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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, October 31, 2010

Hotel phone charges demonstrate the value of packing your mobile

Mark Bridge writes:

I like hotels. Free biscuits in your room and all the portions of UHT milk you can drink. But the phone calls... that's a different story.

Dearie me, you're paying for that hospitality tray when you pick up the phone.

I've recently spent a few days in a UK city centre hotel and was shocked at the cost of making telephone calls from my room. I was equally shocked at the cost of using the hotel's broadband connection.

Phone calls were 30p a minute for local calls. Local calls!  What's local?  Who uses a map when they make calls these days?  National UK calls were 55p a minute and mobile calls were £1 a minute.

Now, I've got a mobile tariff that includes an allowance of calls and internet use, so I wasn't going to pay that. But even if I'd left my phone at home, arrived from abroad or materialised from another planet, there'd still have been affordable alternatives.

Just over the road you could find a shopping centre containing The Carphone Warehouse, Phones 4U, ASDA and Tesco. At CPW, £12.95 would buy me an Alcatel OT 209 including a £10 Orange top-up offering 300 texts, free internet access and calls at 20p a minute. Stick that in your trouser press!

And the hotel's daily £15 broadband charge doesn't look so good when compared with MiFiClub's £29.99 for three days of mobile WiFi or picking up a USB dongle for around £20.

I know that convenience is something that's often worth paying for. But - even given the criticism that mobile operators often face about their charges – this hotel pricing really doesn't feel like a sustainable model. How long before hotels stop bothering with offering telecoms services... or start giving them away free?

Hotel room telephone

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Recent Podcasts

Podcast - 11th June 2010

Ben Whitaker of Masabi talks about mobile ticketing, including his company's recent partnership with thetrainline.com that'll enable almost any mobile phone user to buy train tickets when they're on the move. (An extended version of the interview from Wednesday's podcast).
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Podcast - 9th June 2010

Apple announces the iPhone 4, Iridium prepares 72 new satellites and Orange reveals a phone charger powered by hot feet. In addition there's a conversation with Ben Whitaker of Masabi about his company's plans to introduce rail tickets on mobile phones across the UK.

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Podcast - 2nd June 2010

HipLogic CEO Mark Anderson talks about his company's information and entertainment application, which is being preloaded onto mobile phones at The Carphone Warehouse. And, as usual, there's a look at all the week's other major mobile industry headlines.

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Podcast - 26th May 2010

Iain, James and Mark discuss the week's headlines, from the Nokia/Yahoo! partnership and Google's AdMob approval to one-sided phone calls. There's also an interview with Andrew Grieve and Paul Erickson from fSONA; a company that offers 'optical wireless' technology to relieve network capacity problems.

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Podcast - 19th May 2010

This week's podcast is dominated by the results from the Interphone 'brain cancer' mobile phone research, although there's also time for Iain, James and Mark to talk about Google, Bluechipworld, Vodafone MVNOs, giffgaff, 3D mobile video, HTC's legal action and houses without fixed-line phones.

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