Mark Bridge writes:

A horse box and eight SIM cards. That’s the basic technology keeping the BBC’s Olympic Torch Relay broadcasts on the air and on the road.

The converted DAF horse box is being driven in front of the runners as they carry an Olympic torch along the relay route. It’s equipped with four cameras and a mixing desk, enabling a choice of views to be recorded and broadcast for 12 hours per day throughout the 70-day relay.

Facebook, the world's biggest social media website, started selling stock to the public on Friday, with its initial $38 share price edging above $40 in the first hours of trading.

Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, signaled the start of trading on the Nasdaq exchange in New York by remotely ringing a bell from company headquarters across the continent in California.

The latest research from Strategy Analytics suggests a nine-fold increase in 4G LTE connections this year, with 90 million connections worldwide by the end of 2012.

This new mobile technology is expected to exceed one billion connections by early 2017, just over seven years since it was first introduced. It’s a faster growth rate than the company predicted just a couple of months ago.

Mark Bridge writes:

The idea of a free mobile phone network is a dream for many consumers – and potentially a nightmare for traditional mobile operators. Most notably we saw Blyk launch an ad-funded network in the UK five years ago, with the MVNO closing in 2009 as the company’s business model changed.

In this week’s podcast feature I’ve been talking to someone who’s just launched a brand new mobile service that’s giving away calls, text messages and data in return for advertising. The company is Ovivo Mobile, it launched last month and it’s currently targeting students to sign up.

We talk to Dariush Zand, founder and CEO of Ovivo Mobile, about his new advertising-funded UK MVNO. Our conversation covers everything from setting up a 'virtual network' to Ovivo's plans for the future.