it's common for the typical Indian mobile subscriber to use several SIM cards depending on which operator is currently offering the lowest cost for calls.
A rough estimation is that 20% of the handsets in the Indian mobile market currently support dual SIM cards. Some models even have support for three SIM cards (normally with 2 GSM slots and 1 CDMA slot).
Samsung has already seen this demand and has released a couple of models with this feature. Nokia has still not released any dual SIM capable model, rumours say however that a model with this feature will be launched during 2010.
Distribution and local availability
Good distribution channels and availability in rural India, where the mobile market growth has been biggest, is an important factor behind this development.
Customer service
Indian handsets vendors have understood the importance of having good customer service. Zen mobiles for example have currently over 300 service centers around India and Micromax has over 200.
Marketing and presence
Karbonn and Maxx were official partners to IPL (Indian Premier League), the big cricket event held during April this year in India, and their commercials could be seen throughout the games.
Other brands tie famous Bollywood and cricket stars to become their "brand ambassadeurs".

It will be interesting to see if some brand will stand out as the number one challanger to Nokia, Samsung and LG. It will also be interesting to see what kind of more advanced features will be available on these handsets.

Mobile market in India

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 11:39:00 +0200

In 2005, India had the fifth largest telecom market in the world and has since then grown to have the second largest.

According to TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) the number of "wireless subscribers" reached 563 million at the end of February 2010. Does this mean that 563 million people in India use a mobile phone? Well, the big question here is what is defined by a "wireless subscriber" which is not so obvious. More interesting would be to count active subscribers, that is, how many actual subscribers the operators have at a given time. Of course, this is much more difficult since the typical user in India tend to switch between several SIM cards. The reason for this is the lucrative tariff plans that from time to time is offered by the operators. A user might for example buy a new prepaid subscription for Rs. 25 (Rs.100 is approximately $2.25) with, let's say, Rs. 75 worth of making outgoing calls. When this amount is used, the user can buy a new prepaid subscription to make calls with. However, regardless how you count the subscribers, fact is that the Indian mobile market has grown remarkable the last 5 years.

According to MSAI (Mobile Standards Alliance of India) there are over 250 Indian mobile phone vendors (most of these import their models from China, they don't have their own manufacturing sites in India yet). These vendors have of course seen the opportunity to take shares on this "fiercely competitive market" as it is commonly described. The top three handset vendors are, by no surprise, Nokia (market share of 54 per cent of units sold according to market research firm IDC), Samsung (close to 10 per cent) and LG (4 per cent).
Examples of Indian brands are Micromax, Karbonn, Videocon, Spice and G-Five. Models from these vendors offer quite nice features at very reasonable prices. One interesting feature, which practically all of the biggest Indian brands share for their models, is the support for dual SIM cards. That means you can have 2 active SIM cards and easily switch between which SIM you want to use for making or receiving calls with (there are even some models with three SIM card slots). What's more interesting is also that these vendors generally have good support for OTA provisioning industry standards.

The image below shows a G-Five U808 to the left and a Spice QT-55 to the right. Note the FM antenna on QT-55.

OTA provisioning on Nokia N900

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 10:00:00 +0200

I've been an N900 owner for a couple of weeks now and I will give an example how this device can be provisioned OTA using the industry standard OMA Client Provisioning.

For this I'm using a provisioning document with a single access point without any proxy information.

These steps are pretty straightforward.
Step 1. When first receiving the settings, the user is asked for the user PIN. This PIN is normally sent in a message before the settings arrive. If I had used network PIN this dialogue had not appeared.

Step 2. The user has to confirm to save the access point.

Step 3. The user is informed about the saved settings.

I will not bore you with screenshots of the actual settings, you will just have to trust me that the settings were saved correctly. N900 has only support for one access point and the saved settings will update the existing one (there are though some possibilities to add more access points by using 3rd party applications such as fAPN)

A curious reader might wonder if iPhone or Android based models have the same support. The answer is no. Neither iPhone nor Android handsets support provisioning settings by using OMA CP. iPhone can be provisioned by using it's propriatery document format "mobileconfig". I will write about how that can look like in another blog entry.

For Android, an effort has been done to implement this support but it hasn't made it into any official version yet. Talking about Android, industry rumors say it will have support for OMA DM in future versions. Let's see about that.

In the next blog entry I plan to write something about mobile vendors in Asia and specifically India. Vendors like ZTE, Huawei, Micromax, Spice and Videocon produce cost-friendly mobiles with features that can compete with their more expensive competitors. But more about that later.

Welcome to the first entry of the Device Knowledge Blog!

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:28:00 +0200

Welcome to the first entry of the Device Knowledge Blog. Here you will find information and thoughts about the mobile device world among other things.
But first, a short introduction of who I am. My name is David Vedholm and I've been working at SmartTrust for 3,5 years. During this time I've been working with our device database that holds various information about devices and through this work I've encountered many different mobile phones. The most important part of our work with devices is to figure out how they can be managed over the air (OTA).
A device typically implements support for an OTA protocol (for example Open Mobile Alliance Client Provisioning v1.1) so that it can be configured easily. Configured can in this sense mean to install the correct settings for the browser. Why is it important? A user doesn't normally want to go in to the settings of the browser and set up the correct proxy and APN. What probably happens in that case is that the user gets an error message and doesn't bother to try again. With OTA provisioning, the device receives an SMS and the settings are installed with minimum user interaction.

For the last couple of months I've been waiting to get my hands on Nokia's Maemo5 based N900. The N900 began shipping in the middle of November but unfortunately for Sweden, the device launch was postponed in wait for an software update. You have probably already heard of this device, it is Linux based with a resistive touchscreen and a Qwerty keyboard and other nice features too many to list here (click here for more detailed specifications). The internet is already flooded by reviews of this device but I will anyway write a couple of lines about my impressions of it as soon as I've used it for some time.

If you have any thoughts or questions of any kind, feel free to leave a comment.