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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, October 10, 2011

Last week at The Fonecast: 10th October 2011

Mark Bridge takes a look back at last week’s mobile industry headlines.

Rest in peace, Steve. The death of Apple co-founder Steven Paul Jobs following several years of illness has seen the kind of public grieving usually reserved for pop stars and princesses. There’s not much I can say that hasn’t already been said; it’s hard to argue with Tim Cook’s statement that “Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.”

The sad news helps to explain some of the understatement surrounding the launch of Apple’s new iPhone 4S. Wot, no iPhone 5?  Nope, although the Siri intelligent voice control looks set to be a much talked-about feature. No pun intended.

In other Apple-related news, Samsung has announced legal action against the iPhone 4S in France and Italy, while version 2 of Alien Dalvik promises to get Android apps running on iPads. Can’t imagine that’ll go down too well.

Talking of Android, Samsung has added chargeable ‘premium’ apps to its UK application store and HTC is under the spotlight for security vulnerability on some of its Android devices.

4G has finally arrived in the UK, with the BT Wholesale and Everything Everywhere trial in Cornwall going live. Unfortunately the news arrived in the same week that Ofcom admitted its 4G auction would be delayed, which rather took the shine off things. In the meantime, UK chancellor George Osborne has announced plans to invest up to £150 million on sites for mobile phone masts and base stations in a bid to improve the nation’s connectivity.

Staying with home news, we learn that you can only describe your mobile data deals as ‘truly unlimited internet’ if they really are unlimited. That’s why T-Mobile has been given a clip round the ear by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority.

And finally for now, from home news to a homecoming of sorts. Back in the 1990s, Cliff Kushler was one of the people who pretty much invented predictive text. He and his colleagues founded a company called Tegic, with the Tegic T9 software later sold to AOL and then sold again to Nuance. Meanwhile, Cliff went off and helped create Swype, which was a type of predictive text for touchscreen keyboards. Now Nuance has spent around $100 million to acquire Swype, bringing both of Cliff’s developments together. Nuance itself is big in speech recognition… so watch out, Siri!

Stay ahead of the crowd by receiving this weekly news summary from TheFonecast.com by email. Simply click the ‘register’ link at the top right-hand corner of our website and enter your details. And if you’d like to download our mobile industry podcasts automatically, simply pick up our RSS feed or find us on iTunes.
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Recent Podcasts

From the archive: some of our favourite mobile industry interviews from 2007, 2008 and 2009

Podcast - 5th June 2013

We're celebrating the seventh anniversary of The Fonecast this month with a handful of our favourite interviews from the early years.

You'll hear Ben Whitaker from Masabi, Truphone co-founder James Tagg, former Olympic athlete Steve Backley OBE and online banking pioneer Steve Townend.

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The latest mobile industry news: from the delayed 'Facebook phone' to life-saving QR codes

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This week's podcast begins with a report about a delay - or perhaps even cancellation - for the UK launch of HTC's Facebook phone, the HTC First.

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New devices from BlackBerry, HP and Jolla... plus a new purchase for Yahoo

Podcast - 22nd May 2013

We start this week's podcast by talking about Yahoo and Tumblr before moving on to discuss Google's recent developer conference.

There are product announcements from BlackBerry, HP and the former MeeGo developers at Jolla... and there's some interesting mobile app news as well.

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Good news from Nokia, unwelcome headlines for EE and a profitable year at Sony

Podcast - 15th May 2013

Three new smartphones launched at three separate events. Yes, Nokia has definitely been busy in the past few days.

As well as talking about Finland's finest phones, we also discuss recent claims made about EE, annual results from Sony, smart metering, 5G technology, virus protection, Vodafone and the worldwide growth of mobile phones.

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From airports to airtime... and from mobile ads to mobile apps

Podcast - 8th May 2013

We start today's programme with the promise of a faster roll-out for the UK's mobile broadband services.

Next on the agenda is tablet sales... followed by mobile security, mobile boarding passes, quarterly results, acquisitions, advertising and management succession.

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