Wireless

The Internet telephony company Truphone has turned its client for the iPhone and iPod Touch into an aggregator for a range of popular VoIP and instant-messaging applications.

Truphone announced the new functionality on Tuesday at the Macworld 2009 expo in San Francisco. Starting next Monday, all Truphone subscribers using one of Apple's handhelds will be able to use the free client for Skype, Twitter, Google Talk, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger two-way communications.

Truphone's users have already been able to use Google Talk voice chat functionality, but they will now be able to make calls to their MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, and Skype contacts as well. The company's chief executive, Geraldine Wilson, said in a statement that the features would let Truphone's customers "choose which mode of communications they want to use at any moment--all from within the one application."

"This represents another step toward making Truphone the open 'all-in-one conversations hub' for iPhone and iPod Touch users," Wilson said.

Calls between Truphone and Skype will be free over Wi-Fi, and will cost the price of a local call over the handset's cellular connection. As the iPhone is usually sold with an 'unlimited' data plan, instant messages should not cost anything above that flat fee, unless the user is roaming internationally.

Truphone also produces clients for Nokia and BlackBerry smartphones.

David Meyer of ZDNet UK reported from London.

MobiTV said Tuesday that it has struck a content deal with network TV provider CBS (now the parent company of CNET News) to bring some of its most popular TV shows to mobile phones.

For the first time, MobiTV will be offering a CBS channel as part of its $10 a month service. MobiTV subscribers will be able to get full episodes of several CBS hits such as "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," "Numb3rs," "CSI: NY," and "The Young and the Restless." Viewers will also be able to access video on demand news, sports and comedy clips from CBS Mobile. The shows will be available on AT&T and Sprint Nextel networks the day after CBS broadcasts them on TV.

MobiTV, which has been around for about five years, already offers more than 40 channels of daily live TV from several networks including ABC, NBC, ESPN, and Discovery Networks. It also offers made for mobile videos and video on demand clips to more than five million subscribers on over 350 mobile devices.

"The deal with CBS rounds out our primetime programming that we already offer from NBC and ABC," said Paul Scanlan, co-founder and president of MobiTV. "One of the biggest challenges for us over the years has been the availability of high value content for mobile. So every time we do a content deal like this, it's really important."

Updated at 10:00 AM Pacific.

Six months after announcing its intention to bring SlingPlayer to the iPhone 3G, Sling Media has another announcement to make--just not the one you're wishing for.

SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone isn't ready yet, Sling said on Tuesday, but it is on its way.

Like SlingPlayer Mobile for Windows Mobile, Palm, Symbian, UIQ, and BlackBerry (beta) platforms, this iPhone version will let you access one or more Slingboxes from your mobile device, and watch your TV stations on-the-go. It will also be compatible with the iPod Touch.

You'll also be able to manage your DVR from the iPhone, and can synchronously add and remove favorite channels directly from the phone's interface--a first for the SlingPlayer Mobile line.

In our demo, the client streamed live, high-quality video of stations like MTV and TBS on both Wi-Fi and the iPhone's 3G network. Swiping the screen horizontally advances you through favorite stations, and flicking up and down rotates through all your home channels.

Sling Media says it will submit the file to the iTunes AppStore by the end of the first fiscal quarter. While Sling Media shared no firm price tag, it could mirror the $29.99 lifetime fee of SlingPlayer Mobile on other platforms.

Before getting too excited, just remember that Apple has been known to kill promising apps, ostensibly for the crime of a large data transfers. SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone could suffer the same fate. Assuming it doesn't, the client still faces competition from Orb, whose full version, OrbLive, delivers live TV and media stored on your PC for $10.

Internet and mobile services are expected to score against handheld video game players and satellite radio amid an economic recession, according to results from a Forrester Research survey released Monday.

According to the results, 51 percent of North America consumers surveyed said they planned to curtail technology spending in the coming year, due to the economy. And areas expected to take the greatest hit include handheld video game players, followed by satellite radio, smart phones, video game consoles, and portable GPS devices.

