Posts Tagged “tariff”
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.
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(Source The Guardian)
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Despite Google’s protests, its entry into the mobile phone market will change the game – and makes operators ‘dumb pipes’
Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, tried to reassure operators this week that the search engine’s direct entry into mobile phones through its Android platform was designed to make telcos money, not to turn them into “dumb pipes”.
He told anxious operators at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that Google had no intention of building broad infrastructure to compete with the operators. Google’s protests that it is helping others to make money will be taken with a pinch of salt by other businesses such as newspapers and sat-nav operators (who have been undermined by Google’s free alternative) but welcomed by consumers.
Of course Google isn’t going to build a rival infrastructure. It is going to bypass it altogether by using Wi-Fi as it becomes increasingly available and letting users choose which operator they might use in conjunction. A week ago I bought Google’s new Nexus mobile device from its US website as my main phone.
Make no mistake, it is game-changing in two important ways. First, it turns the operators from arbiters of how you can use your phone into the equivalent of finance companies. I paid $529 (£338) for a SIM-free phone. I could have left it at that and just used it at the increasing number of Wi-Fi hotspots around town – but that would deprive me of incoming calls and the ability to use services such as mapping in places where there is no Wi-Fi. So I signed up with O2 for a pay-as-you go Sim plus an “unlimited” data package for a very reasonable £7.50 a month. If that isn’t turning the operator into a “dumb pipe” then I don’t know what is.
Others have offered Sim-free phones in the past. What makes this different is that it comes with Google’s integrated suite of services, giving an easy user experience. One click and my Gmail comes up, another one and the day’s calendar, or Twitter or whatever – appears to fill the ample 3.7in screen.
The game-changing part is the way Google is bringing voice back to the telephone in a way that hasn’t happened before. A few months ago I tried the company’s voice search out by speaking an inquiry instead of typing it in and was amazed that it got it right the first three times. Now, on a more extensive test, while well under 100%, it is highly impressive and I intend to use it as my default method of searching for standard queries. It beats the otherwise impressive Vlingo (on my BlackBerry) for speed and accuracy.
Google could have another killer app in the rollout – starting in the US – of its own internet telephone system for mobiles. When that is seamlessly integrated into all the other features that 150m Gmail users enjoy then Google could become a major international telephone operator in its own right. And if Wi-Fi ever becomes ubiquitous, then the sky’s the limit. All this will provide competition for Skype and the up-and-coming UK based Truphone, which I use for all my long-distance calls via a downloaded web app from my iPod Touch. Truphone has its own killer app that neither Skype nor Google has – you can get through to a real human being when things go wrong. Miracles can happen.
If the existing operators come under siege in a few year’s time as a result of web telephony, then they have only themselves to blame for the often contemptuous way they have treated consumers. Sure, they have, commendably, invested billions in much-needed infrastructure, but that is no excuse for what they have done.
They have made three major errors of business strategy and are about to make a fourth. First, they built walled gardens around their phones – depriving users of the universality of the web. One early Vodafone smartphone didn’t even have Google on it. When I inquired why, I was told there was no demand for it. As a consequence of their walled gardens of selected products they paid pathetic revenue shares to content providers thereby strangling an embryonic industry at birth until Apple resuscitated it. Had they opened their walls and given developers a fair return they could have created an app revolution long before Apple.
Second, by milking their customers for exorbitant amounts every time they used their phones to access websites, they delayed the mobile data revolution by several years. It was only when Apple insisted on adopting a fixed tariff – though it wasn’t the first – that web access from phones soared.
Third, by treating promiscuous customers more favourably than loyal ones they abandoned the basis of trust that all good brands need. And the next mistake? They are pushing for abandonment of “net neutrality” whereby all customers are treated more or less equally. They hope to make more money by giving bandwidth preference to content they get money from. You can imagine how popular that will be if some customers get slow broadband or none at all to make way for other people to watch Sky or Virgin videos.
As a phone, Google’s Nexus is the usual mixture of pluses and minuses. It has got a great 5 megapixel camera as can be seen here and a much better screen resolution than the iPhone, but the touchscreen itself is less reliable. Although it has over 20,000 apps in its store – and growing – they are not yet near the quality of the iPhone’s archive. Surprisingly, I have been very disappointed so far with Google’s mapping which ought to be its biggest strength. On a cloudy country walk it failed to make any connection with a satellite for a longitude/latitude fix and as mobile reception was flaky it didn’t download complete maps.
Unlike Nokia’s maps, which can be embedded in your phone Google has to rely on a web connection to download them each time. The other thing about it – and most other similar – phones which doesn’t get reported much is that it is actually difficult to read the screen when you most need to – walking in daylight. But one has to admit for all these occasional quibbles the new generation of smartphones offers awesome yet affordable technology. I would not have dreamed it possible 20 years ago.
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(Source The Guardian)
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• HTC’s Legend smartphone will come to UK in April
• Analysts hail design classic in same league as Apple
• Vodafone snaps up handset for Europe
HTC has come of age. The Taiwanese mobile phone manufacturer, once known only as the maker of Windows phones under the SPV brand, today unveiled a new phone sporting Google’s Android software which analysts are predicting could steal a march on Apple in the smartphone design wars.
The HTC Legend, which runs the latest Android software called Eclair, is made from a single block of aluminium and has a very bright and clear 3.2 inch AMOLED (ultra-bright LED) display. Vodafone has grabbed the handset in Europe, wary of losing out after missing the iPhone in some of the company’s key European markets.
The Legend will come to the UK in April and already analysts are predicting that it will be a design classic following its launch at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
“Legend’s clever use of milled aluminium casing could scoop Apple’s direction for the next iPhone design,” said CCS Insight.
Despite its body being engineered from a single piece of aluminium, the HTC Legend has a removable battery – something which the iPhone conspicuously lacks – which slides out from a compartment at the bottom of the phone. The back of the battery casing also contains the phone’s antenna so that its metal body does not hinder signal strength.
HTC has updated the user face – called HTC Sense – that sits atop Android on the device. Alongside refinements to the phone’s address book, so that contacts can be organised into groups such as business contacts and friends, it pulls information from social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter into a single Friend Stream of updates.
