Tag: vodafone
Femtocells – much more than a signal booster
Femtocells. Get used to that word because you’ll be hearing it a lot more in the future. Vodafone’s release of their signal boosting hub this week is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what femtocells is capable of.
US company Airvana and Sanjeev Verma, vice president of femtocell business, have just given me a demo of their HubBub femtocells and its ‘party alert’ application.
Basically, the HubBub sits in the house and, as well as solving any coverage issues by providing a stronger network using an existing broadband connection, it can monitor activity in the house.
Activity such as comings and goings. The scenario they showed me involved two ‘daughters’ arriving home from a day’s shopping only to be joined by a boyfriend and then two other friends. Each time an SMS was sent to my phone to alert me of the arrivals. The HubBub can be programmed to automatically sync and back-up phone contacts, so it knew the names of all of the daughter’s friends. Alerts could have been sent not only by SMS but by email, tweets, Facebook updates and so on.
But if the Vodafone release this week was just the tip of the iceberg then ‘party-alert’ is just, well, the bit below the tip. Femtocells has, in the words of Sanjeev Verma the power to “fundamentally transform the way mobile networks are built and then deployed”.
Not by simply monitoring activity in the house and giving you a good mobile signal but by completely changing the way people deal with their data and networks. For example, Airvana also demonstrated an app whereby photos taken using the daughters’ mobile phones were automatically detected by the HubBub and synced to a PC. These photos could have just as easily been sent to social networking sites, other phones or a photo service such as flickr. No need for cables, no need to sit down and transfer pictures. It was done automatically and it was done quickly due to the large bandwidth femtocells allows for.
And it’s not just photos, femtocells has the potential to manage any digital data. Sanjeev envisages an app store to rival that of Apple’s, where developers will come up with ways of using femtocells to enhance all aspects of digital life – whether that be gaming, music, films or anything else for that matter.
He sees the potential to advertisers as huge, he describes the possibility of “land-grabbing” marketing and promotion. Femtocells will be able to access your phone, your laptop, your netbook, your everything basically. If you are suddenly showing an interest in a new band then femtocells will know. If you suddenly start looking at a lot of car insurance websites then femtocells will know. Obviously you don’t have to allow femtocells to know anything if you don’t want it to. But then you’d miss out on offers or information that you might be really interested in.
Because of the relative cheapness of femtocells – in affect it ceases the need for building and maintaining transmitters for the networks – and the fact that most of the work for femtocell will be done by the ‘smart’ devices that connect to it; phones, computers and so on – the potential for femtocells’ growth is huge.
In the short time expect femtocells to be introduced by more mobile providers to increase signal coverage in the home. In the medium term expect femtocells to promote more family and home based services such as family calling plans and apps like ‘party alert’. In the long term expect femtocells to know everything about you – what you like, who you like and what you’re going to be doing in every aspect of your life. Expect to know all about femtocell sometime soon.
Check out Airvana’s website for more info.
Vodafone to launch 3G signal booster
If mobile phone coverage is a problem in your household then you may be interested in the Vodafone Access Gateway – a little box that plugs in to any broadband line to create a boosted 3G signal.
Vodafone is saying that the device is the first of its kind in Europe. Unfortunately, it only works on the Vodafone network but I suppose that is understandable – they’re hardly likely to want to improve the signal quality of their rivals.
The Vodafone Access Gateway will be available for free with some phone plans, as a one off payment of £160 or for a monthly charge of £5. It can handle up to four calls at once so would be perfect for a family home.
Get yours from Vodafone from 1st July and never miss a call again because of lack of coverage.
Mobile roaming charges slashed
There’s good news coming out of Brussels (don’t say this to anyone who voted UKIP) regarding mobile phone roaming charges. From July the cost of using your mobile phone abroad could be slashed by a whopping 60%.
Rules drawn up by the EU mean that the costs of a text will be cut to around 10p (€0.11 to be precise) down from the usual 25p – although I know from experience O2 charges 35p.
