Posts Tagged “deal”
New Mobile & Latest Deal News!
Free on contract from only £30 per month. With unlimited internet, 600 anytime minutes and unlimited texts.
From its spec, the Sony Ericsson Vivaz is a smartphone to rival almost anything on the market, with an 8.1 megapixel camera with image stabilisation and face detection and most notably the ability to capture video in 720p HD (ultra-sharp, minimal to zero flicker). It also offers autofocus in its video mode and a dedicated video capture key. The results can be viewed on the 3.2 inch, 640×360 touchscreen or you can even entertain friends and family by displaying your captured images on your TV with the TV out connection.
At just 12.5mm in depth, the stylish Vivaz is conventionally smartphone sized and weighs only 97g (pretty amazing considering the technology within). All the usual smartphone features are included, including HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and A-GPS and the touch user interface allows you to use the handsets many functions easily and naturally.
Tags: 12, 3, all, compare, comparemobiles.com, contract, deal, Deals, free, HD, latest, latest deal, mobile, mobiles, new, new mobile, phone, sol, sony, sony ericsson, test, Touch
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New Mobile & Latest Deal News!
The Samsung B3410 is a fantastic mid-range phone for those who love to text! The slide out QWERTY keyboard has large, well-space keys allowing users to write speedy texts and emails. With built in Facebook, Flickr and MySpace applications, keeping on top of all the latest gossip on the go is easy.
There’s a 2 megapixel camera on board to take basic snaps as well as a video recorder. Connectivity wise the B3410 supports GPRS, EDGE and Bluetooth for basic web browsing and file transfers. A great feature of this touchscreen phone is its TouchWiz interface which lets you add well used application widgets to the homescreen for one touch access. Also included is a media player supporting MP3 and Mpeg4 video, plus there’s a handy 3.5mm audio jack for standard headphones.
The Samsung B3410 is a great device for those who want a stylish handset with an emphasis on messaging.
Connectivity-wise, the Nokia X6 has all the usual feature you would expect in a smartphone, 3G, HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and a microUSB slot to transfer files with or without wires. To ensure you never get lost the X3 has Ovi maps 3.0 satellite navigation software pre-installed. The X6 combines style and technology to bring a fantastic, feature packed flagship phone to the X Series.
Tags: 10, 3, all, compare, comparemobiles.com, deal, Deals, email, latest, latest deal, mobile, mobiles, new, new mobile, nokia, phone, phones, pink, sam, samsung, sol, test, Touch
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Tranzeo Wireless Technologies, a manufacturer of wireless broadband and WiMAX communication systems, has received a $14 million purchase order from Indonesia-based PT Teknologi Riset Global.
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(Source Yahoo UK News)
Tags: 10, 12, 3, compare, comparemobiles.com, deal, global, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, sol, uk
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Last-minute amendments to the bill, which will soon move to the House of Commons, deal with disconnection of file sharers and web-site blocking
 
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(Source ZDNet UK)
Tags: 3, compare, comparemobiles.com, deal, google, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, sol, uk
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Orange and MVNA partner Transatel target SMEs primarily, with new MVNO deals with fixed line providers Unicom and Axis Telecom, and also with niche operative Catalyst
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(Source Mobile News CWP)
Tags: 10, 3, compare, comparemobiles.com, deal, Deals, line, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, orange, sol, three, uk
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Setbacks with the internet group’s first handset will see competing products arrive on the market first
Google’s attempt to break into the mobile phone market has hit serious problems in Britain with the launch of its flagship Nexus One device understood to have been delayed until the middle of next month.
The setback means that by the time Google’s first own-branded foray into the market this side of the Atlantic is available to consumers, its local network partner Vodafone will have launched a competing product, which analysts say is better, called the HTC Legend.
While Google has been working with the industry on the Android mobile phone software for several years, the Nexus One, made by Taiwan’s HTC, is the first handset over which the search engine group has had complete control. But launching a new phone has proved more difficult than Google expected.