The Android platform has been the making of HTC. It created the first phone, the G1, using the software, while the Legend is the new version of another successful Android phone, the Hero. The Legend, however, has a rather less intrusive “chin” at the bottom of the device than the Hero.
Alongside it, HTC also unveiled the HTC Desire, which also uses HTC Sense. It had previously been codenamed the HTC Bravo and several UK operators have been vying to get hold of it as it is essentially the same as Google’s own Nexus One device, which HTC also produced. However, it has an optical trackpad rather than a roller ball, and is understood to be cheaper than the Google device.
Orange said it will be stocking the HTC Desire from April and it will be free on selected monthly tariffs. It is likely to be priced the same as the iPhone, a policy Vodafone is expected to follow with the Nexus One in the UK when it launches next month.
The HTC Desire will also be available in the UK on T-Mobile from 26 March.
The Desire has a large 3.7 inch AMOLED screen, like the Nexus One, and contains the 1GHz Snapdragon processor which is also found on the Nexus One. It includes such iPhone staples as pinching to zoom on web pages while it also automatically recalibrates text so that when you zoom into a page, you do not have to scroll left and right to get to the end of a line.
Crucially, it also supports Flash, which Apple still resolutely refuses to back.
HTC also announced the HTC HD mini, which uses the 6.5 version of Windows Phone rather than the series 7 platform launched by Steve Ballmer yesterday.
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(Source The Guardian)
Tags: 10, 3, all, android, apple, blog, cheaper, compare, comparemobiles.com, free, google, HD, HTC, iphone, latest, launches, line, maker, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, new, orange, phone, phones, sam, sol, t-mobile, tariff, tariffs, test, twitter, uk, update, vodafone, world
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Carrot dangled for O2 contracts coming to an end
Vodafone has rolled out revamped Sim-only price plans.…
Web threats: Why conventional protection doesn’t work
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(Source The Register)
Tags: 10, 12, 3, compare, comparemobiles.com, contract, deal, Deals, free, iphone, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, o2, phone, sim, sol, source the register, tariff, uk, vodafone
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New Mobile & Latest Deal News!
The new Nokia X3 has some fantastic deals on T-Mobile’s new tariffs. £20 line rental gets you a free Nokia X3 with 100 mins, 100 texts and unlimited mobile internet, plus £198 cash back. The deal is available now at e2save or Onestopphoneshop.
The Nokia X3 is the first S40 phone to be compliant with Ovi Store. The new X Series has been created for multimedia phones for ultimate entertainment. The X3 is a compact slider phone, measuring 96 x 49 x 14mm. It has been designed to make you stand out in the crowd with metallic colour accents and ‘high tech’ design. A key component of the X3 is its music player which boasts stereo speakers, dedicated music keys and a 3.5mm audio jack. There is also an FM radio that doesn’t require earphones for a signal as the X3 has a built-in antenna.
There is a 3.2 megapixel camera to capture those special moments and you can share them with friends by uploading them straight to Flickr or Ovi, or transfer them wirelessly with stereo Bluetooth. The phone comes with a 2GB microSD card but can be expanded to 16GB, providing plenty of storage for music and pictures.
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New Mobile & Latest Deal News!
Exclusively available from O2 and free on all tariffs, from £15 per month.
The BlackBerry 8520 Curve is a sleek new BlackBerry with a rubberized body.
The 8520 Curve has a full QWERTY keyboard for writing emails, texts and instant messages with ease.
With BlackBerry push email, the 8520 can send and receive emails from a host of different accounts anywhere in the world.
It also features an optical trackball for sensitive and highly accurate navigation, Wi-Fi, a 2 megapixel camera and expandable memory.
Tags: all, bbc, Blackberry, compare, comparemobiles.com, deal, Deals, email, free, latest, latest deal, mobile, mobiles, new, new mobile, o2, sol, tariff, tariffs, test, world
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Keeping it in the family
Virgin Media is to offer customers free calls from their Virgin landlines to their Virgin mobile phones. As always, strings are attached.…
Web threats: Why conventional protection doesn’t work
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(Source The Register)
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A change of heart has helped Tiscali customers left worse off after merger with TalkTalk. Miles Brignall reports
The home phone and broadband supplier TalkTalk has been forced into a U-turn after telling customers of the recently merged Tiscali that it would not be honouring contracts offered prior to the takeover.
As Guardian Money revealed shortly before Christmas, the merger of the broadband and phone giants, originally announced in May 2009, has resulted in a big price increase for some Tiscali customers pushed on to the higher TalkTalk tariffs. Some broadband-only customers face costs rising from £14.99 to £19.99 a month.
It was initially thought most of those affected were out of contract. However, in the past two weeks, TalkTalk has been telling customers who had recently signed new agreements it would not be honouring those struck with Tiscali salespeople – even if it was just a few weeks before the known-about merger. Some say they were told by TalkTalk staff that the fact they had signed an 18-month contract at an agreed price was “meaningless” as they were TalkTalk customers now.
One such customer is new mum Sarah Gladwin. The bank manager, who lives in Richmond, Surrey, was contemplating leaving Tiscali and finding a better deal after reading our original article.
Out of contract and free to take her business elsewhere, she called the Tiscali sales team in late December and was offered line rental, broadband, and free calls in the evenings and at weekends – its basic phone/internet package – for a very attractive £12 a month, with the first three months free.
She had to sign up for 18 months. “I was very happy with the deal. Confirmation came by email the same day and later by post. Both stated that my Tiscali package had been successfully upgraded, as per my order. We received a new wireless router in about three days. All great, or so I thought.”
A few days ago she received a letter welcoming her to TalkTalk and saying that, in future, she would be paying £18.50 a month. Other readers have contacted Money complaining about the same thing.
“Obviously, I didn’t want to pay nearly 50% more, so I phoned them to say ‘no thank you, we’ll continue with our agreed contract made last month’. But the call centre did not understand. It offered me three months free after speaking to a ’supervisor’.
“I explained I already had an 18-month contract with three months free, and a cheaper monthly fee, but all she kept saying was ‘we’re Talk Talk now’. After 45 minutes, I gave up,” says Gladwin. A second phone call elicited the same take or leave it response.
“How can you deal with a company that treats its customers in this way?” she says.
