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Operators

We pay close attention to the industry behemoths. Carriers, operators, MNOs, MVNOs — call them what you will — there’s no getting away from the fact that they’re instrumental. In this section we document everything from price plan changes to strategy announcements and good old double-barreled rants.

So o2 has currently been behind all the other networks when it came to mobile broadband, however it seems they may have pulled the cat out of the bag.
From Mobile Today;

O2 is looking to accelerate sales of its mobile broadband by offering a money-back guarantee amid growing consumer uncertainty regarding speeds and coverage for dongles.The [...]

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This is another one I was contacted on Facebook by someone on Three asking to promote the opportunity to win £25,000 (Credit Crunch anyone??) to blow on a party for the winner and all their Facebook friends.

For more details checkout their Facebook Page.
Once again it is great to see companies like 3 embracing Social Networking [...]

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“It’s all very well for folk in London”, I thought, as I walked through the O2 Dome the other day, “But if you’re sat in Hartlepool, there’s not much value to be got from being an O2 customer.”
The multi-year sponsorship of the Millenium Dome is rather nifty. Renamed ‘the O2′, you can get priority tickets [...]

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That’s the subject of the email I got last night from reader, Kai. It wasn’t all sweetness and light with the G1 launch yesterday, then.
I know four people who got one yesterday without a hitch. But Kai was definitely not having a good day — he went on to list out his experiences [...]

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Anna and Will from NixonMcInnes are working with T-Mobile UK to bring them into the 21st Century.
And it’s a good job they are.
For a long time, T-Mobile have been the proverbial arse-in-the-corner, ignoring the blogosphere because it’s, well, unknown.. and filled with.. er… the great unwashed…
For any organisation accustomed to broadcasting to customers and potential [...]

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The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (”ASA”) has taken the hatchet to Vodafone UK’s mobile broadband advertising.
The ads typically showed a USB broadband stick looking like a rocket jetting into outerspace, with a strapline explaining that Vodafone’s mobile broadband service is ‘light years ahead’ of the competition. The ad also aimed to point out that [...]

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I love it when I see mobile phones being put to good use, and I also love it when say for important issues, mobile phones are being utilised to capture a target audience in the best sense and way possible.
I was browsing around my daily choice of news reads, when I came across an article [...]

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I’m pleased to see that T-Mobile UK have got-wit-the-programme and launched online sales support:

As for how good it is… well I’ll give it a go shortly and see…

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Another network exclusivity was announced today the HTC Touch is going to Orange according to this article over at Mobile News.
The Touch HD comes with a 3.8 inch, high resolution, widescreen WVGA touchscreen and a 5 megapixel auto focus camera. The device also comes with HTC’s TouchFLO 3D user interface and is fitted with a [...]

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What’s this all about then?
Here’s what the text on the page says:
It’s coming soon. 13th November. It will change the way you use Facebook on your phone. Trust us, you don’t want to miss out. Be the first to find out more.
Can you say ‘Facebook phone?’

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Despite getting rightly beaten up by colleague Ben Smith (regarding their rather appalling 3G / WiFi Router), we’ve got some good things to say about 3 this morning.
3UK has done a deal with 4th Screen (the single point of contact for mobile advertising that’s part of MIG) and Mobix Interactive (the technical supplier).
Later this year, [...]

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Kip has, apparently, used up more than 3GB of data on o2. This, according to that letter that he got from o2. The dreaded ‘you’re abusing our network’ letter.
The first he heard was this experience:
Was doing a brief shop around Sainsburys when I got an SMS through from O2. It said
‘O2 : Due [...]

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Over at Mobile News they are reporting that 3UK are set to launch a new unlimited package at £15.

Unlimited calls, texts to 3 customers and 1GB data to boot
3 last week revealed it’s to launch a new £15 unlimited calls and text tariff through stores in November.
The deal, which also includes 1GB of data, will [...]

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Jon Fisher, one of the original founding directors of Blyk UK (the others being David Wilkinson, Geoff Morely and Jonathan MacDonald), has quit and is taking up a position at Vectone Mobile.
Vectone are big in MVNO — international calling or ‘ethnic’, to be precise. They’ve got operations across Scandanavia, Holland, UK (”Chilli Talk“) [...]

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I logged into my T-Mobile UK account this evening. Remember last week I tried to setup Direct Debit and I couldn’t, because they were busy processing direct debits ‘within 7 days’ — and as their system is so flakey, they couldn’t accept new payment info?
Well, this evening I was greeted with:

Uh oh.
Bad news, right? [...]

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The US text message market is in a bit of flux.
I’ve been getting phone calls and text messages from aggregators across the country who can’t quite believe that, from 1st November 2008, Verizon will apply a $0.03 transaction fee on every outgoing text message through it’s network.
I can’t quite believe it either.
It did cost roughly [...]

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Pete’s been a reader of Mobile Industry Review for a little while and decided to drop me a note after experiencing the ultra hard sell from a chap at Vodafone UK. Have a read:
- - - - -
Hi Ewan, I received your dispatches about your own experiences of ‘mobile-world’ and notice you’ve leaned quite [...]

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Steve over at The Hot Aisle is rather unimpressed to note that according to Germany’s Der Spiegel, 17 million T-Mobile customer records were stolen by thieves.
But it was back in 2006.
German Police have reportedly recovered copies of the data.
But some bright spark — or a few bright sparks — are thought to still be [...]

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If you haven’t seen this weeks Mobile Industry Review Show, then go and check it out now!
If you have seen it then you can now play with Android yourself here.

As you can imagine all the functions are not available, however for those of you who have only read about the device this is your opportunity [...]

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A lot of the content here at MIR especially regarding the networks is heavily UK oriented, however I picked this up in my news feeds regarding one over the networks over the water in Ireland.
Over at Mobile News they are reporting that Meteor reached 1 million customers earlier this month;
Meteor chief executive Larry Smith presented [...]

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I see that Virgin Media/Mobile has launched a Mobile Broadband dongle.

They have NO business doing this.
No business at all.
THIS from a company that charges 0.5 pence per Kb for mobile data to handsets.
THIS from a company that still has ‘SEE ABOVE FOR WAP CHARGES‘ on it’s tariff page.
WAP charges?
Virgin Mobile is stuck in the dark [...]

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If you’re a true telecoms geek (and lets face it, if you’re reading MIR, you’re well on your way) then you’ve thought, nay dreamed, about having your own private mobile network. Even for the non-techies amongst us (I’ve been told there are some), the allure of not having to pay any money to the Vodafones [...]

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According to Mobile Today, Phones 4u have stepped up the game in the bid to target students and are offering deals such as offering £100 of free music on any price plan.
Which is fantastic except there are not doing a very good job advertising it to us. In fact this year all the networks and [...]

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A friend of my wife’s has emailed.
She’s just finished 18 months of contractual service with Orange and the company that sold her the deal has phoned her up again, wanting to flog another contract. They’re offering her 600 minutes (I imagine cross-network) along with unlimited text messaging for £30 a month. And, I [...]

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I was rather surprised to see that Orange here in the UK has actually got an option on it’s menu structure called ‘iPhone Alternatives‘.
iPhone must be hurting them. Here’s a snapshot — see the bottom menu:

Click on the menu item and you’re presented with four options — Blackberry Bold, Samsung Omni, Samsung Tocco and [...]

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