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Sunday, November 27, 2011

Last week at The Fonecast: 28th November 2011

Mark Bridge writes:

The really big news last week wasn’t good: 17,000 jobs worldwide are being lost at Nokia Siemens Networks (which, incidentally, is a separate company from both Nokia and Siemens). That’s not far short of a quarter of the total workforce. The company is going to focus on mobile network infrastructure and services, with a particular emphasis on mobile broadband, and is likely to sell off other parts of the business.

To an extent, the rest of the week’s headlines pale into insignificance – particularly with the Thanksgiving Day holiday in the USA reducing the amount of newsworthy activity – but there’s still been plenty happening here in the UK.

Ofcom’s had a busy few days, warning fixed-line and mobile internet service providers to clarify the ways they manage their internet traffic. It also published customer service satisfaction levels for mobile and fixed-line communications providers, although little had changed in the mobile arena since Ofcom’s figures from earlier this year.

On the subjects of customer satisfaction and mobile internet services, a new survey from UK comparison website Broadband Genie found that most users are unhappy with the speed of their mobile broadband connection. I can’t imagine many complained it was too fast.

Once again, mobile payments were in the news. International coffee shop Starbucks plans to bring its iPhone mobile payment app to the UK in January, enabling customers with a Starbucks pre-paid card to pay for items by using an on-screen barcode. Meanwhile Telefónica and RIM have announced a mobile wallet trial using NFC-equipped BlackBerry devices in Spain.

Product news included luxury mobile phone brand Vertu launching its first touchscreen handset – running Symbian – and LG confirming there’d be a new Prada phone next year. (You may remember the original Prada phone in 2007 was announced as the world’s first touchscreen handset. How times have changed). Aiming for a completely different market, Sony revealed its forthcoming PlayStation Vita gaming device would be supplied with a Vodafone SIM card in the UK when it launches next February.

Finally, if you’re looking for a single news story that combines many of the separate topics we’ve covered in the last seven days – including mobile networks, product innovation and data charges – with the added bonus of a wet nose, you can’t do better than looking at dog tracking company Retrieva.

The UK-based business, which produces dog collars with built-in GPS tracking, has announced a deal with specialist virtual mobile network Podsystem. This’ll make it easier for Retrieva to sell its products to a much wider market, with consumers enjoying simpler charges and better coverage... and they’ll be able to let their dogs roam across Europe. Quite literally.

Start your week with a reminder of the latest headlines. Simply register at TheFonecast.com by clicking the link at the top right-hand corner of our home page and we’ll send you our weekly news summary by email.
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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”.

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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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