TalkTalk originally said it wanted to streamline its complicated range of tariffs down to one. “Our aim, at the end of this process, is to have one clearly understood set of prices. That will mean no one is paying more than the TalkTalk tariff and is fair to everyone,” it said in December, seemingly unaware its colleagues at Tiscali were offering different deals to retain customers.
Consumer law expert Dr Christian Twigg-Flesner at the University of Hull says telecoms companies and financial services providers rely on “unilateral variation clauses” to allow them to vary prices in this way.
“Most of the banks have these in their terms to allow them to change interest rates and the like. However, in this case, customers might be able to argue the company was misrepresenting its offer.
“But, as a consumer, you can’t force a company to honour a deal. Unfortunately, English law is reluctant to hold companies to contracts as long as they give the consumer the chance to opt out,” he says.
After Money raised the issue with TalkTalk the company had a change of heart, and says it will now honour the contracts with Tiscali – albeit with a rather complicated billing arrangement.
A spokesman says: “Customers who signed up with Tiscali or altered their package between September and December 2009 will be offered six months service at half price when they sign up to a new contract with TalkTalk. Those customers who want to stick with the original deal they signed, can do so. They will have to pay the TalkTalk tariff, but their account will be credited, up-front, with the difference, meaning they will pay nothing for the first few months.”
He explained the company’s recent downturn in customer service on the poor weather, during which just 25% of its staff were able to get to work at its Preston and Warrington centres.
“It caused us big problems in terms of answering calls and it came at the worst time, but we are now back to normal,” he says.
Meanwhile, the regulator Ofcom may have had a hand in the about- turn.
“Ofcom is aware of this issue; we are monitoring complaints and we are in touch with TalkTalk,” it says.
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(Source The Guardian)
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Apple says it will not reveal UK pricing for iPad until its launch at the end of March
Apple has surprised would-be buyers of its new iPad touchscreen computer, saying it will not announce UK prices before it launches at the end of March.
Although it announced US prices for all six versions of the touchscreen “tablet” device with and without 3G connectivity at the launch on Wednesday night by Apple’s chief executive Steve Jobs, the UK office said today that there will be no UK prices offered until the launch, expected in 60 days’ time – or 90 days for the 3G versions.
However, the MacWorld magazine website takes an “educated guess” at UK pricing for the iPad, which it predicts will range from £388 to £591 for the Wi-Fi model, and £490 to £693 for the Wi-FI and 3G model.
The iPad is a 9.7in tablet computer with a virtual keyboard which can surf the web, do email, display ebooks and play video. US prices start at $499 for a basic version with Wi-Fi wireless networking but no 3G connectivity, rising to $829 for a 3G version with 64 gigabytes of storage. However iPad users in the US will have to pay separately for 3G data plans being sold separately by Apple’s exclusive mobile partner there, AT&T, which already supplies the iPhone there.
Mobile phone companies in the UK – O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone – are looking to strike similar deals in Europe ahead of a launch later in the year. The Guardian understands from multiple source that no choice has been made.
Apple initially sold the iPhone through exclusive partners in the US, UK, France and Germany, but for the iPad the British mobile phone networks are not expecting Apple to offer exclusivity. None was willing to comment on the iPad.
Andrew Harrison, UK chief executive of the Carphone Warehouse, Europe’s largest independent mobile phone retailer, commented: “To me, the really interesting thing is what we are seeing is devices designed with how the consumer uses the internet very much in mind, rather than just a computer that was made for business use trying to fit the consumer.”
Bloggers and commentators had mixed reactions to the device. It cannot run Adobe’s Flash software, used by many advertisers and games companies online to create eye-catching motion on web pages, which some see as essential to web browsing. Many women were dismayed by the name: the San Francisco Examiner pointed out that “for North American women the word ‘pad’ means but one thing, a sanitary napkin”. But Nick Carr, author of The Big Switch, about the move towards cloud computing, described the launch as “the day the PC died”, saying that Apple “wants to deliver the killer device for the cloud era, a machine that will define computing’s new age in the way that the Windows PC defined the old age.”
Without a price ahead of the launch it may be difficult for retailers to judge the public’s interest – and so whether the device will sell in large or small numbers. Amazon’s Kindle, which includes mobile networking in the price, only launched recently in the UK, and Amazon has never disclosed sales numbers, though it is reckoned to have sold only about 500,000 to the end of last year.
The decision to keep the UK price under wraps is unusual for Apple, which usually announces UK pricing simultaneously with any launch, and could either indicate concern about exchange rate fluctuations, or a desire to keep people intrigued about the device, or that non-US networks are seeking to sell it with some sort of subsidy.
Already several UK mobile phone companies subsidise the cost of laptops to persuade customers to sign up for long-term mobile broadband contracts. Anyone signing up to a two-year mobile broadband deal with T-Mobile at £40 a month, for instance, gets a free Sony Vaio laptop worth £499.
However, Apple has forced AT&T to give up persuading customers to sign long-term contracts in order to subsidise the iPad; instead, it will effectively be available on what in Europe would be seen as a 30-day rolling Sim-only contract such as those offered by O2 and Vodafone.
“It does not look as though it has the traditional subsidy model,” said Harrison. “If you put Wi-Fi and 3G in it, it is actually more expensive not less expensive.”
In a note relating AT&T’s financial prospects following the news, Jonathan Schildkraut, analyst at Jefferies & Co investment bank said the tariffs are “in line with the current data add-on options available with voice packages, and well below the roughly $60 plans currently offered by wireless carriers for a laptop card. The prepaid plan can be activated directly from the iPad and, because there is no contract, can be canceled at anytime.”
Meanwhile anyone who already has a wireless broadband “dongle” under a long-term contract and is thinking about installing its SIM card into an iPad will be disappointed. The iPad is the first mass-market mobile device to use micro-Sim cards, which are smaller than the current range of Sim cards and were designed for small consumer gadgets such as Birmingham-based Lok8u’s range of wireless-enabled wrist watches.
The iPad is also likely to prove a major headache for makers of similar devices, especially Taiwan’s Asus which recently announced plans for its own tablet, and Nokia which last year unveiled a “booklet” computer with built-in 3G. There are also understood to be several tablet computers running Google’s Android software in the works, with France’s Archos rumoured to be planning to release one in March.
