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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

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Last week at The Fonecast: 30th January 2012

Mark Bridge writes:

If you want a big money story from the last few days, you want Apple. The company announced its highest quarterly revenue ever, hitting $46.33 billion (£29.66 billion) with record quarterly profits of $13.06 billion. That’s probably enough money to buy the moon, assuming Newt Gingrich is prepared to sell it – or, in the real world, is one of the biggest quarterly profits ever.

Therefore it’s probably no surprise to hear that Apple overtook Samsung for smartphone shipments in the final quarter of 2011, although Samsung was the top smartphone producer across the year. Apple did well for tablet sales, too.

And it’s also not surprising to hear that the Apple iPhone was the device that Good Technology was most frequently connecting to corporate networks in Q4 2011.

Bucking the trend was 51Degrees.mobi, which published a white paper showing how the proportion of Apple devices browsing the mobile web was falling. You can listen to our podcast with 51Degrees.mobi CEO James Rosewell to learn more.

Anyway, let’s move on – albeit temporarily – for Apple was not the only company with financial results. Samsung had a record year in 2011, with revenue reaching an all-time high of 165 trillion won (around £94 billion) although net income and operating profit were down. Motorola Mobility recorded an operating loss of $285 million for 2011, while a drop in Nokia sales resulted in 2010’s operating profit of €2.1 billion turning into a loss of €1.1 billion for last year.

To legal action now, and we’re back with Apple.

An appeal court in the Netherlands has dismissed Apple’s claim that Samsung tablet devices should be banned because of their design. However, things haven’t all gone Samsung’s way – it’s just had a patent claim against Apple dismissed in Germany. Intel has agreed to acquire video software and patents from RealNetworks, Motorola Mobility is making a patent claim against the Apple iPhone 4S – and Ericsson has signed a cross-licensing patent agreement with ZTE.

Talking of licensing, HP has come up with a timetable for making its webOS source code available under an open source licence. It’s started by releasing version 2.0 of the Enyo developer tool for webOS and says the whole thing will be open source by September 2012.

O2 had something of a problem last week with information being more open that it intended. It was discovered that O2 had been including each customer’s mobile phone number in the browser code submitted when that customer visited a website. It blamed a technical error, saying the information should only have been available to trusted partners, and sorted things out pretty quickly... just leaving the unanswered questions of exactly who a ‘trusted partner’ is and whether this mistake had resulted in any real-world problems.

Finally, let’s not forget Thorsten Heins, the new President and CEO of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion. He’s now in the double-width hot seat after co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie stepped down. He started the week by saying that RIM didn’t need any drastic change - but by the end of the week was talking about the company making significant plans. The difference, he explained, is there’ll be no break-up or sale. I’m glad the confusion’s all cleared up now.

Start your week with a reminder of the latest mobile headlines. Simply register at TheFonecast.com by clicking the link at the top right-hand corner of our home page and we’ll send you this weekly news summary by email.

The Fonecast is sponsored by 51Degrees.mobi. You’ll find more about advertising and sponsorship opportunities on the ‘About us’ section of our website.
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Recent Podcasts

Mobile Monday London: Mobile, Maps & Geolocation (part 2)

Podcast - 28th June 2013

This is part 2 of Mobile, Maps & Geolocation - so much more than "Where am I?"

It's a Mobile Monday London panel discussion with Gary Gale, Christopher Osborne, Jeni Tennison, Ian Holt and Harry Wood. Part 1 is available as a separate podcast.

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Mobile Monday London: Mobile, Maps & Geolocation (part 1)

Podcast - 28th June 2013

This week's Mobile Monday London event featured a panel discussion about the opportunities for mobile-based geolocation and mapping. The event was supported by UK mapping agency Ordnance Survey.

In this podcast you'll hear the first part of the evening's discussion plus interviews with Nokia's Gary Gale, who chaired the panel, and Ian Holt from Ordnance Survey. Part 2 is available as a separate podcast.

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New mobile products, a new smartphone company, a new CEO and plenty of other news

Podcast - 26th June 2013

This week's podcast starts with the world's slimmest smartphone (at least for the moment) before introducing a new smartphone company and even more new products from Samsung.

We're also talking about the battle of Instagram vs Vine, the sale of O2 Ireland, mobile retail web usage, the new CEO of BT and a new report about an unexpected health threat to mobile phone users.

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Cameras, navigation, tickets and shopping... all on mobile phones

Podcast - 18th June 2013

Samsung has put a 10x optical zoom lens on a smartphone, Google is acquiring navigation app Waze and the European Commission is getting ready to equip cars with an emergency call system.

We're also talking about a strike threat at O2, the risk of 'showrooming' to high-street retailers, the end of Symbian smartphones and plenty more as well.

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iOS7 is announced, PRISM is leaked and roaming charges are threatened

Podcast - 12th June 2013

We start this week's podcast with Apple's announcement about the new version of its iOS platform - and follow this with a look at the privacy concerns surrounding the US government's PRISM operation.

Next come Samsung's new phones, Ericsson's new contract, a potential end to European roaming charges, some sophisticated mobile malware and plenty of other news stories as well.

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