Stalinist North Korea has contracted with the Egyptian company Orascom Telecom to provide mobile phone service in the communist country. North Korea began mobile service in November 2002 but within 18 months banned the service for ordinary citizens and recalled handsets. It is believed the network is still available for government officials.

The deal will give Orascom Telecom a 25-year lease throughout the country, with an exclusivity period of four years.

“Orascom Telecom intends to invest up to 400 million dollars in network infrastructure and license fee over the first three years in order to rapidly deploy a high quality network and offer voice, data and value-added services at accessible prices to the Korean people,” the company said.

North Korea has a population of 23 million. Orascom will cover Pyongyang and most major cities in the first year of operations.

The North Korea deal “is in line with our strategy to penetrate countries with high population and low penetration by providing the first mobile telephony services,” said Naguib Sawiris, chairman and CEO.

The firm “has consistently proved its ability to successfully roll out mobile services into countries where no other operator has.”

Comstar UTS, a Russian land-line operator, announced today that it has started building a mobile broadband network using WiMax technology in Armenia. Comstar will buy base station equipment from Airspan Networks.

“We intend to launch the network this year and, therefore, become the first and the largest wireless broadband Internet operator in Armenia,” Comstar’s president, Sergei Pridantsev, said in a statement.

The WiMax network is scheduled provide commercial service in the second half of this year. A Comstar spokeswoman said the net work will cover 75% of Armenia’s population.

Comstar is part of the Russian conglomerate Sistema. Comstar provides voice, data, Internet, pay-TV and other services.

Analysis from growth consulting company Frost and Sullivan predicts that Africa’s demand for mobile Internet access will increase between 40% and 50% between 2006 and 2009. It is thought that this expansion is due to the continent’s lack of sufficient fixed line structure and the reduced cost of handset and mobile internet service prices.

“The poor state of fixed line infrastructure is creating the potential for the African mobile internet market to boom,” states Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Spiwe Chireka. “Mobile internet has emerged as the solution to the continent’s last mile connectivity problem.”

Mobile Internet is much more cost-effective than fixed line infrastructure. Large areas can be covered with broadcast signals cheaply that allow users to access services on the go. But all the news is not good. The cost of mobile internet-compatible handsets and pricing for services puts the Internet out of reach for most of Africa’s population.

The poor infrastructure of some countries is holding back Internet availability. A lack of reliable electricity and inadequate road networks makes it difficult to access remote areas.

“Mobile internet service providers need to form partnerships with cellular companies as well as technology and infrastructure providers to see how best they can provide cheaper or more affordable handsets that will provide good quality service,” advises Chireka. “They should also form partnerships with governments across Africa and work out investment plans to improve telecommunications infrastructures so that deployment of such services is not limited.”

If you are interested in a virtual brochure, which provides manufacturers, end users, and other industry participants with an overview of the investment analysis and growth opportunities in Africa’s mobile Internet access market, then send an email to Patrick Cairns, Corporate Communications, at patrick.cairns[.]frost.com, with your full name, company name, title, telephone number, fax number, and email address. Upon receipt of the above information, an overview will be sent to you by email.

MobileCrunch reported on Africa’s Sierra Leone in August. See: Former Dark Continent Brightens with Mobile Internet.

Connectivity Scorecard, a system that ranks countries on around 30 indicators that measure how will a country boosts its social and economic prosperity through telecommunications technologies, puts the United States at the head of the list. The system was created by London Business School professor Leonard Waverman to examine how well countries utilize networks, cell phones and computers.

The study was paid for by Nokia Siemens Networks. Professor Ilkka Lakaniemi said this new approach to studying telecommunications puts a country like South Korea in the middle of the list because it isn’t simply based on investment in telecommunications but on usage.

“All the other rankings mainly measure only how much have you invested in ICT (information and communication technologies),” said Professor Ilkka Lakaniemi.

“You have a lot of consumer applications, you have a lot of entertainment applications, a lot of this and that, but they do not really add much to productivity,” Lakaniemi said.

The United States, which has benefited the most from ICT, was rated below 7 out of 10. This is mostly due to a weak usage of broadband networks. All countries surveyed have much room for improvement.