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(Source The Guardian)
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Several mobile phone carriers keen to sell Apple’s iPad in the UK
Steve Jobs has fired the starting pistol in the race to bring the iPad to the UK, with several mobile phone operators and retailer Carphone Warehouse interested in selling Apple’s new tablet computer to consumers this side of the Atlantic.
Jobs announced on Wednesday that a version of the device that can access 3G mobile phone networks as well as Wi-Fi will start shipping in the US in April under a deal with AT&T, which already supplies the iPhone in North America. Mobile phone companies in the UK – O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone – are looking to strike similar deals in Europe ahead of a launch later in the year.
Andrew Harrison, UK chief executive of the Carphone Warehouse, welcomed news of the Apple device, adding: “To me, the really interesting thing is what we are seeing is devices designed with how the consumer uses the internet very much in mind, rather than just a computer that was made for business use trying to fit the consumer.”
Carphone Warehouse, Europe’s largest independent mobile phone retailer, was Apple’s exclusive third party retail partner for the iPhone and Harrison obviously hopes to repeat the experience with the iPad.
“Our perspective is we play in the world of connectivity and particularly mobile connectivity and this device fits well within that; we think there will be a whole range of them. This is an extension of a smartphone perhaps even more than it being a smaller PC. It is much more in the territory that we operate in,” he said
“We have done a phenomenal job with the iPhone and smartphones in general and bringing connectivity is something we would be delighted to talk to Apple about.”
But the AT&T deal shows that Apple may be approaching the involvement of mobile phone operators with the iPad in a very different way from the way that it uses them for the iPhone.
Traditionally, mobile phone companies “subsidise” the up-front cost of hardware – usually mobile phones, but increasingly laptops – in return for persuading a customer to sign up to a long-term contract. The operator assumes it will make the subsidy back over the life of the contract. That is how the iPhone is sold in the US and Europe, while even Google followed this model with its Nexus One, signing a deal with T-Mobile in the US which sees the phone’s $529 price tag fall to $179 in return for signing a contract. Vodafone is expected to sell the Nexus One in the UK at roughly the same price point as the iPhone.
Already several UK mobile phone companies subsidise the cost of laptops to persuade customers to sign up for long-term mobile broadband contracts. Anyone signing up to a two-year mobile broadband deal with T-Mobile at £40 a month, for instance, gets a free Sony Vaio laptop worth £499.
But with the iPad, Apple has forced AT&T to give up on persuading customers to sign long-term contracts. Instead the iPad will effectively be available on what in Europe would be seen as a 30-day rolling SIM-only contract such as those offered by O2 and Vodafone.
Customers have two pricing options in the US, a mere 250MB of data for $14.99 a month, or unlimited data for $29.99 a month. That means that while the basic version of the iPad – without wireless capabilities – will start at $499, the 3G version of the device will start at $629. Under the traditional operator model, the 3G version of the device would have been cheaper.
“It does not look as though it has the traditional subsidy model,” said Harrison. “If you put Wi-Fi and 3G in it, it is actually more expensive not less expensive.”
In a note on AT&T following the news, Jonathan Schildkraut, analyst at Jefferies & Co investment bank said the tariffs are “in line with the current data add-on options available with voice packages, and well below the roughly $60 plans currently offered by wireless carriers for a laptop card. The prepaid plan can be activated directly from the iPad and, because there is no contract, can be canceled at anytime.”
“Given the prepaid nature of the service associated with this product, including the no contract/cancel at any time feature, we expect that AT&T would not have to subsidise the device. We would view this as a significant positive – given the large subsidy associated with the iPhone (estimated at up to $400). Additionally, this would imply better overall economics around the device (without the initial margin dilution of an iPhone sale),” he said
“The flip-side, of course, is that the usage patterns of this type of device are unknown. However, given the multimedia capabilities, and the video functionality in particular, we would assume that iPad could be another network hog. This could drive incremental congestion issues on AT&T’s already strained network – leading to further network dissatisfaction, and potentially a need for ongoing higher levels of capital spending”.
In other words, not getting people to sign a contract gives the operator very little chance to factor the potential cost of future infrastructure investment into its pricing plans. Then there is the worry that applications which allow internet telephony – such as Truphone and Skype, which are already available on the iPhone and will port to the iPad – will further erode the network’s profitable voice and text traffic.
Apple initially sold the iPhone through exclusive partners in the US, UK, France and Germany, but for the iPad the British mobile phone companies are not expecting Apple to offer exclusivity. None of the mobile phone companies was willing to comment on the iPad.
Incidentally, anyone who already has a wireless broadband “dongle” under a long-term contract and is thinking about buying an iPad and putting the SIM card from their laptop card into the iPad will be disappointed. The iPad is the first mass-market mobile device to use micro-Sim cards, which are smaller than the current range of Sim cards and were designed for small consumer gadgets such as Birmingham-based Lok8u’s range of wireless-enabled wrist watches.
The iPad is also likely to prove a major headache for makers of similar devices, especially Taiwan’s Asus which recently announced plans for its own tablet, and Nokia which last year unveiled a “booklet” computer with built-in 3G. There are also understood to be several tablet computers running Google’s Android software in the works, with France’s Archos rumoured to be planning to release one in March.
Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)
Tags: 10, 3, all, android, apple, card, cheaper, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, contract, deal, Deals, drive, free, gadget, gadgets, google, iphone, largest, line, maker, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, networks, new, nokia, o2, orange, phone, phones, sam, service, sim, Sim Card, sol, sony, sony vaio, sony vaio laptop, t-mobile, tariff, tariffs, uk, vodafone, world
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Painting Orange customers Blyk
Orange has launched a new advertising platform, aimed at advertisers wanting to exploit customers on its Monkey tariff, using technology inherited from Blyk.…
The power of collaboration within unified communications
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(Source The Register)
Tags: 10, 3, compare, comparemobiles.com, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, orange, sol, source the register, tariff, uk
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New Mobile & Latest Deal News!
18 months free line rental on an 18 month contract. You’ll pay £20 per month line rental to T-Mobile and you can claim £360 cashback, which is paid in five equal stages throughout your the contract. Effectively this makes the deal completely free. Other tariffs are available including 12 months free on a 12 month contract. You will need to read and agree to the retailers cash back terms and conditions and remember to send off your bills in order to claim cash back.
