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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, August 16, 2013

GSMA not cowed after EC compares mobile calls with milk

Mark Bridge writes:

In this week’s podcast we talked about a recent European study into call costs that had been highlighted by European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes. You can hear the report after around 24 minutes into the programme.

Ms Kroes pointed out that making a national mobile phone call in Europe cost 774% more in the Netherlands than in Lithuania.

We agreed the headline was shocking - but also said there were potentially many other tariff factors that weren’t being compared.

Tom Phillips, Chief Government and Regulatory Affairs Officer at the GSMA, has offered his own opinion.

He said “While I fully support Commissioner Kroes’ desire to create an effective single European market for mobile services, this does not imply a single price. In a press release issued on 6 August, the Commissioner compares the different prices of domestic mobile phone calls in EU countries to the price of a litre of milk - a  point that reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of market conditions. No serious comparison can be made between the mobile and dairy industries. Dairy producers are not rolling out “next-generation” milk infrastructure that is central to European economic competitiveness, nor are they meeting consumer demands by offering people “all you can drink” contracts.”

“The research cited by the Commissioner mistakenly claims that there is ‘one standard minute’ of mobile phone service - there isn’t. Some mobile phone calls will be pre-paid, some will have subsidised handsets, some will buy bundles of minutes, some will be heavily discounted for volume business users, and so on. Why don’t all insurance policies cost the same across the EU?  The answer, like for mobile services, is because different people want different things.”

“Europe was the early leader in mobile but now lags far behind the United States in the deployment of next-generation mobile technologies and the advanced services made possible through mobile. Enlightened policy reforms could certainly help bring improvement. To create a successful single European market, I encourage the Commissioner to focus on coordinating the release of spectrum made available through the digital dividend, rather than embarking on an unnecessary fourth wave of roaming regulation.”

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