All Posts Tagged With: "Jonathan Jensen"
My recent trip to Budapest gave me the opportunity to try out a couple of mobile services that would dramatically reduce the cost of roaming compared to using my regular UK SIM card – MAXroam and DeFi Mobile. Why two services? MAXroam is SIM based so provides worldwide coverage wherever there’s a mobile network and [...]
Continue ReadingI’ve been looking at iNum, a new service from Voxbone. iNum has launched as a global phone number that isn’t tied to a specific geographical location. It uses the new global ‘country code’ 883 to give users a number that will reach them wherever they are, with no geographical implications. Voxbone’s vision is that phone [...]
Continue ReadingThere are lots of neat mobile VoIP services out in the market – two of my favourites are Truphone and DeFi mobile because of the way they embed themselves into a Nokia S60 handset, provide an additional phone number and just work where there’s WiFi. However one provider that I’ve been taking another look at [...]
Continue ReadingRecently I’ve been canvassing opinion about tariffs. I asked the question ‘How many mobile tariffs meet the basic tenets of simplicity & predictability?’ Every answer I received was ‘none’, which got me thinking. What should tariffs look like and is anyone offering ‘customer friendly’ tariffs yet? Mobile tariffs expect customers to guess [...]
Continue ReadingMobile phones are at the heart of the convergence of communications with multimedia applications like photos, music, GPS and gaming. Increasingly, consumers are buying devices that support multimedia creation and consumption, however many of these devices still seem to be compromises that don’t deliver outstanding functionality across all applications. They do some tasks very well [...]
Continue ReadingI recently installed Dell Video Chat, following a tip from Andy Abramson. Dell Video Chat is the Dell branded version of SightSpeed and is another step in Dell’s bid to be a software company as well as a hardware company. The software is a free download and provides an improved user interface compared to SightSpeed’s [...]
Continue ReadingLast month I wrote about a new mobile VoIP service, DeFi. I’ve been using DeFi for a couple of weeks now, initially on my Nokia E65 and now on my E51, and it’s proving to be an excellent mobile VoIP service, both in terms of call quality and functionality. As with any VoIP service [...]
Continue Reading.tel is a new top level domain from Telnic that is currently in beta. What makes .tel unique is that it maps domains to contact information stored directly in the DNS. Telnic, the .tel registry operator, describes it:
The .tel is a new TLD dedicated exclusively to communications that enables people and businesses to store, update [...]
Continue ReadingI used to keep odd notes in Outlook as it meant they were available on both my PC and my BlackBerry. However, using Outlook meant they were only available on one PC and one mobile device; not on my Nokia E51 or my other PCs. A few months ago I started using Evernote as the [...]
Continue ReadingLast week I met up with Dave Fraser and Simon Wynn at Devicescape to talk about their plans for the future. I’ve blogged about Devicescape before - it’s a simple software client that manages WiFi connections for mobile devices across private and public WiFi hotspots. It automates the sign-in process using pre-stored security credentials for [...]
Continue ReadingYesterday I met with Jeff Rice the CEO of DeFi Mobile to discuss the launch of DeFi Global Access. DeFi offers carrier grade VoIP via your mobile handset with flat rate subscription pricing.
What really struck me about DeFi is that in a single service it addresses a number of the gaps in existing VoIP propositions [...]
A few days ago my son dropped into the conversation that he’d like the new iPod Touch for his birthday. Great, I thought, as I’d been looking for ideas (although a little pricy!). However last year he had an iPod Classic and already that’s ancient history (although my wife is going to have it, so [...]
Continue ReadingLast week I wrote about Twitter, why I’m a fan and how I use it. This week I’m going to look at some of the applications I use to improve the Twitter experience and make it easier to use. The Twitter API has generated a vast number of Twitter related applications and these are just [...]
Continue ReadingTwitter cropped up in the news recently here in the UK with the announcement that it could no longer justify the cost of delivering Twitter messages by SMS outside the US, Canada & India. Whilst this was a useful feature, the announcement was hardly surprising given that it was costing Twitter up to $1,000 per [...]
Continue ReadingO2 Germany’s recent move to block Rebtel’s access numbers looks like yet another attempt by the big operators to preserve ‘their world’ at the expense of competition and customer choice. Other recent examples include Truphone’s interconnect issues, disabled VoIP clients on operator branded Nokia handsets and specific 07 number ranges excluded from call bundles.
It reminds [...]
Recently I asked readers for their comments on what they think about the mobile service they receive and what they’d like to change. I received some interesting feedback and would like to thank everyone who responded.
There’s no doubt that mobiles have changed peoples’ lives and we all take increased contactability as a fact of life [...]
Continue ReadingI’ve been using Devicescape for a while now on my Nokia E51 and it dramatically improves the WiFi user experience. So what is Devicescape? It’s a free application that runs on your mobile device and automatically logs you in to WiFi networks without the need to enter ID and security credentials each time. This includes [...]
Continue ReadingOver the past few months I’ve written about areas and issues that intrigue and sometimes irritate me. This week I’m going to ask you some questions.
What is it that you like about the mobile industry and what do you hate? I’ve written about what mobiles mean to me and to Normobs but what do they [...]
Continue ReadingI’m on holiday this week so even more dependent on my mobile than usual! Here are some neat tricks for saving money on calls that invariably cost extra …
If you’re on a mobile contract the chances are you will have a bundle of minutes that covers calls to landline (01 & 02) numbers plus mobiles. [...]
Continue ReadingJonathan Jensen’s Thursday slot – SMS, the ultimate Normob service
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Today I return to the world of Normobs. Everyday there are announcements about great new mobile services, many of them picked up here at SMS Text News. However it puzzles me that one of the oldest and most mature mobile applications still seems to be overlooked [...]
Everyone knows about email phishing and increasingly we’re being warned about the threat of voice phishing. So what is voice phishing? Your phone rings and the caller says he’s from your bank and needs to verify some transactions on your account. But first he needs you to confirm your date of birth and password. Well [...]
Continue ReadingThis week we go to press early because there’s been a lot of debate over the past few days on the subject of voicemail and its future …
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Fellow SMS Text News contributor (and mobile geek extraordinaire) James Whatley (aka Whatleydude) recently organised some SpinVox accounts for my family. I know I wouldn’t be without SpinVox [...]
Jonathan Jensen’s Thursday slot – Roaming tips for both Normobs and geeks.
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This week I’m returning to the theme of Normobs and some ideas for saving money when using mobile phones abroad. Last week an email from Ofcom dropped into my inbox. It linked through to a PDF that Ofcom has produced offering consumers (Normobs to [...]
This week Jonathan looks at the old issue of mobile coverage and asks what the networks are doing to improve it.
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It’s been a busy week with Nokia’s launch of the new S60 E71 and E66 handsets. However I’m not going to be covering them here as Ben Smith is already doing them justice elsewhere for [...]