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Saturday, July 9, 2011

This week at The Fonecast: 9th July 2011

Mark Bridge writes:

Roaming charges are back in the news this week. Not the latest round of price cuts (or, to be technically correct, lower price caps) but the European Commission’s plans for the future. As well as continuing the downward pricing trend for a few more years, Neelie Kroes also wants wholesale interconnection at capped rates and the option of a separate ‘roaming contract’ when you travel abroad.

The European Parliament needs to vote before this becomes law… but I wouldn’t like to bet against it. Certainly not the price reductions, anyway.

Talking of money, eBay is splashing out around $240 million to pick up mobile payment company Zong. It looks like we’ll see Zong’s direct carrier billing – adding purchases to your mobile phone bill – being incorporated with PayPal’s services. Yet another reason for shopping by mobile – and a further explanation of why the mobile payments market is expected to almost treble in value by 2015.

It’s been a mixed week for Three UK. The company has followed Vodafone’s example by partnering with an application store, choosing Ovi rather than Vodafone’s Android deal – but it’s also had another run-in with the Advertising Standards Authority. Once again, giffgaff came out on top. Victory for the smaller guy (and no sign of a broken toe).

On the subject of virtual networks, it’s been reported that Lebara could be sold or floated on the stock exchange. Sticking with the subject of takeovers, HTC is acquiring graphics technology company S3 Graphics (and its patent collection) for $300 million. And while we’re discussing handset manufacturers, Nathan Vautier is expected to leave his role as MD of Sony Ericsson UK and Ireland in the next few months.

Finally, in a week when voicemail hacking has been all over the media (to varying degrees), it seems somehow appropriate to end with a report about overheard conversations. A study from Intel says talking too loudly on a mobile phone in public is the worst breach of mobile manners, coming ahead of texting during a date or using your laptop at dinner. Smoking and swearing were deemed the most inappropriate behaviour for public spaces, with those mobile phone conversations in third place overall. Shhh!


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Opinion Articles

‘The Eyes Have It’ at Mobile World Congress

James Rosewell writes:

DoCoMo are one of many network operators and handset manufacturers demonstrating innovative new products as Mobile World Congress. Our eye was caught by the employee demonstrating “Eye Controlled Earphones”. It’s a good job the ladies from the CBOSS stand weren’t walking past at the time.

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'Mobile Money Monday' at Mobile World Congress

James Rosewell writes:

Monday’s Mobile World Congress conference agenda dedicated one of 4 streams to Mobile Money - Transfers, Transactions and Technology allowing all stakeholders to share experiences and debate the future of Mobile and Money.

Two types of service dominated presentations and panel discussions; Near Field Communication (NFC) technology enabling payment at traditional Point of Sale (PoS), and the Mobile Wallet replacing plastic or cash.

Author: The Fonecast
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‘Innovation Corner’ at Mobile World Congress

James Rosewell writes:

Here’s my pick of the 3 most innovative companies I’ve uncovered at the 2010 Mobile World Congress.

Cootek.com win the prize for simplest innovation... an accurate touch screen keyboard. They’re a few months away from being ready to release the software to handset manufacturers, but the demo handsets worked very well. The keyboard assumes the user is not going to press the intended key, but in fact might miss and press another key in the same area. Based on this knowledge and an extensive dictionary of words and language context, it’s able to determine the intended word with surprising accuracy. I sincerely hope their technology will be made available for the Nexus One in the not too distant future.

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Google “Mobile First” from Eric Schmidt’s Key Note at Mobile World Congress

James Rosewell writes:

Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, presented a compelling vision of a mobile centric future. The phone has become the “high value end point” for Google services enabled by a combination of increasing handset power, mobile data networks and cloud computing. By far the scarcest resource is the bandwidth available through the mobile data networks. Google appear committed to work with Mobile Network Operators (MNO) to maximise bandwidth usage, although several audience questions suggested scepticism from the main stream mobile industry. Eric expressed a need to maintain a harmonious relationship with MNOs stating Google could not operate its service on mobile devices without their co-operation.

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The great Windows Mobile 7 conspiracy theory

Mark Bridge writes:

I like a good conspiracy theory. A good one, mind you. None of this “Funny thing happened on the way to Mars” nonsense. Oh no, not me. And, despite occasionally mirroring Jerry Fletcher by balancing a bottle on the door handle, I’ve never been inclined to publish such a theory. Until now.

You see, it’s Mobile World Congress in a fortnight’s time. Which is when the great and the good of the mobile industry – along with their mates and hangers-on – head for Barcelona. Microsoft will be there. They’re holding a press briefing on Monday afternoon. And there’s a lot of talk about Windows Mobile 7 being (unofficially) on the agenda. But where’s the evidence?

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