ExclusiveConnecting London Car Telephones to TheFonecast.com Opinion The Fonecast - June 4, 2026 It was 1996 when I started working at the Cricklewood head office of Peoples Phone [writes Mark Bridge], initially in a sales support role before becoming part of the Marketing team. The company was an independent mobile phone retailer with a growing network of high-street shops and connected customers. In November 1996 the company and its customer base were acquired by Vodafone, which had already taken over the Talkland retail business and was soon to add Astec to its portfolio.
ExclusiveOfcom helps protect customers against unexpected roaming charges News Mark - November 3, 2024 New rules from UK telecoms regulator Ofcom will protect customers when they use their mobile phone on a foreign network. In addition, customers will be alerted if they are inadvertently roaming, perhaps because they're near an international border.
ExclusiveGlobal smartphone market is set for recovery, says new forecast News Mark - November 23, 2023 A new forecast from research specialists Canalys shows the smartphone market is set to recover next year. Worldwide shipments declined by 12% last year but that decline is expected to slow to 5% this year.
ExclusiveVodafone and Three plan to merge their UK businesses Networks and operators Mark - June 20, 2023 Vodafone Group plc and CK Hutchison Group Telecom Holdings Limited have agreed to combine their UK telecommunication businesses, respectively Vodafone UK and Three UK. The merger will create a large new network operator to compete with Virgin Media O2 and EE.
ExclusiveUK mobile payment service Paym to close in March 2023 News Mark - December 18, 2022 UK mobile payment service Paym will close on 7th March 2023. The service, which allowed users to make and receive payments using their mobile phone numbers, was launched in 2014.
ExclusiveUsing Bitcoin on a mobile phone: it's much easier than I expected Opinion Mark - June 8, 2014 Mark Bridge writes: Bitcoin, as Wikipedia tells me, is a peer-to-peer payment system introduced as open-source software in 2009. It’s a ‘virtual currency’ that can be used for transferring money and for buying products or services, although only if your chosen retailer accepts Bitcoin.
ExclusiveHow mobile phone retailers must embrace technology to diagnose phone faults Opinion Mark - June 2, 2014 Amir Lehr of Cellebrite writes: Mobile phone faults pose a daily problem for mobile phone retailers. According to mobile diagnostics expert Cellebrite, 60 per cent of cases are software-related issues with the smartphone, and can be resolved within minutes.
ExclusiveLast week at The Fonecast: 12th May 2014 Opinion Mark - May 12, 2014 Mark Bridge writes: Last week a major retailer with a significant online presence announced plans to release its own-brand smartphone by the end of the year. No, not Amazon. This news came from Tesco.
ExclusiveSmartphone innovation is slowing down, as Samsung struggles to differentiate Opinion Mark - April 18, 2014 Lawrence Lundy of Frost & Sullivan writes: While the Galaxy S5 is an evolutionary product, there is not enough in there to make people upgrade from the 4. It doesn't push the envelope in any real way; we are in a sort of stasis now when it comes to smartphone innovation.
ExclusiveWelcome to the digitised city Opinion Mark - April 6, 2014 Jürgen Hase of Deutsche Telekom writes: The Smart City is on its way. All over the world more and more cities are connecting all areas of their infrastructure. Pisa in Tuscany, for example, aims to improve its traffic management with a machine-to-machine (M2M) solution and a Big Data service provided by Deutsche Telekom.