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Ofcom helps protect customers against unexpected roaming charges

Ofcom helps protect customers against unexpected roaming charges

UK service providers must notify customers when they connect to a different network

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.
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Global smartphone market is set for recovery, says new forecast

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.
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Vodafone and Three plan to merge their UK businesses

Vodafone and Three plan to merge their UK businesses

New Hutchison/Vodafone network would be biggest UK operator

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.
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UK mobile payment service Paym to close in March 2023

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.
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Qualcomm legal action moves forward in the UK

Qualcomm legal action moves forward in the UK

Which? seeks payout for Samsung and Apple smartphone owners

Consumer protection organisation Which? has been given permission by the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal to represent Apple and Samsung smartphone buyers in a legal case against chip manufacturer Qualcomm.
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Opinion Articles

Friday, September 24, 2010

Let's stop being so girly about mobile phones

Mark Bridge writes:

I remember the 1980s. In fact, I rather enjoyed them. Hang on a sec, hear me out. There really was some good stuff there – not least the renaissance of 'sisters doin' it for themselves'. Oh, and the launch of the UK's first cellular mobile phone network.

Thirty years later and time seems to have moved backwards. We now appear to be living in an episode of Mad Men scripted by R Kelly and Wilma Flintstone. Samsung's Taiwanese business unit has just released a pink 'Femme' version of the Galaxy S in partnership with Aveda. Lovely. But why didn't they also release a blue one that came with a football?

Girly geeky gadgety stuff is all over the internet. Arguably a female focus has been needed to offset the male dominance of the mobile phone industry (and most other industries) – but do we really still need it?  More to the point, isn't any pink/fluffy/compact theme a tacit suggestion that standard mobile phones – normal mobile phones – are the ones created exclusively for men?  Isn't any 'mobile phones for girls' messaging more likely to keep women as a niche market, not liberate them from it?  Of course I'll accept there are differences between women and men. But is there really such a difference in their purchasing of consumer electronics?

I know this is a subject I've mentioned before. And I'm certainly inclined to agree with the suggestion that men and women tend to think in different ways. So maybe the marketing messages for mobile phones need to be broader or targeted differently. But that doesn't mean setting your pitch in a kitchen or a shoe shop.

Perhaps this type of female focus on technology was needed once. But not now. Surely not now. Germaine, please tell me it ain't so.

 

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