Posts filed under Rumours
Panasonic Mobile switches from GSM and Symbian to 3G, 4G and Linux
December 10th, 2005
Panasonic has announced it’s pulling out of the GSM mobile market – but only to concentrate on 3G and 4G phones. In addition, the company has announced it’s ditching Symbian in favour of Linux as its platform of choice for its future phones.
Looking ahead to the future, Yoshiaki Kushiki, president of Panasonic Mobile, said ”The restructuring is not business contraction, but aims to prepare for rolling back in the next transition from 3G to 4G that will come around in 2008 to 2010.” The company expects, therefore, to be in the mobile phone business for some time to come. Future products include 3G phones with DTV tuners built-in, arriving as early as spring 2006.
[Source: EETimes]
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Virgin leave NTL at the altar
December 8th, 2005
Virgin Mobile have said no to NTL’s recent advances to takeover the company. NTL proposed a takeover bid worth £817 million ($1.42 billion), which Richard Branson felt was a good deal. Other boardmembers didn’t, though, and turned the offer down, feeling it “materially undervalues Virgin Mobile.” And they’re probably right, too. Rumours are already circulating that Orange-owner France-Telecom and Vodafone are preparing their own bids for the MVNO.
If NTL buy Virgin Mobile, they’ll rebrand the whole company Virgin TV, riding the Virgin brand for all they’re worth. If Vodafone or Orange buy it, they’ll be doing it primarily to spite T-Mobile, which provides the actual network across which Virgin’s virtual network runs. Clearly if Orange or Vodafone buy Virgin Mobile, the lucrative MVNO contract will be swiftly cancelled. T-Mobile must be holding their breath, praying NTL comes up with the extra £74 million Virgin Mobile are apparently holding out for.
[Source: Newswireless.net]
LG and Hyundai add GPS to mobile phone acronyms
December 7th, 2005
LG and Hyundai have announced they’re going to team up to bring us GPS onto mobile phones. Yes, not content with the myriad other acronyms being crammed into a mobile phone, LG and Hyundai feel we need to know not only where our mobile phones are (which always helps!), but where we ourselves are as well. I’ve always felt GPS was a very natural thing to include in a mobile phone, not least because of the Sat-Nav possibilities it opens up. But then again, I’ve got a Tissot T-Touch watch with a compass, and do I use it? No. But hey, my watch has a compass on it :)
More details and pictures of the LG-Hyundai GPS mobile phone after the jump.
[Source:Akihabara News]
Google, Yahoo, NTL and Sky all rush into mobile networks
December 6th, 2005
Google and Yahoo are both entering the mobile phone market in a big way. Yahoo’s plans are still secret, but rumours of the company joining Nokia to release a Yahoo mobile phone have been circulating for some time now. Google, meanwhile, has decided to launch itself as a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) running its own mobile services over an existing mobile phone network. This is the same model that other MVNOs, such as Virgin Mobile, implement successfully. And speaking of Virgin Mobile, NTL’s near-billion pound bid for the MVNO was apparently in response to the rumours that Yahoo will go MVNO in the very near future.
Read why Google, Yahoo and NTL are becoming MVNOs after the jump
[Source: newswireless.net]
Virgin Mobile/NTL merger – more details emerge
December 4th, 2005
More details have been announced on the proposed Virgin Mobile/NTL merger. Apparently NTL will be buying Virgin Mobile, but will pay to adopt the Virgin brand on all of its services (NTL’s ISP service is already branded Virgin.net). Richard Branson will be left with a 14% share in the merged company, making him the largest shareholder. NTL aim to attract customers away from BSkyB by extending the Virgin brand into TV.
So the hallowed Virgin brand will find itself wrapped around a sprawling communications company that, together with Telewest that it took over a few months ago, defaulted on a $26 billion debt in 2003, and which has an atrocious customer service and reliability record. Er, good luck Richard!
