Microsoft to buy Nokia's phone unit

Microsoft is buying Nokia's devices and services business - and getting access to the company's patents - for a total of $7.2bn in an effort to expand its share of the smartphone market. Reports Al Jazeera.

The corporations announced the deal late on Monday, saying that Microsoft will pay $5bn for the Nokia unit that makes mobile phones, including its line of Lumia smartphones that run Windows Phone software.

Microsoft is also paying $2.2bn for a 10-year licence to use Nokia's patents, with the option to extend it indefinitely.

"We are very excited about the proposal to bring the best mobile device efforts of Microsoft and Nokia together," Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, said in a memo to employees. "We are receiving incredible talent, technology and IP [intellectual property]."

Microsoft said it is acquiring Nokia's Asha brand of low to mid-level smartphones and will license the Nokia brand for current Nokia mobile products.

Overseas cash resources

Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Washington, said it will draw from its overseas cash resources to fund the transaction. When the deal closes in early 2014, about 32,000 Nokia employees will transfer to Microsoft, the companies said.

Nokia, based in Espoo, Finland, said Stephen Elop will step aside as president and CEO to become executive vice president of Nokia devices and services.

Risto Siilasmaa, Nokia chairman, will stay in his current role and assume the duties of interim CEO. Elop is expected to join Microsoft at the close of the transaction, along with several Nokia vice presidents.

Nokia plans to hold a news conference on Tuesday morning in Finland to discuss the deal.

Banglalink awarded 3G licence

Banglalink, the second leading mobile operator in the country in terms of subscribers, was finally awarded a 3G license on Thursday evening after paying the remaining amount of their spectrum fee, Dhaka Tribune reports.

Earlier, the mobile operator failed to get the 3G license as they could not pay the full amount of the Tk5.25bn spectrum fee.

They managed to pay Tk3.22bn and were given the No Objection Certificate (NOC) to allow importation of the 3G equipment.

Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) acting chairman Md Giashuddin Ahmed handed over the license soon after the Banglalink authorities paid the remaining Tk2.03bn of the spectrum fee.

Banglalink Senior Director (regulatory & legal affairs) Zakiul Islam received the license.

Earlier, on September 12, the BTRC issued 3G mobile service licenses and NOCs for the importing of equipment to three other mobile phone operators.

Grameenphone, the leader in Bangladesh's mobile market, and Robi both made full payments on Monday and Tuesday according to the guidelines, while Airtel paid Tk5.25bn immediately after the licensing award ceremony.

Grameenphone begins trial 3G operation

Online Newspaper Natunbarta reported that Grameenphone, the leading mobile phone operator in the country, began 3G operations on a trial basis in different places of Dhaka from Wednesday.

They have send a small SMS to different media stating : “Yes! Its 3G day. We are testing 3G at expo at GP house.

  Grameen Phone is the first private operator, testing 3G successfully since last few days.

After the test run, GP will arrange a soft launch in GP house to test the quality of 3G services,” another high official of the operator told the Dhaka Tribune.

Robi offers more than 3G

Mobile phone operator Robi Axiata Limited has announced its preparedness to launch 3.5G services by next month.

Michael Kuehner, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Managing Director of Robi Axiata, made the announcement at a media briefing, held at a city hotel on Tuesday.

Kuehner said the company will draw on the international roll-out expertise of parent group Axiata, which is providing 3 G and LTE services across Asia, to ensure best 3.5G content and experience for its customers.

He said Robi will have a limited 3.5G service launch in October, 3013. “This is a new technology for all of us and our priority is a quality customer experience rather than just a speedy execution,” the CEO said.

He stated that the Robi expects to provide it to incrementally selected areas of Dhaka, Chittagong, Comilla and Sylhet districts by the end of the year.

During his presentation at the press briefing, the Robi CEO explained that 35% of the population will be covered by the first quarter of 2014.

“3.5G technology is vital for the economic growth and development of Bangladesh in a host of different sectors – from education to health to commerce,” said Kuehner.

