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Monday, April 16, 2012

Last week at The Fonecast: 16th April 2012

Mark Bridge writes:

At the beginning of last week, Facebook and Instagram were the talk of the mobile industry. Was this billion-dollar deal the sign of another tech bubble?  Facebook’s fast track into mobile?  Facebook moving to cement its dominance of online photography?  You, the jury, decide.

A second billion dollar shopping trip also made the headlines as Microsoft picked up hundreds of AOL patents. And here in the UK, the Daisy Group made a £28 million acquisition of audio-conferencing specialist Worldwide Group Holdings.

Were things just going to keep getting better and better?

No. Bringing us down to earth with a bump was Nokia, which – along with announcing its first NFC-equipped Windows Phone device – admitted that its forthcoming quarterly results were going to be both “difficult” and “disappointing”. Expect discussions about the future of Nokia to continue well beyond Thursday this week, when full details are released.

Also with bad news for many people (despite an upbeat ‘transformation’ message) was Sony, which is likely to lose around 10,000 jobs this year as it makes big changes to its electronics business.

Google’s news was pretty cheery, with quarterly results showing revenue up 24% from the same period last year. Meanwhile Barclays was pleased to roll out its Pingit person-to-person mobile payment service to customers from all UK banks and building societies. And crime-fighters in the USA received a boost with news that trade organisation CTIA was working with its members to set up a nationwide stolen mobile phone database (rather like Immobilise in the UK).

Finally to research, where three separate studies told us that tablet sales, machine-to-machine connections and mobile ticket usage were all on the rise. Expect to see a robot with an iPad on the bus very soon.

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. More details about advertising and sponsorship opportunities are available on the About us section of our website.
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Opinion Articles

Is Android losing its impact for Google?

Mark Bridge writes:

Recent figures released by ABI Research have prompted the market intelligence company to ask whether Google is losing control of the Android ecosystem.

At first glance, Android dominated smartphone shipments for the final quarter of 2013. ABI Research says 77% of the 287 million smartphones shipped in Q4 2013 were running Android.

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It’s time to prepare for the upcoming surge in signaling traffic

Robin Kent writes:

After initially suffering from slow pick up by consumers, 4G has begun to accelerate, and is now well on the way to the forecasted one billion subscribers by 2017. In fact EE, owner of T-Mobile and Orange, recently announced the addition of 493,000 new 4G customers to its existing base of 1.2 million.

Author: The Fonecast
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Mobile phone coverage: is this as good as it gets?

Mark Bridge writes:

A new report has highlighted the issue of poor mobile phone coverage in rural Sussex villages. BBC Sussex invited me onto their ‘Sussex Breakfast’ radio show to explain what could be done - and, as usual, I made enough notes for a lecture rather than a three-minute interview.

Here’s what I would have liked to have said if I’d been given a disproportionate amount of time to talk.

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Last week at The Fonecast: 27th January 2014

Expecting the unexpected

Mark Bridge writes:

Great news for mobile phone users. Ofcom’s new rules preventing unexpected mid-contract price rises came into force last week, which means UK consumers can no longer be surprised by their subscription charge increasing while they’re still locked into a minimum-term deal.

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Ofcom changes the rules for mobile phone contracts... and so does O2

Mark Bridge writes:

This week, new Ofcom rules came into force. They’re designed to avoid unexpected price rises during the minimum term of a mobile phone contract. Yes, just because you signed a fixed-term contract doesn’t mean the charges can’t increase. Networks said they needed this option in case of inflation or regulatory changes. Customers felt trapped.

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