Mobile Phones Blog

The hottest smartphones could be coming to UK users at rockbottom prices from May, with O2 set to slash the cost of owning a 16Gb iPhone 3G, reportedly in advance of a new iPhone launch, and T-Mobile doing the same for the G1.

It looks increasingly likely that Apple will release an upgraded iPhone 3G this June or July in the UK, but it is still very unclear what this will look like. The pundits are split between those who expect a ’superphone’ to fend off the Palm Pre, LG Arena and others – with heavyweight memory, video, camera and other features where the iPhone has lagged behind the big hitters of the smartphone market; plus enhancements to the browser, widgets and multitouch experience.

After all, Apple’s place at the top of the multitouch pile, which has been proven to drive mobile web usage, is now threatened by Palm, LG and others, and even the lawsuits that Apple is said to be preparing won’t stop the challengers if users take to their upgrades.

But most major players, like the Android community and Nokia, are still lagging behind on multitouch and other important user interface features, and so other commentators think Apple will stick with its advantage at the high end and focus on a whole new format for the iPhone to increase its appeal to the midrange mobile web users and those feeling the credit crunch.

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The LG Wine KF300 clamshell has just been released exclusively on the Orange network. The LG Wine is one of those whip-smart flip phones which is high on design, but not so hot on features, but is sure to attract a certain type of customer, one who wants a phone to be a phone first and foremost, but wants its looks, if not its features to be on the cutting edge.

The LG Wine boasts a reflective anodized effect finish, into which is hidden a discreet exterior TFT, displaying the usual secondary screen fare; signal strength, battery life, time, that sort of thing. Much like the Sony Ericsson Z610i, the secondary display retreats from view when the phone is inactive, only kicking into life when you open up the handset, or if you have a message or missing call waiting to be returned.

It has to be said that the features of the LG Wine aren’t really that amazing; a benchmark standard 2 Megapixel camera, capable of recording video (which unfortunately comes sans flash or autofocus) and a rather basic MP3 player – but then again, this is simply a decent mid range phone designed for the fashion conscious and feature agnostic.

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Most people wouldn’t think that their mobile phone could ever be sensitive enough to receive signals from space, specifically from a geostationary satellite some 22,000 miles from the earth, but in a year or two these services will be all the rage in Europe.

And they are so popular that the European Commission has received its first law suit from one of the companies that wants to provide such services, claiming that the process by which the Europe wide licenses will be allocated is not legal, and favours European companies.

Effectively the Mobile Satellite Services idea has come about from improvements in how satellites work, specifically the way they can now unravel huge 25 meter antennas, and move them around for best reception so that tiny internal antennas in handsets using the 2.1 GHz range of radio signals, can pick up the signal from space. It is the radio equivalent of hearing a pin drop on earth from space.

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The GSM Association which represents the interests of hundreds of cellular operators around the world, has cleverly positioned mobile broadband initiatives as a replacement for Wi-Fi and convinced all the leading laptop suppliers to move one step beyond broadband dongles in one concerted leap, to putting a chip on the PC motherboard for devices delivered across 91 countries. They will also the devices have broadband capability with a “Mobile Broadband” badge. The move has echoes of the “Intel Inside” and the “Centrino” campaign which triggered mass take up of Wi-Fi.

PC makers, operators and chip providers all lined up to back the move, this week including 3 Group, Asus, Dell, ECS, Ericsson, Gemalto, Lenovo, Microsoft, Orange, Qualcomm, Telefonica Europe, Telecom Italia, TeliaSonera, T-Mobile, Toshiba and Vodafone - which includes operators serving 760 million customers, around a quarter of the global cellular market.

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O2 have officially announced that the current free/discounted MacBook/O2 Mobile Broadband rumour is just that. An O2 spokeswoman yesterday confirmed that there are “no such plans to launch an Apple MacBook laptop offer,” and that the rumours are “untrue”.

As we all know, O2, who along with Carphone Warehouse, hold exclusive carriage rights to the iPhone, were thought to have worked out a deal with Apple which would see them match the current slew of free laptop offers available from mobile broadband providers and network rivals T-Mobile, Vodafone, 3 Mobile and Orange.

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Mobile phone companies are joining with chipset and laptop manufacturers to promote integrated mobile broadband support on laptop computers.