The best deal is on T-Mobile Combi 20 (18m) and it’s available for only one more week. You get 200 anytime minutes to any network and 200 texts.
The Nokia 1208 was designed to serve the basic functions of a dependable mobile phone. Equipped with a dust-resistant keypad and a built-in torch, the 1208 will go with you anywhere, from the kitchen to the cellar. Its shell is sturdy enough to withstand the wear and tear that comes with daily use. The Nokia 1208 also has a number of features, including a conversion function, calculator, clock, alarm clock and calendar for your convenience.
Tags: 12, 12 months, 3, all, best, cashback, compare, comparemobiles.com, contract, deal, Deals, free, free line rental, latest, latest deal, line, mobile, mobile phone, mobiles, months, new, new mobile, nokia, phone, rental, sol, t-mobile, tariff, tariffs, test
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New Mobile & Latest Deal News!
The deal is a pay as you go Nokia 2330 classic on O2. Normally £14.95, which is already amazing value for money, but use our exclusive voucher code and save a further £5. Just enter five5 in the voucher code box at the checkout. You will also need to buy a £10 airtime voucher, so the total cost will be £19.95. Delivery is free and the voucher code will expire on Monday at 9am.
The Nokia 2330 classic is a practical and affordable mobile phone, based on a long line of successful and easy-to-use Nokia phones. With its simple, robust and no-nonsense design it’s a fine choice for work or home. It packs in some essential features such as a VGA camera with video record facility. It also has a built-in FM radio, handsfree loudspeaker and Bluetooth connectivity, which is a bonus in this class. The Nokia 2330 classic is a fantastic choice for anyone looking for a phone that’s easy to use and good value for money.
Tags: 10, 3, all, compare, deal, free, latest, latest deal, line, mobile, mobile phone, mobiles, new, new mobile, nokia, o2, pay as you go, payg, phone, phones, sim, sol, tariff, test
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• Sales of Palm Pre at Carphone Warehouse fall short
• Orange sold 90,000 iPhones in the first month of offering
Carphone Warehouse is giving away two free airline tickets to anyone who buys a Palm Pre before the end of January as speculation increases that sales of the mobile phone, seen as the closest competitor to Apple’s iPhone have fallen far short of expectations.
Mobile phone network O2, which offers the Palm Pre under an exclusive deal in the UK, is believed to have mountains of unsold phones.
News of the Carphone Warehouse offer comes amid rumours that the iPhone itself is not doing very well for one of its new network partners, Orange. Sources in the retail channel maintain that Orange sold a very creditable 90,000 devices in the first month of offering the handset, but roughly nine in ten of those handsets went to people who were already Orange customers, making the iPhone effectively an upgrade for them. Orange was unavailable for comment.
Orange started selling the iPhone on 10 November, ending O2’s two-year exclusive grip on the handset, and announced it had sold more than 30,000 iPhones within hours of it going on sale. Since then, however, Tesco has started selling the device while Vodafone will start to provide the iPhone to its customers from 14 January. The fact that the device is now available on four networks in the UK, however, has not led to a price war, partly because Apple is understood to demand a say in any pricing tariffs to maintain the cachet of iPhone’s “premium” image.
The iPhone is available across O2, Orange, Tesco and Vodafone starting at about £30 a month for customers willing to pay up-front for the device. The basic iPhone 3G is available free from £35 a month but most customers want the more powerful iPhone 3GS which is free on contracts from about £45 a month.
That is the same price at which O2 makes the Palm Pre free for customers. The device was launched in the US in June and in the UK on 16 October and was supposed to resurrect the fortunes of its Californian developer. Previously, Palm created the market for so-called personal digital assistants (PDAs) with its range of handheld organisers, and dominated the smartphone market before it was eclipsed first by Nokia and then by Apple.
But while the Palm Pre has been a critical success, with reviewers saying it runs the iPhone a close second in terms of functionality, the handset has been a poor seller.In the three months to the end of November, Palm shipped 783,000 smartphones, representing a 5% decrease from the three months to August, although it does mark a year-on-year increase of 41%. Carphone Warehouse is offering anyone who buys the phone before 31 January, two free return flights to one of 15 European destinations.
Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)
Tags: 10, 3, 3gs, all, apple, closes, compare, comparemobiles.com, contract, deal, free, iphone, iphone 3gs, line, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, months, networks, new, nokia, o2, orange, palm, phone, phones, review, sam, sol, tariff, tariffs, three, uk, vodafone
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• Basic iPhone 3G offered at £35 a month on a two-year contract
• Vodafone hoping to attract consumers with network reliability
Vodafone will start selling the iPhone in Britain next month, offering customers a free handset for £35 a month on a two-year contract, disappointing consumers hoping for a high-street price war over the device.
The pricing plan comes as a surprise because it does not give Britain’s biggest mobile phone company a competitive advantage, especially on an 18-month deal, where it is more expensive than its rivals.
“I don’t think this is about a price war – I think this is a network quality war,” said Vodafone UK’s chief executive, Guy Laurence. “At the end of the day, customers will seek out the best deal and I believe we are competitive, but it is about the quality of the network it runs on. We have spent a year optimising the network for the iPhone.
“It’s very simple: now you can get the iPhone on a network you can rely on.”
The arrival of the iPhone on Vodafone brings the number of mobile phone companies supplying the device in Britain to four. Vodafone customers who register interest before it goes on sale on 14 January will get a small thank you for not defecting to rivals that already have the handset, in the form of free calls to other Vodafone users for the life of their initial contract.
Orange started selling the iPhone last month, ending O2’s two-year exclusive grip on the handset, then Tesco arrived this month, complicating matters by opting for 12-month contracts and demanding consumers shell out several hundred pounds for the device itself.
Vodafone’s “entry-level” prices for the iPhone over 18 months are almost £100 more expensive than Orange and O2, while Tesco does not offer an 18-month contract. Vodafone’s entry-level prices over two years are about £40 cheaper than O2 but almost £75 more expensive than Orange.
Different handsets, however, have been pitched by different networks at different price points and with different bundles of texts and minutes.