It was released in the US in January, but Google’s decision to sell it solely through its website immediately came in for criticism as buyers struggled to get help with technical problems, and Google, which has traditionally relied on email for consumer contact, was forced to introduce telephone helplinessupport and the problems it has experienced in the US has given it reason to pause over the phone’s launch outside the US, to make sure it has its customer service operations in place. Last week Goldman Sachs slashed its estimate for Nexus One sales this year from 3.5m units to 1m worldwide.
In the UK, Google will not only sell the phone at full price to any customer who wants to put their existing sim card into it, but it has also teamed up with Vodafone, which will offer the device free to anyone willing to sign a £35 monthly contract.
But the delay in the launch of the Nexus One, which under Google’s original plan would have been available earlier this month, means that it will come after the launch of rival Android devices that analysts reckon are at least as good, if not better. Vodafone, for instance, will be offering the HTC Legend in April which has the same operating system as the Nexus One but is more stylish: being built from a single piece of milled aluminium. Orange and T-Mobile, meanwhile, will both be stocking the HTC Desire – which is exactly the same as the Nexus One, but has an optical trackpad instead of a trackball – from next month.
The delay also means the Google device will be available in the UK only weeks before another hotly anticipated gadget, Apple’s iPad. Several of the UK’s mobile phone companies are finalising deals with Apple to sell the tablet computer to British consumers. Unlike its last mobile device, the iPhone, which was offered through just one exclusive partner for the first two years, the iPad is expected to be available through multiple network operators from the start.
Apple will ship two versions of the iPad in the UK, one that can access the internet using short-range wi-fi networks and one that can also access 3G mobile phone networks. But Apple needs to sign deals with at least one UK mobile network, because the iPad makes use of micro-sims, meaning that buyers cannot just put the sim card from their existing handsets into it. In fact, it will be the first device launched in the UK that uses micro-sims.
Apple said earlier this month that the device will go on sale in the UK towards the end of April but the mobile phone companies believe that the 3G version of the iPad will not be available until May. Orange, T-Mobile, O2 and Vodafone all expect to be selling the iPad to customers and they are all locked in talks with the Californian company. Apple, however, has made it plain that it does not want iPad users to be tied to long-term contracts with any mobile phone operator. Instead it wants users to be able to pay for mobile network access on a pay-as-you-go basis.
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(Source The Guardian)
Tags: 10, 3, all, android, apple, card, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, contract, deal, Deals, email, free, gadget, google, HTC, iphone, line, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, networks, new, o2, orange, phone, phones, released, sam, service, sim, Sim Card, sol, t-mobile, talks, uk, vodafone, world
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EMI told not to sell single tracks as downloads in ruling which could mean further losses for music label
Pink Floyd, the British rock group behind platinum-selling albums The Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall, today secured a legal victory for the much-maligned genre of the concept album against the apparently inexorable march of the instant pop download.
In a high court ruling that led the band’s fans to proclaim a victory for their heroes’ artistic integrity over the forces of commercial exploitation, a judge ruled that EMI can no longer sell the songs from any Pink Floyd albums as single downloads or mobile phone ringtones.
After a case brought by the band’s surviving members, Roger Waters, David Gilmour and Nick Mason, the high court chancellor, Sir Andrew Morritt, said the label must adhere to a clause in its contract with the group intended to “preserve the artistic integrity of the albums” which prevented the unbundling of Pink Floyd’s records.
Pink Floyd became one of the biggest rock bands in history with their elaborate and experimental concept albums and highly theatrical live tours. EMI had argued that its deal with the band, reaffirmed in 1999 before the download market took off, related to physical CDs and DVDs but not to online distribution.
Pink Floyd alleged, and EMI agreed, that the label had allowed online downloads from the albums and allowed parts of tracks to be used as ringtones despite the clause which “expressly prohibits” EMI from selling songs out of context.
The judge granted the band the declaration they sought – that the contract means EMI is not entitled to exploit recordings by online distribution or by any other means other than the complete original album without Pink Floyd’s consent.
“This is great for a band who are the masters of the concept album,” said Matthew Johns, who runs Brain Damage, a dedicated Pink Floyd fan site. “Their music is unlike most other artists and listening to a whole album can be an immersive experience if you get into the concepts.”
