Phones 4U, which is a popular highstreet retailer in the UK, is apparently facing an investigation for alleged misselling, according to the FT. Phones 4U has over 440 stores in the UK, generated sales of £755mn in 2007 – as you can see then, a major player….. Ofcom, the UK Telecoms regulator, has said that…
TomTom gets nod to buy out TeleAtlas
TomTom has been cleared by the EC to acquire mapping company TeleAtlas. TeleAtlas provides digital maps and content forms the core of many Nav and LBS (location-based services) offering – Google Maps for example! TomTom on the other hand has sold nearly 20 mn ddevices, mostly the Sat Nav units. Since last year, TomTom has…
Nimbuzz launches Mobile VoIP in UK
Nimbuzz (a small company from the Netherlands) has launched Mobile VoIp in the UK. The app apparently aggregates user logins/contacts from a shed-load of online IM services and social networks, including Skype, MSN, Google Talk, Yahoo!, AIM, Jabber, ICQ, Facebook, Myspace, and several others. Nimbuzz also apparently works on 90+ handsets, including the Series60 and…
Ericsson chief expects 6.5 bn mobile subscriptions by 2013
Chief Exec of Ericsson, Carl-Henric Svanberg, has said he expects the number of mobile subscriptions to hit 6.5bn by 2013. He has also said that he is expecting internet broadband usage to hit about 2.5bn, of which two-thirds would be “mobile broadband”. Of course, there is a link from his predictions to where his company…
UK: Vodafone outreaches mobile broadband network
Vodafone UK is extending it’s HSPA coverage for mobile broadband to 6 new cities – Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester and Reading. This will give users downlink speeds of up to 7.2 Mb/s, with up to 1.8 Mb/s on the uplink. Right now, HSPA is only available in London and major UK airports, so it’s…
Taiwanese want GPS as #1 feature in phones
A survey by Canalsys has found very high awareness of satellite navigation (“Sat Nav”) amongst consumers, with more than 80% being aware of what it does. 60% of those surveyed said they used the web to search for directions and then print them. So when asked which services they were interested in having on a…
UK: leading mobile social networking!
Nielsen Mobile has just released stats showing that the UK leads Europe in mobile social networking – apparently 810,000 subscribers visited social networking sites on their handsets in Q1 2008! Facebook was the most popular SN site in the UK, with myspace in second place – which is the opposite to what was found in…
dotMobi buys up Mowser
dotMobi, the mobile domain name consortium, has hoovered up the IP and site, of Mowser, a service that has been publicly EOL’d (End-of-lifed) only recently. General opinion is that the buy-out is a good thing, with both parties (here and here) blogging that they are very happy with the end result. For those of you…
Samsung overtakes Motorola in India
Q1 2008 has delivered a shake-up in the rankings of Mobile Handset Vendors in India. Nokia continues to dominate, follow by Sony Ericsson. However, Samsung have now passed Motorola to take 3rd position (echoing changes that we have seen occurring in other countries). If you want some stats, and I’m sure you do, Nokia are…
MTNL launching mobile TV in June
Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL) is poised to launch Mobile TV next month, signalling just how far the pervading influence of this service is spreading globally. MTNL will initially have 21 channels on their platform. With Mobile TV, slowly but surely, we are witnessing the mobilization of what was a “lean-back”, in-home service, in to a…