Mobile World Congress: Summary of Day 3

The third day of the MWC 2009 was characterised by a rush of deals announced by LG-Parrot, Visa-GSM Association and the principle mobile manufacturers with regards to a universal charger.

The third day of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) was marked by a surge of deals and agreements announced by various companies. LG and Parrot, for instance, have decided to forge an alliance to develop NFC interoperability (Near Field Communication). This service will be available on LG’s KU380-NFC.

The top 17 mobile manufacturers, in other words Nokia, Motorola, Samsung et al., have also come to an agreement to create a universal charger suitable for all mobile devices, which will become available in a year’s time. This is obviously great news for the end-user.

Another deal that has made the headlines of this fair was announced by Visa and the GSM Association (GSMA), to establish a common basis for a payment system on mobiles. Rob Conway, on behalf of the GSMA, spoke in a conference about the need to ensure that the spectrum freed-up by the analogical shutdown be assigned to mobile telephony.

Finally, in another corner of the fair, SIDSA broke new ground by completing the first transmission of mobile TV via satellite. To do this, it used the DVB-SH standard and a modulator provided by the French company TeamCast.