- August 28th, 2008
- 8:33 am
Ofcom reports 85% of the UK’s adult population have a mobile now and has become a part of their lives.
The number of mobile phone subscribers in the UK is over 70 million, the number higher than the population of 60 million of the country.
The households tend to have mobile phones rather than fixed line.
Figures for the market include:
- Number of mobile connections: 74 million
- Number of mobile voice calls: 115.6 minutes per month per subscriber
- Number of SMS and MMS messages sent: 59.1 billion
- Average time spent texting and calling per mobile connection: 10 minutes per day.
“The UK has the most competitive mobile industry in Europe - with five operators and a healthy number of virtual network operators competing to offer services,” Ofcom said.
“The sector generates over £15bn a year - 51 per cent of overall retail revenue for telecoms in the UK. The mobile sector now produces more revenue than fixed voice and broadband services combined.” it added.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
- August 28th, 2008
- 6:21 am
Advertising Standard Authority has outlaw an advertisement for the iphone that promises users access to “all parts of the Internet” on their Apple device.
The ad prompted two arguments with the ASA, both of which claimed the ad was misleading because the iPhone doesn’t offer Flash or Java and not all Web sites can be seen in their entirety. But Apple said that advertisement is not misleading and instead refers to the iPhone’s ability to offer “full” Internet access rather than WAP pages or the walled-garden approach.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
- August 27th, 2008
- 12:31 pm
Mobile Broadband Network Ltd MBNL chooses Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) as its technology partner for 3G network integration. Financial details are not yet disclosed. NSN said that, in addition to 3G radio hardware, it would provide project management, network deployment and other services. MBNL is a joint venture between 3 UK and T-Mobile which will see the two operators work together to combine their 3G networks with a view to increasing population coverage and reducing costs.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
- August 27th, 2008
- 9:08 am
According to a study, Mobile web usage in the U.S.A will soon exceed the mobile web usage in U.K. The study further reveals (Web users in july’08)
Study forecasted that U.S. will claim the top spot as early as this month.
(Rankings are determined U.S. will claim the top spot as early as this month)
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
- August 27th, 2008
- 7:54 am
Virgin Mobile, for the second time has recieved a clean chit, saying it’s services which aren’t that of a MNVO, by the Department of Telecom (DoT), after keeping a track on it’s operations in India for last couple of months.
At beginning of 2008, both the DoT and regulator TRAI studied the Virgin’s working model minutely and endorsed the company’s claims of it being only a franchisee of Tata Teleservices.
The following clearance was based on the study of Virgin Mobile’s advertisements, SIM card, tariffs and services.
Whereas, the GSM operators of the country led by The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) alleged that the telco was offering full-range mobile services like a licence holder in violation of existing regulations and also said that its services in India are similar to those offered by Virgin as an MVNO in other countries like the UK and Australia.
The Tatas added that since there was no selling of bulk airtime, so the partnership cannot be classified as an MVNO. The DoT in an internal note dated August 21 has said that an MVNO would involve purchase of minutes from facility-based mobile network, freedom to prescribe tariff, customer ownership and separate licence, but the Tata-Virgin joint venture did not involve any of these factors.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
- August 26th, 2008
- 1:49 pm
Wild Jack Mobile Casino has signed a deal with Vodafone that enables Vodafone UK’s customers to buy credits and charge them to their mobile bills. According to the company, before customers can deposit and play a Wild Jack Mobile Casino game, Vodafone UK will verify each user’s age through its customer records, which will help prevent minors from gaining access to the service. Users can even view their balance while playing and if they decide to buy more credits, they can navigate to the banking section within the game. No financial details of the deal were revealed.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
- August 25th, 2008
- 10:59 am
Vodafone group is focussing on its expansion efforts in Asia and Africa. For that Vittorio Caloa, the chief executive of telecommunication major Vodafone, is set to make his first major action that is shuffling of the management of the company. Mr Colao may appoint two senior executives to run the company’s fast-growing businesses in Asia and Africa. The emerging markets business, which currently generates more than a quarter of Vodafone’s turnover, faces the risk of becoming unmanageable as Vodafone continues to expand, analyst believes.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
- August 22nd, 2008
- 1:26 pm
3 UK, reportedly, is continuing on it’s legal challenge wherein the regulator Ofcom had ruled it to cut connection charges last year.
According to Ofcom’s rulling in 2007, 3 had to face a 45% cut in mobile termination rates across it’s network by 2011.
If 3 is successful, the operator would be free to raise its charges, although the operator has suggested that it wants mobile termination rates to be cut to zero by all operators.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
- August 21st, 2008
- 8:14 am
Asda has halved its pay-as-you-go charges while it’s rivals including Vodafone, are raising theirs.
The firm said that from September 1, the tariffs will come down from 16p to 8p for calls, with the price of texts falling from 5p to 4p. Asda, claims to be the cheapest pay-as-you-go operator of Britain, moving ahead of it’s cheapest rival, Ikea.
On one hand, where the retailers are cutting their mobile phone package tariffs in order to attract the huge, 47 million pay-as-you-go users, number and on the other hand there are traditional mobile operators are raising the tariffs. Vodafone is planning to increase Vodafone will increase its minimum call charge for pay-as-you-go customers by 30 per cent, from 15p to 20p, next month. O2, T-Mobile and Orange have also increased pay-as-you-go tariffs.
Mobile operators are showing a keen interest in signing up with the retail operators, who buy wholesale minutes from these operators.
Rates per min to national numbers/other networks, and text rates:
- Asda Mobile 8p (flat rate) 4p (cost of texts)
- Ikea Family Mobile 9p 6p
- 3 Mobile (Flat 12 tariff) 12p 12p
- Virgin Mobile (Daily Bonus tariff) 15p NA
- Tesco Mobile (Standard tariff) 20p 10p
- T-Mobile (Mates Rates tariff) 25p 10p
- O2 (Talkalot tariff) 25p 10p
- Vodafone Anynet tariff 30p peak/10p off peak 10p
- Orange (Any Time fixed rate) 35p other networks, 25p to landlines 10p
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
- August 20th, 2008
- 12:24 pm
3 UK, unvieled it’s the 3 Skypephone S2, next-generation Skypephone handset.
The users of the new handset can access Facebook, Google and Windows Live Messenger and also enables free Skype calls and instant messaging.
This phone will be available for pre - order from 19 August, it can also be purchased online from 27 August and in-store from 01 September.
Features:
- Revolutionary ‘carousel’ interface, with switcher key on the side of the handset to move quickly between applications
- 2.2-in QVGA screen
- 3.2-megapixel camera
- HSDPA functionality
- Expandable memory to 4 GB
- Can be used as a mobile broadband dongle through its built-in modem drivers
- Allows to track up to 30 RSS feeds at once
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
Ofcom reports 85% of British Adults are mobile (UK)
