Do you have any suggestions I can pass the reader?

He’s looking for a UK company — but if you’ve got any international suggestions that would supply a UK dial-in number, that would still work.

Email me or post below? I’m ewan@mobileindustryreview.com.

Update: Scott Curzon from Bridge Talk got in touch to say that his company holds the Guinness World Record for the largest conference call ever (10,424 participants) and that they have dial-in numbers in 67 countries around the world. Probably a good company to talk to, if you’re in the market for these kind of services!

Have you noticed we’ve got a new advertiser recently on Mobile Industry Review?

Wapple.

Smart chaps. Thank you for your support, Wapple — you’re helping us keep the lights on here at MIR.

If you haven’t taken a look at Wapple recently, please do.

Here are their headlines (from the landing page of the ad):

- Mobile websites that take millions of hits daily
- Sites that look and work perfectly on every mobile device
- The easiest way to get your content on mobile
- Mobile campaigns that respond uniquely to every visit
- The fastest way to get your brand on mobile

Here’s a nifty quote from Mr Mark Bamber of MTV Europe who’s impressed with their offering:

“Wapple have demonstrated the dynamic nature of their technology by meeting our specifications and instantly applying modifications on request. Bespoke developments have been speedy, allowing our mobile internet designs to be realised and in some cases exceeded”

And here are the key Wapple people.

If you’d like a personal intro, please let me know.

The industry is continually comparing Apples and Pears when it comes to mobile marketing. Witness the following from Jonathan’s recent post on the matter:

Page 12 of NMA (27.11.08) contains a piece by Charlotte McEleny who writes that “Some 65% of young consumers find mobile messaging from brands too intrusive, according to a report by lifestyle research company Tuned In.”

The headline screams ‘Young people alienated by brands using mobile for marketing’

I think its time we nail down some taxonomy here.

Jonathan continues:

Just adding the words ‘without permission’ to the end of the above headline would have shown a more accurate picture. As it stands, at a glance you could argue that mobile is troublesome, anti-productive and interfering.

Jonathan is absolutely right.

What does ‘mobile marketing’ mean. Is that receiving MMS messages — that you HAVE signed up for?

Or is it getting a Bluetooth message sent to your handset automatically because you have Bluetooth turned on and you walked by particular bus shelter with the gizmo activated?

Thus, my suggestion is to clarify for clarity’s sake. Let’s add the context where we can to enable balanced decisions and rational actions based on the full story rather than propaganda.

I nominated you, Mr MacDonald, to write the taxonomy!

I haven’t really thought about the communications side of tomorrow much, seeing as I’m more worried about everything else. However, as Ewan pointed out to me tomorrow morning I will spending more time than I have in a long time, using my mobile phone.

From what I’ve seen from previous year groups (we’ve been shown videos into scaring us to work hard), everyone is using their mobile; so how will I be using mine tomorrow?

Firstly, there are my plans to Twitter everything. It’s more of a plan to keep me sane whilst walking into School than anything else. Then again it’s also partially so that anyone who is interested enough to care, can follow what’s happening on my Facebook and Twitter profile.

Then, there are the “after reading the results” communications. Obviously, whether good or bad (that sends shivers down my spine), my family will want to know.

That’ll mean making a phone-call to my Mum, and trying to tell her everything whilst everyone else in my year group is at the same time. My School is also built in such a way that gaining a signal is near impossible, so I’ll have to hunt around for a good spot, preferably away from my teary-eyed and excited peers.

I don’t doubt for a single second that the hundred and eighty strong year group will not be making dozens of calls and texts. With everyone owning a mobile phone, and eager parents, I expect everyone will have fully prepared and topped up mobiles.

The rest of my family, namely my Grandparents have asked me to send them a text or “drop call” them. I can only imagine that even if I text them the results, they’ll be phoning me up, probably with speakerphone on, so that they can all hear.

And finally, another Twitter update.

Isn’t it odd to think that five years of work will be summed up by 180 characters on the internet? Hmm, whatever the outcome, I don’t want think about it now.

What’s even weirder to think about is that there will be around three hundred thousand students receiving their results tomorrow, and probably doing the exact same thing. Maybe not the Twittering though, because I don’t know of anyone in my friend groups, or year group who micro-blog; but I can guarantee that a number of texts and phone calls will be made.

With any luck whatever I will be texting and saying on my phone tomorrow, it’ll be good – although I don’t have high hopes for Music. But even so, at least I can phone up a reassuring voice in the event of anything drastically horrible.

And that is why I love my mobile phone.

Best of wishes to anyone else who are also receiving any results tomorrow!

