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Sunday, November 27, 2011

Last week at The Fonecast: 28th November 2011

Mark Bridge writes:

The really big news last week wasn’t good: 17,000 jobs worldwide are being lost at Nokia Siemens Networks (which, incidentally, is a separate company from both Nokia and Siemens). That’s not far short of a quarter of the total workforce. The company is going to focus on mobile network infrastructure and services, with a particular emphasis on mobile broadband, and is likely to sell off other parts of the business.

To an extent, the rest of the week’s headlines pale into insignificance – particularly with the Thanksgiving Day holiday in the USA reducing the amount of newsworthy activity – but there’s still been plenty happening here in the UK.

Ofcom’s had a busy few days, warning fixed-line and mobile internet service providers to clarify the ways they manage their internet traffic. It also published customer service satisfaction levels for mobile and fixed-line communications providers, although little had changed in the mobile arena since Ofcom’s figures from earlier this year.

On the subjects of customer satisfaction and mobile internet services, a new survey from UK comparison website Broadband Genie found that most users are unhappy with the speed of their mobile broadband connection. I can’t imagine many complained it was too fast.

Once again, mobile payments were in the news. International coffee shop Starbucks plans to bring its iPhone mobile payment app to the UK in January, enabling customers with a Starbucks pre-paid card to pay for items by using an on-screen barcode. Meanwhile Telefónica and RIM have announced a mobile wallet trial using NFC-equipped BlackBerry devices in Spain.

Product news included luxury mobile phone brand Vertu launching its first touchscreen handset – running Symbian – and LG confirming there’d be a new Prada phone next year. (You may remember the original Prada phone in 2007 was announced as the world’s first touchscreen handset. How times have changed). Aiming for a completely different market, Sony revealed its forthcoming PlayStation Vita gaming device would be supplied with a Vodafone SIM card in the UK when it launches next February.

Finally, if you’re looking for a single news story that combines many of the separate topics we’ve covered in the last seven days – including mobile networks, product innovation and data charges – with the added bonus of a wet nose, you can’t do better than looking at dog tracking company Retrieva.

The UK-based business, which produces dog collars with built-in GPS tracking, has announced a deal with specialist virtual mobile network Podsystem. This’ll make it easier for Retrieva to sell its products to a much wider market, with consumers enjoying simpler charges and better coverage... and they’ll be able to let their dogs roam across Europe. Quite literally.

Start your week with a reminder of the latest 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 our weekly news summary by email.
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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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A month of mobile: O2 counts on 3, Microsoft counts to 10 and Apple counts its profits

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