Generations of young people have, like Johns, pulled the curtains and turned down the lights to listen to the whole 43 minutes of 1973’s Dark Side of the Moon, in which tracks merge seamlessly, exploring themes of conflict, greed and the passage of time. Each side is a single piece, beginning and ending with a fading heartbeat. It sold an estimated 45 million copies.
The verdict means the band’s music may now have to be taken down from the iTunes online music store which requires that album tracks are for sale individually.
It could mean a further loss of revenue for EMI, which releases recordings for Coldplay and Kylie Minogue but last year posted a £1.75bn loss. Its chief executive, Elio Leoni-Sceti, this week announced his resignation and former ITV boss Charles Allen will take control of its music business.
Yesterday’s verdict is thought to be the first time a band have successfully taken their record label to court over the way it has distributed their music online. It could lead to other cases, music industry analysts believe.
Robert Howe QC, representing Pink Floyd, argued that it would have been “a very odd result” if members of Pink Floyd were able to control exactly how their music was sold as a physical product but there was “a free-for-all with no limitation on online distribution”.Elizabeth Jones QC, appearing for EMI, disagreed and said the word record “plainly applies to the physical thing – there is nothing to suggest it applies to online distribution”.
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(Source The Guardian)
Tags: 10, 3, all, compare, comparemobiles.com, contract, deal, free, line, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, new, phone, phones, pink, sol, uk
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New Mobile & Latest Deal News!
Here’s a new voucher code, which can be used when purchasing any 18 or 24 month contract for £30 and over, directly from Vodafone. Enter ‘freecinema’ at the checkout and you’ll receive a cinema booklet containing 12 Cineworld tickets, one for each month of the next year (up to March 2011). The offer will be available until 18th March.
Our most popular phones qualifying for this promotion are the BlackBerry Bold 9700, the new Nokia X6 and the new Sony Ericsson Vivaz, which is available exclusively in ruby red direct from Vodafone.
Sony Ericsson’s curvaceous Vivaz is an all round stunner. So is its 8 megapixel camera, which shoots video in HD – just use the dedicated buttons for photo and video. If you want to see everything in widescreen then flip the Vivaz on its side – or plug it straight into your TV. If music’s more your thing, tap the big 3.2″ touchscreen and fire up the impressive music player. The CD cover is there on your screen. FM radio is a tap away. Record a few seconds of a song, and TrackID tells you the artist and title. There’s also a standard headphone socket – so you can use the pair you love. It’s beautiful and functional. An excellent all-round multimedia phone.
The Nokia X6 16GB has an impressive 3.2 inch touchscreen that covers almost the entire front of the phone. It’s pocket and palm friendly measuring 111 x 51 x 13mm and it’s great for watching movies with the 16:9 aspect ratio screen. With 16GB of internal memory there’s plenty of storage too. The X6 runs on Symbian OS v9.4 and has a 434 MHz processor, which is enough to compete with many other smartphones in its class. The new X Series range from Nokia with replace the XpressMusic range, it will focus on entertainment and social networking.
The Blackberry Bold 9700 has the traditional BlackBerry design with a classic QWERTY keypad and 3G connection, a combination that makes it ideal for emailing as well as quick downloads and browsing on-the-go. It has a sensitive trackpad that helps you glide through menus and a decent camera. It’s a great all-rounder.
Terms and conditions: Free cinema voucher available only to new customers purchasing a pay monthly mobile phone contract of £30 per month or above for a minimum duration of 18 months. Offer only available on orders made online and excludes orders of the iPhone.
