Sharing content with friends across the street or colleagues across the globe has become an integral part of our daily lives. “Generation C” (for Content) demands quick anytime-anywhere access via rich, mobile environments.

Free mobile for teenagers, peace of mind for parents and smarter homes for taking care of the elderly. All in this month’s Telecom Report – Family Matters.

Open a web browser and chances are good you’re looking at a search engine. Open a mobile web browser and you’ll come to a portal.  Developers and trend-watchers argue that search is the new starting point for mobile searches – indeed, for mobile internet usage to skyrocket.  See applications from the car and how a connected treasure hunt has become a huge online community in Telecom Report: Search and Locate.

Telecom Report looks at it from three angles: candidate and voter behavior in America; governance and voting moving online in Estonia; and how interactivity with news in India and other countries influences governance.

See how green telecoms have already been running in Morocco and India, as well as how operators are keen to have a strong and active strategy as regards corporate responsibility and sustainability.

As one of the world’s most populous countries, India is facing a future of tremendous telecom growth. Only China and the US have more mobile phone users, but India is growing by millions of new subscribers every month and is catching up quickly. There is continuous expansion in both mobile and broadband networks to cater for growing demand, particularly from young users and enterprises.

Experts from global media conglomerates as well as entertainment big-shots like NBC Universal and MTV weigh in on how interactivity is a key ingredient in their entertainment menus.

Build a community, revenues will come. Find out why people flock to virtual communities and how operators are responding by providing services on both fixed and mobile networks. Also, a look at how the economics of virtual and real worlds should be separate, yet cross over.

Imagine a tool that delivers information when and how it should, without having to be prompted personally.  That’s reality in many areas of life, and it’s called machine-to-machine communications. This Telecom Report looks at how m2m technology helps in matters of health, finance and security.

In Broadband Revisisted, Telecom Report returns to Brussels to meet leaders of the Multi-Service Access Everywhere project (MUSE), which intends to standardize networks to ensure broadband reaches every European citizen. Then, a closer look into the community of Tranås which invested in broadband for all and is now seeing healthy returns.

Telecom Report looks into the news industry and how it has changed, thanks to recent progress in telecommunications technology.

Telecommunications solutions can appear where you least expect them.  This Telecom Report takes you to a pig farm, a utlity company in Brazil, and a Swedish sewing machine factory to find out how traditional industries go online to secure their futures.

Telecom Report looks at the latest gadgets available to thrill consumers and network providers.  See everything from what drives the market to what drives your car in the future.

Getting more control is the name of the game in a digital life. It doesn’t mean a future of pixelated people – it means home appliances that are smarter, more efficient, and make life easier.

Internet and telecommunications serve as a theme or as a device to bring traditional, classical forms of culture to a wider audience. The enormous potential is just beginning to be tapped by telecoms operators and venerable cultural organizations.

Waste no more time on old magazines at the dentist’s office. The new way to kill time is to play games on your mobile phone. Telecom Report looks at who’s playing, what kinds of games are making waves, and how the mobile phone will not only be our gaming device, it will also be the way we find out and purchase future games.

Telecom Report looks at the role of telecommunications in the arenas of national security and public safety. Meet leaders and users of networking and hear why the commercial network is often the best way to communicate quickly and accurately – in situations where timing can save lives.

It’s an all-star team: mobile services and sports.  Telecom Report looks at three cases where fans get a better, closer fix on their favorite sport thanks to mobile services.  Hear from people at several points on the chain: from professional players, to operators, to fans themselves.

The world’s favorite pastime is going mobile.  A service that is easy for users to understand, however, isn’t always easy for operators to present. Telecom Report looks at the potential and issues left to solve as mobile TV gets up and running.

The industry's largest annual event, the 3GSM World Congress, did not disappoint.  There's usually a lot of shoulder-rubbing, but with 50,000 in attendance, there was more than usual.  Telecom Report looks at the major happenings and takes a long-term view on coming trends.

As mobile phones become more multi-purpose, it's becoming more popular to use them as payment devices.  Telecom Report looks at finance from the mobile perspective: from big-business trading, to small payments, to the security that will be necessary for it all to work well.

Travelers have always been a special –
if not precious – public for mobile communications.  This group places extreme demands on networking – in terms of time, distance, and speed.  Telecommunications now are meeting the challenge set by travelers, on land, at sea, and in the air.

Humor is big business: it has its own shelf in bookstores, a network unto itself, and it’s even been billed as a health benefit in recent years.  Why not take that business to mobile phones, where a good joke can make its way around a mobile network, and the world, in just moments.

Business and mobility have always been intertwined, but the connection is now stronger than ever as technology makes what once were dream scenarios come true. Telecom Report meets three business people from different parts of the world to see how mobility has changed their businesses.

The Chinese market is huge and full of opportunity for international business. Telecom Report looks below the surface of the many-layered Chinese market; how global telecoms might soon be making changes due to Chinese influence; and a closer look at how one operator works in southeast China.

