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Monday, January 7, 2013

TheFonecast.com newsletter: 7th January 2013

Time to catch up with everything mobile

Mark Bridge writes:

Happy New Year!  It’s been three weeks since our last newsletter and a fortnight since our podcast of mobile predictions for 2013, so there’s plenty to catch up with.

Although we took a bit of a break for Christmas, telecoms regulator Ofcom was especially busy. Not only did it reveal the bidders in the UK’s 4G spectrum auction, it also published its latest mobile phone complaints research – once again, O2 is causing the least trouble – and launched a consultation about protecting consumers from price rises during fixed-term contracts. That’s a particularly touchy subject for Three UK following a recent ASA adjudication.

When it comes to innovation, we heard that the Linux-based Ubuntu operating system was heading to smartphones, Toyota was planning built-in Qi wireless charging for one of its cars and free WiFi was coming to Scottish train journeys.

RIM settled its patent disagreement with Nokia but revealed a drop in quarterly revenue and profit, Google arranged to sell the non-mobile Motorola Home business, Telefónica said it had chosen Nokia Siemens Networks for O2’s 4G rollout in the UK, Kodak sold its digital imaging patent portfolio to a collection of tech giants, US mobile operator Sprint agreed to acquire broadband provider Clearwire and René Obermann, CEO of Deutsche Telekom, announced his retirement plans.

We learned that SMS and WiFi had both been in demand over the festive period, that over 100 million 4G LTE mobile devices were shipped worldwide last year and that more than a billion new smartphones and tablets had cameras in 2012.

Phew. For a holiday period, things have been pretty busy in the mobile industry. And there’s more to come. The consumer electronics CES show opens in Las Vegas tomorrow… and we’re already preparing for Mobile World Congress in February. The next few weeks will be very busy indeed – but stay tuned to our free podcasts every week and you’ll always keep up-to-date!

Every Monday morning we summarise the past week’s mobile industry headlines in our newsletter. To receive it, simply register your email address at TheFonecast.com by clicking the link at the top right-hand corner of our home page.
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Opinion Articles

A Sure Signal from Vodafone

Mark Bridge writes:

Today I've been using my mobile phone at home. For many people that’s not an unusual thing to do – but it is for me because, around here, coverage indoors isn’t particularly good. Downstairs it’s previously been non-existent. But this morning everything changed.

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Physician uses cell phones to bring health care to the poor

Natalia Ardanza of voanews.com writes:

In Africa there is another use for mobile phones. Public Health workers in Kenya are now using mobile phones to gather health information from patients in remote areas and upload it to the internet for instant analysis at distant centers. And it is all happening thanks to Dr Joel Selanikio.

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Making dumb touchscreen phones was a smart move

Mark Bridge writes:

I remember a report from last year that said ‘non-smart’ touchscreen handsets – generally those without a popular operating system – would be bad news for mobile operators.

Conventional touchscreen smartphones tended to result in higher-than-average ARPU thanks to their early-adopting tech-loving users, their web-friendly browsers, their email programs, their app-friendly operating systems and their fast 3G connectivity. However, dumber touchscreen devices – those with a manufacturer’s own proprietary OS and perhaps a clumsier browser – could generate 23% less ARPU than smarter phones. So, if touchscreen dumbphones weren’t good for networks… and weren’t really good for consumers either… manufacturers wouldn’t really bother with them. Right?

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"Hello Nexus One" I say...

James Rosewell writes:

Mark’s been encouraging me to write an opinion piece on the Nexus One for the last few days and I’m finally putting fingers to keyboard to share my experiences. It’s taken so long because this phone has so many features. On a positive note I could go into details about the gorgeous screen, the Android Marketplace that will out-sell Apple’s over the next 18 months, the built-in satellite navigation service and the speedy processor that makes everything run smoothly in real time. Or on a less positive note, the touch screen keyboard that sucks (think carefully about this if you’re a heavy texter or emailer, it’s even worse than the original iPhone), the lack of ActiveSync for Calendars and Tasks, no support for WMA music files or the clunky zoom functions on the web browser.

However I’m going to focus on voice dictation. Nexus One is the first phone I’ve used with this feature.

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The Amazon Kindle prepares to fight the Apple iPhone and Tablet

Mark Bridge writes:

Here’s a curious thing. Firstly, Amazon creates the Kindle. It starts selling the Kindle in the USA with a mobile deal that lets users download electronic books and newspapers wherever they are. Then it starts selling the Kindle to us in the UK, although – hang on a moment – it’s not talking about a UK mobile deal. Instead it still seems to be ‘roaming’ from the AT&T network. Next comes the larger-screen Kindle DX – also roaming away when it reaches our shores. And now Amazon is talking about third-party downloadable applications for the Kindle. Yes, a mobile device with downloadable apps. Hold that thought; I’ll be returning to it.

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