Yours for £12 a month Virgin Media is offering the BlackBerry Curve 8520 – reviewed here – in what it claims os the “most competitive” pay-monthly package this smartphone can be found on.…

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(Source The Register)

Director of indirect distribution to leave Virgin Media in search for new challenges

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(Source Mobile News CWP)

Broadband and cable firm Virgin Media has put its 50% stake in digital broadcasting business UKTV up for sale, it has been reported.

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(Source Yahoo UK News)

Free broadband firm TalkTalk promises competitive prices in mobile services deal with Vodafone

Internet and phone firm TalkTalk has struck a deal with Vodafone to launch a mobile service under its own brand.

TalkTalk, which helped revolutionise the broadband market by introducing “free” internet access four years ago, will offer both contract and pre-pay tariffs to existing customers from the autumn.

Market watchers will be looking to see whether the company, the second-largest residential broadband provider in the UK, will have as big an impact in the mobile industry as it did in on internet services.

Chairman Charles Dunstone said TalkTalk, which was spun out of Carphone Warehouse earlier this year, would make a “gentle” entry into mobile services, but would offer competitive prices.

“It will be a way to add a very good value mobile package to the account you have with us for your fixed-line phone and broadband,” he said.

TalkTalk entered the phone market in 2003 and the broadband market in 2006. Carphone Warehouse, meanwhile, still has its own mobile venture called TalkMobile, which also uses Vodafone’s network.

News of the mobile phone service came as TalkTalk announced first-quarter results which showed it added 34,000 net broadband customers in the second quarter, taking its total to 4.23 million. That puts it ahead of Virgin Media, which announced earlier this week that it had 4.21 million customers, having added 28,100 in the quarter. BT said yesterday it had 5.2 million broadband customers, adding 96,000 in the last three months, although it does not split out its residential customers from its large base of business users. The UK’s fourth-largest broadband provider, BSkyB, meanwhile, added 119,000 broadband customers in the quarter, taking its total customer base to 2.6 million.

TalkTalk’s average revenue per broadband user was £23.90, slightly up on a year ago. TalkTalk, which bought rival Tiscali a year ago, said its share of net broadband adds was about 10% this quarter, keeping it on track to add 140,000 to 180,000 customers over the year as a whole.

Revenues climbed 31% in the quarter to £444m, broadly in line with expectations.

The company said it remained confident it would deliver 6-8% revenue growth, and 20% growth in normalised earnings per share and dividends per share for the year to 31 March 2011.

Vodafone, meanwhile, has a number of other wholesale deals which allow companies to use its network to become what are termed mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs). It provides network coverage for BT, Asda and Lebara, which targets the UK’s immigrant population.

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(Source The Guardian)

Virgin Media is to launch a modem and router at the end of the year that it
claims will be able to handle speeds of up to 400Mbit/s.

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(Source Yahoo UK News)

Airline to install in-flight GSM communications in new fleet of planes to allow text, voice and email from 35,000 feet

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(Source Mobile News CWP)

Alcatel has become the exclusive supplier of modems for Virgin Media’s mobile broadband services

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(Source Mobile News CWP)

Bada or Gooda?

The Samsung Wave, the first handset based on the company’s much hyped Bada platform, hit the UK today, available on Virgin Media, O2 and Vodafone.…

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(Source The Register)

Anyone going to the World Cup or abroad can minimise the cost of mobile calls, text messages and internet fees

As if the thousands of UK travellers trapped abroad after the recent volcanic ash drama hadn’t suffered enough damage to their bank balances, many are now facing mobile phone “bill shock“.

These holidaymakers, many of whom are just receiving their latest mobile phone bills, may be dismayed when they discover how much they have spent on calls and data roaming while stranded abroad. The Observer recently ran a story about William Harrison, a student who accidentally ran up an £8,000 phone bill with Orange while in France by using his mobile to access the internet.

In theory, mobile bills should no longer be too painful for those travelling to Europe, as from 1 March all European mobile operators have been obliged under EU roaming rules to offer their customers a cut-off limit of €50 (about £45) for using the internet on their phones. However, it is still early days and not yet clear whether all operators are complying with this rule.

In a month’s time the regulations will tighten further, as at the moment customers need to opt-in to this limit, whereas from 1 July the cut-off limit will be set at €50 by default unless they opt out.

For those travelling further afield the cost of calling, texting and using the internet on their mobile can still be an expensive pastime. Independent consumer body Consumer Focus warned World Cup ticket holders last week that costs for calls, texts and data use could add up to more than £100 on a match day – more than the face value of a ticket.

