Author Archive: Gareth

Phones 4u in sale speculation

Phones 4u could be sold after its private equity owner received a number of takeover offers.

The Sunday Times reports that ‘several suitors’ have made offers to Providence Equity. A source close to the company is quoted as saying: ‘There have been several unsolicited approaches and Providence is considering those. Discussions are at an early stage.’

The independent phone retailer was bought from founder John Caudwell in 2006. The business is estimated to be worth between £700m and £800m.

Mobile phone operators and DSGi are tipped as possible suitors.

Phones 4u already has a deal to put concessions in DSGI’s Curry stores and some PC World outlets.

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Ericsson activates the 10,000th shared site in the MBNL consolidated network

T-Mobile UK and 3 reached a milestone last Friday (9 September) when Ericsson activated the 10,000th shared site for Mobile Broadband Network Ltd (MBNL) – the two operators’ network consolidation company.

When the consolidation is complete, the MBNL network will consist of around 12,500 sites integrating the former T-Mobile UK and 3 networks, which previously numbered more than 18,000 2G and 3G sites in total.

Ericsson has a five year managed services contract announced last year for network design, deployment, the acquisition and building of sites, capacity management, equipment swaps and upgrades to transmission facilities.  Services activities commenced February 2009 and are scheduled to complete by 10 October 2010 resulting in close to 12,500 active consolidated sites.

T-Mobile and 3 say the consolidation gives MBNL one of the most advanced, high quality mobile networks, providing very high capacity mobile broadband and voice services across Britain. The consolidation will improve the environmental footprint of the network while at the same time reduced operating expenses due to less power consumption, fewer sites and smaller footprint on the sites.

Mobile revealed on 3 September that Orange sites will also be consolidated into MBNL, a process that is expected to take up to five years to complete.

Graham Payne, MD of MBNL, said: ‘When we decided to merge the T-Mobile and 3 networks we had clear targets as to efficiency gains, cost achievements, quality enhancement and extended coverage of mobile data services. This network consolidation and the benefits it brings make a real difference to mobile consumers, many of whom for the first time now get access to the internet.’ 

Anders Runevad, president of Ericsson Region Western and Central Europe, added: ‘The success of this unprecedented consolidation process proves that new business models create win-win situations for all partners in our industry.’

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Vodafone Prohibits P2P Use for Broadband Customers

At a time where content producers are increasingly using peer-to-peer technology to distribute data, there are still Internet providers that wont allow such traffic on their networks. This type of discrimination is not limited to mobile or cellular networks either. In Ireland, Vodafone users are not permitted to use peer-to-peer services on their broadband connection.

For years the term peer-to-peer has been a synonym for piracy to most of the mainstream public. More recently, however, content distributers and websites such as Facebook and Twitter have become aware that it’s an ideal way to transfer data cheaply and efficiently.

Orange fiddles with their PAYG options

Whilst O2 seem to be removing rewards from it’s pay as you go customers Orange seems to be taking the opportunity to win some.

Orange reveals that it is enriching its popular Pay As You Go (PAYG) animal plans by offering even better value top-up rewards for its diverse customer base. Read on for extra details.

Review: Motorola XT720

The Motorola XT720 is the latest super phone from Motorola that packages a hefty 8mp camera capable of capturing HD Widescreen video. So what is it? Does it have the beans to take on the iPhone 4 or is it just a feature phone with an extra lump on the side?

Samsung Galaxy Tab now Official

It seems like since the iPad was released, every single tech company in the world is manufacturing an Android tablet to rival Apple’s. And the first one to try and take down the iPad from it’s throne is the Samsung Galaxy Tab. Announced this morning in Berlin, the Galaxy Tab is a 7″ Android tablet running Froyo. Other specs include a 1GHz Cortex A8 processor, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, GPS, Flash 10.1, a 4,000 mAh battery, quad-band GSM, a 3MP rear facing camera, 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera, full HD video playback at 1080p, microSD slot for upto 32 GB cards and all of that weighs only 380g!

Now what makes this different from the iPad is that it makes phone calls. The Galaxy Tab uses a HSUPA 5.76 Mbps / HSDPA 7.2 Mbps radio on the 900, 1900, 2100 MHz bands. The Galaxy Tab is set to launch later this month in Europe and here in the UK. Then later on this year Korea, the US and the rest of Asia will get it. There is no word on pricing or carriers, but could this be the iPad killer?

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Orange HD Voice announced

Orange today announces the biggest advance in voice calls in 20 years with the launch of its mobile High Definition (HD) Voice service, enabling businesses to benefit from the next era in mobile communications.  Increased call clarity and the filtering out of background noise make important business conversations possible no matter where they are conducted.
Call clarity has emerged as a necessity for many businesses. Recent research^* from Orange has shown that 75% of business owners believe clear call quality to be the most important aspect of their mobile device; with 33% saying they routinely struggled to hold phone conversations due to the noisy environment they work in. With HD Voice, neither a noisy work environment or being out of the office are barriers to a successful call with customers, colleagues or suppliers.

Android Reaches Another Milestone: Motorola Milestone 2 Announced

After the success of the original Milestone and the XT720, the Milestone 2 has just been given the go ahead by Motorola. The Milestone 2 is the GSM version of the Droid 2 which was released in the states a few weeks ago but with a few major differences. for example, the Milestone has 720p video recording unlike its American cousin. However, Motorola had to screw us over some how and they’ve done it by putting MotoBlur on it rather than stock Android. Yes, I know what you are thinking, why Motorola why?

But otherwise the Milestone 2 and the Droid 2 are pretty much exactly the same. They both support a 3.7″ capacitive touchscreen at a resolution of 854 x 400, a 1GHz processor, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a 5-Megapixel camera and 8Gb of internal storage. See more pics and a video after the break.

5 new Archos devices. All Froyo!!

This press release from Archos has just arrived showing the shape of things to come from Archos and it looks lovely. Frive Android tablet, from mini to max covering almost every desired desired size have been announced. Of late Archos have been hammering out budget mp3 players with a semi-attractive feature set but a fantastic price tag. This time around the feature set looks too good to be true especially when it comes to the, still, highly acceptable price tags. Read on for more: