O2 UK has announced plans to test a new service called O2 Connect. A number of consumer and business customers, along with attendees at Wired 2011, will be invited to join the trial.

O2 Connect will let customers with an iPhone or Android smartphone make UK calls and send text messages over WiFi using their regular mobile number.

Ofcom has published a statement on its plans to introduce so-called ‘white space’ technology in the UK. White spaces are the unused parts of frequency bands that have been reserved for other uses, such as TV transmissions.

The regulator says they could be used for a wide range of applications including rural broadband and WiFi with up to twice the range of today’s technology.

Mobile network operators are facing a seven-fold increase in the cost of delivering data across their networks, according to Juniper Research.

As a result, it says these mobile networks need to deal with the costs of data delivery and the inefficiencies in base station operations if they are to remain economically viable.

Mark Bridge writes:

Europe's leaders want mobile phones and WiFi networks banned in schools. Well, that's what the headlines appear to say.

Except - as often seems to be the case with most mobile phone health warnings - things aren't that simple. So let's start at the beginning.

WiFi hotspot community Fon says it now has over four million Fon hotspots worldwide, up 30% from the three million hotspots it announced at the beginning of the year.

Martin Varsavsky, Fon CEO and founder of the five-year-old company, said "Four million hotspots is an amazing figure and proof that the Fon model works."