T-Mobile has today enabled HSUPA on its mobile broadband services, becoming the first operator in the UK to offer the high-speed connection nationwide, putting them ahead of HSUPA rivals Vodafone.

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Today is the deadline for European networks to announce cuts in roaming rates for texts and surfing the web on mobiles.

Both O2 and T-Mobile have promised to cut the cost of sending texts home from abroad down to 25p per text message from the previous rate of 40p per message. The cost of mobile internet access is also due to fall, with O2 customers now paying just £3 per MB of data used (down from £7) and T-Mobile punters paying half that, at £1.50 per MB down £6 from £7.50.

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In the first wave of mobile internet devices, most content was reached via portals controlled by the operators. Now the companies that dominate the PC web portals are trying to repeat their success on the handset, and are often luring the same delivery partners that work with the carriers. AOL, which has lagged severely behind Google, Microsoft and Yahoo in this race, is now stepping up its efforts, and has signed an agreement with WIN in the UK, which will deliver a more consistent messaging and media experience to users across the PC and phone – and will serve as a template for AOL operations in other countries.

WIN will provide AOL (whose UK broadband ops are handled by the Carphone Warehouse) with a content platform for web and mobile devices, which it will host and manage. This will showcase and deliver entertainment, information and paid-for services to AOL users. It will also handle content aggregation, web and mobile portal design, and new service development focused on multimedia and video - as the internet player tries to narrow the headstart that Google and Yahoo have grabbed. As well as sourcing and managing content for AOL, WIN will integrate mobile delivery of the Instant Messenger service (AIM).

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Vodafone were hotly tipped to take over the residential broadband and voice services of Italian comms giant Tiscali at the end of the month, but a report published this week in the Financial Times suggest that the worlds biggest mobile network suddenly got cold feet and said arrivederci.

The two companies apparently failed to agree on a sum which would see Vodafone taking over Tiscali’s broadband businesses across Europe, which would have put Vodafone in a strong position in the UK market, as mobile rivals O2 and Orange both have broadband concerns of their own.

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Vodafone look as though they are ready to follow the lead of mobile rivals Orange and O2 by getting involved in the UK broadband war. Leading broadband ISP and fixed line call provider Tiscali has been looking for a buyer for some time and it looks as though Vodafone is it.

News of the deal was announced weeks ago, with everyone expecting the deal to be done overnight; it later emerged that Tiscali will formally announce a buyer by the end of the month. We didn’t want to roll with anything until we heard the facts, and besides, we’ve been kept busy this week with all sorts of iPhone related goodness as well.

Tiscali are currently ranked fourth overall in terms of broadband subscribers. A buyout by Vodafone would see them leapfrog mobile rivals O2 and Orange; the latter is ranked fifth overall, with just over a million customers compare to Tiscali’s 2m plus.

Tiscali also own and run Tiscali TV, an IPTV concern similar to BT Vision; both Orange and O2 have announced that they have plans to roll with their own IPTV packages, but nothing solid has emerged yet – the sell off sees Vodafone potentially trouncing two of their biggest rivals on two fronts in one fell swoop.

In addition to this, Tiscali also owns Toucan Mobile, a small scale mobile phone service which currently piggybacks off of the T-Mobile network. It is as of yet unknown whether customers on Toucan Mobile will be migrated to T-Mobile or Vodafone equivalent contracts when theirs expire, or if they will be given a choice between the two.

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With the iPhone, Apple has not only demonstrated how strong marketing can make an average device into a winner, but offered a masterclass in how handset makers can use their products to drive revenues from content and services. Now all its rivals want to emulate the success of the iTunes/iPhone combination, and this is leading to an explosion of choices for UK music lovers.

Key contenders are MusicStation, a service that is used by several mobile operators around Europe; Nokia’s MusicStore, the heart of its Ovi web services family and backed up by a growing range of music-oriented handsets; and Sony Ericsson, which is newer in the services race but has the major asset of its Walkman brand.

After seven months, MusicStation is now the UK’s largest digital music subscription service, on mobile or PC platforms, according to Music Week figures, beating Napster, though still dwarfed by the non-subscription iTunes. It costs £1.99 a week for unlimited access to a database of about 1.8m songs, and its carrier partners – in the UK, exclusively Vodafone – say that, in certain user bases, it generates more revenue than their better established pay-per-track options.

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Can you say lawsuit? In a bid to take the wind out of Apple’s sales, Samsung have snuck this sneaky-looking iClone out just in time for the announcement of the brand spanking new 3G iPhone. Have a look for yourself:

Like the iPhone, the Samsung boasts a large 3 inch touchscreen display, fully integrated GPS tracking features, and comes in two versions, one of which comes with 8GB worth of storage, and the other which, you guessed it, comes with 16GB of memory. The Ominia also one-ups the new iPhone by allowing users to expand the onboard memory via the dependable microSD card slot.

Did we mention that the Omnia comes with quad band connectivity and 3G HSDPA for downloads at speeds of up to 7.2Mbps? No? Well, it does. Impressive yes? Especially when you consider that by the time this gets over here (Q3 by our estimates), Vodafone ought to have extended their high-speed networks to cover other areas of the UK besides London. Timing is everything…

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Arun Sarin has just announced a shock departure from Vodafone. After nearly five years of helmsmanship which saw the mobile group’s profits pass £10bn for the last business year, the chief executive stood down, making way for his deputy Vittorio Colao to take over the reins. The handover will take place after the mobile firm’s Annual General Meeting 29 July 2008.

He said: “I feel that I have accomplished what I set out to achieve, particularly in developing and implementing a new strategy… I know that the business is in capable hands with Vittorio Colao. Having worked with him for many years I know that he has the experience and vision to take Vodafone on to future success.”

Since taking over in July 2003, replacing Sir Christopher Gent, Sarin successfully saw off a boardroom revolt which nearly saw him removed from his position, and steered the company into new territory, expanding the Vodafone brand into Eastern Europe, Turkey and India. Sarin also invested roughly £6billion in 3G licences, giving Vodafone the lead in unrolling high-speed mobile data and mobile broadband products.

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Vodafone have just announced that their fast 7.2Mbps mobile broadband network will be expanded this summer to encompass an extra three million residents living in major urban centres including Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester and Reading.

“The recent acceleration in the take up of mobile broadband has demonstrated just how hungry consumers are for internet access wherever they are,” said Nick Read, CEO of Vodafone UK. “As a result we are significantly investing in our network so that more customers can experience our award winning, fast and reliable mobile broadband network.”

This is good news for customers who have purchased the Vodafone Stick (pictured) the shiny white plug and play device which promises faster speeds in a greater number of locations – until now, top speeds have only been available in London and in and around major airports.

The timescale for this massive network upgrade is to begin this June, with completion provisionally slated to end by the autumn. “From June we will focus on providing additional relevant information with details on everyday usage scenarios, which will ensure customers can continue to make the most of Vodafone’s high speed mobile broadband service,” says Read.

Vodafone have also recently halved the price of their Mobile Broadband to just £15 a month for 3GB, and have launched a 5GB monthly package for the sum of £25.

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Whatever your opinion on Apple’s entry into the mobiles market, you cant argue that the arrival of the iPhone hasn’t galvanised change in the marketplace. Powerful smartphones such as the Nokia N95 8GB and the LG Viewty have all stepped forward to out-spec the iPhone, and have been hugely successful in terms of sales, and yet Apple are still sitting pretty, confident that the forthcoming release of the 3G phone will catapult their wunderkind into the stratosphere.

However, a new threat has emerged from an unexpected quarter; details surrounding the forthcoming Touch Diamond from HTC have been released. Apparently due to ship to Europe next month, the Diamond, dubbed the iClone in some quarters, boasts a pretty sweet ‘3D’ touchscreen UI, called ‘Touchflo 3D’ which is supposed to enhance web browsing, due to the fact that users can effortlessly pan and zoom about pages viewed on the 2.8 inch VGA colour screen. Plus there’s motion sensing in that just turning the device will rotate the display around from portrait to landscape mode.

It’s pretty clear that the Diamond has been pimped for mobile web browsing; support for high-speed 3G in the form of HSDPA at 7.2 Mbps comes included; those kind of speeds are currently only available from Vodafone in the UK. We smell a synergy.

Disappointingly, the onboard camera can only manage around 3 Megapixels, whereas pretty much every smartphone worth its batteries comes with a 5 Megapixel camera included as standard.

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