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Ofcom says mobile contracts should ditch inflation-related price rises

Ofcom says mobile contracts should ditch inflation-related price rises

UK telecoms regulator Ofcom wants to ban inflation-related rises in phone and broadband contracts. Instead, it says any potential mid-contract price rises should be set out in pounds and pence.
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Global smartphone market is set for recovery, says new forecast

A new forecast from research specialists Canalys shows the smartphone market is set to recover next year. Worldwide shipments declined by 12% last year but that decline is expected to slow to 5% this year.
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Vodafone and Three plan to merge their UK businesses

Vodafone and Three plan to merge their UK businesses

New Hutchison/Vodafone network would be biggest UK operator

Vodafone Group plc and CK Hutchison Group Telecom Holdings Limited have agreed to combine their UK telecommunication businesses, respectively Vodafone UK and Three UK. The merger will create a large new network operator to compete with Virgin Media O2 and EE.
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UK mobile payment service Paym to close in March 2023

UK mobile payment service Paym will close on 7th March 2023. The service, which allowed users to make and receive payments using their mobile phone numbers, was launched in 2014.
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Qualcomm legal action moves forward in the UK

Qualcomm legal action moves forward in the UK

Which? seeks payout for Samsung and Apple smartphone owners

Consumer protection organisation Which? has been given permission by the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal to represent Apple and Samsung smartphone buyers in a legal case against chip manufacturer Qualcomm.
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Opinion Articles

Last week at The Fonecast: 12th August 2013

Welcome to the not-so-silly season

Mark Bridge writes:

August is traditionally known as the ‘silly season’… but last week’s mobile industry news was all very serious. Apple started with a move designed to reassure customers about unsafe iPhone chargers by arranging a discounted exchange scheme – and it ended the week with a patent victory in the USA.

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Dual Core Smartphones only £7.70pm... whatever that means

Mark Bridge writes:

Don't sell the steak – sell the sizzle!  That's the mantra of many salespeople. It's all about emphasising the benefits of a product rather than its features. You don't tell people about the 13 megapixel camera when they ask about the new LG smartphone, you tell them it'll capture the first steps of their precious young nephew in pin-sharp accuracy. Or something like that.

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Mobile retailers waste over £21.6 million a year on unnecessarily sending mobile phones for repair

David Heled of Cellebrite writes:

Smartphones are now by far and away the communication, payment and information device of choice for consumers and enterprises. Sales are set to overtake those of traditional feature phones this year for the first time. However, the increasing complexity of the devices’ technology means that there’s a lot more that can go wrong, and make it harder for mobile retailers to identify potential problems – and it’s costing them millions per every year.

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Last week at The Fonecast: 29th July 2013

Surprises and statistics

Mark Bridge writes:

Google’s big announcement last week involved the company introducing Android v4.3 (as expected), launching a new Nexus 7 tablet (as expected) and also revealing a ‘Chromecast’ HDMI adaptor that’ll stream from most portable devices. That was more of a surprise.

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Top Ofcom tips when taking your smartphone or tablet abroad

Mark Bridge writes:

With the school term over and August just a few days away, UK telecom regulator Ofcom has published a new guide to help travellers avoid ‘bill shock’ after using their mobile phones, tablets and laptops abroad.

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Recent Podcasts

Friday, January 14, 2011

This week at The Fonecast: 15th January 2011

Mark Bridge writes:

It's been a funny old week. With the International CES behind us and Mobile World Congress less than a month away, you’d be forgiven for thinking there wouldn’t be much big news until the world’s mobile mavens start arriving in Barcelona.

In fact, you’d be partially correct… but that doesn’t account for what insurance companies like to call ‘acts of God’. Disasters and the like.

One such disaster – at least in a PR sense – befell T-Mobile UK, which decided to align its fair usage policy for data use. Customers who’d previously had up to 3GB of monthly data on their tariffs were being ‘aligned’ down to 500MB. Understandably, some people weren’t happy with T-Mobile’s plans. After a couple of days, T-Mobile changed its mind and said the new FUP (as the fair usage policy was often abbreviated) wouldn’t apply to existing customers. That’s probably removed the risk of legal action and mass-migration, although it all looks rather like a different kind of F-UP. If you know what we mean.

On the subject of data, our most-recent podcast included an interview with Robin Kent, director of operations at Adax Europe, who talked about the challenges facing mobile networks. He reckoned we’d be hearing a lot more about data limits and traffic restrictions in the short-term – and they’re never going to be popular topics with customers.

Also in the podcast was Dave Golding from Cellebrite, introducing a new 7-inch tablet for retailers. It's called the Cellebrite Touch and can transfer a customer's mobile content to a new phone at the point of purchase. We’ll be hearing more from him in next week’s show.

In the US, the week’s big news was the end of AT&T’s three-year exclusive hold on the Apple iPhone. Verizon Wireless will stock the iPhone 4 from next month – and because it’s a CDMA version, some of the side buttons will be in slightly different places. Good news for case manufacturers!

Back in the UK now, and Orange has launched a 'mobile landline' service for businesses. Pocket Landline lets companies and sole traders have a fixed-line telephone number working on a mobile phone. Sound familiar? Well, it’s what Gradwell Mobile were talking about last year – and it’s not dissimilar to a service offered by Orange in the days of Hans Snook.

O2’s also been to the launch pad. It’s creating O2 Unify in partnership with IT service provider 2e2. The aim is to provide IT and communications services to businesses; pretty much a one-stop-shop for ICT.

Having said that, it’s not all been good news at O2, with talk of redundancies and closing a number of smaller stores.

But let’s end on a positive note. Last year the number of mobile broadband subscriptions worldwide exceeded the 500 million mark – and telecoms equipment provider Ericsson has now calculated that the figure will double in the next 12 months, giving the world over one billion mobile broadband connections by the end of 2011.

Of course, the amount of data those people will be allowed to use is another matter completely!

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