Posts Tagged ‘mobile phones’
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010
The long-awaited decision regarding the future of the proposed takeover between global mobile phone carriers Orange and T-Mobile arrived to conclusion this week. The European Commission has granted a conditional go-ahead, with a networking sharing agreement with 3 and a reduction in its share of the combined 1800MHz band the main terms of the agreement.
Interestingly the EU Commission could not find any just cause to reject the merger, with no direct concerns in relation to the mobile phones market and provisions for all mobile telecommunications products.
The agreement from the European Commission has seen the Office of Fair Trading withdraw its request to appeal, after the Commission smoothed over fears from the OFT that the approaching merger would make the UK mobile phones market weaker and uncompetitive with fewer carriers for consumers to choose from.
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Tags: EU commission, merger, mobile phones, official, orange, T-Mobile
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Thursday, February 25th, 2010
The latest report from the International Telecommunications Union presented a staggering statistic, with 67% of all people on the planet now mobile phone subscribers. It is thought a mind-bending 4.6 billion people had subscribed to a mobile phone service prior to the end of 2009 – relative to 67% of the planet’s human population.
This increase underlines the immense growth that the mobile industry has engineered over the last eight years. Even in 2002 just 1 billion people were signed up to use mobile phone services – with 3.6 billion new users in the last eight years.
It would seem that communications technology products are becoming much more accessible and economical to all corners of the globe. In comparison to global average income, mobile phone costs are lowest in Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore, Kuwait and Luxembourg, with the United States interestingly also on the horizon.
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Tags: developing world, mobile phones, mobiles, subscribers, two thirds
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Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
The world’s most exhaustive social media network, Facebook is set to launch a ‘zero’ version of its application on mobile phones, designed for low bandwidth users. This text-only version of Facebook will ensure swift access to messages, wall posts and status updates on the move with mobile phones and smartphones.
At present there are over 100 million Facebook users worldwide and this move is hoped to improve overall accessibility. Not only will this reduce bandwidth usage for consumers, it also has the potential to free up a significant amount of network usage for UK mobile phone carriers.
Recent data from the GSM association revealed that consumers’ online usage on their mobile phones is spent around 50% of the time on social media websites such as Facebook. In December 2009 alone, consumers spent a combined total of 2.2 billion minutes on Facebook.
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Tags: facebook, launched, mobile phones, zero version
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Monday, February 15th, 2010
A worrying trend of drivers using mobile phones continues to rise as UK drivers continue to fail to heed numerous warnings by the government and driving authorities. In the last twelve months, the Department for Transport revealed the number of drivers using a mobile phone whilst at the wheel of a car jumped from 1.1% to 1.4% and from 2.2% to 2.6% for van and lorry drivers.
Neil Grieg, director of policy and research at the Institute of Advanced Motorists is concerned that the campaigns against the illegal use of mobile phones at the wheel are far from effective.
Mr Grieg said: “Along with consistent and high-profile policing, drivers need to be educated about how and why driving on the phone is so dangerous.
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Tags: 27%, drivers, mobile phones, using
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Friday, February 12th, 2010
The UK mobile phone industry has been requested to offer greater protection against mobile phone theft with a growing spate of burglaries over recent months. Latest figures suggest that there are 228 mobile phone thefts every hour in the UK at present – a worrying statistic which will only increase if the industry does not act and improve protection methods.
Minister for Crime Prevention, Alan Campbell, said mobile phone organisations have a “social and corporate responsibility to tackle crime.”
Campbell is hoping that manufacturers will embrace this problem and consider any number of innovative design solutions to tackle mobile theft. The Home Office recently unveiled a host of crime prevention designs with the proviso of making mobile phones and smartphones less attractive for thieves to steal.
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Tags: government, mobile phones, mobile theft, protection
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Thursday, February 11th, 2010
The latest set of figures from the GSMA Mobile Media Metrics revealed that around 16 million UK mobile phone users accessed the internet through their handset. Those questioning the impact of social media may need to think again with data released showing that a third of UK users – roughly 5 million – visited Facebook more than any other website.
In a list of the top ten most visited websites by The Guardian, Facebook was a clear leader, and even ranking above all of Google’s search sites. With 2.6 billion page impressions – almost triple of that of Google – the social media age continues to draw users in. The flexibility of mobile phone accessories and applications on mobile phones and smartphones has enabled users to connect to friends and family with ease, on the move, at work or at home.
A fifth of the 5 million mobile Facebook users access their social media via smartphones, underlining the growing interest surrounding handsets with mobile working capabilities with touchscreens and built-in QWERTY keyboards – bridging the gap between mobiles and laptop computers.
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Tags: facebook, handsets, mobile phones, social media, website
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Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
UK mobile phone carriers have been warned about the mobile broadband speeds that they have been advertising for their users. Broadband watchdog, Broadband Genie claims that government legislation could soon come into practice to prevent networks advertising unrealistic mobile broadband speeds via a dongle.
A recent survey of over 6,000 mobile broadband download speeds revealed that the average download speed went up by a mere 0.2mb between January and December of last year – all this while mobile phone carriers have been advertising speeds of between 3.6 and 7.2mbps.
If networks continue to advertise unrealistic broadband speed figures it is likely that consumers will lose faith in the service and swap their mobile broadband dongle for a smartphone boasting 3G connectivity.
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Tags: broadband speed, honest, mobile broadband, mobile phones, operators
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Thursday, February 4th, 2010
The projected plans to merge mobile phone operators Orange and T-Mobile into the UK’s biggest carrier have been put on hold due to British regulators’ concerns about weakening competition in the market.
This week the Office of Trading (OFT) has encouraged the European Commission to investigate the potential merger as it had the probability of “significantly” reducing the competition in the UK mobile market.
Both and Orange and T-Mobile had initially hoped to complete the amalgamation by the end of this month but mobile phones analysts predict that the true extent of this review could see it put back to as late as December.
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Tags: delayed, investigation, merger, mobile phones, orange, T-Mobile
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Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
Vodafone has revealed that it believes a significant number of UK mobile phones users are defecting to its network in search of greater network coverage for Apple iPhone contracts. The competition for iPhone coverage has been hotting up ever since O2 lost its exclusive rights to the handset, with Orange, Tesco Mobile as well as Vodafone taking on the candybar smartphone.
Vodafone’s retail director, Terry O’Brien, said to Mobile Magazine: “A significant number of iPhone users have migrated to Vodafone since we launched the iPhone.
“It is quite astounding how many of these new customers have moved to us because of poor network experience.”
Mr O’Brien did not go as far as to mention which networks were losing custom to the Vodafone network, but it appears that the financial commitment made by Vodafone to the iPhone is reaping its rewards.
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Tags: iphone contracts, mobile phones, vodafone
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Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
The latest in a long line of HTC smartphones has been leaked to the mobile industry with the HTC Trophy presented as a revamped version of the Snap mobile handset. Powered by the Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system, the HTC Trophy draws similarities to BlackBerry devices with its 3” touchscreen complemented by an expansive QWERTY keyboard.
It is an ultra-thin smartphone at just 11mm in depth which sees it labelled as one of the latest Candybar handsets of the ilk of the iPhone 3GS. As with all of the latest smartphones, the HTC Trophy will arrive complete with 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity, including a mid-range 5.0 megapixel digital camera.
Despite being powered by Windows Mobile 6.5, HTC has implemented its very own TouchFlo 3D interface to improve the look and feel of the handset, as very few Windows Mobile 6.5 mobile phones have fully succeeded in the market.
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Tags: htc trophy, mantelpiece, mobile phones
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