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Ofcom says mobile contracts should ditch inflation-related price rises

Ofcom says mobile contracts should ditch inflation-related price rises

UK telecoms regulator Ofcom wants to ban inflation-related rises in phone and broadband contracts. Instead, it says any potential mid-contract price rises should be set out in pounds and pence.
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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

Monday, January 27, 2014

Last week at The Fonecast: 27th January 2014

Expecting the unexpected

Mark Bridge writes:

Great news for mobile phone users. Ofcom’s new rules preventing unexpected mid-contract price rises came into force last week, which means UK consumers can no longer be surprised by their subscription charge increasing while they’re still locked into a minimum-term deal.

However, it didn’t rule out all price increases, as O2 chose to demonstrate. Its contracts include a clause that says monthly charges will keep track with inflation – and that’s exactly what they’re going to do. Hmmm. Perhaps not such a straightforward consumer victory after all.

What else has been happening with UK mobile networks?

Well, charity-friendly MVNO The People’s Operator has appointed Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales as a board member and co-chair of the company. Three UK has been told off for describing its network as 3.9G. And the GSMA has warned that plans to increase annual licence fees for the 900MHz and 1800MHz spectrum bands could adversely affect investment in 4G services.

Talking of 4G, a new survey showed that a tiny proportion of customers are using an enormous amount of data. Figures from JDSU revealed that 0.1% of the world’s 4G users consumed more than half of all LTE downlink data in 2013, making them 10 times more data-hungry than the equivalent 3G customers.

While on the subject of surveys, we learned that phablet manufacturing, spending on mobile advertising and the adoption of M2M retail devices are all increasing. Hooray for mobile.

Finally, to money... in a variety of forms. Qualcomm has bought around 2,400 patents from HP, including some from its fondly-remembered Palm business. T-Mobile USA has launched a new financial service that combines an app with a prepaid Visa card. BlackBerry is selling most of its property in its home country of Canada, leasing back essential offices to ensure it still has somewhere to work.

And Samsung has partnered with Italian coffee company illycaffè in a deal that’ll see both company’s products appearing in their retail flagship stores – and illycaffè coffee being served at Samsung events. I reckon this’ll make the Samsung stand at Mobile World Congress more attractive than ever.

On Monday mornings we summarise the past week’s mobile industry headlines in an email newsletter that’s very much like this article. To receive it, simply register your email address at TheFonecast.com by clicking the link at the top right-hand corner of our home page.
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