Mobile phone operators are expected to start bringing out more competitive overseas mobile phone packages in the next few weeks as the holiday season hots up.

But for now, anyone who is about to go abroad has a number of options: doing nothing and sticking with their operator’s standard overseas charges (expensive); switching to their operator’s overseas calls package (cheaper); buying a global or local sim (potentially even cheaper, depending on usage).

Mike Wilson, mobiles and broadband manager at moneysupermarket.com, says: “Don’t underestimate how easy it is to rack up a hefty mobile bill if you are going overseas and planning to use your phone.

“Before escaping the country be sure to check with your operator how much calls, texts and internet use will set you back when you’re away, because you won’t be charged the same rates as your UK tariff. I would advise asking if there is a cheaper international tariff available.”

Paying as standard

For standard call charges in Europe, T-Mobile and Virgin are the most expensive at 43p a minute, according to moneysupermarket.com, while 02 is the cheapest at 35p a minute. Network operator 3 is the cheapest for receiving calls at 15p a minute compared to Orange, T-Mobile and Virgin, which all charge the most at 19p. Sending texts is 11p a message with all networks, and all are free to receive.

The cost of using the internet is where operators’ charges vary hugely, and where holidaymakers are most likely to run up large bills. T-Mobile, 3, 02 and Orange all charge a flat fee per megabyte (MB) of between £1.25 (3) and £3 (02 and Orange), while Vodafone and Virgin offer the option of either paying per MB, or paying either a daily or hourly fee for web usage (with a cap on how much data can be used).

Virgin, for example, charges £5 a MB, or £4 for a one-hour pass with a 3MB limit and £6 for a 24-hour pass with a 5MB limit.

Whichever package you have you need to be careful about how much data you download. One MB is not much – watching a two-hour film uses about 800 MB.

All these charges when incurred within Europe are considerably lower than in some other countries. For example, if you visit Egypt with your Orange phone you will pay £1.75 a minute to call home and £8 per MB of data used, while in Australia you will pay £1.20 a minute per call and £7.50 per MB of data with T-Mobile.

Package things up

To keep costs down, a good alternative is to opt for your operator’s travel package. Vodafone’s Passport deal, for example, means you pay your standard home rate to call the UK from more than 35 European countries (and from Australia and New Zealand) after paying a 75p connection charge. These calls can be part of your inclusive minutes if you are on a contract. To receive calls you pay the 75p connection charge and you can talk for up to 60 minutes free of charge. After that you pay 20p a minute.

02′s My Europe Extra, on the other hand, is £10 a month for 25p-a-minute calls, free received calls and 11p texts.

Go global – or local

You can avoid your UK operator’s charges altogether by switching your network sim card for a global or local sim using websites such as 0044.co.uk and UK2Abroad.co.uk. A global sim card will work across a number of countries so is particularly good for frequent travellers or backpackers, while a local sim will only work in one country. You can buy these before you travel, but you might need to get your phone unlocked by your operator so you can switch cards.

Most global and local sims cost somewhere between £15 and £30 and come loaded with differing amounts of call credit, which you can top up by credit or debit card at any time. For those travelling to South Africa for the World Cup, for example, 0044′s South African local sim costs £29.99 and gives you ZAR 55 (about £5) of credit.

After that, local calls cost 10p a minute off-peak, calls to the UK are 63p a minute, while texts to the UK are 15p. This compares with the standard pay-as-you-go rates on Orange where charges for local calls within South Africa and to the UK are £1.45 a minute and texts are 50p a message.

Buying a local or global sim will mean you temporarily have a new phone number, so you will need to make sure people know this before you go.

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(Source The Guardian)

Perfect for summer days out at festivals, theme parks or the beach. Don’t risk damaging or losing your best phone this summer.

You’ll pay only 1p for the phone and delivery is free.

Virgin Mobile offers excellent value too, with free credits on top of your credit such as unlimited texts.

Sometimes you just want a basic, friendly and reliable phone that you know you can depend on. With the Motorola WX180 you’ll get up to 8 hours of talk time or up to 400 hours of standby time from a full charge, so chatting away without being constantly reminded about a low battery won’t be a problem.

The WX180 also has a useful FM Radio with integrated RDS that displays available FM station information like song titles and artist. You can store up to 500 phonebook entries and 140 text messages in the phone’s memory, and there’s predictive text for composing messages faster. With a solid build quality and easy to use keypad the Motorola WX180 maybe basic but sometimes that’s all you need.

