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Sunday, March 23, 2014

Vodafone celebrates the 30th anniversary of its (misspelled) name

This weekend marks 30 years since Racal Electronics revealed the name of its new mobile phone service as ‘Vodafone’.

The name was announced at a press conference in London on 22nd March 1984, although it wasn’t until 1991 that Vodafone demerged from Racal and became a separate company.

According to the original news release, “A subscriber to the Racal Vodafone service travelling by car between London and Edinburgh or Exeter, for instance, will be able to make or receive national and international telephone calls with ease throughout the entire journey - and on leaving the vehicle still use the portable Vodafone to remain constantly in touch anywhere and at any time day or night.”

Vodafone’s name was created by the company working with advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. It’s inspired by the words ‘voice’, ‘data’ and ‘phone’, although the ad agency’s idea of using ‘fone’ was originally rejected by the company’s first CEO Sir Gerry Whent.

There are currently around 419 million customers connected to Vodafone or its partner networks.

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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.

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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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A month of mobile: O2 counts on 3, Microsoft counts to 10 and Apple counts its profits

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We also discuss Apple's record-breaking quarterly figures, the highlights of CES and the launch of Microsoft Windows 10, as well as saying farewell to the current version of Google Glass.

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