The costs of calls has been reduced too, although the ridiculous practice that you pay for calls received as well as those made still applies – albeit with price reductions. The cost of a call made will be cut to €0.46 a minute (work it out in pence yourselves, you lazy so-and-sos) and calls received will be €0.22 a minute. These prices will be further reduced in 2010 and 2011.
The cost of web browsing is still astronomical whilst abroad though so unless you’ve got plenty of dosh, avoid this. Prices have been reduced, but only to €1 a MB, meaning a song streamed from last.fm or a video watched via YouTube is still going to cost you a few quid.
Alternatively, sign up with Vodafone’s Passport scheme and receive free roaming for three months this summer. You simply pay the usual UK charges – have a read of this post from last month for more details. Or go direct to Vodafone.
(via Digital Lifestyles)
HTC Magic Android phone – SHINY VIDEO REVIEW
Let’s start with the easy part. The HTC Magic is a great phone. Android is bloody ace and I don’t suppose there was much of a chance of the handset makers mucking this one up after doing such a good job of implementing the OS on the G1. What they have done is made the thing a lot prettier at the expense of the hard keyboard.
Slightly sad to lose the traditional finger tapper initially but you get into the touch typing very quick. Cupcake’s a welcome addition to the experience with all the video goodness it brings and the paid for apps but there are still a couple of niggles. I’ll let Zara explain.
The thing is, you can get picky about these issues – and essentially it’s my job to do so – but there’s nothing really wrong with this handset. Don’t rely on it as your main camera but, other than, that I’d give it Dan’s big Tech Digest thumbs up. You can grab it from £30 per month on Voda through the link below. Enjoy, and happy browsing.
HTC Magic on Vodafone
Roaming's out for summer with Vodafone
Vodafone UK is offering all of its customers a three month amnesty on roaming charges this summer from 1st June.
All pay monthly and PAYG users on their network can sign up for the Vodafone Passport scheme from 15th May and two weeks later they’ll be able to make calls, send texts and picture messages from any one of 35 countries across Europe back to the UK at their normal domestic rates.
This is basically the best thing ever although one does wonder that if they can afford to do it for three months, why not do it a little bit more or even all the time?
The deal with Vodafone Passport normally is that you have to get yourself on the right affiliate network in whatever country you’re in, then you pay 70-odd pence for the first minute and every other one after that comes out of your normal monthly allowance.
So, the step Vodafone is taking here is that from 1st June till 31st August, they’re removing that initial 70p. Presumably, you’ll still have to manually select the right foreign network before you dial.
If you want to get involved – and I imagine that’s anyone planning a summer holiday – text the word ‘Passport’ to 97888 if you pay monthly or to 2345 if you’re PAYG. You can also visit Vodafone.
The second deal Vodafone has on offer is a permanent change but it’s for PAYG Simply tariff customers only. They’re allowing calls abroad from the UK to international destinations from as little as 5p per minute to both landlines and mobile phones with the Vodafone International scheme. Sign up by calling 36888 or texting the word ‘international’ to 2345.
Got to hand it to Vodafone. They’ve pulled a very good, very clever bit of business here. Might just put a few people off that new iPhone 3G – for now anyway.
T-Mobile UK – mergers, acquisitions and a huge slice of the UK mobile pie
Let’s start this from the top. T-Mobile UK has had its name plastered all over the business pages of late.. Rumour is rife that they’re to sell out or merge in some way since a spokesman from the their parent company, Deutsche Telekom, expressed disappointment at the upcoming results in the UK market. Predications are of a writedown of 1.8bn euros and he said:
“The British market is highly competitive and has comparably low margins. In our view consolidation is a means to take excess capabilities out of the market. Nothing is unthinkable on our side.”
Now, on the one hand, this is fantastic non-committal business speak but at the same time it’s not the kind of talk you’d come out with if you weren’t planning on taking some kind of action. So exactly what is the plan? Well, they could reduce the investment in the UK branch of T-Mobile but then that’ll only cause an equally large loss of market share and profit. So, quite rightly, all the talk is of merger or takeover or somewhere in between. The question is, with or by whom?
