Thursday, January 31, 2008

Vodafone's hopes in SA revived by Oger talks

Vodafone's hopes of securing control of South Africa's largest mobile phone operator have been revived by the actions of a Middle East telecoms group.Oger Telecom, the Dubai-based company, last month made a second informal offer to become the largest shareholder in Telkom, South Africa's leading telecoms group, which has a market capitalisation of R75bn ($10.6bn).

But that offer is dependent on Telkom's selling its 50 per cent stake in Vodacom, South Africa's largest mobile operator, according to people familiar with the situation.

Vodafone owns the other 50 per cent of Vodacom, and the UK group would be the most likely buyer for Telkom's stake.Vodafone is keen to secure control of Vodacom and use it as a springboard to expand its African operations. Vodafone and Oger declined to comment.

Oger first made an informal offer to become Telkom's largest shareholder while the South African company was in talks about a deal with MTN, the continent's leading mobile operator.MTN was interested in buying Telkom's fixed line phone assets, and Vodafone held parallel talks about purchasing the South African company's stake in Vodacom.

But in November Telkom terminated the talks with MTN, after disagreements on price. It also ended discussions with Vodafone.Oger made an improved informal offer to Telkom shortly after the MTN deal collapsed Telkom said on Tuesday that it was not in discussions with Oger, but that its board "will consider the Oger approach along with other alternatives".Oger owns Cell C, South Africa's third-largest mobile operator.

Oger is seeking to become Telkom's largest shareholder, paying in part by swapping Cell C shares for shares in Telkom. There would also be a cash component to the deal. Oger is proposing Cell C would become a subsidiary of Telkom after it sells its Vodacom stake.

Source : http://www.ft.com/

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Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Technologies on the rise in 2008

A number of technologies have exploded throughout 2007, from Facebook and the iPhone to the Nintendo Wii.
But what will be making the headlines over the next 12 months?
Here the BBC News website gives its predictions for five technologies that could become big in 2008.

1. The web to go
2. Ultra mobile PCs
3. IPTV
4. Wimax
5. Mobile VoIP

THE WEB TO GO

Google HQ

 Could the online and offline worlds meet in 2008?.One of the biggest drawbacks of web applications is that they can only be used when there is an internet connection.Although mobile working is becoming increasingly common, ubiquitous connectivity is still a long way off.But there are tools that are beginning to blur the online and offline worlds.Over the last 12 months a number of technologies that could have a significant impact on the

way people use the web.

 Search giant Google announced its Gears application whilst Adobe launched Air and Microsoft released Silverlight.All the technologies have the ability to take rich web content and make some of it available offline.For example Adobe has shown off an Ebay desktop application built using Air that would allow users to do much of the legwork required in setting up auctions offline.

The next time the user connects to the internet the listing would be posted to the website.Silverlight offers the reverse - the ability to build desktop applications and allow them to run in a web browser.Google Gears does not allow the creation of new applications but does allow web applications to be taken offline.For example, the developers of the free online office package Zoho use Gears to allow users to use their applications in a similar way to a normal desktop office program.2008 should see more examples of applications built with or using one of the three tools to make a truly seamless computing experience.

Source : http://news.bbc.co.uk

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Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Mobile Phone Providers (An Ethical Survey)

Recently I decided to change my UK mobile phone provider. My usage of my mobile is fairly minimal, but nevertheless I thought that it made sense to look for a provider who could demonstrate a degree of social and environmental responsibility. Therefore I set about trying to discover which mobile phone providers have any form of ethical policy, and if they do, what their policies actually are. The results have been instructive, so I thought it worthwhile giving an overview here.

I was surprised how difficult it was to come by information relating to the ethical stances taken by mobile phone service providers. Gooshing, the ethical shopping site has plenty of information about mobile phones, but as yet has no information concerning providers. Searching online did not come up with anything substantial. As a result, I decided to contact six major mobile phone providers myself. I wrote a brief email to all six companies as follows:

I am currently considering changing mobile phone providers for my Pay as You Go phone. As I am concerned about the wider effects of my actions as a consumer, I would like to use a company as my provider with the best possible ethical policies.

Therefore, I am getting in touch to ask if you could let me know whether you have any form of ethical policy for your mobile phone service provision, and if so, whether you could provide me with details.

All six providers that I contacted – 3, O2, Orange, T-Mobile, Virgin Mobile, and Vodafone – responded within a few days; but only one took the trouble to actually answer the question, and demonstrated even the most cursory sense of what it might be to have an ethical policy..

Source : http://www.thinkbuddha.org/
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Saturday, January 12, 2008

Nokia N95 update speeds apps with virtual memory

Nokia has posted a software update for its N95 handset which, it claimed, makes the "multimedia computer" load applications more quickly and play music for three more hours on a single battery charge.

The update, version 20.0.015, focuses on "battery, stability and performance improvements". Among them is the addition of "on-demand paging", essentially a way of parking blocks of memory to the handset's solid-state storage to make room for others - virtual memory, in other words.

The upshot, Nokia said, is that users can load more applications and switch between them more quickly than they could before.

nokia n95 hsdpa handset
Nokia's N95: play with it for longer

Users will also be able to re-arrange the S60's menu layouts courtesy of the New Menu Structure app that comes with the update.

