From the category archives:
Owners of the T Mobile Sidekick 3 are being warned today after the magnetic phone was found to wipe credit card data.
The magnet used by the phone is strong enough to hold metal objects and apparently can wipe a credit cards magnetic strip in under a second rendering the card unusable.
Users are being told to keep the phone in a separate pocket to any credit cards and not leave them in close proximity at any time.
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Rumours have been posted on various websites for weeks about the launch date of the new T Mobile Sidekick III but engadget have received reliable information that indicates July 10th as the official date.
Previous estimates of a June launch date are now looking inaccurate. July might be a better time since most of the world is concentrating on football at the moment.
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A group of major European mobile phones companies have unveiled plans to reduce roaming charges abroad.
T Mobile, Telecom Italia, Orange, TeliaSonera and Wind will reduce the wholesale price of allowing other networks to use their minutes to 31 p per minute from October.
At present the network providers charge around 60 pence per minute for other operators to use their network space for customers calling from abroad.
This move comes after most mobile phone network providers were forced by the European Union to reduce roaming charges.
The group of companies working together in this initiative have over 200 million subscribers between them and are hoping other operators will join the agreement this year.
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New T Mobile subscribers in the UK are being offered a mobile phone version of the 2006 FIFA World Cup game by EA Sports on their handset.
T Mobile’s special editions of the Nokia 6280, Nokia 6131 and Nokia N70 handsets include not only the game but a special football theme with wallpapers and icons as well as access to exclusive World Cup content.
T Mobile are already offering cheap calls to England fans from Germany and are taking full advantage of their status as the official mobile phone provider to the World Cup by offering some great deals such as the official England team mobile phone.
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England fans planning to visit the Germany for the World Cup finals this summer have received good news from T Mobile.
The official mobile phone operator for the World Cup has announced a special 25 pence per minute tariff for British customers in Germany.
Callers are required to purchase a pre-pay bundle of 40 minutes for £10. The minutes are valid until July 30 th.
T Mobile recently announced reductions in roaming charges following pressure from the European commission.
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The American Customer Satisfaction Index rose to 74.1 in the first quarter of 2006, its largest jump in three years.
Significantly T Mobile had one of the largest gains and jumped 8% to be a market leader in the telecommunications sector.
The sector as a whole improved 5% this year but is still some way below the national average.
Its interesting to note the figures are improving but even more interesting to note that its once again T Mobile who are the leaders. We reported recently about the huge rise in UK subscribers that T Mobile has seen in Q1 and they appear to be winning in the US market as well.
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T Mobile have launched the official England team handset complete with a preloaded video of Geoff Hurst’s 1966 World Cup winning goal and embossed “Three Lions” logo.
The Samsung E370 is a tri-band handset and has also been issued to the entire England Squad. It comes with a 1.3 megapixel camera, gaming, video and MP3 functionality.
T Mobile are taking advantage of their position as the official mobile phone operator for the tournament by offering a number of related services during the World Cup games.
During June, T-Mobile are offering exclusive access to watch World Cup matches via compatible mobile phones on a unique World Cup TV channel.
The T-Mobile channel will provide highlights of the latest World Cup matches and offer customers a 3-4 minute snapshot of each game within 1 hour after the final whistle.
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Results from the first 3 months of 2006 show both O2 and T Mobile have increased market share and have vastly improved on last years results despite intense competition in the crowded UK market.
O2 have increased customer numbers to 16.3 million, a rise of 359,000 in the first quarter. This rise is 13.6% up on the same period of last year and is being attributed to successful promotions.
Speculation about O2 joining BT in the fixed line market appears to have some foundation as O2’s parent company Telefonica runs similar operations in Europe.
The news comes after O2 scrapped charges for subscribers receiving calls in Europe following pressure from the European Commission. Vodafone and T Mobile were the first to slash roaming costs but Orange quickly followed.
T Mobile has also seen success in their first quarter results. Thanks to the new Flext tariff T Mobile added more contact customers in the first 3 months of 2006 than they did for the whole of 2005.
Most of the 266,000 new customers are tied in to 18 month contracts and the figures have increased the total subscriber base in the UK to 1.6 million users.
T Mobile has taken significant market share from all its rivals in the first quarter and although the profits are actually slightly down they expect increased earnings later this year. Three-quarters of the users signing up to Flext were customers new to T-Mobile.
The company is luring customers away from all its rivals with particular effect on Orange and Vodafone. Orange recently admitted it added only 100,000 customers over the first quarter. Orange appears to have lost its way somewhat in the market as it concentrates on the launch of its combined broadband service over the next few weeks.
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T Mobile has confirmed that their HSDPA high speed internet connection will be launched this year.
We reported last week about the new service but there were no confirmed dates. The UK chief has confirmed today that the service will be launched before Christmas.
When asked if the service would be available before the end of the year Jim Hyde told reporters: “If it’s Christmas then Christmas is coming early this year”.
High speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) is an upgraded version of the current third generation mobile networks and offers significantly faster data connection speeds. The system provides speeds matching current home broadband packages in the UK.
Initially the service is likely to be limited to data cards as there are very few mobile devices that support HSDPA. Expect the major business phone manufacturers to be bringing out some high-end models in time for the T Mobile launch.
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The new T Mobile broadband service will not allow users to make VoIP calls using its network. The super fast 3G HSDPA service is still in an internal testing phase but analysts doubt that T Mobile can sustain this ban without offering a VoIP service of their own.
A flat-rate version of the data tariff will be aimed at business users initially and marketed as the Web’n'Walk Professional 3G service.
The service is the first HSDPA data card to be offered by a major network in the UK, but it’s also quad-band and has integrated Wi-Fi. The card is currently being offered by T Mobile along with a voucher offering free use of its Wi-Fi hotspots for 12 months.
T Mobile expect to roll the service out over the summer months in the major UK cities where good network coverage and Wi-Fi hotspots are commonplace. Speeds are likely to start at 1.8Mbps and increase to over 7Mbps by the end of 2007.
This kind of speed would seem ideal for VoIP and instand messaging but T Mobile are quick to point out that this is not allowed – any user caught running the applications risks expulsion from the network.
T Mobile admits that this is a commercial decision – they simply are not charging enough to make including VoIP viable. Once the service has been launched T Mobile will be in a perfect position to release a VoIP client of their own to a captive market.
Tony Lock, chief analyst at Bloor Research, believes that the launch of a T-Mobile VoIP client is a possibility.
The Web’n'Walk data card is free with a new 18- or 24-month contract, £50 on a new 12-month contract and £170 SIM-free through T-Mobile itself. Existing customers with an older 3G card can upgrade to the new technology and tariff for £99.
Using the data card on the Web’n'Walk tariff will cost £17 + VAT per month, while simply adding the data service to the voice tariff on an HSDPA-enabled phone will cost £8.50 + VAT per month.
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