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.
[Source]
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.’
[Source]
Think you’ve had one of those Mondays? Well spare a thought for Japanese software dev Nocchisan. The programmer tweeted the at first innocuous “On November 20th, the 11 goods I designed for use with the 3DS will go on sale”, a sentence that admittedly isn’t too bad – unless, like Nocchisan, you add the word “simultaneously” on the end. Presuming he doesn’t mean simultaneously with something totally unrelated so simultaneously with the hardware the said goods are designed to work with seems more likely. I’m no expert but this is likely a tiny breach of any NDA he’ll be working under, and Nintendo are not likely to look favourably at his faux-pas. So, is the 3DS going to be this Xmas’s massive hit or will we in the West have to wait the customary long and drawn out months before we can join the autostereoscopy party? Not long until we find out. 3D Mario without glasses? Yes please Santa.
Posted by: Ian
Destined for only the USA at the moment, the Motorola Defy is one of those devices that are produced every so often to ‘Defy’ being broken. Yes, it is scratch proof, dust proof and water resistant.
Motorola, Inc. unveiled the Motorola DEFYT enhanced with MOTOBLURT on today’s 25th season premiere of “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” Slim and pocket-able, this smartphone powered by AndroidT, which is planned for exclusive U.S. availability to customers of T-Mobile USA, comes equipped with a 3.7-inch high-resolution and scratch-resistant touch screen display that provides edge-to-edge views of your favorite websites, photos and videos.
Today is the start of Nokia World being held in London. As well as the Nokia Development Summit on Wednesday the next two days will consist of keynotes from Nokia top smartphone executives, some product info and some hands on time with some new devices.
However Nokia Mobile Solutions leader Anssi Vanjoki has decided to resign which comes as a total surprise. Although he will work a six month notice this means we could see some changes in the future from Nokia.
This was the official statement:
Does the Dynadock V10 really soups up your laptop and productivity as V10 engine transplant would pimp up a car? Or is the all-in-one gizmo more of a two-stroke Trabant with a huge rear-wing?
I wasn’t sure what to make of the Dynadock.
It functions as docking stations of the yesteryear but it doesn’t look like one and connects via the ubiquitous USB rather than some obscure proprietary port.
The device tries to be a Swiss army knife of computer connectivity. It’s essentially a 4-in-1 gadget comprising a USB audio interface, a USB hub, a USB-to-DVI and a USB-to-Ethernet adapters. Quite an entourage for a single USB cable it uses to communicate with the computer.
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.
For those of you with any one of Sony Ericsson’s X10 trio in your pocket, this tasty piece of news should be music to your ears. While the rest of the Android world has more or less moved on, the Xperia X10’s has been serving up nothing but donuts for almost a year. Sony Ericsson actually promised to let 2.1 loose before end of Q3, but now we have evidence! An Xperia X10 was found running 2.1 Éclair at their booth at the IFA technology trade show in Berlin. As you can see, it has their UI skin all loaded up, so now the question is when we will see this actually rolling out to users.
Video (in German) after the break.
For jailbreakers of the iOS platform, these two stores have been the gate way to pissing Steve Jobs off. But now, after a year and a half of being rivals, Cydia and Rock unite, under SaurikIT. (the makers of Cydia) SaurikIT acquired Rock and will be moving not only the apps and licences from Rock over to the Cydia store, but also all of the software engineers will be combined as well to create the biggest and best unofficial app store on the iOS platform. This is a great thing for all jailbreakers, I’m sure, but users running 4.1 will have to wait a bit longer to see the new Cydia Store as there is still no jailbreak yet.
Posted by: Patrick
[ Post Tags: Apple, iOS, iOS 4.1, iPhone 4, iPod Touch, tracyandmatt.co.uk, Cydia, Jailbreaking ]
Let’s face it, it was going to happen. Somebody was going to make the iWatch and here it is. Made by ?Incipio, the Linq enables you to put the brand new iPod Nano on your wrist and wear it like a watch, and as far as I am aware, this is the first of many watch straps for the iPod Nano which will come to market. Not much to say execpt the strap is velcro and interchangeable, and your new iPod will be protected on your wrist as it protected by Incipio’s next gen polymer material which makes the housing nice and strong. Oh and it is available in 5 colours, in Black, Grey, Blue, White and Pink.
I was never really an iPod person, as all my media and music was stored on my phone, but this makes me really want to get one of the new Nanos! There is no word on pricing yet but expect it to be around the £20-£30 price point.
Posted by Patrick
[ Post Tags: Apple, iPod, iPod Nano, iWatch, Accessories ]
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