The update's battery tweaks make for longer gaps between re-charges, with the Finnish phone giant quoting an extra 30 per cent music playback duration post-update. That takes the N95's continuous music play time from nine hours to 12.

The software also includes a new version of Nokia Maps, which builds on the previous update that added Assisted GPS - helping out the handset's GPS receiver using triangulation sent across the network - with even faster positioning.

Source :http://www.reghardware.co.uk
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Sony, Ericsson in mobile deal

Sony and Ericsson are setting up a joint venture to create a new range of mobile devices.

The companies got together to combine Ericsson's telecoms expertise with Sony's expertise in consumer electronics.

The products created will have neither companies' names on them, instead being marketed under a new brand in a similar fashion to the Playstation or Walkman, according to Kurt Hellstrom, chief executive of Ericsson and the new venture's chairman.Mobility and wireless is about to cross the border into all sorts of consumer electronicsKurt HellstromSony Ericsson Mobile CommunicationsThe development of a new brand is part of the new company's plan to accelerate the development of the mobile phones of tomorrow.

"We will create totally new multimedia mobile products," said Mr Hellstrom.These phones will become entertainment, video, games and music consoles in addition to being telephones and personal organisers."Mobility and wireless is about to cross the border into all sorts of consumer electronics; Walkman, Gameboy, video cameras and so on," Mr Hellstrom said.he still expects more people to access the internet from a mobile unit than from a fixed device by 2003.

"It will change the way we communicate with each other. And it will most certainly change the business game for our industry."London baseA new company will be set up in London to oversee the research and development, industrial design, sales and distribution of the mobile handsets.

Ericsson worker holding a mobile phoneToday's phoneSony Ericsson Mobile Communications will be operational from 1 October this year and it will launch its first products during the first half of 2002.It will have a global work force of 3,500.But the company will not produce the phones.This will be done by Sony, or by Ericsson's partners, including Flextronics.Combatting losses

The Japanese electronics giant Sony and the Swedish mobile phone company Ericsson joined forces to revitalise their lossmaking mobile phone operations.Ericsson's vision of the next generation mobile phonesTomorrow's phones?Each of the companies will own 50% of the new venture.



Source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/
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Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Orange cuts cost of plugging into the internet on a mobile phone 3G facts

The battle to encourage mobile phones users to connect to the internet on the move will intensify this week when Orange, one of Britain’s biggest operators, launches cut-price data deals including “free” content.

The French-owned group, which has 17 million UK customers, will unveil new tariffs that will allow mobile customers to have unlimited access to the net for a daily or monthly fee, or else pay for short “snacking” sessions. Access to basic news headlines and some search services will be free. At present, customers are charged per unit of data they use.

The move by Orange to simplify charges is part of the latest attempt by mobile operators to encourage customers to take up more lucrative data services and finally transform “3G” into a mass-market product.

In 2000, at the height of the dotcom boom, the five main mobile operators spent £22.5 billion acquiring licences to operate “third generation” technology. The new service was supposed to transform mobile phones into mini-pcs and see Britons video-calling and downloading movies on the go.

However, customers have remained defiantly uninterested and today 96 per cent of mobile revenues are still generated by plain calls and texting. Orange, in common with its rivals T-Mobile and 3, which have moved to flat-rate tariffs, believes that the slow uptake for internet services is down, in part, to confusing pricing.

The traditional way of offering access to the internet, priced per unit of data downloaded, usually per megabyte (equivalent to 20 web pages), is deemed deeply confusing by many customers.

Chris Frost, at Uswitch, the independent price comparison service, said that the new-style “all you can eat” deals being offered by operators were likely to stimulate uptake by consumers, but “more compelling products will still be required before 3G becomes mainstream”.

Source : http://business.timesonline.co.uk
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Thursday, January 03, 2008

Mobile phone cashback 'rip-off'

Mobile phone cashback schemes are still letting down too many consumers, says the telecoms regulator.Ofcom continues to get hundreds of complaints every month about the controversial deals, despite a new industry code of practice.The consumer organisation Which? wants cashback schemes banned, after research found a number of offers were in breach of the rules.

Mobile phone companies insist they take the code very seriously.Cashback deals are offered to customers who take out new contracts, and promise to refund some or all of their upfront costs at a later date.Thousands of people have already lost money through these dodgy deals, so don't touch them with a bargepole Malcolm Coles, Which?Often funded by commissions from the phone network, cashback can help persuade customers to sign up to expensive price plans.But the deals have proved controversial because the terms and conditions can be difficult to understand, and even harder to meet, meaning thousands of people fail to claim.

In many cases retailers have gone bust before consumers have received their cash.Minimum standards By March 2007, Ofcom was receiving 500 complaints about mobile phones every month, with half referring to cashback deals.In July it brokered a voluntary code of practice with the five mobile phone networks.This set out minimum standards for the marketing and administration of cashback deals, and listed terms deemed "unreasonable".If we see that offers are non-compliant with the code, then we will take action to rectify the situation Vodafone.

Ofcom supported the industry code on the basis that it would lead to a "significant" reduction in the volume of cashback complaints.That has not happened."We believe the number of complaints is still too high," said an Ofcom spokesman."We are now talking to both the mobile operators and the retailers and are looking at implementing other measures to give consumers more protection," she added.Further announcements are expected in the new year.

Source : http://news.bbc.co.uk
Posted by martin at 14:43:31 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |