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Saturday, April 9, 2011

This week at The Fonecast: 9th April 2011

Mark Bridge writes:

We head into the weekend with the News of the World admitting voicemail hacking was more widespread than previously thought. Mobile networks had already made it much harder to access voicemail remotely… and now the NotW is saying sorry and preparing to pay compensation.

Talking of illicit activities, British police ‘on the beat’ have been given the ability to identify stolen mobile phones within seconds. Access to the National Mobile Phone Register has been added to the handheld computers used by thousands of officers, thanks to Recipero.

On to other partnerships now, and the biggest news of the week was Vodafone’s decision to sell its stake in French network SFR. What’ll this mean for its Verizon partnership in the USA?  Probably not much in the short-term, to be honest.

In Ireland, Telefonica O2 Ireland and the eircom Group announced a new mobile network sharing arrangement. And here in the UK, Everything Everywhere added another 3 MVNOs to its network. That’ll be a total of 21.

Facebook was talking technical this week. First came an announcement that it was moving to a mobile internet platform that would automatically tailor the appearance of its web site to suit the visiting phone – much like our own mobile site at thefonecast.com – and later in the week it revealed a new server centre in the USA.

Okay, let’s return to basics. Time for some sales figures. In the last few days we’ve seen research that emphasises the growth in ‘smart’ mobile technology. Worldwide cameraphone sales are expected to exceed 1 billion units this year… and almost half the world's new smartphones will be running Android by the end of next year.

Of course, all those smartphones won’t be much use without decent tariffs. This week The Carphone Warehouse stepped into the space already occupied by Three UK and giffgaff by introducing an unlimited internet tariff. At the moment it’s only available for purchases within the next month – but I’m hoping it’s a sign that the bigger networks might also be thinking of relaxing a bit. Well, you never know.


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Opinion Articles

RIM is still committed to the consumer market... like there was ever any doubt

Mark Bridge writes:

There are times I feel like turning my back on the mobile phone industry and joining a monastery. That’s probably not going to happen, given the monks’ tradition of not admitting wives. But yesterday was another of those frustrating occasions. Let me tell you why.

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Are social media and smartphones really killing SMS and MMS?

Mark Bridge writes:

A couple of research reports this week have noted that text messaging and picture messaging growth is slowing down. Could this be the end for our trusty friend SMS and its bolder, brighter (and slightly flakier) sibling MMS?

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Last week at The Fonecast: 26th March 2012

Mark Bridge writes:

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It started with good news as Apple – fresh from hitting 3 million new iPad sales – announced its plans to spend some of the $100 billion sitting in its decidedly non-mobile wallet. There’ll be a quarterly dividend and a share buy-back scheme.

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New product overtakes old product: why the surprise?

Mark Bridge writes:

Sometimes I’m a simple soul. This is one of those occasions. I simply don’t get what all the fuss is about.

Sales of Windows Phone 7 smartphones have overtaken Symbian device sales in Great Britain for the first time ever. Yes, the new heavily-promoted mobile phones from Nokia are more popular with consumers and retailers than those using the obsolescent Symbian OS. Windows Phone 7 now has 2.5% of the British smartphone market, compared with 2.4% for Symbian.

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Mosaik Solutions: providing mobile coverage data by putting all the pieces together

Mark Bridge writes:

Some parts of the mobile industry are all glamour and glitz, megapixels and multi-cores, apps and ads. And then there are the essential parts of the industry, quite often with considerably less competition... and therefore accompanied by less singing and dancing.

Despite hailing from the city of Memphis in Tennessee, Mosaik Solutions isn’t from the rock ‘n’ roll end of the mobile industry. It creates mobile coverage maps and provides coverage data, as well as supplying information about coverage patterns, wireless spectrum depth, network configurations and licencing.

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