The basic iPhone 3G is cheapest with Orange over 18 months, at £624.98, and with Tesco over two years – provided consumers renew their 12-month contract – at £702.
But most consumers are likely to want the 16GB version of the faster iPhone 3GS. That is cheapest with Tesco, where it costs £800 over two years for consumers who renew their 12-month contract. The 16GB iPhone works out at £829.64 for Orange customers, £869 on Vodafone and £909.35 on O2.
Variety of packages
But the packages on offer are very different. For that price, Tesco offers £60 of calls and texts a month – which works out at about 600 minutes or 1,200 texts – while Vodafone offers 300 minutes and unlimited texts per month and O2 gives customers 600 minutes and 500 texts. In stark contrast, Orange offers just 150 minutes and 250 texts.
On the face of it, Tesco and Vodafone offer better “value” than Orange or O2 on the iPhone 3GS 16GB over two years. Some people have been put off Tesco Mobile, however, by the fact that it uses O2’s network to run its service and the company has been suffering network capacity issues in recent months, especially in London.
With Britain’s newest network, 3, unlikely to get it for several months and with T-Mobile having counted itself out of the race for the foreseeable future, the arrival of Vodafone completes the range of choices for UK consumers.
Vodafone is offering all three versions of the iPhone on 18-month and 24-month contracts, the same as Orange and O2. The 18-month tariff starts at £40, for which customers will get the basic iPhone 3G – which has 8GB of memory and a 2 megapixel camera – free, but have to pay £89 for the 16GB iPhone 3GS – which has a 3 megapixel camera and a faster processor – and £179 for the top-of-the-range 32GB iPhone 3GS, which has more memory capacity. Over the length of that 18-month contract, therefore, Vodafone consumers will pay £720 for the iPhone 3G, £809 for the 16GB iPhone 3GS and £899 for the iPhone 3GS 32GB.
The equivalent 18-month entry-level prices on O2 are £625.73, £713.82 and £803.07. For Orange the equivalent prices are £624.98, £712.98 and £802.48.
Vodafone is also offering all three devices on 24-month contracts. At the basic £30-a-month contract the iPhone 3G will cost consumers £59, the iPhone 3GS 16GB £149 and the iPhone 3GS 32GB £239. Over the two-year period, therefore, consumers will pay a total of £779 for the iPhone 3G, £869 for the 16GB iPhone 3GS and £959 for the iPhone 3GS 32GB.
The equivalent prices for O2 are £822.24, £909.35 and £997.43 and for Orange they are £704.64, £829.64 and £929.64.
Tesco started selling the device last week and while it grabbed headlines by being the first operator to make the phone available on a contract at £20 a month and lasting just a year, consumers have to pay £222 to buy the basic 3G handset or £320 for the 16GB version of the faster 3GS handset and £407 for the 32GB version of the device.
Over the life of an annual contract, therefore, the 3G phone on Tesco costs £462, the 16GB 3GS £560 and the 32GB version 3GS £647.
Expanding the price over 18 months in order to compare the Tesco deals with O2 and Orange, the iPhone 3G on Tesco costs at total of £582 over a year and a half, the 16GB 3GS costs £680 and the 32GB 3GS costs £767. All these prices are lower than the equivalent prices from O2 and Orange, but only by £35 to £40 over 18 months. Compared with Vodafone’s 18 month prices, Tesco is about £130 cheaper.
It is not possible, however, to get an 18-month contract with Tesco so either customers would have to renew their 12-month contract or opt for Tesco’s more expensive 24-month contract from the outset.
Doubling-up the 12-month contract leaves the 3G costing £702, the 16GB 3GS £800 and the 32GB £887 over two years.
Anyone signing up to Tesco’s 24-month contract, at £60 a month, in contrast, will get the iPhone 3G and the 16GB 3GS for free – rather begging the question why anyone would want the basic 3G phone – while the 32GB version costs £50. Over 24 months, therefore the cost to a consumer of the 3G and 3GS 16GB devices would be £1440 and the 32GB £1490.
O2 sells the basic iPhone 3G for £96.89 on an 18-month contract at £29.38. The 16GB version of the iPhone 3GS is £184.98 on the same contract and the largest 32GB version £274.23. Over the year-and-a-half of the contract, therefore, the devices cost £625.73, £713.82 and £803.07.
O2 gives the iPhone 3G away for free on a 24-month contract at £34.26 a month while the 16GB iPhone costs £87.11 and the 32GB version £175.19. Over the two years, therefore, the prices for O2 are £822.24, £909.35 and £997.43.
Orange sells the basic 3G iPhone for £96.50 on an 18-month contract costing £29.36 a month; the 16GB 3GS costs £184.50 and the 32GB version £274. Over the lifetime of the contract, therefore, the three versions on Orange cost £624.98, £712.98 and £802.48. Or a mere 75p, 84p and 59p cheaper than O2.
Orange gives the iPhone 3G away free on a 24-month contract at £29.36, while the 16GB version of the 3GS costs £125 and the 32GB costs £225. Over the two years, therefore, the prices for Orange are £704.64, £829.64 and £929.64.
Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)
Tags: 10, 12, 3, 3gs, all, apple, best, cheaper, cheapest, compare, compared, comparemobiles.com, consumer, contract, deal, Deals, free, iphone, iphone 3gs, largest, line, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, months, networks, new, o2, orange, phone, phones, prices, sam, service, sim, sol, t-mobile, tariff, three, uk, vodafone
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• Basic iPhone 3G offered at £35 a month on a two-year contract
• Vodafone hoping to attract consumers with network reliability
Vodafone will start selling the iPhone in Britain next month, offering customers a free handset for £35 a month on a two-year contract, disappointing consumers hoping for a high-street price war over the device.
The pricing plan comes as a surprise because it does not give Britain’s biggest mobile phone company a competitive advantage, especially on an 18-month deal, where it is more expensive than its rivals.
“I don’t think this is about a price war – I think this is a network quality war,” said Vodafone UK’s chief executive, Guy Laurence. “At the end of the day, customers will seek out the best deal and I believe we are competitive, but it is about the quality of the network it runs on. We have spent a year optimising the network for the iPhone.