“These results indicate an opportunity for countries to add hundreds of billions of dollars in economic benefit by rethinking how they measure and enable connectivity,” the study said.

The following are the rankings of innovation driven economies that are rated by the study on a scale of 1-10:

United States 6.97; Sweden 6.83; Japan 6.80; Australia 5.93; Germany 5.52; France 5.07; South Korea 4.78; Hong Kong 4.46; Italy 3.85; Spain 3.56; Hungary 3.18; Czech Republic 3.11.

The following are indexes for efficiency and resource drive economies, scale 1-10, but not comparable with indexes for innovative-driven economies:

Russia 6.11; Malaysia 5.82; Mexico 4.37; Brazil 4.28; South Africa 4.11; China 3.42; Philippines 2.38; India 1.68; Nigeria 1.01.

T-Mobile USA added 951,000 subscriptions between October and December of 2007. This gives the country’s fourth largest mobile phone company a subscription customer base of 28.7 million. T-Mobile’s sales were up 14.6% over 2006 numbers.

Shareholders of Deutsche Telekom AG, the T-Mobile parent company, were asking for the sale of T-Mobile USA last year. Chief Executive Rene Obermann fended off those demands last June, saying that T-Mobile USA can add 5 million new subscribers by the end of 2007. T-Mobile USA fell short of that goal and only sold 3.6 million subscriptions in all of 2007.

T-Mobile USA’s growth did outdo the 9% growth that Deutsche Telekom posted in the European market. Since November, T-Mobile’s German unit sold 70,000 iPhones. T-Mobile is the exclusive iPhone provider in Germany. Worldwide, Deutsche Telekom has 119.6 million subscribers.

Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi thinks that over 25% of iPhones sold in the United States may have been unlocked. Sales numbers from Apple and AT&T revealed about 1.45 million phones were “missing in action” at the end of 2007.

AT&T is thought to hold 480,000 handsets as inventory, leaving another 1 million phones, or 27%, that Sacconaghi said were unlocked so they could work on non-AT&T networks. Apple has refused to say how many iPhones are unlocked but said the number is significant.

Phone companies that carry the iPhone must share service fees with Apple. So far, Apple has chosen one mobile carrier per country to be the official carrier of that country. When an iPhone is unlocked, Apple loses revenue because unlocked phones use carriers other than the officially sanctioned carrier. Unlocked phones could cost Apple millions. For example, if Apple reaches its goal of selling 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008 but 30% of those are unlocked; Apple would lose $500 million and 37 cents per share.

“Besides the financial implications, we believe the prevalence of unlocked iPhones presents a significant strategic dilemma to Apple,” Sacconaghi wrote.

Apple is currently negotiating with carriers in Asia to make the popular iPhone available to new markets. A few weeks ago Apple failed to find common ground with the world’s largest mobile carrier, China Mobile. An anonymous source at China Mobile said that Apple was asking to share too much service fee revenue.

The United State’s second largest telecommunications company, Verizon Communications, announced that fourth quarter profits were up 3.9% for October through December of 2007. The perceived economic slowdown in America hasn’t hurt company growth, with the exception of a marginal increase in nonpaying wireless subscribers.

“We have not seen a change in our sales expectation through January,” said Chief Financial Officer Doreen Toben.

Verizon made $1.07 billion, or 37 cents per share in the fourth quarter, compared to $1.03 billion, or 35 cents per share, a year earlier. Excluding charges, the latest earnings would have been 62 cents per share. The charges include severance costs related to layoffs. The company cut 4,000 employees in the fourth quarter and expects to cut 5,000 more from the wireline division in 2008. Verizon has been cutting its wireline employees, which ended the year at 161,000.

“We have been rapidly shifting our force to the growing pieces of our business, that is FiOS and our wireless business, so both of those will continue to grow in force,” said Chief Operating Officer Denny Strigl.

Verizon’s wireless department continues to play second to AT&T in gaining new customers. Verizon added 2 million subscribers in the quarter for a total of 65.7 million. AT&T’s fourth quarter saw an increase of 4.4 million subscribers for a total of 70.1 million.