Tags: 12, 3, all, Blackberry, compare, comparemobiles.com, contract, deal, Deals, email, free, HD, iphone, latest, latest deal, line, mobile, mobile phone, mobiles, months, new, new mobile, nokia, palm, phone, phones, sol, sony, sony ericsson, test, Touch, vodafone, world, xpressmusic
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Hutchison ‘looking for options’
With the merger of Orange UK and T-Mobile UK approved by the European Union, the current UK leaders, O2 and Vodafone, will be mulling their competitive responses. So far, Vodafone has mainly focused on revamping its software brands and its higher-value services, but it could also move to acquire the country’s smallest cellco, 3 UK, say analysts.…
Web threats: Why conventional protection doesn’t work
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(Source The Register)
Tags: 10, 3, all, compare, comparemobiles.com, deal, merger, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, o2, orange, service, sol, source the register, t-mobile, uk, vodafone
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The mobile operator says a deal with Intel will lead to its multimedia services running on MeeGo smartphones, tablets and netbooks
 
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(Source ZDNet UK)
Tags: 10, 3, compare, comparemobiles.com, deal, google, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, orange, phone, phones, service, sol, uk
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Music phone offers
After Nokia’s sexy X6 music phone? Both Virgin Media and 3 this week said they will be offering the handset this month.…
What is your recession sales strategy?
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(Source The Register)
Tags: 10, 3, compare, comparemobiles.com, deal, Deals, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, nokia, phone, sol, source the register, three, uk, virgin
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Telecoms equipment company Alcatel-Lucent has won a contract from Portuguese Pay TV provider Zon Multimedia to supply active equipments necessary for the deployment of a gigabit passive optical network (GPON)-based fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) architecture.
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(Source Yahoo UK News)
Tags: 10, 12, 3, compare, comparemobiles.com, contract, deal, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, sol, uk
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New Mobile & Latest Deal News!
The HTC Desire is basically an enhanced Nexus One, which makes it possibly the most advanced phone available. It adds an optical trackpad in place of the Nexus One’s trackball, plus HTC’s excellent Sense user interface. Ergonomically, the HTC Desire just slips naturally into the hand with its all-round soft curves, on paper it’s slightly larger than the Nexus One but in real-life this isn’t noticeable.
The HTC Desire has a fantastic 3.7 inch widescreen, AMOLED display, delivering 720×480 pixels resolution. Arguably crisper and clearer than any other display on the market, it delivers touchscreen responsiveness definitely in the ballpark of the iPhone and, moreover, it is fast. The combination of Android 2.1 sitting above a Snapdragon CPU clocked at 1GHz with 512Mb of RAM and ROM really does enable you to zap through opening up applications and then moving between them.
Its multimedia credentials, are quietly competent rather than superb – such as the 5 megapixel, autofocus camera with LED flash and its 32GB memory card capacity. Where the Nexus One really impresses, though, is in what could be called its charisma, if it could walk into a crowded room, heads would most definitely turn. Its Teflon-coated back and sides are simultaneously rubbery and tough yet soft and almost sensuous, a strangely compelling tactile experience.
Tags: 12, 3, all, android, card, compare, comparemobiles.com, deal, Deals, HTC, iphone, latest, latest deal, mobile, mobiles, new, new mobile, phone, room, sim, sol, test, Touch
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New Mobile & Latest Deal News!
 From its spec, the Sony Ericsson Vivaz is a smartphone to rival almost anything on the market, with an 8.1 megapixel camera with image stabilisation and face detection and most notably the ability to capture video in 720p HD (ultra-sharp, minimal to zero flicker). It also offers autofocus in its video mode and a dedicated video capture key. The results can be viewed on the 3.2 inch, 640×360 touchscreen or you can even entertain friends and family by displaying your captured images on your TV with the TV out connection.
At just 12.5mm in depth, the stylish Vivaz is conventionally smartphone sized and weighs only 97g (pretty amazing considering the technology within). All the usual smartphone features are included, including HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and A-GPS and the touch user interface allows you to use the handsets many functions easily and naturally.
The Vivaz is perfect for any business user with a document viewer, email client, organiser and WAP browser but the phones features do not end there; the innovative Media Go function is the perfect for all your entertainment needs and with an FM radio and MP3 player with PlayNow and TrackID it’s a great music phone. The battery gives up to 13 hours of talktime and 430 hours of standby.
Tags: 12, 3, all, compare, comparemobiles.com, deal, Deals, email, HD, latest, latest deal, mobile, mobiles, new, new mobile, phone, phones, sol, sony, sony ericsson, test, Touch
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The most damning indictment of phone hacking is that it was almost always used to get gossip rather than expose wrong
The fact investigators working for the News of the World hacked into my mobile phone to cut me out of a potential £30,000 celebrity scoop is not surprising. If you swim with sharks you expect the odd puncture wound. The fact this process is so simple, swift and apparently routine is shocking.