Compare all A PAYG phone for only 1p prices

Budget Android 2.1 smartphone out next month

Three, T-Mobile and Virgin Media have all now said they will offer HTC’s latest Android handset, the budget Wildfire, in the future.…

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(Source The Register)

The HTC Wildfire is essentially a mini HTC Desire – our most popular phone. Just 13mm shorter than the Desire and with a lower resolution screen (240×320), the Wildfire should offer outstanding value for money. It runs on Android 2.1 and it has the flexibility to download new apps, access the Internet with speed (via HSDPA) and enjoy your favourite media wherever you go. The optical trackpad and HTC Sense UI offer a great user experience and the 3.2 inch capacitive touchscreen can be used in landscape or portrait mode.

The 5 megapixel camera takes excellent pictures, it has auto-focus, smile detection and an LED flash. Staying connected with your contacts has never been easier with the Wildfire. Texts, emails and instant messages can all be displayed in a chat-like, continuous view. The Wildfire will also stream wall updates from Facebook, Flickr and Twitter to ensure you stay up to date with the gossip wherever you may go.

A new feature for the Wildfire is the ability to rate and share downloaded apps with your contacts, which is a great idea. Internal memory can be expanded up to 32GB with a microSD card. Built-in applications include Google Search, YouTube, Picasa, Gmail, Gtalk and Google Maps. A variety of connectivity options comprise of quad-band roaming for use overseas, Wi-Fi for hotspot locations and GPS for guided navigation. The HTC Wildfire is a compact (107 x 60 x 12mm) user friendly smartphone that will continue to evolve as new applications are released.

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• New name for merged Orange and T-Mobile
• Plans to open 100 shops and cover more areas with Wi-Fi

Orange and T-Mobile have chosen the name Everything Everywhere for their merged company, though the two brands will still be used when dealing with customers. The new business plans to open some 100 retail outlets and increase its portfolio of Wi-Fi hotspots across the country.

The merger will enable T-Mobile to launch fixed-line services, and Orange is considering adding TV to its existing residential broadband offering.

As the year progresses, however, there are likely to be job losses among Everything Everywhere’s 16,500 staff as the merged business carries out a cull of middle management.

The UK’s third and fourth placed mobile phone companies announced plans to merge last September and the plan gained regulatory approval following talks over its share of mobile phone spectrum, earlier this year.

Chief executive Tom Alexander said they wanted a holding company name that was more than the cod-Latin names so many companies use, while not being a traditional telecoms name either.

“What I wanted was a company name that did not distract or confuse from two very strong brands,” he said. “What I wanted was something that was additive. I love Everything Everywhere because it really does encapsulate the vision and the ambition for the company.”

“We are going through this revolutionary step in the marketplace where people are getting iPhones, getting Google devices and we have Microsoft’s Phone 7 coming into the market soon. It’s not just about voice and text. It’s about everything else you can do on a mobile phone. People are even talking about apps down the pub.”

“It’s not some bland name – Orange and T-Mobile Company Limited or something – it is encapsulating what the vision of the business is.”

Everything Everywhere will be used in advertising by Orange and T-Mobile as a tag-line rather than merely as an explanation of the company behind the two brands.

“Yes it will be on our pay slip and we will use it as a description of the holding company but we will also use it as a tag line appropriately. You will see it popping up occasionally,” Alexander said.

It was developed by the merged company’s internal team with help from T-Mobile’s ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi and Orange’s agency Fallon, both of whom are part of Publicis.

With 27,000 mobile phone masts across the country, Everything Everywhere has a larger footprint than rivals O2, Vodafone and 3, which already shares its network with T-Mobile. It has 713 retail stores and 20 concessions in HMV stores. At the time of the merger, Alexander said the company would rationalise its store portfolio but eight months on, it has decided to open several dozen more stores and add 50 new HMV concessions. As phones become more complicated, the company needs an increased local presence in order to help customers with their new gadgets.

“We have looked at it long and hard and actually we are going to extend our number of shops. There are areas in the country where we will open new Everything Everywhere stores: they could be Orange branded; they could be T-Mobile branded or they could be a combination of both, especially in small rural towns. It is not just selling. We also want to provide service and help to customers on the high street not just over the phone. As people can do more and more with a mobile phone … we want to hold the hand of the customer and show them how they can get more out of their devices.”

