16 NEWS “And I only ever get one signal bar” BACKSLAP


I’ll try a pen and paper


Live demos of the latest tech are always good for a laugh when the best-laid plans go wrong. Such as at the Nokia press launch at its Paddington HQ recently for the new Lumia range and Windows Phone 8.1. The wireless speaker took a minute to splutter into life and the demo of the “seamless” integration of Windows Phone 8.1 with other devices died a death. “Sorry” remarked one of the presenters.


“We only


received the presentation from San Francisco last night and I could only open it on my laptop.”


What’s Dave telling these lucky Vodafonies? Mail your caption to editorial@mobilenewscwp.co.uk and win a bottle of Bolly


What is the secret of Area 200?


News from O2 that an investment of £16 million has bought 3G data coverage to ‘200 new areas’. So which areas are they, we not unreasonably asked. Two days later came the response from


an O2 press person. “I think you actually wanted the names of towns, which I don’t have”. Hmm. Never mind “Be More


Dog”. May we suggest “Be more helpful”?


Look at me like that and I’ll Glass you Wondering if


you should


get Google Glass and thus inform the world that you are a Glasshole? Tech pioneer Fone Doctors’ Faisal Sheikh has been trialling Google Glass for the last two months and can tell you all about the public reaction. “A woman on the Tube


“Well it worked last night”


gave me nervous looks before moving to the other end of the carriage”. Another stranger asked him what the glasses were. “Oh they’re for some top-secret work I’m doing”, replied the good


“Why do people avoid me?” Doctor.


Whereupon the


stranger instantly ran off. So much for the social networking revolution.


@mobilenewsmag


MobileNewsMagazine


www.mobilenewscwp.co.uk Fooling around with Sammy


Here’s some entertaining nonsense from dating website AshleyMadison.com. A survey of 1,871 adults tells us Samsung is the popular brand for adulterers. Yes indeed. If your loved one is snuggling up with a Samsung be afraid. It seems 54 per cent of men cheaters and 48 per cent of women cheaters rely on Samsung devices to organise their infidelities.


And 37 per cent of males and 42 per cent of women said they ‘sext’ messages 5-7 times a week.


Mum’s iPad cat-alogue of disaster


Here’s another great end-user case study from dealer Ace Fones that may or may not be entirely true. A mother gave her baby


daughter an iPad to play a game that involved a cartoon mouse.


Apparently the


household moggy glimpsed the virtual rodent and started clawing and biting the corner of the iPad, resulting in


Brits are too polite to complain – until now. A “resolver” app promises to help customers “fight back” by doing most of the complaining for them. Creator and “complaints champion” James Walker, wants to make us


EE scores with a Wembley experience


THE CUTTING ROOM Paul Withers


At less than three years old, EE is only a baby compared with its operator rivals, but it may already have signed one of the most significant brand partnership deals yet.


In February, EE signed a six-year


contract to become the inaugural lead partner for Wembley Stadium. It was the first time Wembley had signed a lead brand partner in its 91-year history, with the ambition to make the venue the most connected in the world and ensure it sits alongside the


most technologically advanced stadiums around the world. Nobody could have predicted


exactly how this partnership would pan out in the short term but judging from our invite from EE to the stadium for the FA Cup semi-final between Arsenal and Wigan Athletic on April 12, the operator has masterminded something special. As soon as you exit Wembley Park Tube station, you immediately see the front of the stadium digitally covered in EE branding. The walk up Wembley Way to the stadium has the same impact, with branding both left and right. Once inside the stadium, both scoreboards are EE-branded, with advertising surrounding the ground. In fact,


you’d be hard pressed to take a picture and not somehow catch EE branding. We even managed to get a full 4G signal inside the ground and could upload videos of the action to social networks within seconds. Anyone visiting arenas and sports grounds will realise just how difficult this can be. It will get better for all parties involved here, too, over the six-year contract, with technological advancements from EE including mobile ticketing solutions, enhanced mobile network access and the promise of “super-fast Wi-Fi” . Branding the O2 Arena and


the Academies around the UK has done wonders for its operator rivals, with global music, entertainment and sports events


held weekly, attracting star names that pack out the venues. Others have also got in on the


act. We now have the LG Arena (formerly The NEC Arena) in Birmingham and the Phones 4u Arena (Manchester Arena). The 4G race is hotting up, with O2, Vodafone and Three accelerating their rollout plans over the next 18 months. However, with Wembley playing host to the FA Cup Final, divisional play-off finals, the last England friendly before the World Cup, the Froch v Groves bout, three One Direction concerts and three NFL matches in the next six months combined will attract close to a million people, this is the perfect opportunity for EE to extend its 4G head start over its rivals.


Ofcom needs to review 3G coverage


THE CUTTING ROOM Samantha Tomaszczyk


UK operators are rolling out 4G at an impressive speed. This is particularly obvious when you compare the rollout to that of 3G services – which was embarrassingly slow. For example, the auction for 3G licences took place in 2000, but it was only three years later that the first services were launched. The 4G auction concluded


early in 2012, and O2 and Vodafone launched several


months later on August 29. Three’s launch date is harder to pin down but it’s safe to say its 4G rollout is well under way, with the operator saying it is on track to achieve 98 per cent population coverage by the end of 2015.


away by the speed at which 4G is being rolled out and forget that, for many people in the UK, 3G is still something of a commodity. This was made painfully


obvious earlier this month when O2 announced it is investing £16 million to bring 3G coverage


“It is important not to get carried away by the speed at which 4G is being rolled out”


O2 and Vodafone will also hit 98 per cent at some point next year, while EE wants to reach this target by the end of this year. Congratulations to all are in


order, you could say. However, it is important not to get carried


to more than 200 areas – for the first time. This is shocking, as it means that the people living in these areas have not really been able to use their phone for anything else but calling and texting (public WiFi not being


what it should be). It’s easy to joke – how do they tweet about what they had for lunch? – but this shows a portion of the UK has been “forgotten” when it comes to data coverage. 3G is also important for voice- call quality as voice over LTE (VoLTE) hasn’t come to the UK yet. And a solid 3G network will help when it comes to capacity, if not speed. In summary, perhaps Ofcom could have another look at the 3G coverage obligation? It currently stands at 90 per cent – but why not push that to 95 per cent to complement what looks set to be rather good 4G coverage?


Scratch one iPad


several scratches, a damaged screen and an £85 repair bill. A likely tail.


I’d like to complain about this app “smarter complainers”.


The app drafts and sends letters and emails on the users behalf and records telephone conversations. Sounds great. Especially as one of the first sectors to be covered by the app is telecoms.


Diary Dates


April 8-10 MVNOs World Congress


Maritim Proarte Hotel,


Berlin mvnosworldcongress.com


12-14 Roaming World Congress


Le Chatelain, Brussels roamingworldcongress.com/


24-25 M2M World Congress 2014 London


m2mconference.com


29-30 Telecoms Regulation Forum Jumeirah Carlton Tower, London


telecomsregulation.com


29-30 Ovum Smart Cities Gran Connaught Rooms,


London smarttofuture.com


May 13-14 Tansport Networks for Mobile Operators


London backhaultransport.com


19-20 Open Mobile Summit


Victoria Park Plaza, London openmobilemedia.com


“This survey is a vote of confidence in Samsung from the cheating community” said the helpful website’s European communications director Christoph Kraemer with an absolutely straight face.


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