(Credit: Forrester Research)

The report noted:

While no device is immune from consumer spending cuts, new devices such as satellite radios and handheld video game players are the most likely to be left off the priority list - two thirds of consumers, regardless of their previous intentions, said that they are less likely to purchase these two devices in a recession, while a scant 3 percent said that they are more likely.

The survey, which took the pulse of more than 5,000 consumers in North America during November, found that high-definition TVs were more resilient, with only half of those surveyed saying they were less likely to purchase an HDTV in the coming year. And 7 percent of survey respondents even noted they were more likely to buy an HDTV, Forrester noted.

But Internet, as well as mobile, services fared far better.

According to the report:

An evaluation of purchase intentions can determine which products consumers see as essential and which they consider a luxury, mobile phone and Internet service, for instance, remain steady, while momentum for newer products such as personal navigation devices and satellite radio will slow.

Among Internet users, 83 percent of survey respondents noted they have no plans to change their service and 2 percent indicated plans to increase their service. As for mobile phone users, 70 percent said planned to keep the status quo, with 2 percent noting plans to increase their service, according to Forrester.

But all services are not created equal. Premium cable services and landline phone services, for example, were deemed less essential to survey respondents, with 14 percent of those users cumulatively noting they may cancel or reduce their service.

Palm is rumored to be launching a smartphone on Thursday that runs Nova, its next-generation operating system, according to a report Sunday on CrunchGear.

The report, which cites "a trusted source," says the device will have a full QWERTY keyboard that will slide under the touch screen.

Palm's next-generation operating system has been delayed several times but is regarded as crucial to the company's chances of regaining a foothold in the mobile-computing market.

Nova, based on Linux, is expected to bring the Palm brand operating system into the modern era of computing. The beginning of Palm's decline as a mobile-computing innovator can be traced to the 2003 decision to separate into two companies, one that developed the operating system (PalmSource) and one that developed the hardware (Palm).

Palm wound up having to nurture the 2004-era Palm OS version into the present day after PalmSource and later Access never produced anything deemed useful; it still runs the Palm Centro.

The company wisely hooked up with Microsoft to release Windows Mobile-based Treos, but has longed to once again design a complete product, hardware and software.

CNET News' Tom Krazit contributed to this report.

China's state council said it's approved licenses for higher-speed 3G mobile networks, a move expected to help bring higher-end services to phone users in the country.

Under a telecommunications reorganization plan whose creation delayed issuance of the licenses, China Mobile is set to receive approval for a network using TD-SCDMA technology, a standard backed by Beijing, according to a Reuters report Wednesday. China Unicom would be awarded a WCDMA license and China Telecom a CDMA 2000 license, according to the report.

WCDMA and CDMA 2000 standards are mature and globally accepted but come with royalties the Chinese government has sought to avoid.

"China Unicom and China Telecom will see a positive reaction in terms of share price reaction," Reuters quoted Tang Mingjun, a telecom analyst with Shenyin Wanguo Securities in Shanghai, as saying.

The Chinese Ministry of Industry of Information, which expects Chinese telecommunications companies to spend about $41 billion on the next-generation phone equipment, has said the licenses are due to be issued by early 2009, according to the report.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin has backed off his plan that would require free wireless broadband license holders to filter for smut.

On Monday, the chairman told the blog Ars Technica that he has revised his proposal for free wireless broadband so that it doesn't require license holders to filter for porn. Martin said in an interview with the Web site that he has already started circulating the new version of the plan.

The FCC has been considering auctioning off 25 megahertz of wireless spectrum in the 2155MHz to 2180MHz band for several months. As part of the auction, Martin proposed requiring license holders to offer a portion of their service for free. Also, the free service would be required to filter for pornography and material deemed unsuitable for children.

The idea behind the proposal was to provide wireless broadband Internet access to millions of Americans who may not have been able to afford it.

But several consumer and civil liberty groups opposed the Web filtering requirement, believing that the filter could potentially allow the government to block any content it finds objectionable.

Martin told Ars Technica that he didn't want the Web filtering provision to kill the whole proposal. So he took it out.

"I'm saying if this is a problem for people, let's take it away," Martin told Ars Technica. "A lot of public interest advocates have said they would support this, but we're concerned about the filter. Well, now there's an item in front of the Commissioners and it no longer has the filter. And I've already voted for it without the filter now. So it's already got one vote."

Several consumer groups including, Public Knowledge, Consumers Union, and the Media Access Project, have said they support the idea of offering free wireless access without Web filtering in an effort to provide more broadband options for consumers. They also like the open-access provisions of the proposal, which would require license holders to allow any device to connect to the network.

But others, including the wireless industry, oppose the idea of opening up this spectrum. T-Mobile USA, which spent $4.2 billion in 2006 to acquire spectrum in an adjacent band, has complained that using this spectrum would cause interference with its newly acquired spectrum. The FCC says it has disproved these claims. But it's very clear that T-Mobile, which just started offering 3G wireless service using its new spectrum, also doesn't want to compete with a service that is free.

Martin wanted the FCC to vote on the free wireless proposal on December 18. But the meeting was canceled after several objections over the vote from Congress. The Commission met for an open meeting via teleconference on Tuesday, where it bid farewell to Republican Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate. But no items were voted on.

The revised free wireless broadband proposal could be voted on during the Commission's open meeting on January 15, but there's been no word yet on specific agenda items. Needless to say, with the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama on January 20, the next FCC open meeting will likely be Martin's last to opportunity to push through any items, such as the new proposal.

Consumers are benefiting from competition between phone companies and cable operators when it comes to broadband pricing, but the same can't be said for pricing on TV services.

A report published by market research firm Pike & Fischer earlier this month notes that cable broadband prices have remained steady even though operators have been increasing speeds. The firm attributes this trend to more competition from Verizon's all-fiber network, Fios, which offers superfast broadband at competitive prices.

Average prices for cable modem service have remained steady at about $40 to $45 a month, the firm said. That's even as standard cable modem speeds have climbed from an average of 3 megabits per second in 2004 to between 10 Mbps and 15 Mbps today. Some markets are even able to get 50 Mbps.

"As Verizon has rolled out Fios Internet and TV services in more and more communities, the market has seen an increasing variety of prices and data rates, as cable operators respond to FiOS launches (and to a lesser extent similar services from AT&T and Qwest Communications) on an increasingly market-by-market basis," Mitchell Shapiro, a contributing analyst for Pike & Fischer said in a statement.

Meanwhile, consumers don't appear to be getting the same pricing benefits from competition when it comes to their TV service. Cable TV prices continue to rise. For example, Time Warner plans to increase its Triple Play Starter Pak to $116.95 from $114.95, while its standard service will go from $43.25 to $46.30 in most areas, according to a rate card distributed to customers. Some promotional prices are lower for new customers.

A Time Warner spokeswoman told the Times Herald-Record, a newspaper serving New York's Hudson Valley, that the price hikes were due to rising programming and operating costs. Cablevision will also be raising its cable television prices by an average of 3.5 percent, the Times Herald-Record also reported.

AT&T and Verizon, which offer TV service in some areas to compete with cable, have also been increasing rates and are expected to raise them again in early 2009. In October, AT&T increased the price for three new high-definition channels by $5 a month. And now some customers are receiving e-mails informing them that beginning February 1, 2009, the monthly rates for a few services will be increased, according to Engadget. For example, non-DVR set top boxes will cost $7 per month instead of $5 per month. And the price of the Movie Package will increase from $15 to $20 a month. And the Paquete Espanol package will increase from $10 to $15 a month.

Verizon's plans for rate hikes haven't been announced, but they're likely coming. Last February, Verizon raised the price of its Fios TV Premier tier by 12 percent. And word on the street is that the company will likely raise rates again in early 2009.

The Federal Communications Commission has been looking into the rising price of cable services for some time. But nothing has been done to curb the price hikes.

Of course, consumers could look for alternatives. As more Americans are hit by the economic downturn, some are turning toward the Internet and over-the-air TV as free alternatives. But broadband providers may soon put a kibosh on these free alternatives, as they impose service limitations like bandwidth caps and overage charges.