3
The most obvious candidates are the struggling UK networks with 3 presumably top of the list. 3 seems to have the money, the ambition, the plan, the drive and, to put it bluntly, the bollocks to pick up T-Mobile with whom they already share a network. Now, if they took hold of T-Mobile’s huge customer base too, then that old problem of termination charges wouldn’t be quite the barrier it’s proved so long to be.
Orange
Orange has lost its way. From a consumer point of view, they’ve done nothing interesting since Orange Wednesdays and that fashionable network image they had in the 90s has all but vanished. All we’re left with is a few cinema adverts and bunch of expensive animal tariffs that no one understands or particularly wants to get involved with.
They don’t do a lot in the way of gutsy exclusive handsets deals and, although it’d be just the tonic to get them back on their feet, I can’t see them getting involved. Hard to tell whether it’s a question of not having the cash to play with or the lack of foresight but it’s high time Orange made a move of some sort.
Virgin Mobile
Surely this is the moment for the third wheel of the UK networks? There hasn’t been any room for a sixth operator and if Branson is serious about this foray into telephony then here’s an easy way to finally get a foothold, but does he, or various branches of his media empire, have the cash to back it up? I think not.
O2 & Vodafone
The two biggest kids in the park aren’t probably so much interested in what T-Mobile would offer them as what it would take away from the other players if they controlled it too.
Part of me feels that Vodafone is too aloof as an operator to get involved and it’s questionable whether O2 has the capital after the extensive market push in the last five years. They’d probably love a piece of T-Mobile. They’d pretty much have the top tariffs and many of the handsets in the country completely sewn up but, as I say, one wonders how much cash they’ve got left after sponsoring the Dome amongst other marketing spending.
UK ISPs
Mobile broadband is a fantastically growth area at the moment and T-Mobile has been doing an excellent job of getting their 3G solutions out there in the shape of netbooks and dongles. It actually represents quite a shame that DT is looking to sell at all considering their UK department has such a progressive attitude to data, price plans, handsets, offers and advertising but thems the breaks, unfortunately.
So, with broadband such an important utility these days, then this might be the kind of space where a fixed line ISP might be able to extend their reach. Naturally, it’d be a tricky move into a very strange world, as far as handsets are concerned, but there have to be worries out there in the industry that 3, 4 or 5G technology might eventually present consumers with the option of ditching a separate home broadband solution. This would be a good time for an ISP to start future-proofing their business model.
Others
The final option is that another player not from the mobile telephony world would jump into the game and with a sizeable slice of the pie too if they could stump up the estimated £3.2bn for T-Mobile. One suggestion is News Corps’s Sky who might be interested in offering the kind of TV, landline, broadband and mobile packages that Virgin Media does.
Another option is BT who, admittedly, has the tiniest of little fingers in the moble pie already but I’ve never met anyone who uses a BT Fusion handset. Have you?
BT must rue the day they flogged Cellnet which of course became O2. Perhaps this is their chance to get back in and you could certainly imagine them finding the money.
Conclusions
Whatever the outcome, I’d be surprised if this is the last we hear of Deutsche Telekom’s UK troubles. There’s already a few shareholders speaking their minds and it’s all gone eerily quite at all the other operators.
I suppose the big question for the consumer is what difference it will make for us and, of course, that’s all about who would buys T-Mobile out. Personally, I’d like to see 3 take up the mantle. They probably have the best understanding of the network through working with them at the moment and they might finally be able to deliver the value they offer customers on a much larger scale.
We wait to see.
HTC Magic Video: Hands on with the UK's second Android phone
I met up with Vodafone this morning to take a look at one of the hottest handsets of the summer, the HTC Magic known to some as the G2, known by all as the second Google Android phone available in the UK.
