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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

Friday, October 16, 2009

Life is toooo complicated!

Iain Graham writes:

I have just bought (well, been given) a new mobile phone!  It, of course, cost me nothing, because we still haven't learnt in this industry, but it came with the now obligatory, shrink-wrapped, 140-page instruction manual on how to use it!!  A perfect cure for insomnia!  I read the opening page or two and it might as well have been written in Serbo-Croatian for all the sense it made to me!!  (I then realised it WAS written in Serbo-Croatian and so I turned to the correct language section) and it was just as incomprehensible!

Even worse, the manufacturers (who are too tight to pay for the printing in the name of 'going green') put the instruction manual on a CD!!  I stuck mine in the player in the car - nothing!  Not a damn word!  Funny, I thought, worked with the 'Conversational French in 30 minutes' course!

For goodness sake, most of us that buy a car for 30 grand never read the handbook until something goes wrong!!  Why are we expected to devote an entire summer holiday to reading a medium-sized boring novel about a device that costs nothing!?  When will manufacturers learn that if it needs War and Peace to get it working - THEY HAVE GOT IT WRONG!!

Whatever they tell you in the shop about mobile phones being idiot proof and 'intuitive' to operate is a lie. An out and out fabrication. It might be easy if you are the Dr Who gazing, never-had-a-girlfriend nerd who uses a Motorola 8000s (remember them?) as a doorstop, but for those of us that grew up in a world where the closest brush with technology was the bedside Goblin Teasmade (other brands are available) then it is a frightening and bewildering experience designed to make you feel a complete numpty!!

All I want to know is 'Where is the on button?'

Teasmade controls

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