“It’s very simple: now you can get the iPhone on a network you can rely on.”
The arrival of the iPhone on Vodafone brings the number of mobile phone companies supplying the device in Britain to four. Vodafone customers who register interest before it goes on sale on 14 January will get a small thank you for not defecting to rivals that already have the handset, in the form of free calls to other Vodafone users for the life of their initial contract.
Orange started selling the iPhone last month, ending O2’s two-year exclusive grip on the handset, then Tesco arrived this month, complicating matters by opting for 12-month contracts and demanding consumers shell out several hundred pounds for the device itself.
Vodafone’s “entry-level” prices for the iPhone over 18 months are almost £100 more expensive than Orange and O2, while Tesco does not offer an 18-month contract. Vodafone’s entry-level prices over two years are about £40 cheaper than O2 but almost £75 more expensive than Orange.
Different handsets, however, have been pitched by different networks at different price points and with different bundles of texts and minutes.
The basic iPhone 3G is cheapest with Orange over 18 months, at £624.98, and with Tesco over two years – provided consumers renew their 12-month contract – at £702.
But most consumers are likely to want the 16GB version of the faster iPhone 3GS. That is cheapest with Tesco, where it costs £800 over two years for consumers who renew their 12-month contract. The 16GB iPhone works out at £829.64 for Orange customers, £869 on Vodafone and £909.35 on O2.
Variety of packages
But the packages on offer are very different. For that price, Tesco offers £60 of calls and texts a month – which works out at about 600 minutes or 1,200 texts – while Vodafone offers 300 minutes and unlimited texts per month and O2 gives customers 600 minutes and 500 texts. In stark contrast, Orange offers just 150 minutes and 250 texts.
On the face of it, Tesco and Vodafone offer better “value” than Orange or O2 on the iPhone 3GS 16GB over two years. Some people have been put off Tesco Mobile, however, by the fact that it uses O2’s network to run its service and the company has been suffering network capacity issues in recent months, especially in London.
With Britain’s newest network, 3, unlikely to get it for several months and with T-Mobile having counted itself out of the race for the foreseeable future, the arrival of Vodafone completes the range of choices for UK consumers.
Vodafone is offering all three versions of the iPhone on 18-month and 24-month contracts, the same as Orange and O2. The 18-month tariff starts at £40, for which customers will get the basic iPhone 3G – which has 8GB of memory and a 2 megapixel camera – free, but have to pay £89 for the 16GB iPhone 3GS – which has a 3 megapixel camera and a faster processor – and £179 for the top-of-the-range 32GB iPhone 3GS, which has more memory capacity. Over the length of that 18-month contract, therefore, Vodafone consumers will pay £720 for the iPhone 3G, £809 for the 16GB iPhone 3GS and £899 for the iPhone 3GS 32GB.
The equivalent 18-month entry-level prices on O2 are £625.73, £713.82 and £803.07. For Orange the equivalent prices are £624.98, £712.98 and £802.48.
Vodafone is also offering all three devices on 24-month contracts. At the basic £30-a-month contract the iPhone 3G will cost consumers £59, the iPhone 3GS 16GB £149 and the iPhone 3GS 32GB £239. Over the two-year period, therefore, consumers will pay a total of £779 for the iPhone 3G, £869 for the 16GB iPhone 3GS and £959 for the iPhone 3GS 32GB.
The equivalent prices for O2 are £822.24, £909.35 and £997.43 and for Orange they are £704.64, £829.64 and £929.64.
Tesco started selling the device last week and while it grabbed headlines by being the first operator to make the phone available on a contract at £20 a month and lasting just a year, consumers have to pay £222 to buy the basic 3G handset or £320 for the 16GB version of the faster 3GS handset and £407 for the 32GB version of the device.
Over the life of an annual contract, therefore, the 3G phone on Tesco costs £462, the 16GB 3GS £560 and the 32GB version 3GS £647.
Expanding the price over 18 months in order to compare the Tesco deals with O2 and Orange, the iPhone 3G on Tesco costs at total of £582 over a year and a half, the 16GB 3GS costs £680 and the 32GB 3GS costs £767. All these prices are lower than the equivalent prices from O2 and Orange, but only by £35 to £40 over 18 months. Compared with Vodafone’s 18 month prices, Tesco is about £130 cheaper.
It is not possible, however, to get an 18-month contract with Tesco so either customers would have to renew their 12-month contract or opt for Tesco’s more expensive 24-month contract from the outset.
Doubling-up the 12-month contract leaves the 3G costing £702, the 16GB 3GS £800 and the 32GB £887 over two years.
Anyone signing up to Tesco’s 24-month contract, at £60 a month, in contrast, will get the iPhone 3G and the 16GB 3GS for free – rather begging the question why anyone would want the basic 3G phone – while the 32GB version costs £50. Over 24 months, therefore the cost to a consumer of the 3G and 3GS 16GB devices would be £1440 and the 32GB £1490.
O2 sells the basic iPhone 3G for £96.89 on an 18-month contract at £29.38. The 16GB version of the iPhone 3GS is £184.98 on the same contract and the largest 32GB version £274.23. Over the year-and-a-half of the contract, therefore, the devices cost £625.73, £713.82 and £803.07.
O2 gives the iPhone 3G away for free on a 24-month contract at £34.26 a month while the 16GB iPhone costs £87.11 and the 32GB version £175.19. Over the two years, therefore, the prices for O2 are £822.24, £909.35 and £997.43.
Orange sells the basic 3G iPhone for £96.50 on an 18-month contract costing £29.36 a month; the 16GB 3GS costs £184.50 and the 32GB version £274. Over the lifetime of the contract, therefore, the three versions on Orange cost £624.98, £712.98 and £802.48. Or a mere 75p, 84p and 59p cheaper than O2.
Orange gives the iPhone 3G away free on a 24-month contract at £29.36, while the 16GB version of the 3GS costs £125 and the 32GB costs £225. Over the two years, therefore, the prices for Orange are £704.64, £829.64 and £929.64.
Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)
Tags: 10, 12, 3, 3gs, all, apple, best, cheaper, cheapest, compare, compared, comparemobiles.com, consumer, contract, deal, Deals, free, iphone, iphone 3gs, largest, line, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, months, networks, new, o2, orange, phone, phones, prices, sam, service, sim, sol, t-mobile, tariff, three, uk, vodafone
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UK retailer Tesco has unveiled its tariffs for the iPhone, confirming that
customers will be offered monthly and pay-as-you-go plans from 14 December.
Read Full Story…
(Source Yahoo UK News)
Tags: 12, 3, compare, comparemobiles.com, iphone, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, phone, sol, tariff, tariffs, uk
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UK retailer Tesco has released its plans for tariffs on the iPhone.
Read Full Story…
(Source Yahoo UK News)
Tags: 12, 3, compare, comparemobiles.com, iphone, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, phone, released, sol, tariff, tariffs, uk
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iPhone will be available on a 12-month contract for £20 a month, but will cost £222 upfront
Tesco today announced its iPhone tariff and revealed it will become the first company to offer the phone to customers on a 12-month contract.
The iPhone is already available on O2 and Orange, but until now buyers either had to sign up for an 18-month contract or pay the full price for the phone and opt for a pay-as-you-go plan.
Last month, the supermarket giant announced it was in talks with Apple to start selling the iPhone. It had promised to bring a bit of “Tesco value” to the must-have phone of the past two years.
This morning, the retailer said that from 14 December the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS would be available from just £20 a month, the lowest monthly contract price in the UK market – although they come with a hefty price tag.
The 3G phone will cost £222 to buy alongside the 12-month contract. Buyers wanting the more upmarket 3GS phone will have to pay £320. The £20-a-month contract includes £60 of calls and texts.
Tesco Mobile will also offer the iPhone 3GS for free with unlimited calls, texts and browsing on a two-year contract, but it will cost £60 a month.
The 12-month deal is expected to appeal to customers who want a short contract. Until now the only affordable way to get an iPhone has been to sign a contract for 18-months. O2 and Orange, the only companies currently selling the phone, charge an up front fee of £87 and £35 a month for 18 months.
Tesco is also offering the iPhone 3G and 3GS on its Triple credit pay-as-you-go price plan. All Tesco iPhone customers will have at least 12 months free unlimited data and access to the BT OpenZone Wi-Fi (UK) service.
Lance Batchelor, chief executive officer of Tesco Mobile and Tesco Telecoms, said: “iPhone is now available and affordable for all, with the best deals in the UK market.
“This is a fantastic announcement for us and we’re delighted to make iPhone available to our customers. It shows what a serious player in the mobile market Tesco Mobile has become.”
Vodafone is to start selling the iPhone in January.
Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)
Tags: 10, 12, 12 months, 3, 3gs, all, apple, best, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, contract, deal, Deals, free, iphone, iphone 3gs, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, months, new, o2, orange, phone, phones, service, sim, sol, talks, tariff, test, uk, vodafone
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Look at what they can do: email, GPS, satnav, social networking, camera, video … oh yes, and making phone calls
For decades, speech recognition has been a breakthrough waiting to happen. The other day I tried Google’s voice search on my mobile after someone had recommended it. I spoke three search queries into my phone (by holding down the telephone icon) and it got all three correct. Being able to search on the move without typing in letters is a really useful facility – another indication of the coming of age of the mobile.
For years I have been ribbed by colleagues for saying that the next year was going to be “the year of the mobile”. But there is no getting away from it. So, here we go: 2010 will be the year of the mobile. No other consumer product comes near it in terms of continuous innovation, cannibalisation of other products coupled with a rapidly expanding user base.
Next year promises to be a corker, with a 10% increase in sales predicted by Nokia after this year’s 7% decline. In this invigorating environment the manufacturers are selling really smart new models – including Nokia’s N900, Motorola’s Droid, based on Google’s Android operating system, and the Palm Pre. And don’t dare write off the BlackBerry, which is now becoming rampant among teenagers (for its free instant messaging). This is an attempt to stall Apple’s all-conquering iPhone and iPod touch from expanding still further as the number of operators selling them rises – offset by increasing disillusion among cash-strapped developers.
The coming year will see the “phone” part of the mobile become increasingly marginalised as networking applications such as Twitter and Facebook and data-driven traffic take over, following Apple’s lead in providing “all-you-can-eat” tariffs. On some models, such as the N900, it’s already tricky finding the phone function. Next year, mobiles will take over more of the functions of a PC and other devices, including satnav, even though I have yet to experience speedy satellite signals where you most need them – in the middle of a city. Ilja Laurs, chief exectuive of the getjar.com app store, says if this year was all about apps, 2010 will be all about handsets.
Apple’s most formidable challenger is Google, whose Android OS will appear in an increasing number of phones. It undercuts the iPhone in price while gathering all of Google’s services behind one screen, including free “turn by turn” voice navigation (initially only in the US), an innovation that has, in effect, assassinated an entire industry. You used to have to pay hundreds of pounds but it will soon be free: another device gobbled up by the ravenous appetite of the mobile. No one should underestimate Nokia, which still has 35% of the global market, but models such as the N900, while technologically superior to the iPhone (better camera, video etc) have been left behind in the race for applications and – all important – useability. No touchscreen I have tested comes near to the smooth efficiency of the iPhone/iPod touch.
Next year will see barcode readers – which can take phones directly to a website – included in more models, along with location-based services and use of sensors. It is also likely to be the year when mobile advertising takes off in the west, not least because of Google’s acquisition of AdMob enabling it to put an ad at the bottom of our mobile screens. It could give Google the dominance in mobile advertising that it already has with contextual ads on the web. Next year will also see proliferating numbers of ebooks competing with Apple’s rumoured iTablet for our attention in the books and newspapers sector – with the mobile phone very much there as a contender.
Already, well over half of all the people in the world have a mobile of some kind. It won’t be very long before practically everyone on the planet will be connected to each other and, through social networks such as Twitter or whatever, will in theory be able to communicate with each other. It is an awesome prospect with unfathomable political and economic consequences.
twitter.com/vickeegan
Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)
Tags: 10, 3, all, android, App Store, apple, Blackberry, blog, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, drive, email, free, global, google, iphone, line, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, moto, motorola, networks, new, nokia, palm, phone, phones, service, sol, tariff, tariffs, test, three, Touch, twitter, uk, world
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