I called the Sunday tabloid one bright afternoon with the name of a celebrity chef and tales of famous London nightclubs, glamorous hotels and sexual impropriety. The reporter I spoke to was Clive Goodman. He promised me the Screws would pay the most – but something about his conspiratorial tones turned me towards a more gregarious Sunday Mirror news editor.
The News of the World was not going to let this apparent front page get away. A rapid succession of calls to my mobile followed. These allowed the caller to access my voicemail – I had not set a password. My personal greeting gave them my real name and my place of work while the messages revealed the identity of my then girlfriend, who was the source of the story.
Goodman called me on my work mobile and aggressively demanded the name of the chef’s female acquaintance. I refused.
It was after that that my mobile phone records were hacked. T-Mobile confirmed a bizarre call where someone pretending to be me failed the most basic security question – my date of birth. Despite this, the caller was able to try again just 15 minutes later and, this time being successful, he was given a full rundown of my recent calls. He then tried to hack my partner’s phone records.
Phone hacking in this way was astonishingly easy. A few years ago, it seemed to be the default method of some News of the World reporters to use information gained in this way. While other hacks were busy knocking on neighbours’ doors or visiting relatives found through birth and marriage records, journalists from the Screws instantly had a direct line to make their offers of “a life-changing amount of money”.
The true scandal here is not just the use of such illegal methods. The most damning indictment of this chequebook journalism is the fact it was only very rarely used to find real wrongdoing by the rich and powerful. Blagging your way into someone’s phone records would be morally defendable if there was a genuine and compelling public interest. Journalists rightly enjoy more latitude under the data protection act and human rights laws – if there is a real reason for subterfuge.
The Press Complaints Commission code states: “Engaging in misrepresentation or subterfuge, including by agents or intermediaries, can generally be justified only in the public interest.”
Muckraking has served the public good: by rummaging through the bins of solicitors Benjamin Pell discovered documents showing the then Tory minister Jonathan Aitken had been involved in Saudi arms deals. But how many of the 100 people targeted by the News of the World’s phone hacking will turn out to be rogue arms dealers, corrupt politicians and corporate killers? And how many will be minor celebrities?
The full armoury of investigative reporting – GPS tracking systems and hidden cameras, “lilly-whites” and “honey traps” – was unleashed against footballers, Big Brother contestants and It girls. And now public figures of means can turn to Max Clifford as a form of defence and use “pay as you go” mobiles. So the tabloid hacks turn on less wealthy, less protected victims.
This is an abuse of power by newspapers owned by one of the most powerful media tycoons in the world, Rupert Murdoch. Moreover, the man in charge of the News of the World when this abuse of power was taking place was Andy Coulson. Coulson, we know, jumped ship as the Screws hit the Goodman phone-hacking iceberg and is now captain of spin for the Conservative party as it sails towards power.
This has serious implications. If the Tories win the general election, as predicted, Coulson will be at the very heart of government with an army of civil servants working for him. Yet, by his own admission, when managing a small team of reporters, he was incapable of detecting flagrant criminality on a huge scale.
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(Source The Guardian)
Tags: 10, 3, all, blog, charges, compare, comparemobiles.com, deal, Deals, email, free, government, HTC, line, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, months, new, o sim, pay as you go, phone, phones, sim, sol, t-mobile, test, uk, world
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Telecoms equipment company Alcatel-Lucent has won a contract from Hungarian mobile operator and Telenor company Pannon GSM Távközlési Zrt (Pannon) to unify its mobile core network and its existing IP/MPLS-based mobile backhaul infrastructure. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
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(Source Yahoo UK News)
Tags: 10, 12, compare, comparemobiles.com, contract, deal, gsm, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, sol, uk
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Leader accused by military of corruption but popular with rural poor
Born to a silk-trading family in Chiang Mai, Thaksin Shinawatra began his working life as a policeman. After several failed business ventures, in 1989 he established Shinawatra Datacom, a mobile phone network business that was to become the biggest phone operator in Thailand, and make him a multibillionaire.
