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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

Last week at The Fonecast: 24th June 2013

More of the same

Mark Bridge writes:

Another week, another couple of product announcements from Samsung. There appears to be no stopping them, despite a recent drop in the company’s share price.

This time it’s a couple of tablets – one of which runs both Android and Windows 8 – and a 20 megapixel camera that’s got a 4G-enabled Android device built in.

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Last week at The Fonecast: 17th June 2013

Making the network truly mobile

Mark Bridge writes:

The telecommunications industry was making plenty of headlines last week – but much of it wasn’t particularly upbeat.

The debate about privacy and security continued in the wake of allegations about US agents intercepting internet traffic. Meanwhile, Nokia prepared to make its last Symbian smartphones and Tradedoubler warned that mobile devices were having a negative effect on high-street consumer loyalty.

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How to shield from internet snooping

George Putic of voanews.com writes:

When news broke about U.S. government agencies collecting metadata about its citizens’ Internet and phone communications, many were surprised by its scope. The surveillance covered a vast number of Internet messages and phone calls. The government did not deny the action but pointed out that the collected data contained, not the substance of the communication, but the so-called metadata.

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Giving it all away

Paying with our privacy

Mark Bridge writes:

There’s been a lot of talk recently about PRISM, which may allow the US National Security Agency - and anyone they choose - to access some of our personal online information if it passes through the USA. It’s unclear exactly what (if anything) is being shared with whom… and given the nature of national security, we may never know.

However, alongside the possibility of governments seeing information we thought was secure, it’s also worth pointing out that we choose to share plenty of online information ourselves.

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6 things you need to know about mobile research, smartphone rumours and imaginary new products

Mark Bridge writes:

Where did it all go wrong?  When did the mainstream mobile industry start to slide away from innovation and into repetitive nonsense?  For a while I suspected the downloadable ringtone was to blame. Just days after hearing 'Barbie Girl' on the mobile phone of a man from Vodafone Value Added Services in the late 1990s, I'd downloaded a poptastic tune to my own Nokia 2110. Soon, the entire mobile world was focussed on 30-second instrumentals instead of technical innovation. It was the beginning of the end.

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