The united front of industry giants will build wireless modules into laptops designed to provide fast access to mobile broadband. A “Mobile Broadband” logo (see image) will mark out computers that will accelerate current third generation speeds and are compatible with future fourth generation technology. It is expected that the new laptops will be on the market in 91 different nations before Christmas.

Companies that have joined the alliance include laptop manufacturers Dell, Toshiba and Lenovo as well as 3, Microsoft, T-Mobile, Ericsson, Orange, Qualcomm and Vodafone. The coalition of companies has said it will spend about £554m ($1bn) altogether on promoting the logo and informing customers about laptops fitted with the new technology. The agreement to produce the modules, build them in to laptops and to campaign around the Mobile Broadband logo has been brokered by the GSM Association (GSMA) - a trade body that represents 80% of the world's mobile phone companies.

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There is talk abroad of a deal brewing between Apple and O2 that could see customers who sign up for either of O2’s mobile and home broadband offerings getting MacBook or MacBook Pro laptop throw into the bargain.

The two companies, apparently still cosy in their iPhone relationship will be offering free hardware to subscribers in a bid to match the current free laptop offers available to Carphone Warehouse customers who sign up with Orange, 3 Mobile, Vodafone, and T-Mobile.

It is as of yet unknown whether the Macs will be available free, we presume, given that Apple stuff generally costs a pretty penny that the MacBook will either be available as a free gift, or at a lower cost that the Pro version.

Last month, Sony Ericsson was vocally denying reports that its flagship launch this year, the Xperia X1 Windows handset, was delayed. Now, however, it admits that the product will be released as promised on September 30, but only through restricted channels in key markets like the UK. Nonetheless, the phonemaker is planning a major marketing initiative around the smartphone, as it fights for attention in the pre-Christmas buying period among other high profile new arrivals like the Nokia N96 and Samsung i850 Innov8 - even if some of its tactics look like copycats of Nokia’s N96 drive.

In the UK, O2 and Vodafone will offer the Xperia X1, which has been hotly anticipated since it was unveiled back in February, from the end of this month. Orange will also have the phone, but only through indirect channels, mainly Phones4U. T-Mobile and 3 will not have the product in Q4. Dave Hilton, marketing director for SE in the UK and Ireland, said in an interview: “As part of a plan to launch the Xperia X1 this year we had to limit the release. Come Q1, there will be resources to range it elsewhere. As it was a fairly late project, only limited networks could be involved, but it will be available to the large retailers and a small amount will go through distribution for other retailers.”

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Today, proposals were announced by the European Commission to further cut the costs of calling abroad within the EU for residents of member states, following what it calls a failure by the industry to self-regulate. “I have announced today that enough is enough,” said EU Telecommunications Commissioner Viviane Reding, who is insisting that regulation “now must happen from top down from Brussels in the interests of consumers.” New proposals from the Commissioner could see the cost of sending a text fall from 23p to as little as 9p per message, with voice calls falling from 36p per minute down to 27p.

Several European holidaymakers, more often than not British ones, have experienced what is known as “bill shock”, upon return from a holiday abroad - you come home and get your next bill for your phone in the post only to find that you’ve unexpectedly racked up a three-figure debt just for making a few calls and sending some texts to friends and family back home.

The Commission set a deadline of July the 1st of this year for the mobile industry to take action; both T-Mobile and O2 promised to cut the rates of sending messages from abroad, and Orange slashed the cost of their data rates. In 2007, the networks were limited to charging a maximum of 34p per minute to make a call back home, and 17p to receive a call, limits which are still observed today.

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Consumers are increasingly able to buy big name laptops, at subsidized prices, from mobile operators, and Vodafone is using its weight to sign up strong exclusives with PC vendors. Most recently, it announced it will be the only European operator to sell the new Dell Inspiron Mini 9 laptop, which includes a solid state drive and in-built HSDPA modem. Dell will also sell the device itself, with Vodafone airtime included, but will charge $380 in Europe, while the giant operator is expected to subsidize fairly heavily (both parties will confirm pricing next month).

Speaking at a Citigroup Technology Conference this month, Dell CEO Michael Dell said he expected mobile operators to subsidize netbooks. “Telcos will embrace these netbooks in order to sell 3G and, later, 4G services. It’s the type of product that could easily take advantage of data.”

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