He entered politics in 1994, becoming foreign minister that same year. He was elected prime minister in the general election of 2001, and became hugely popular, particularly in the north and north-east of the country, enfranchising the rural poor, and offering them healthcare for 30 baht (60p) and low-cost loans. He won a second election in 2005 but was swept from power in a bloodless coup in 2006 by a military leadership that argued he was corrupt, but was increasingly fearful of his growing popularity and power.
In 2008 he was convicted of a conflict of interest over a land deal involving his wife. He was sentenced to two years’ jail, but had fled the country before the verdict was delivered. A fugitive, he now lives in Dubai and serves, to the fury of the Thai government, as an economic adviser to neighbouring Cambodia.
He is best-known in Britain for his short-lived ownership of Manchester City football club.
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(Source The Guardian)
Tags: 10, 3, all, best, compare, comparemobiles.com, deal, government, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, new, phone, phones, sam, sol, uk, venture, world
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Orange relied on iPhone to persuade new customers, while T-Mobile dived back into the pre-pay market
Orange and T-Mobile, who are preparing to merge their UK businesses this year, both had a bumper Christmas, but for wildly different reasons. While Orange relied on the iPhone to persuade people to sign-up to long-term contracts, T-Mobile threw caution to the wind and jumped back into the pre-pay market.
But as both companies had to slash prices and offer customers ever more favourable tariffs in order to remain competitive in the cut-throat UK market, they saw margins decline and average revenue per user – a crucial metric for analysts – take a tumble.
In the last three months of 2009, third-placed Orange added 404,000 new customers, while fourth-placed T-Mobile gained 571,000.
Orange’s figures included 266,000 new contract customers, its best ever fourth quarter performance, and four out of every five of those customers signed up to a 24-month deal, suggesting they were either getting an iPhone or another high-end smartphone, such as one running Google’s Android operating system or a Blackberry.
Orange ended O2’s two year exclusive hold on the iPhone in November and sold about 90,000 in the first month.
Orange’s revenues in the fourth quarter were €1.29bn (£1.13bn), down from €1.3bn, including its struggling residential broadband business, which lost 50,000 customers in the quarter and now has just 840,000 users. There has been intense discussion within Orange about closing down the broadband business, selling the customers to a rival ISP, such as BSkyB, but management have decided to hold onto the operation and it is now offering a free 32GB iPhone to customers who sign up for its high-end home broadband package.
Margins at Orange, meanwhile, declined to 18.4%, down 2 points compared with a year ago, while its average revenue per user – across both contract and pre-pay customers – was £21.41 a month in the fourth quarter, down from £24.25 a year ago.
As it does not have the iPhone, T-Mobile, in contrast, put all its focus on attracting new pre-pay users, putting a lot of marketing spend behind its “free texts for life” for any customer topping up by at least £10 a month. In the second half of the year, T-Mobile added 629,000 new pre-pay users, 570,000 in the run-up to Christmas alone.
All but 1,000 of its new customers in the fourth quarter were on pre-pay.
Revenues, however, were down in the quarter to £737m, from £820m a year ago, with margins of 20.1%, down dramatically from 24.8% a year ago.
Average revenue per user (ARPU) was £18 a month, down from £21 a year ago.
In the same period, second-placed Vodafone added 410,000 new customers with ARPU of £20.40, down from £21.5 a year ago, and margins of 23.2%, down from 25.9%. The UK’s largest mobile phone company O2 will report on Friday.
The fact that three of the four largest players in the UK added almost 1.4 million brand new customers means that either O2 and 3 saw subscriber numbers fall off a cliff, or the first quarter of this year will contain a nasty surprise for at least one operator.
It is unlikely that O2 has seen its winning streak come to a complete halt, given O2 boss Matthew Key’s upbeat statements about life since it was forced to give up its exclusive hold on the iPhone first to Orange then Tesco Mobile before Christmas; and then to Vodafone last month.
As a private company, rival 3 does not provide regular figures, but its owner Hutchison Whampoa, which keeps a very close eye on its mobile phone business, would react fast if UK chief executive Kevin Russell had lost hundreds of thousands of customers in the last three months.