Straight up, it’s obvious that this handset is the looker of the two Android siblings at the moment. It may not be a particularly orginal form with the iPhone two years old now but I like the way they’ve taken “the chin” and turned it from a jutting Jimmy Hill to a more handsome Robert Redford. Take a look.
This missing flash will wind you up if the camera is the most important feature for you but otherwise there’s very little to complain about. It comes loaded with Android 1.5, aka Cupcake, meaning you can take video and upload straight to YouTube and Picasa, and there’s no longer the need for a hard keyboard. The virtual one seems certainly no worse than the iPhone’s.
The battery’s a slight improvement on the G1 with a 1340 mAh capacity which should see you out a a full day of heavy use before it’s time to plug in again.
A single small USB port at the bottom means you’ll have to use the in-box 3.5mm adaptor to fit your preferred headphones in, but it’s good to see they’ve had the issue in mind.
All in all, an A1 phone. Still time to get a fiver off the monthly tariff if you order today. £30 a month for 18 months grabs you a free handset, 600 mins and “unlimited” data and texts to the tune of 500MB per month and around 3,000 messages.
The handset is only available in white in the UK but that’s no bad thing until you dirty it up with your muddy paws.
HTC Magic spec sheet
The lowdown on the HTC Magic – pricing, release dates and contract info
We’re eagerly awaiting the Vodafone HTC Magic, which is basically the G2, so that there’ll be a little more choice in the Android chunk of the mobile phone market. The G1’s all well and good, and I like it more the more I use it, but evolution – even if it removes the lovely keyboard – is good too.
The HTC Magic will go onsale in the UK on the 1st May. Before that, you’ll be able to pre-order the handset from the 17th April, though I’m thinking that it’s fairly unlikely there’s going to be queues around the block, so you’ll probably be able to get one on the day itself.
It’ll be only available on an 18 month contract for £30 a month (totalling £540). That’ll get you 600 minutes, though, as well as “unlimited” texts and “unlimited” emails. Those will have some sort of crappy and overly restrictive fair-usage limit, no doubt. I hope Vodafone’s prepared for G2 users to hit that internet limit.
(via UK Gadgeteer)
Twitter back on SMS to Vodafone customers
Twitter and Vodafone have struck a deal to see SMS updates and notifications back free of charge on UK handsets once more. The two catches, and they are whompingly large ones, are that you have to be a Vodafone customer and that the offer is only free for an unspecified limited period of time quoted as being “the first few weeks”.
You can use @replies and navigate straight to the site by the URL included in the message and the deal will be bundled for free into a number of Vodafone text packages. If not in your bundle, you’ll still be able to use it, but you’ll have to start paying when the limited period finishes.
It’s all reasonably good news if you’re on Vodafone but there’s still something of a bad taste in my mouth when the whole thing used to be free for all anyway. Despite being a Vodafone customer, I might go with my esteemed colleague, Duncan Geere, on this one and just not bother going back.
Guardian finally launches mobile website
I read newspapers on the bus in the morning. Not on paper – that’s expensive, wasteful and a bit of a hassle – but on my humble Nokia N95. I start with mobile Techmeme, then hit up Google News for the big stories, then over to the New York Times, because their mobile site is one of the best there is.
If I was forced to pick up a paper copy of the newspaper, it’d probably be the Guardian. Their website’s second only to the BBC for me, when it comes to online, too. That’s why it’d be nice to get the paper’s editorial perspective on my phone. And now I can!
Well, that’s a bit of an overstatement, actually. I could if I was on Three. Guardian News & Media has launched an initial version of its mobile site on the Planet 3 portal. Following a period of exclusivity with 3, and then another period of exclusivity with Vodafone, the general public will finally get access later this year.
It won’t be a moment too soon. Although phones are starting to get better at displaying the full internet, it doesn’t take much to slim down your page load times and shrink the photos, and many people won’t have full-internet capable phones for a few years.
What’s your experiences with mainstream media on mobile devices? Share them in the comments.