[Source: Bloomberg]
Motorola ROKR E2 – the new Motorola iTunes phone, version 2
December 4th, 2005
Motorola have released a few details on the Motorola ROKR E2 mobile phone. Having waited for the painful reviews to die down on the first very bad ROKR, Motorola’s new iTunes-equipped phone will come in a Motorola PEBL sliding form factor.
Details are scarce, but the new ROKR E2 will apparently be 3G. According to a Motorola report posted by AppleInsider, “Expect a phone with a 1 megapixel camera, a 3.5 millimeter earphone jack (same as the iPod uses), and enough storage capacity to hold 1,000 songs — all capabilities Motorola has confirmed.” Sounds like the phone the original ROKR really should have been (although only 1 megapixels is half the current average, a third of what we’ll expect when the4 new ROKR E2 comes out, and a fifth that of Korean phones! Wake up, Motorola!)
[Source: AppleInsider]
Virgin Mobile and NTL in merger rumour
December 4th, 2005
Rumour has it that Virgin Mobile and NTL are in merger talks. Virgin Mobile is largely UK-based Virtual Mobile Network Operator that’s recently been looking to expand abroad, and has recently been linked with buying the UK’s Phones4U mobile phone retailer. NTL, meanwhile, is a UK cable TV operator that recently bought its main rival, Telewest for $6 billion.
A merger between Virgin Mobile and NTL would create a communications company with fingers in many pies, but the synergy between the two may be problematic: Virgin traditionally trades on the strength of its brand and its customer service (which, I can confirm personally, is extremely good); NTL, meanwhile, is notorious in the UK for having truly apalling customer service. Indeed, I recently switched to NTL’s cable TV service, and was asked by the TV installation man “are you sure you want to do this?”! Time will tell what a Virgin/NTL company will be like. Let’s just hope Virgin can teach NTL a thing or two.
[Source: Reuters]
LG rated the best mobile phones by users
December 4th, 2005
“What’s the best mobile phone?” is a difficult question to answer, not least because different people have so many contrasting requirements. But now, LG have helped answer this question in part by coming top in a customer satisfcation survey.
Run by Strategy Analytics, the survey asked 2,000 mobile phone users to gauge their satisfaction with their device in 19 different categories including stylish qualities, battery life and download experience. LG led the customer satisfaction index in the U.S. in 9 of 19 categories, leading to a stellar 80% rate of user satisfaction, and in 17 of 19 categories in Western Europe scoring an even more impressive 86% customer satisfaction rate.
“LG’s performance in the Strategy Analytics Wireless Device Customer Satisfaction Index was impressive on both sides of the Atlantic,” said Paul Brown, Wireless Analyst at Strategy Analytics.
This may not help you choose which mobile phone Santa should get you, but at least you know you’ll be amongst many satisfied customers if you get an LG.
[Source: StrategyAnalytics]
Siemens new RAZR-like phone
December 3rd, 2005
Siemens may be about to launch a new RAZR-like slim mobile phone. The ‘SLV140′, as it’s been called, is a triband GSM phone with UMTS, a 2 megapixel camera, 2.2″ lcd screen with 262k colors and 240 x 320 pixels. The phone can do video calls, video recording, and multimedia streaming and the file storage space can be expanded via microSD card.
No official news of the prototype yet – just some pictures picked up by SlashPhone from a German forum. Odd, then, that the mystery device already has an official-sounding name.
[Source: SlashPhone]
Nokia looks forward to continuing growth
December 3rd, 2005
Nokia has presented its expectations for overall industry developments and set out its targets for the next one to two years – and they don’t look too bad either. Nokia now apparently expect:
- mobile device industry volumes in 2006 to grow more than 10% from the 780 million units we estimate for 2005, and the mobile device market to also grow in value in 2006
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the number of mobile subscriptions to surpass three billion in 2008 (rather than in 2010 as Nokia stated in February this year)
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slight to moderate growth in the mobile infrastructure market in 2006
Nokia also announced they’re going to focus more on 3G next year, which should please the operators.
[Source: Nokia]