Verizon Wireless’s revenues were $9.87 billion, up from $8.68 billion a year ago. Wireless money continues to be an ever increasing share of Verizon’s overall sales. Operating income in the business was $3.0 billion, up from $2.5 billion, as Verizon Wireless managed to increase its operating margin by 1.2% to 26.2%.

In all four quarters of 2007, Verizon earned $5.5 billion, or $1.90 a share, on $95.5 billion in revenue. This is in comparison to a profit of $6.2 billion, or $2.12 a share, of $88.2 billion in revenue the year before.

AdMob, a mobile advertising company, is going to test the saying, “If you can make it in New York you can make it anywhere.” AdMob is opening a new East Coast headquarters in the city that never sleeps which is being called AdMob East. It is hoped that Madison Avenue will look to the company’s mobile phone advertising applications.

“Marketers are increasingly extending their campaigns to mobile and we want to be available to guide them through best practices.” said Tony Nethercutt, AdMob Vice President of Sales. “We are deepening our presence in New York to better support agencies and brands as they ramp their mobile marketing efforts.”

In the last two years, AdMob has served over 15 billion ads, including over 2 billion in December of 2007 alone.

Sales Directors Adam Schneider and Robyn Borok will lead the new AdMob East office, which is located on the 39th Floor of 245 Park Avenue between 46th and 47th Street in New York. Between them, they have over 35 years of TV, radio, print, interactive and mobile advertising experience.

AdMob

Each week MobileCrunchArcade compiles the biggest news from the world of mobile gaming.

This week Glu has offered to buy British mobile game company Superscape for $36 million. If the deal is accepted, Glu will come close to matching the U.S. leader of cell phone games, Electronic Arts. Superscape has about 5% of the U.S. market and sells games on carriers Verizon Wireless and Alltel. The Superscape board has approved the takeover. Superscape was a pioneer in bringing 3-D gaming to cell phones, and is still strong in that area. Its titles include Paintball Challenge and Classic Mini Golf. Let’s hope this deal will help keep us glued to our handset.

Square Enix announced this week that it will launch the first episode of Crystal Guardians on January 28. The game is a defense simulation in which you have to defend your crystal from monsters. The company plans to release 28 episodes. So if you want to keep filthy monsters from getting their grubby hands on your family jewel, give Crystak Guardians a whirl.

EA Mobile announced this week that it will release Asterix: The Official Mobile Game of the Movie in Europe this month. I’m not much of a comic book guy, although I look like the Simpson’s character Comic Book Guy. Asterix is a successful comic series in Europe, where over 325 million copies have been sold. In the game, Asterix and Obelix compete in the Greek Olympic Games to win the hand of Princess Irina for young Gaul, Lovestorix. Players start out on the street of Athens before qualifying for events such as long jump, running, disk, football and the chariot race finale. The game is touted as being a faithful rendition of the Asterix cartoon style. I hope Lovestorix knows what to do with Princess Irina’s hand once he gets it.

Punch Entertainment has a new title, Ego, that the company says is, “The Sims meets Facebook.” Its part social networking and part video game. Players create an avatar that needs to be developed by feeding and training. As avatars bump into each other, they can fight, flirt and communicate with each other; winning points to increase their level, and allowing players to buy new cloths, accessories and body features for the avatar. Players can create a buddies list, and open chat and blog functions for the avatar to visit. The basic version of Ego is free but advanced features will only be available in the downloadable mobile game version. I must admit it sounds like fun to get into arguments with other avatars and slap them around if they disagree. My opinions are clearly the only legitimate opinions anyone should have and anyone that disagrees with me needs to have some sense beat into them.

GSMA announced the 2008 nominations for best mobile game this week. The Nominees are: Call of the Pharaoh (Cellufun), Burnout (EA Mobile), Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? (Fox Entertainment), My Hangman (Glu Mobile), and My Dog 2 (I-play). This is the 13th annual Global Mobile Awards show, so it looks as though mobile games are an important part of the telecommunications industry. But anyone who counted all those calloused thumbs out there knew that.

That is this week’s mobile gaming news roundup. Remember to exercise those thumbs, recharge the battery and never take your eyes off the screen.

Yesterday Nokia issued a prediction that in 2008 its mobile phone shipments will increase by 10% and that the company’s worldwide market share will increase beyond the 40% it claimed in the fourth quarter. But these numbers may be too optimistic.

