Mobile Insight Vol: 8 Issue 345 December 11th 2006
Mobile phone scam Xmas warning
Fraudsters will prey on mobile phone users over the festive season as people relax their guard, warns Lavastorm.
A popular scam is the ' One Ring Fraud' whereby the incoming call is timed to cut out before the recipient has a chance to answer the call.
Over Xmas, a missed call from an unknown number becomes far more plausible and the victim unwittingly returns the call to a premium rate number.
Text message scams can prove equally effective during the party season. A common text message simply says "I fancy you" which prompts the recipient to call a premium rate service and rack up an enormous amount on his or her mobile phone bill.
As the fraud management division of Martin Dawes Systems, Lavastorm has naturally unearthed these and similar scams. Consequently it sells a range of tools to help comms companies to tackle these kinds of fraud.
The business-focused Jet device is also being pitched as O2's take on a
'simple' handset. John Davies, head of own brand devices at O2 said: 'We know
Jet, with its market-leading battery performance, will do well in Corporate/SME
space.' He added, 'However, we're very interested in [seeing] how consumers who
just want a reliable, no-frills handset will receive it. We're not saying our
customers are simple, but we do know that there's a relatively untapped market
segment who want a quality, phone first device, and we're confident that Jet
will prove to be a popular consumer device as well.' At a recent press event, O2
UK CEO, Matthew Key, told journalists, "Customers told us "I don't want
complexity or the cost of functionality that I am never going to use." They also
said," The battery life and voice quality on new phones is not as good as my old
Nokia"." O2's response was the Jet which among its other features offers 22 days
of standby time and ten hours of talktime. It also has a handy dedicated switch
that changes the profile from Meeting to Silent or Ring. While the Jet may be
aimed at corporate users, being offered on prepay for a retail price of £60 will
definitely push it into the consumer space. Vodafone has had some success with
its 'Simply' range of rudimentary devices. made by Sagem.
The full Mobile story Easy Jet?
Aiming to emulate the success of HTC and iMate no doubt, Taiwanese Pocket PC
manufacturer, E-Ten has decided to go global with its own brand. The name it
has chosen is Glofiish.
Besides being a word ripe for misspelling, the company hopes its name will
symbolise freedom. "Just as a fish has complete freedom of movement in the
water, Glofiish Pocket PC Phones allow users to effortlessly roam the world
of high-speed communications," the company's promotional blurb proclaims.
E-Ten is currently represented in the UK by the Mobile & Wireless Group
(MWG) which includes reseller, Expansys and distributor Portix (formed from
Portable Add-ons).
E Ten's very latest offering is a Windows 5.0 based smartphone, the M700,
which the maker reckons is the "only device in this category to offer both
Wi-Fi and GPS." The category in question is Windows Mobile devices which
employ a full Qwerty style keyboard rather than a touch screen and stylus.
The M700 follows the M500 which started shipping in the UK last week but
lacks the M700's full keyboard. The M700 should become available shortly.
Ian Harrison, senior marketing and content manager with MWG told Mobile
Insight that
the products will initially retain the E-Ten name on the packaging as it is
known by a few early adopters. However, E-Ten will swiftly ditch its name in
favour of the Glofiish brand for mobile products.
Harrison said that MWG will build the Glofiish brand and provide marketing
support for E-Ten until it decides to build its own operations in this
country. Initially MWG will be placing ads in specialist trade and consumer
magazines.
Thanks to a technical hitch highlighted by SMS Text News, Vodafone UK discovered it had been charging users for receiving premium-rate text messages for approximately six weeks.
Usually when a consumer sends a text requesting a service, it will cost 12 pence to send the request and then £1.50 to receive the billing text.
However, because of an error in Vodafone's billing system, the company was adding an extra 12p, bringing the total cost of receiving the text to £1.62.
The company claims that the issue only affected a relatively small number of its pay-as-you-go subscribers.
A spokesperson for Vodafone told Mobile Insight, "We were able to identify all affected customers. Happily we are refunding all automatically although this may take a week or two more before it is complete.
Asked if Vodafone intended informing those who'd be overcharged, the spokesperson replied, "We have not contacted the majority as the amounts are generally very small."
So if your remaining credit mysteriously increases, you'll now know why.
