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Monday, March 26, 2012

Last week at The Fonecast: 26th March 2012

Mark Bridge writes:

It’s been a week of ups and downs for the mobile industry.

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.

And tablet sales are set to keep influencing the mobile market, with Juniper Research predicting that spending on tablet games will account for around a third of all mobile game revenue by 2016 – while ABI Research anticipated the increasing dominance of lower-cost tablet devices with smaller displays.

On the subject of growth, the number of LTE mobile phone shipments worldwide will grow tenfold this year, according to a new report from Strategy Analytics (although I can’t imagine many of those being sold in the UK). Fortunately other smartphones will be selling, according to research company YouGov: it’s found that 42% of ‘standard’ mobile phone owners plan to choose a smartphone when they upgrade.

Innovative ideas came from Wired magazine, which included an NFC advertisement in its US issue, and from the GSMA. Fresh from Mobile World Congress (and smarting from the inevitable complaints about its free WiFi for delegates), it’s working with the Wireless Broadband Alliance to make it easier for mobile devices to connect to WiFi hotspots. The plans are for your SIM card to automatically provide log-in details.

Finally to the week’s bad news. Mobile security business Lookout named Manchester as the top place for mislaid mobiles, Ofcom named Orange as the network that attracted the most complaints in the final quarter of 2011 – and Channel 4 news named Barclays and Visa as having NFC payment cards that weren’t particularly secure. Apparently an NFC-equipped smartphone could be used to copy the cardholder’s name and number, leading to the possibility of pickpockets simply rubbing themselves against you.

However, as PIN codes and the CVV number from the back of the card aren’t transmitted, the resulting information could also be obtained by someone looking over your shoulder. And that’s less fun for all concerned.

Start your week with a reminder of the latest mobile 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 this weekly news summary by email.

The Fonecast is sponsored by 51Degrees.mobi. More details about advertising and sponsorship opportunities are available on the About us section of our website.
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Opinion Articles

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.

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Shared data tariffs, bill shock, net neutrality and mobile traffic management

Mark Bridge writes:

Today’s mobile phone customers want more and more mobile data, which is stretching network capacity. In addition, many of those consumers would rather not be committed to a limit; they’d rather have a mobile internet tariff that is (or appears to be) unlimited. This puts even more pressure on mobile networks.

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Last week at The Fonecast: 21st November 2011

Mark Bridge writes:

Having read some of last week’s headlines, you might think the UK’s Communication Ombudsman has told mobile phone networks not to describe their data tariffs as ‘unlimited’ unless they really are. However, what’s actually happened is that one of the UK’s communication ombudsmen (ombudspeople?) has asked mobile operators to be clear about any limits, to stop unexpectedly high bills from building up and to tell customers before they exceed any limit. Better than nothing but hardly earth-shattering.

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Top 5 Productivity Apps for Business Owners

Ruben Corbo writes:

As a business owner, you know that being out of the office can cost you customers and productivity. However, in this digital age being out of the office doesn’t mean that you have to be away from your business. By downloading apps specifically for business, you can be productive from anywhere. Here are my top 5 apps for mobile business productivity.

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Enterprise user, you are the weakest link...

Mark Bridge writes:

Any security process is only as strong as the weakest link. That’s something of a truism. And for many organisations, the weak link is most likely to occur when information leaves the office. Which means it’s often caused by the user’s mobile phone or the user themselves.

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