So, the iPhone and a bunch of other HSPA handsets are coming to telus (NYSE: TU) on November 5, but if that wasn’t enough, they’re revamping some of their plans with a little something called Clear and Simple, that will eliminate the much-loathed monthly System Access Fee and 911 fee, but raising overall rate plans by five dollars. This handy little chart shows how you’ll actually be saving two bucks on the old $25 plan, since it went well over $30 with SAF and 911 added. I wonder if lower plans will even out as nicely, but to sweeten the deal, telus has thrown in voicemail. On the downside, provincially-mandated 911 costs will still exist for P.E.I., Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and Quebec, but they’re relatively minute ($0.38 – $0.50). Rogers (NYSE: RCI) recently pulled a similar stunt, where they replaced the SAF with what they called a Government Regulatory Recovery Fee, which varied according to region. Just like Rogers, with telus you’ll be able to grandfather your old plan indefinitely, but you’ll hang on to those old costs and all new activations will be with their Clear plans. Clear and Simple goes live on November 5, but you can hit up telus for more information.

[via telus]

Remember Nokia (NYSE: NOK)’s Here and Now project we covered some time ago? It has been updated recently to include movies and restaurants to the mix. This means that now (and here ) you will also be able to check out movie listings in theaters around, as well as good places to eat — all from a comfort of your Nokia (or other manufacturer’s) Symbian S60 smartphone.

In addition to the feature upgrade, the latest version of Here and Now also fixes some of the known bugs reported by the users. The download link remains the same…

[Via: Nokia Beta Labs]

After much ado concerning T-Mobile (NYSE: DT)’s “Project Dark”, their unlimited plans with device financing are now ready to roll. Even More (2-year contract) and Even More Plus (no contract) both offer three tiers for voice, web, and data service (either for individuals or families), each topped with an unlimited option. On the last podcast, Will and I talked a lot about what this kind of pricing means for American wireless – overall, it’s good news for everybody, since end consumers aren’t weighted with a steep initial cost on expensive handsets, and T-Mobile gets to viably sell unsubidized hardware on the Even More Plus plan, as well as encourage users to take up high-end data plans to make full use of newly affordable smartphones. The $79.99 Even More Plus unlimited plan is the star of the new options, just keep in mind you’ll be making bigger payments on device financing since the handset is unsubsidized. Head over to T-Mobile for more info.

Mobango, which calls itself “the first social mobile application store”, has announced that its global community (read: users) has reached over five million members – who, between them, have downloaded more than 550 million pieces of mobile content so far!

The Mobango community is primarily made up of the important and hard to reach, ‘young’ (18-25) and ‘young adult’ (26-34) demographic. Around the world very strong local communities of these age ranges have been built up –the largest currently being in the US, India, UK and Italy, but with Germany and Spain coming up fast. Mobango’s unique strength lies in not only being a mobile site to just download apps, but also being somewhere that members can share apps and personal content with their friends – and interact via their phones.

Either way round, those are extremely impressive stats – not quite in the league of the App store, but certainly well on the way!

You can read more about Mobango here.

SendMe Mobile has today announced a partnership with Sony Music Entertainment to offer mobile users access to Sony Music’s roster through SendMeMobile.com.

As part of the agreement, SendMe will offer users a comprehensive selection of Sony Music ringtones, videos and wallpaper images of artists such as Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Franz Ferdinand, T-Pain, Wyclef Jean and more. In addition, SendMe will deliver additional ringtones, images and video content from Sony Music’s extensive catalog never available before to mobile users.

Subscribers can download media directly onto their mobile devices at SendMeMobile.com or through one of SendMe’s distribution channels, such as imeem, Eventful and Univision. In addition, SendMe and Sony Music will unveil special co-branded sweepstakes to promote Sony Music’s hottest artists.

With this latest partnership, it means SendMe now offers content from all four major U.S. music labels – quite a statement in itself – but it has also in place agreements with emerging labels, top game publishers, movie studios and other leading content providers.

In simple terms, these guys have got the market really well covered in the US!

This one’s for mobile site webmasters/owners. Now they can add the Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Custom Search to their mobile site, just like they could do it on a full-blown website. The reason is obvious – Google wants to serve ads wherever they can, while providing a great service to the site visitors, no matter which device they [users] use to browse the Internet.

Here’s how it works:

If you own a web site and add a Google Custom Search box to it, when your users access the site on an Android-powered phone, iPhone, iPod Touch, or Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre, they will can see optimized search results formatted for these devices. When they search on your web site, they are can be redirected to a Google-hosted Custom Search mobile results page created specifically for your Custom Search engine. If you’d like to serve these mobile results from your own web site, you can host your own version of the mobile Custom Search home page.

Another great move by Google. I’m guessing we’ll soon see similar things released by Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) and Yahoo, though they first need to offer the “standard” custom search feature and then eventually “go mobile.”

[Via: Google Mobile Blog]

The company behind the real-time job search engine, TwitterJobSearch, is using the same technology (QuickPitch) for a new iPhone app called Real-Time Jobs. Using the application, job-seekers can attach an online CV, social media profile, and/or a video CV to job offers that have been posted to Twitter with a single click. As a result, Real-Time Jobs users will be able to find and apply for positions before they [job postings] even appear elsewhere on the web.

In addition to browsing and searching for jobs, you can also send them to friends and/or colleagues with a tap of a button. The same action [tapping] is all it takes to apply for a job. It’s really that easy, hence we recommend downloading Real-Time Jobs. It’s a free download and the AppStore link is here.

Orange France is the latest carrier to jump on the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Messaging scheme. The France Telecom-owned operator will offer the service with its Origami Plus and Origami Jet monthly plans, as well as with the Orange email option. Following devices will be offered in the time of launch: Nokia 5230, Nokia E71, Nokia N97 and the Nokia N97 mini.

And as you know, using Nokia Messaging you can access thousands of webmail services from your mobile phone — including the most popular ones such as Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail.

[Via: Nokia PR]

Juniper Research’s latest report titled “Mobile Money Transfer & Remittances: Markets, Forecasts & Strategies 2009-2014″ argues that the consumer demand for mobile money transfer services will see users exceed 500 million globally by 2014, most of which will come from the developing countries. The reason is simple – for many people living in such markets, a mobile phone will be their first touch with the banking system.

However, Juniper also points out that many of the mobile money services being announced will face political, regulatory or commercial challenges along the way.

Further findings from the report include:

• Sophisticated mobile financial services such as loans and savings accounts can add to the attractiveness of mobile money services, and help to reduce mobile operator churn;
• Africa & Middle East, Far East & China and the Indian Sub Continent will be the leading regions for national mobile money transfer services in 2014;

More information is available from Juniper Research’s website.

Mobile barcode solutions provider Scanbuy announced a deal with Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE), which will pre-load the ScanLife mobile barcode application on its handsets. Such phones [with pre-installed software] are already being sold in Spain, Italy, and Mexico; with more countries to follow in the coming months.

For those unfamiliar with ScanLife’s offering, here’s an excerpt from the press release:

The ScanLife mobile application uses the camera phone to read all major 1D and 2D barcode formats including Datamatrix, EZcode, QR, UPC, and EAN. The application scans a code to immediately launch a specific action like displaying a website, loading a video, dialing a phone number and more. This makes all physical objects interactive and removes the need for a user to type long URL’s or search for information using keywords.

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that Sony Ericsson is just a tip of the iceberg. ScanLife app works across multiple platforms — including Android, BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM), BREW, iPhone OS, Java, Symbian and Windows Mobile. It is available as a free download from this page.