Acision Provides Vodafone UK with Innovating Next Generation Messaging

Acision announced that Vodafone UK has commenced migrating its UK customers to Acision’s next generation IP voice messaging platform. The fully scalable open architecture will mean Vodafone customers will continue to enjoy easy to use, fast voicemail services.

Next generation messaging revenues are predicted by Ovum to be worth $12.7 billion dollars annually in Western Europe by 2010. To reach these levels, operators need to integrate newer messaging formats such as mobile instant messaging with those that are already high volume such as SMS and voicemail. As well as providing advanced voice messaging services, Acision’s IP messaging platform is equipped to support complementary services.

Rory Buckley, CEO, Acision said: “Our work with Vodafone emphasises Acision’s continued commitment to innovating next generation messaging. Working with customers like Vodafone we support the services that matter to them today while helping them build towards their vision for the future. Our open platforms provide opportunities for operators to continuously integrate new and improved messaging, enabling them to differentiate their services and compete within their market.”

Source:http://www.3g.co.uk

Two own-brand phones from Vodafone

Vodafone has unveiled two new own branded mobile phones to grow its range of own branded phones launched over the last year.
The Vodafone 227 and Vodafone 228 will launch this month across both Europe and emerging markets as Contract mobile phones. Both mobile phones will be aimed at users after low cost, simple to use handsets. Vodafone introduced seven own branded handsets by Vodafone last year. Own-label devices make up one in six of the mobile devices shipped by Vodafone annually.

Coming soon ? the waterproof mobile

Coming soon the waterproof mobile Military scientists based at Porton Down, Wilts are hoping to clean up the mobile market with a handset you can safely use in the shower.

Technology, initially developed to protect soldiers from chemical attack, has been cunningly adapted to come up with a coating which its inventors have dubbed Ion-Mask.

Once this is applied to mobile phones it can make them resistant to moisture, rain and events like accidental immersion in nightclub toilets.

"Mobile phones and MP3 players are too small to be fitted with seals to make them waterproof, so water inevitably can creep in," Ian Robins, a development director at P2, the spin-off company hoping to cash in on the high-tech breakthrough, told the Telegraph.

"By making the surface repel water, we have been able to take devices that fail the normal… shower tests, and make them pass," he added.

Clumsy, forgetful and stupid mobile owners could soon see Ion-Mask as a God-send. More than 1.2 million mobiles were plopped in lavatories, dropped in drinks or wrecked during a washing machine spin cycle last year.

With P2i in advanced discussions with three leading phone makers about using the coating, the prospect of underwater texting is no longer just the stuff of schoolboy science fiction.
Source:http://www.mobilemarketingnews.co.uk

T-Mobile and 3 deny UK merger talks

operations as they formed a joint venture to combine their 3G access networks, saving around £2bn over 10 years.

However, T-Mobile UK chief executive Jim Hyde said pooling networks with 3 was a way of consolidating but did not have "anything to do" with a fully-fledged merger.

3 UK chief executive Kevin Russell added: ''I don't see mergers happening between big telecoms players… the sexy stuff is equity consolidation but it is unrealistic in this marketplace."

Analysts say 3, with just 3m customers, is sub-scale in Britain, raising expectations that its Hong Kong parent Hutchison Whampoa could look to sell the business. The loss-making UK group abandoned a market listing last year.

But T-Mobile UK and 3 UK said they were focusing on redeploying their networks to ensure that one set of 3G mobile phone masts, as well as the infrastructure that connects to each operator's separate core network, would reach 98pc of the population by 2009.

The 50:50 joint venture for a near-national upgraded 3G network will be manned by a small team of staff with most of the work already outsourced to equipment suppliers. No job losses are expected at T-Mobile or 3.

The deal has not been approved by Ofcom, but Mr Hyde said the companies had been in continual dialogue with the telecoms regulator over the past year.

The companies said they were open to other parties joining their Mobile Broadband Network Ltd venture - on the right commercial terms - which is due to run until the end of 2031.

Vodafone plans to save money and grow in India

As the Wall Street Journal reported on yesterday's India Analyst and Investor Day in London, British mobile communications provider Vodafone aims to lower costs and simultaneously grow in India with its local subsidiary Vodafone Essar. According to the report, CEO Arun Sarin says that Vodafone Essar plans to increase its market share from the current 17 percent to around 25 percent over the next five years. Last spring, Vodafone bought a majority of shares in the former Hutchison Essar.

Last week, Vodafone Essar entered into an outsourcing contract with IBM for IT technology. The deal is expected to save someone billion US dollars. In addition, Vodafone and its Indian competitors Bharti and Idea Cellular founded Indus Towers Ltd., which will be handling network equipment for all three companies

Vodafone goes crazy; Wants to stop iPhone sales in Germany?

You may like or not, but Apple’s iPhone is THE more disruptive device like ever. Now, we have Vodafone — the same company that fights iPhone defection by taking customer service offline — obtaining a Court order that required rival T-Mobile Germany to sell iPhone without a service plan. And while we do agree that’s a good news for German consumers who like the Apple’s handset, somehow if that’s the way Jobs&Co wants to go - you can’t blame them. Apple was never really open about its platforms, but always managed to get its place under the Sun. Kudos to them for that. Also, it’s important to note that this could lead to complete halt of iPhone sales in Germany…

Back to Vodafone. Don’t you guys have F700 and N95 8GB? I find those two devices to be quite appealing. Why oh why do you want to take this kind of (stupid) action? According to the Big Red it’s the fear that other handset makers may follow Apple’s example and begin tying their handsets to specific providers (like the Samsung F700, which is exclusive to Vodafone?), further shredding the German wireless market. Yeah, it’s the benefit of the German mobile phone users you care about, not shareholders. C’mon folks, it makes me sick. You could have an iPhone deal, but you decided to go the other route. What’s the problem now?

Anyway, T-Mobile’s parent company — Deutsche Telekom — has confirmed the ruling, and is working to overturn it in an appeals processes.

Vodafone obtains restraining order on T-Mobile’s Apple iPhone sales in Germany

"The German unit of Vodafone Group PLC has obtained a restraining order against Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile unit prohibiting the German telecommunications giant from selling Apple Inc.'s iPhone in Germany," Stefan Mechnig reports for Dow Jones Newswires.

"Vodafone is questioning Deutsche Telekom's iPhone sales practices [regarding to] the iPhone's exclusive use in T-Mobile's network and the use of the device being limited to certain fees within T- Mobile's subscription offerings," Mechnig reports.

Vodafone isn't generally opposed to T-Mobile's exclusivity contract with Apple, but wants to have these new sales practices examined... The restraining order doesn't aim at a total sales stop," Mechnig reports.