For the past few years, 3 has had between 3 and 4 million users and will report financial figures at the end of March.
It is more likely that because of the way in which the mobile phone companies count pre-pay customers as active or inactive that the first quarter of this year will see a balancing of the books. More than half the new customers added in the fourth quarter so far, are pre-pay users and are likely to have switched between pre-pay providers. But while their new network will count them as a new customer from day one – ie in the fourth quarter – the network they are leaving will not count them as inactive until they fail to make a call or send a text within a 90 day period. As a result, they are not likely to have been identified as customers who have defected until sometime in the first quarter of 2010.
Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)
Tags: 10, 3, all, android, apple, best, Blackberry, compare, compared, comparemobiles.com, contract, deal, free, google, iphone, largest, line, marketing, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, months, new, o2, orange, phone, phones, prices, sam, sol, t-mobile, tariff, tariffs, three, uk, vodafone
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The deal creates the world’s largest cross-platform mobile app store, with more than 140,000 titles for a variety of handsets
 
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(Source ZDNet UK)
Tags: 3, App Store, compare, comparemobiles.com, deal, google, largest, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, sol, uk, world
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Adam Elgar hopes a mobile broadband dongle will do for his daughter, who is moving into a house with no fixed line internet access.
My daughter is moving into a house with no fixed line internet access, and she’s sceptical about going down the dongle route with her laptop. Her mobile phone signal will be adequate, but not great. How could she best achieve the bandwith needed for (for example) watching TV online? Your 8 October 2009 answer — Can 3G replace a landline? — suggests that only a landline will do. But are there now other solutions that you’d recommend?
Adam Elgar
I would love to be able to recommend WiMax (IEEE 802.16), which is much like a long-range version of Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11), but it’s very unlikely that your daughter is living in an area where it’s available. Given the UK government’s/Ofcom’s lack of interest in WiMax, I don’t see that changing. I would also love to be able to recommend LTE (Long Term Evolution), which is the 4G service of choice among phone network suppliers, but it is probably still a couple of years from common use.
Since I can’t do either, I’d suggest your daughter either looks into the cost of a landline or tries to find a friendly neighbour who will share an existing Wi-Fi network. Or, particularly in a rural area, considers two-way satellite services like Astra2Connect.
While I wasn’t very keen on mobile 3G dongles last October, I’m even less keen on them today. I had been using my 3 dongle inside the M25 for email and Twitter but I’ve stopped because it’s often not worth the effort — and 3’s HSPDA seemed to me to be the best service!
Even with a dongle, you’re not connected the whole time, so it’s not really “mobile broadband”: it’s more like “mobile dial-up”. And because of line drops/tunnels/tall buildings/whatever, you can spend more time connecting and disconnecting (and downloading 3’s pointless home page) than you do tweeting. I wouldn’t usually try to watch a YouTube video or iPlayer programme via 3G, though it might be possible.
The actual throughput your daughter will get will depend on exactly where she lives: results can vary on the same street, or even inside the same house. However, I’d be a touch surprised if she got much more than 2.2 Mbps, regardless of the “headline speed”. I wouldn’t be shocked if she got 1 Mbps, or even less. By contrast, a fixed phone line or cable connection should normally be able to deliver 3 Mbps to 7 Mbps for a lower cost. (You would also have to include the cost of installing and renting the phone line, but sometimes this can be shared between four or five people.)
You can perhaps get some idea of the likely performance and the deals on offer by entering your daughter’s post code in the “Speed in my area” page at Broadband Speedchecker. This takes users’ speed test results from the past six months and plots them on a Google map. There are a few pins for mobile broadband services, though it could do with more.
In the end, I’d guess that mobile broadband is now worse than it used to be because many more people are using it. The market has grown with the arrival of better smartphones (BlackBerry, iPhone, Android etc) and the cheaper deals for dongles and bandwidth taken up by mobile netbook and notebook users, me included.
Are the network providers going to expand capacity (which costs money) faster than required by the number of new users? Maybe, but I wouldn’t bank on it.
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(Source The Guardian)
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