“In receiving this license for Robi, we are embracing the mobile data revolution, expanding the country’s data services and enhancing capacity, aimed at improving the lives of the people as they connect with each other and the rest of the world. Not only does the license further bolster Robi’s robust and high-performing data services, but it also complements our existing state-of-the-art network that currently offers the widest, most reliable and highest quality coverage across the country,” he said.

Replying to a question Chief Financial Officer, Mahtab Uddin Ahmed said Robi subscribers will get the 3.5G service free of cost in their existing SIM.

In reply to another question, he said the company have paid of around  Tk 525 crore to the BTRC on Tuesday, which is almost 60 percent of fees for 5MHZ of 3G spectrum.

Robi Axiata Ltd on Sunday acquired 5 MHz of 3G-spectrum in an auction arranged by BTRC. The spectrum, which is part of the 2100 MHz-band, will enable Robi to further expand and develop its position in the market with innovative data packages via 3.5G-platform.

Common Troubleshooting of Banglalion Wimax Modem

Banglalion Wimax is most most commonly used wimax netwok in Bangladesh, as it covers all major cities of Bangladesh . Other wimax operators quebee is currently available in dhaka city.  There are many newbie users getting interested into internet and using Banglalion Wimax as their internet provider . Lets a take a look some common troubleshooting of Banglalion wimax Modem.

The system can not run the installation program automatically.

This problem indicates that your system configuration is not suitable for autorun banglalion wimax modem installation.

This problem could be solved easily .. Just go to My Computer->Open Disc of Banglalion Modem -> Run autorun.exe

Another reason of this problem could be some other version of Banglalion Wimax modem is installed in your system . So please uninstall other version before install the new version. You can uninstall through Control Panel.

Another Common problem is Modem insertion does not run UI Program automaticly.

Here also the possible reason is system configuration and in this case you have to run UI program manually.

You could also face a  termination of Banglalion Wimax Modem installation at the end of installation Process. 

Possible reason is your system security configuration. 

If you face termination of installation process Go to Control Panel-> System and Security -> System -> System Protection -> Configure... -> Turn off system protection 

EDVO VS EDGE COMPARISION

EVDO and EDGE both are high speed wireless networks . As cell phones become more like PDAs, people are accessing larger files such as email attachments with these devices and even watching youtube video ,using facebook like social networking site. Many people in Bangladesh also in whole world using cell phone as their modem .

These wireless broadband networks have speeds that are many times faster than typical cell phone connections, but the throughput rates can differ dramatically. One difference is the protocol your cell carrier uses. In the Bangladesh, the predominant standards are CDMA and GSM. Each of these standards has their own high-speed protocol. In some regards, this is like DSL and cable access. Both offer high-speed access at different rates and each requires their own equipment.


EVDO (FOR CDMA)

In the CDMA world, the high-speed wireless protocol is called EvDO. Like many abbreviations, this one has two translations: Evolution Data Optimized and Evolution Data Only. In Bangladesh , Only Citycell using CDMA technology for mobile network.
EVDO is more likely faster among two networks.Currently Citycell offering highest speed at 512Kps which means if you dont have any system loss , you can get download speed at around 64 KB/s
 .Citycell networks covers almost all major cites in Bangladesh .

EDGE (FOR GSM)
 
The  GSM world has its own protocol and acronym EDGE. EDGE stands for Enhanced Data Rates for Global Evolution. Although it is much slower than EvDO, it does offer some advantages. In Bangladesh , remaining four mobile network Grameen, Banglalink , Airtel [Previously Warid],Robi[Previously Aktel] use GSM technology for their mobile netwok . I have not seen any documents where these carries disclose their speeds . But EDGE is usually cited cite 70-135kbps with bursts to 200kbps.

Icloud : A cloud service from Apple

On June 6th  Steve Job’s Apple announced at Apple Worldwide Developers Conference that iCloud service will be available to the public along with release of iOS 5 .

iCloud stores your music, photos, apps, calendars, documents, and more. And wirelessly pushes them to all your devices — automatically. It’s the easiest way to manage your content. Because now you don’t have to.


iCloud is so much more than a hard drive in the sky. It’s the effortless way to access just about everything on all your devices. iCloud stores your content so it’s always accessible from your iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, or PC.