A firm only recently acknowledged as being in the UK Top 50 media companies,
Empower Interactive, has fallen into administration.
The administrators, Grant Thornton, are seeking purchasers for the company
assets including ongoing projects. One of Empower's major contracts is with
France Telecom/Orange where it is helping the network operator to develop its
Mobile Data Services Architecture. Back in June, Empower Interactive was awarded
a place in the Media Momentum Top 50 list after it had experienced 280 per cent
revenue growth between 2002 and 2004. Founded back in 1999, Empower was one of
the first to offer a WAP gateway and later moved into the MMS (picture
messaging) arena.
Interested parties can email (Daniel Rose of Grant Thornton ).
A patent application that came to light yesterday has made the launch of the Apple iPhone even more likely to take place at the Mac Expo early next year.
Industry pundits have become excited because the patent makes reference to radio communications. However, according to Information Week the patent mainly covers the use of ceramics.
The publication believes that ceramics will not only lower the manufacturing cost of the 'mobile devices' which the patent mentions, it will also make its components less vulnerable to accidental damage.
This may indicate, Mobile Insight postulates, that the iPhone or iPhones will boast hard disks. As Mobile Insight reported recently, it's been revealed that Apple is planning more than one phone.
The patent comes hard on the heels of the discovery that Apple has indeed trademarked the term iPhone.
Cellular chipset specialist, Qualcomm, has acquired Bluetooth and WiFi
technologies to fill gaps in its wireless connectivity portfolio.
On the WiFi front it has acquired the specialist supplier, Airgo Networks,
whilst on the Bluetooth front it has acquired technology from RFMD. To date,
Qualcomm has covered these two bases by pointing customers to other vendor's
chips in its reference designs. These two moves will help to integrate such
technologies much closer into its own products. According to Enrico Salvatori,
a vp with Qualcomm CDMA Technologies Europe (QCTE), both Bluetooth and
WiFi will be completely integrated into the company's modem chipsets. Eventually
with its future 8xxx modem chipset designs codenamed SnapDragon both
Bluetooth and WiFi will be included in its standalone chipsets. In the meantime
with the existing 6xxx and forthcoming 7xxx designs, both Bluetooth and WiFi
will remain as separate components. The Airgo acquisition, however, is
significant because it provides Qualcomm with an entry point into the latest
WiFi technology 802.11n. That standard whilst still at a draft stage is
crucial because it provides for high speed WiFi connexions a technology which
Intel is keen to promote for future laptop PC designs. Qualcomm's motivation
seems to be to drive its chipsets into all portable device sectors into laptop
PCs as well as wireless PDAs and mobile handsets.
Discussions are underway to enable mobile phones running Qualcomm's Brew environment to interact with Microsoft's Xbox consoles connecting over broadband.
The news leaked out at the launch of Qualcomm's first major European customer for Brew Italy's TIM (Telecom Italia Mobile). TIM said that an Xbox to Brew phone capability should be operational by Q4 2007.
TIM might be a little optimistic revealed Qualcomm Europe's business development director, Anthony Sheehan. Initially players from both platforms will be able register their respective high scores on the same web site.
It might take a little longer for a true interactive multiplayer game to take place where one player is on a 3G phone and the other on a broadband Xbox.
Nonetheless he confirmed Qualcomm is talking to the Beast of Redmond about just such a possibility.
Sheehan also dispelled the popular notion that Brew can only be run on handsets based around Qualcomm's own handset chips. On Verizon in the USA, Brew is being run on certain Nokia handsets.
Obviously other European operators would embrace Brew wholeheartedly if it could run on all leading handsets. Today's launch of Brew by TIM involved only two handsets.
The N5050 from Onda and the Z630 from Samsung were the two involved. Mobile
Insight has captured an N5050 and hopefully should soon be able to report which Chinese manufacturer supplies Onda with its handsets.
Sheehan hinted that Nokia would only probably consider offering Brew on its handsets in Europe once it was convinced that new versions of Brew would appear simultaneously for Qualcomm and non-Qualcomm based handsets.
At the launch, the 3D games which Brew facilitates to run on 3G phones definitely looked like the Dog's Bees.
Yet more speculation that the UK arm of Hutchison's 3 network is up for sale in the Mail on Sunday. This time a financier and China Mobile get a mention.
The newspaper reckons that corporate financier, