Roland Banks has been passionate about mobile technology for the past 20 years. He started his career at British Telecom's research division working on collaborative virtual reality environments, before becoming a video streaming specialist at 3 UK where he helped launch some of the world's first mobile video services. More recently he enjoys writing about his obsession, and developing software that helps mobile operators analyse their subscriber data.
Roland has lived in Asia for the past 5 years, and tries to indulge his other passion for riding motorcycles whenever possible.
A new report called “The Way We Bank Now”, from the BBA, a trade association that represents the UK banking industry, reveals how popular mobile banking has become, as UK consumers increasingly rely on online services and new tech to access and manage their finances. In fact, mobile banking is actually now ahead of desktop banking, in which […]
A new survey by 360 Security has revealed that people in the UK view their smartphones as just a phone, and that they aren’t worried that cyber-criminals could be targeting their handheld devices. The survey says that 81 percent of consumers in the UK don’t consider their smartphone en a target for cyber-criminals, and hence they’re […]
The first month of summer has been another busy one for the mobile industry. You may have seen all the big stories already, but here’s a quick rundown of news that flew under the radar for most. Picture of possible Surface Phone leaks It has been rumoured for more than a year that Microsoft is possibly working on […]
It’s a fact of life that our mobile bills are inevitably higher than we’d like. One of the UK’s mobile operators has responded with an attractive offer to obtain a discount off your monthly bill, as long as you don’t mind watching an ad or two. Tesco Mobile has recently partnered with Unlockd, an ad and content-funded […]
Deutsche Telekom International Carrier Sales & Solutions (ICSS), a leading global wholesale carrier, earlier this month announced a partnership with Nexmo, a leading cloud communications company, to further increase delivery quality for mission-critical, application-to-person (A2P) messaging to the Deutsche Telekom Group footprint in Europe and beyond. RELATED: How Gett manages its SMS based communications via Nexmo’s […]
The end of the month is upon us once more, and as usual a lot has happened in the mobile industry during May. Here’s our brief roundup of five newsworthy stories that you may have missed. Project Ara modular phone launched date set for 2017 In the past year, Google’s Project Ara modular phone seems to have almost disappeared from […]
It’s fair to say that smartphones have changed the way people live and work, but perhaps the most burning question the industry is pondering is what comes next? In many western markets smartphone sales have almost reached saturation point, forcing companies like Samsung and Apple to come up with new ways to tempt customers with their hardware, software and ecosystems. […]
According to news this week, Chinese smartphone and hardware company Xiaomi, which has been a rising star in the Far East the past few years, is set to release a smartwatch and a new mobile CPU later this month. The firm’s Mi smartwatch has already been doing the rounds on the rumour mill, and is widely […]
From today, UK consumers who use their mobiles across Europe should see a reduction in their bills. The good news is that further price reductions when roaming are planned in all European Union countries from June next year, at which time all such charges will be abolished. For the moment however, there is an immediate cap on how much surcharge operators can […]
This week the Indian government announced that from January 1st next year, all new phones sold in the country must include some form of “panic button” aimed at improving women’s security. Furthermore, all phones will need to come equipped with GPS by January 2018, allowing the owner’s location to be accurately determined when the panic button is activated. Many of today’s […]
The UK mobile network EE said this week it will increase coverage over the UK by expanding 4G to more than 95 percent of the country by 2020. In 2015, EE signed a deal with the government to replace its Airwave network and also said it would eliminate zones of no coverage for consumers at the […]
The BBC has appointed James Harding, the former Times editor, to revamp its news, mobile and online offerings in an overhaul to the division that will suffer cuts of £80 million over the next 6 years. The organisation has created a new “controller” role for mobile and online content with James Harding at the helm, who will implement so-called […]