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Saturday, April 16, 2011

This week at The Fonecast: 16th April 2011

Mark Bridge writes:

We started this week with a story that grabbed plenty of attention. It was a report from Billmonitor.com that claimed we in the UK were wasting almost £5 billion every year by choosing the wrong mobile tariffs. Although I remained a little cynical about some of the detail, there’s no doubt that many consumers could be better off if they switched tariff - or even network. And now, with 1-day number porting available, it’s easier than ever.

Also hitting the mainstream press was Everything Everywhere, which was getting hassle for being the only UK operator charging charities to handle their text message donations. It’s since decided to give 100% of donations to 100% of charities; a pretty dramatic turnaround from two years ago when none of the UK networks were offering any significant concessions for SMS payments.

Talking of payments, American Express did a deal with mobile payment service Payfone to enhance its virtual wallet. The results are only available in the US at the moment, so don’t get too excited. Better news for the rest of us came from Juniper Research, forecasting almost 300 million NFC-capable smartphones around the globe by 2014; the equivalent of at least 1 in 5 worldwide.

There was UK-specific good news from Chinese telecoms firm Huawei, with plans to create 500 new UK jobs during the next three years - and many more through subcontracting. And I have no doubt that the company was also pleased to see the end of its legal dispute with Motorola, although it very much looks as though Huawei came out on top.

Other manufacturing news came from Nokia with two new smartphones and an updated version of Symbian, nicknamed Symbian Anna. (I suspect Symbian may not ever reach the end of the naming alphabet).

Apart from that, there wasn’t much unexpected. Google’s financial results showed it was doing okay. PC sales weren’t doing so well. Apple is expected to sell plenty of tablets. And some people don’t show very much online common sense when using their mobile phones.

Just try to make sure you’re not one of them!


Stay ahead by reading this weekly summary before everyone else!  Click the ‘register’ link in the top right-hand corner of our website and we’ll send you our news summary by email every week.

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5/31/2011 7:54 AM

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Opinion Articles

4G doesn't come to Three

Mark Bridge writes:

Earlier today, Three.co.uk published a blog post headlined “4G comes to Three”. But it hasn’t.

I spent most of this morning here at Mobile World Congress muttering about the blog before returning to it this afternoon. And suddenly it’s changed.

The blog post remains. The headline is completely different. Now we’re told “Three to launch leading edge 3G service”.

Author: The Fonecast
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How far does it go, mate?

Geoff Varrall of RTT writes:

About 15,000 years ago some indigenous Northern Australians decided that they needed a more efficient way of talking to each other than just shouting a lot.

And blowing into a long cylindrical tube proved to be just what was needed and seriously useful fun – the dawn of the didgeridoo.

Trumpets and bagpipes were invented at about the same time. The ancient Greeks used the trumpet in battlefield communication to devastating effect.

The way you can tell that your didgeridoo is better than everyone else’s didgeridoo is to blow into it and see how far the sound goes.

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Last week at The Fonecast: 20th February 2012

Mark Bridge writes:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. So said Sir Arthur C Clarke.

Last week’s magic was supplied by imaging company Scalado, which announced a new product called ‘Remove’. The clue’s in the name: it can automatically remove unwanted people from photos taken on a mobile phone. Expect to see it on a handset near you before too long.

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Last week at The Fonecast: 13th February 2012

Mark Bridge writes:

It’s not been a good week for Nokia staff, with 4000 of them likely to lose their jobs from factories in Finland, Hungary and Mexico. The company says it’s moving device assembly to Asia, where it’ll be closer to component manufacturers. The three scaled-down factories will remain open with a new focus on smartphone customisation.

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Could a new legal framework for FRAND principles end the mobile patent wars in 2013?

Mark Bridge writes:

I’m not the first person to point out that mobile phone patent battles are raging all around us. They’ve been going on for years.

However, the topic of FRAND patents - those designated as ‘industry standards’ and therefore required to be licensed on Fair, Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory terms - has become an increasingly newsworthy topic.

In the last couple of weeks we’ve reported on an EC investigation into Samsung’s licensing of mobile patents and a Motorola/Apple legal battle that involves FRAND licensing.

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