The price rises, which go into effect next month, will see call costs rising by between 3p and 5p a minute. A Vodafone spokesperson The Sun that most customers shouldn’t see their bills rising by more than 10 percent.

It’s most likely the price rises – following hot on the heels of similar moves from T-Mobile and O2 – are a reflection of the wobbly economic situation at the moment, as well as a way of clawing back some of the cash lost as a result of the roaming regulation passed by the EC which cut the cost of using mobiles while abroad significantly. While it’s not a surprising move from the operators, it is a disappointing one.

Here’s an interesting question to begin with: how much would it cost you to call a number that began 05xx? Would it be counted in your inclusive minutes? If you have a few minutes to spare, wander into a mobile shop or call your service provider and ask them. (But don’t be surprised if the answer is along the lines of “Er, dunno. What the hell is an 05xx number anyway?”

OK, so the 05xx number range is a little obscure (it’s been set aside by Ofcom for VOIP numbers). We should take something easy like mobile numbers. A number that begins 07xxx is a mobile number, right? And that’s included in my minutes, right?

Er, no.

While many, if not most, of the readers of SMS Text News will be aware that there are 07xxx numbers that either aren’t mobile numbers at all, or are not charged as such by operators, I’ve lost track of the number of conversations I’ve had with people who just aren’t aware that there could be an issue. (This includes people who work for operators!) Their view is the simple view that consumers have been given to believe – 07xxx is a mobile number.

In the UK, we have the illusion of a simple numbering scheme for telephone numbers. From that, it should be easy to understand what you’re going to be charged for a call. But it’s simply not like that. As one of the commentators to my post on reducing roaming charges pointed out, I should really have checked to make sure that my travel SIM really was a UK number and hence included in my inclusive minutes before I setup call forwarding.

The worst part is that the number ranges that may or may not be included varies from operator to operator. So a call that would be in my inclusive minutes for one operator would not be included if I move to another operator. There’s nothing wrong with that in principle, but it is confusing, and the operators don’t help. Three, for example, list the excluded 07xxx number ranges on page 32 of their tariff guide, and they’re not even in numerical order. A quick check is not possible. O2 do say that Jersey and Manx numbers are not included, but don’t tell you how to identify those numbers. Three don’t mention (or if they do, I can’t find it in the tariff guide) 05xx numbers, O2 do at least tell you that they’re excluded.

And that’s before I come to the debacle that is 08xx numbers. These are the non-geographic numbers, i.e. the prefix does not indicate where the telephone line is actually located. Non-geographic numbers are useful for all sorts of reasons, which I won’t go into here. What I want to go into is the problem, which is that the 08xx prefixes set charging expectations: 0800 is a free call, 0844 and 0845 are charged at local rates, 0870 and 0871 are charged at national rates. All well and good, apart from two things: the concept of local and national rate calls doesn’t apply to mobiles (and I don’t think it even applies to landlines any more), and we now have bundles of minutes included with both landline and mobile rentals.

The operator response to these problems is simple. They exclude 08xx calls from your monthly allowances, and have a special tariff for them. It’s not even the same rate as your overage for calls. Nope, you’ll pay extra to call a number which was intended (or at least promoted to consumers) to limit the price you would pay to call someone. I actually have to pay more to call an 0800 freephone number from my mobile than I would pay to call any UK landline!

The charging expectations that I mentioned above just aren’t met by the reality. To be fair, I also get gouged by my fixed line provider, which is why I don’t call 08xx numbers any more. (Apart from 0800 numbers from home, which are free of course.)

Again, SMS text news readers will (mostly) say that this is a known issue, mention the website http://www.saynoto0870.com, and move on. But it isn’t a known issue for normobs, and instead of things getting simpler, they’re getting more complicated. The net result is that consumers are being charged for calls that they could reasonably expect to be free, or included in their package already.

You’d think that the regulator would be all over this, but as far as I can tell, Ofcom aren’t doing much. What they have done is open up a new number range, 03xx numbers. These are meant to be non-geographic, but the cost is limited to no more than a national rate call to an 01 or 02 number, and any calls must count towards inclusive minutes in the same way as 01 and 02 calls. There’s some woolly talk on the Ofcom web site about recommending that 0870 calls cost no more than normal calls, and that’s about as far as they go.

It’s not good enough. The rules around the 03xx range are a clear sign that Ofcom understands the issue. They just aren’t dealing with it aggressively enough. It should be the case that 07xxx are UK mobile numbers, no exceptions, and billed as such, and that 08xx numbers are included in bundled minutes and billed as if they were regular 01xx/02xx numbers out of bundle.

That this is not the case, and that consumers are largely kept in the dark about the resulting charges, should be an embarrassment to the regulator, operators, and industry in general.