Alexander is also looking at increasing the 173 Wi-Fi hotspots that T-Mobile already owns – in airports and railway stations as well as on the Heathrow Express, West Coast mainline and London to Brighton route – as the merged company looks to benefit from the scale of its business.

“We have the economies of scale to develop our capabilities, whether it’s hotspots, fixed broadband, better mobile networks. We want to have core capabilities that we can leverage across both brands,” Alexander said.

T-Mobile, unlike rivals Orange, O2 and Vodfone, has never had a residential broadband offering, something which Alexander said will be rectified. “I think it is inevitable that we will be coming up with a total communications package for T-Mobile customers. It is not something that is going to be launched imminently but it is something that is in our vision.”

Also in the plan but not facing an imminent launch is broadband TV for Orange’s 850,000 residential customers. “Television is firmly back on the agenda,” Alexander said, after it was originally slated back in 2007.

As well as its new name, Everything Everywhere announced its senior management team yesterday, which comprises 13 former Orange executives and 10 from T-Mobile. Among the team are the three former Virgin Mobile executives who Alexander brought with him when he joined Orange: Virgin’s former customer relationship director Andrew Ralston is chief commercial officer, Virgin’s operations director Gerry McQuade is chief development officer and former journalist and Virgin Mobile press office head Steven Day is vice-president of brands and communications.

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(Source The Guardian)

Sylvester Stallone’s Russian adventure is inspiration for campaign touting upgrade of once-sparse transmitter network

The mobile operator 3 parodies Rocky in a new £7m television ad campaign, hoping to present itself as a plucky underdog ready to conquer bigger rivals.

3, which has many fewer 3G customer numbers than rivals such as Vodafone and Orange, is using a loose adaptation of the story of Rocky IV in press, cinema and poster ads aiming to prove that it has the biggest 3G network and offers the best mobile internet experience.

The company is aiming to overturn what it sees as outdated customer suspicion resulting from problems it suffered in 2003, when launching the UK’s first 3G network.

The campaign starts on Saturday, with a strong push for the following two weeks, and runs continues until 21 June. There is also a tie-in with pay-TV channel Virgin1 which is running a season of Rocky films.

In Rocky IV, which came out in 1985, Sylvester Stallone’s plucky boxer travels to Russia; the film also starred Brigitte Nielsen as Ludmilla Vobet Drago and Dolph Lundgren as his Soviet opponent, Captain Ivan Drago.

“There have been a lot of problems in terms of perception and reputation,” said Marc Allera, 3′s sales and marketing director. “The challenge from a brand is that the perception is that of the company three or four years ago rather than the reality of today.”

Back in 2003 the company had just 6,000 transmitter sites, which caused coverage issues for early subscribers. By 2008 this number had risen to just 6,500.

However, an investment programme running to tens of millions of pounds will see the network double in size by October, with about 13,000 sites across the UK.

The company believes the timing is right to launch a heavyweight campaign, developed by ad agency Glue London, to push the message that 3 offers “the best network for mobile internet”.

“Our customers know we are OK, but non-customers think we are weak and rivals are better which is not the case,” Allera said. “We want to get people to understand that we are building the biggest, most advanced 3G network in the UK.”

3, and rival operators, have been given added impetus to embark on a marketing battle to land grab position as mobile internet leaders following the launch of products such as Apple’s iPhone and iPad.

• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000.

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(Source The Guardian)

Verizon Communications has announced plans to hire 240 full-time employees in West Virginia to handle sales, operations and customer support functions.

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(Source Yahoo UK News)

Telecoms and media giant
Virgin Media added
38,300 new cable subscribers in the first quarter of 2010, boosting overall
revenue to £963m, up 2.9 per cent year on year.

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(Source Yahoo UK News)

LONDON (Reuters) – Cable operator Virgin Media beat expectations with its fastest customer growth rate ever in the first quarter on a strong demand for broadband and pay-TV, helping it to post strong financial results.

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(Source Yahoo UK News)

Company has increased contract customers by 40% in 12 months

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(Source Mobile Today)

Virgin
Media has rolled out
TOA Technologies’
SaaS-based Mobile Workforce Management system to more than 1,000 field
engineers who are responsible for fixing and installing cable broadband
connections.

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(Source Yahoo UK News)

Virgin
Media has rolled out
TOA Technologies SaaS-based
Mobile Workforce Management system to over 1,000 of its field engineers who
are responsible for fixing and installing customers cable broadband connections.

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(Source Yahoo UK News)