Telecom Report looks at mobile marketing: its potential in an everyday environment like the grocery store; a live experience with Bluetooth and selling cars; and finally, a broader look at some of the pros and cons of advertising on the most personal device we carry.

Traditional? Not in the young republic of Estonia. Here, e-government is advanced and available to citizens. Telecom Report visited to find out more.

Telecom Report looks at three areas where telecommunications serve a higher purpose: telemedicine, e-learning, and the Village Phone project in Bangladesh.

High speed mobile internet is a reality, and users are snapping it up. Nowhere is it more evident than in Cannes, where telecommunications industry players gathered for the 3GSM World Congress. TV on mobiles is all the rage.

We visit a remote community in Sweden that has benefited from high-speed networks. On a larger scale, we look at the MUSE project, which aims to design a broadband network that reaches every European citizen.

At the recent Mobile Internet Forum in Zurich, Switzerland, application developers and content providers met operators and other industry heavyweights to show how to make the mobile phone even more useful and flexible in the future.

Mobile-crazy Japanese and PC-bound Americans are becoming more similar in their mobile habits. Are we seeing the makings of a global mobile culture?

The Athens Games required Olympic efforts from not just athletes. Operators had to do their part to be sure networks would be secure and available for the millions of visitors. It was also the first Olympics where 3G services were in use.

It's been 10 years since the first democratic elections in South Africa. And the wireless world in South Africa has all the reason to join the party. From absolutely nothing it has grown to become one of the most profitable businesses in Africa.

Once upon a time everyone seemed to believe that new technologies would instantly replace all the existing ones. But not in Italy. When TIM launched their combined UMTS/EDGE Turbo service, it was with the ambition to soften the fall from high-speed data to GPRS.

Will wireless video play a genuine role in our lives only in the distant future? Or is quick adoption simply a question of cultural differences and relevant content?

The race is on for the big bucks in mobile music. With the launch of the O2 digital music player the UK is now the world's hotbed for mobile music services. But Chrysalis Mobile Solutions and the experts have totally different visions of the future, particularly when it comes to full music download.

CEO Guy Demuynck of KPN Mobile, VP Mike Short of mmO2 and other Congress players share their views on industry trends and consumer demands. New for the 2004 Congress was the "elevator pitch" where a selected number of companies got to remind operators that there are fresh solutions to old problems.

The busy tone, dropped calls and human mistakes are preventing operators from cashing in on calls that are initiated but never completed. Vodafone in Germany, with 23 million customers, is working strategically to stimulate call completion. 

New legal online music services are driving demand for both record labels and broadband suppliers. The next step will be to offer full portability by targeting the mobile world. According to Michel Bebel, President of Napster, the company has concrete plans for a mobile introduction.

Navigation and communication solutions in the car have finally reached a mass market. The 2003 Frankfurt Motor Show exhibited telematic solutions with a trend towards two-way communications and a more dynamic approach in applications. A development that requires a continued increase in bandwidth.

Manchester United has the ambition to be the most successful team in football. To achieve this, football and commercial operations need to work hand-in-hand. Ben Hatton, Head of Business Development explains how telecom services are driving this development.

The very same telecom services can establish closer relations or create distance, depending on the actual usage. France Telecom has recently published a study on how parenthood changes the social conditions that influence telecom-usage.

Telecom operators deal with a new area of competence - the moving image. Leonardo Chiariglione of the MPEG committee guides us through the MPEG-4 ecosystem, and Kishore Lulla of Bollywood 4 U talks about what he expects from the future with MPEG-4.

Although there is no broad killer application for enterprises, the growing demand for remote access to core company data is likely to drive adoption. AGA Market Director Olof Källgren "the cost is not really an issue if you can see that you will drive efficiency".

Competition, consumer awareness of price, technical developments, market growth... Four local correspondents give fresh in-depth reports on telecom in Brazil, India, UK and the US. The feature is divided into four parts that can be viewed separately.

Endemol, Sega and Sun on what it takes to make media mobile. William Linders, Executive Director of New Business Development at Endemol says the line between production and distribution is blurring, and only cooperation between all parties will get the market started.

Mobile phone sales are now largely about replacement purchases that upgrade services. Philip Vanhoutte at Sony Ericsson talks about the huge revenue potential of a multi-functional communications and media device for operators and Media Lab Europe comments on consumer awareness.

SME's are on the move when it comes to investing in telecom. We visit Italy, where Assofrutti, a small organization producing hazelnuts, talk about the benefits of its telecom investments, and Telecom Italia Mobile tell us what kind of solutions SME's really want.

In both Denmark and Switzerland we met one family and one operator to find out what the relationship is between the operators’ pricing strategy and the consumers awareness of prices for telecom services.

Operators and their customers are facing huge income losses through fraud. There is a growing demand for improving security systems, as fraudsters get smarter.

Online gaming is no longer just a low budget hobby of a few American teenagers, but a serious large-scale global business. Telewest, Terra Lycos and Infogrames discuss the importance of future collaboration and finding the right pricing model for online gaming.

With new investments on hold, operators need to consider how to increase traffic and revenue from existing solutions. Can the further development of SMS services drive the search for new customers?