Analysts at IDC predict annual growth in mobile phone sales will drop below 10% this year, making Nokia’s growth projection look unrealistic. IDC published a report today that says it is unrealistic to expect Nokia sales to grow in double digits.

“We expect growth to be in the single digits throughout 2008, and most likely for years to follow,” they wrote.

In 2007, Nokia sold around $1.11 billion worth of handsets. This is an increase of 12.4% over 2006 sales. Nokia shipped more units in the fourth quarter than the next three vendors combined: Samsung captured 13.9 percent of the market for the quarter (up from 11 percent a year earlier), Motorola 12.2 percent (down from 22 percent) and Sony Ericsson had 9.2 percent.

IDC

Realeyes3D announced today that it is releasing a new technology that allows mobile phone cameras to read 1D barcodes. The 1D barcode is that mysterious strip of lines and numbers that appears on everything from a bag of potato chips to your cell phone battery. Standard 1D barcodes are everywhere, printed on billions of products worldwide and already linked to a vast number of both free and commercial databases.

In the past, cell phone cameras have had trouble taking a clear picture of a barcode. When shot at close distance, beyond minimum focus distance of most camera phones, barcode lines become blurred. This makes the image useless for decoding. Realeyses3D’s new application overcomes this blurring for most camera phones making barcodes accessible.

“Our technology dramatically increases both the number of camera phones that can be used for 1D bar code scanning and the decoding performance of any camera phone, by increasing the number of bar code pictures that can be read,” said Benoit Bergeret , founder and CEO of Realeyes3D. “Our unique deblurring technology enables mobile 1D bar code scanning to considerably expand its scope and accelerates the introduction of one-click m-commerce applications for the benefit of all camera phone users — not just for high-end users anymore.”

Mobile 1D bar code scanning has a market adoption potential that far exceeds that of mobile 2D bar code scanning, because 1D bar codes are already present on myriads of manufactured goods and printed content. On the contrary, 2D barcodes still have to be affixed on goods and content.

RealEyes3D’s mobile 1D bar code decoding technology is available either for embedding on handsets or as a server library. It can also be deployed in any back-end architecture supporting 2D bar code decoding and is compatible with the decoding of all 1D bar code formats.

Mobile phone barcode scanning has been around for a few years but hasn’t caught on with the public where it has been tried. The concept seems solid enough and the advertising and informational potential is enormous. Anyone who has scanned their own groceries or worked as a cashier understands that those lines and numbers represent important information. But scanning items with a cell phone hasn’t become the trendy thing to do like text messaging has become. I think Realeyes3D’s scanning technology will mostly sit on the shelf until the public is introduced to fun and practical reasons for scanning barcodes with their cell phones.

Realeyes3D

If you want to be the first on the block to own the world’s slimmest waterproof 3G Mobile Phone, you should buy a Fujitsu F705i. The handset is only 13.7 mm thick and is being marketed as the thinnest waterproof phone ever made. A lot of technology went into making this phone to meet IPX5 and IPX7 waterproof standards. This wonder will work even after being sprayed or submersed in water for 30 minutes.

This device is perfect for those of use who like to make calls while in the bathtub or while floating in the pool. Unfortunately, it won’t allow divers to make calls from the bottom of the ocean. The waterproofing is only good in depths up to one meter. So if you want to call the Coast Guard to rescue you from circling sharks, you’ll need something else.

It’s unknown if this phone is beer resistant or not. If you get one, submerse it in your favorite draft and let me know. This could be the perfect cell phone for sloppy drunks on the go.

Fujitsu

AT&T announced today stronger-than-expected wireless growth in the fourth quarter. Investors were concerned that a slowdown in the U.S. economy would hurt the company’s subscriber growth. But AT&T added 2.7 net new wireless subscribers in the quarter. This is higher than the 1.92 million subscribers that some analysts had predicted.

AT&T’s fourth-quarter profit was $3.1 billion, or 51 cents per share, as compared to last year’s fourth quarter that posted a $1.9 billion profit.

“It was a solid quarter certainly,” said Stifel Nicolaus analyst Chris King. “It’s certainly a positive and they reiterated guidance for 2008. … In this type of market, any reiteration of guidance has to be viewed positively.”

“We had an excellent fourth quarter, which affirms our outlook for 2008,” Chief Executive Randall Stephenson said in a statement.

It was announced today that Japan’s largest mobile carrier, NTT DoCoMo, is partnering with Google to provide customers Internet searches and other services from the search engine giant. NTT DoCoMo currently uses its own i-mode to provide mobile Internet services.

By spring of this year, Google will be set as the default search portal page. Keyword-based advertisements will appear on search result pages through Google’s AsWords advertising platform. DoCoMo also plans to develop cell phones that can use Google’s Android mobile software. Android is expected to be available in Japan in the last half of this year.

NTT DoCoMo has nearly 53 million subscribers which represents more than half of Japan’s mobile phone market. In recent months it has struggled to sign-up new subscribers because of competition from KDDI and Softbank. These competitors have cut rates and conducted aggressive sales promotions.

Japanese cell phone subscriptions exceed 100 million, with 70 million users accessing the internet with their mobile phones. Yahoo Japan is currently the mobile search engine leader in Japan. This partnership will give Google better access to the Japanese search engine market.

Motorola announced today that its profit fell 84% in the fourth quarter and that its handset division is struggling. CEO Greg Brown acknowledged that the No. 3 cellphone maker isn’t doing what needs to be done to keep and improve its global handset market share. At the end of 2006, Motorola had 23% worldwide market share. By the end of 2007 it dropped to 13%.

“Demand for some of our products has slowed in an intensified competitive landscape,” he said on a conference call. “Our consistency of new product introduction is still not where it needs to be. And we still have gaps in the portfolio in areas that are experiencing high rates of growth, including 3G (third-generation), China and other emerging markets.”

The mobile phone unit lost $388 million and shipped 40.9 million handsets during the fourth quarter. In morning trading, Motorola shares dropped $1.97 which is about 16% of its value. Overall company sales fell to $9.65 billion from $11.79 billion from a year ago.

JMP Securities analyst Samuel Wilson said there’s “still a long way to go before Motorola is fixed.”

“Motorola still has a number of issues with its volatile business model. We believe it may be one to two years before the company has redeveloped its handset business to be less hits-driven and more platform-oriented,” he said in a note to investors.

Motorola

The mobile advertising company Ad Infuse announced today that it has secured $12 million in financing. New investor SoftBank capital led this new financing round, which also includes existing investors ComVentures and Storm Ventures.

The money will be used to promote and develop Ad Infuse’s mobile advertising network and platform, adInMotion. The company will also invest in its adInTouch, which allows advertisers to connect with consumers across all mobile media formats such as video games, mobile browsing and podcasts.

SoftBank Capital’s Mike Perlis will join the Ad Infuse board of directors. Mr. Perlis has served as a media industry CEO with over 20 years of experience managing a wide range of content and multi-media brands, including President and CEO of Ziff-Davis Publishing, President of TVSM, President and CEO of IDG, Publisher of GQ, and built the Rodale Active Sports Network. He also serves on the boards of several companies including Paltalk and Associated Content, and was a past board member of Zinio, Industry Brains, and Enpocket.

“The momentum Ad Infuse has built with its unique focus on enabling the full mobile advertising ecosystem is impressive” said Mike Perlis, partner at SoftBank Capital. “The company has been very effective in delivering innovative technology solutions, serving top advertising partners, and building a management team with deep media and mobile experience. We believe strongly that Ad Infuse is well-positioned to lead and build long-term success in this high-growth market.”

“This caps a banner year for Ad Infuse and launches an exciting next stage of the company’s growth,” said Brian Cowley, CEO of Ad Infuse. “We continue to see incredible demand for our consumer-centric approach to campaigns that leverage rich-media and privacy-sensitive targeting for a premium mobile advertising experience. We’re very pleased to have such top tier investors, adding one of the strongest digital media focused investors to our existing board, as we build continued success.”

Ad Infuse

Zumbi has entered into a business agreement with Microsoft. Zumbi’s Zooming User Interface and mobile widget platform will appear on Windows Mobile. The applications are compatible with Windows Mobile versions 5.0 and newer.

“Currently shipping on devices from more than 48 device makers with 125 mobile operators in 55 countries, Windows Mobile is one of the most accessible and familiar mobile computing platforms,” said Eric Hertz, CEO of Zumobi. “This strategic partnership benefits all of our constituencies – consumers, developers, content providers, carriers and advertisers – and enables us to continue building momentum quickly with our audience of techno-culturists and mobile business users.”

Worldwide, over 140 devices are based on Windows Mobile. These handsets include mobile versions of Office Outlook, Office Word, Office Excel, Office PowerPoint and Internet Explorer, giving people access to critical business data such as documents, contacts, e-mail, calendar items and tasks.

“Zumobi originated in our IP Ventures program as the work of a world-class research team, and demonstrates how Microsoft works with innovative independent companies to provide people with some of the best sets of services and applications available,” said John O’Rourke, General Manager, Mobile Communications Business at Microsoft. “Zumobi is a strong complement to Windows Mobile in that both it and Microsoft offer our customers innovative yet easy ways to access all their information while they’re on the go —making their phone the best companion for their entire life.”

Zumobi

HTC’s Smart handset family of products, which is billed as a rival to Apple’s iPhone, sold 2 million units last year. The company sold nearly 12 million handsets overall last year, roughly a 12% increase over 2006 sales. Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced last week that his company sold more than 4 million iPhones since its launch.

The HTC Touch uses Microsoft Windows Mobile 6 software and is similar to the iPhone. The handset has a touch screen interface that takes up most of the device’s front. The Touch was launched in June of 2007, just weeks before the iPhone was initially launched in the United States. After the American debut, the iPhone was launched in various European and Asian countries.

“The first quarter looks good, it will be a lot better than our first quarter last year,” said Peter Chou, president and CEO of HTC, at a year-end party Friday evening.

“We’ve seen no impact from global economic turmoil. We feel pretty good about this quarter,” said Chou.

The Japanese government is planning to offer exams for people who want to be mobile phone guides. The guides will help customers learn how to use all the functions that their phones offer and explain the complicated billing system used to charge for various services like text messaging and data downloads. In Japan, talking on the phone while commuting in a bus or train is frowned upon so many users will text message or Web brows while in transit.

“The scheme is aimed at helping users understand not only complicated functions of mobile phones but also complicated pricing formulas,” said an official at the telecoms ministry.

The mobile guides will be employed in shops that sell handsets. Besides explaining how to use their phones and explain the billing system, guides will help parents learn how to control the Web browsing of their children.

Thailand’s Advanced Info Service (AIS) announced today that it is negotiating with Apple for the right to carry the iPhone on its network. Apple plans to expand the iPhone franchise to Asian countries this year. The popular handset is currently available in the United States and large European countries.

“We are negotiating on details, including a revenue sharing standard. Apple needs a local operator to promote iPhone,” Prattana Leelapanang, assistant vice president for AIS’s wireless business marketing, told Reuters.

This news comes after last week’s setback in China. The world’s largest cellular operator, China Mobile, stopped negotiations with Apple for the iPhone. Revenue-sharing percentages became an issue that broke down the talks. It is believed that Apple still wants to sell the iPhone in China and it may talk with China Unicom now that China Mobile isn’t interested in a deal with Apple.

Apple is currently in talks with NTT DoCoMo and Softband to bring the iPhone to Japan. Sources from both phone companies say that revenue-sharing is a hotly contested issue. It seems as though Apple is driving a hard bargain with whatever carrier it negotiates with.

AIS’s chief marketing officer Sanchai Thiewprasertkul thinks Apple may have to alter its business model if the iPhone is to come to Thailand. Apple has been asking operators to bundle iPhones with postpaid plans and share revenue with the service providers. According to Mr. Sanchai this model may not work in Thailand.

”Given our one baht a minute of airtime, it would not make sense and would be impossible for us to share revenue with Apple,” he said, adding that more than 90% of mobile-phone users are prepaid.

One Thai baht is worth about 3 cents so it does seem ludicrous for Apple to ask for a percentage. But Apple doesn’t want to divert from its business model for the iPhone. It would make negotiations in countries like China and Japan more difficult if a Thai mobile carrier were given a non-revenue-sharing deal.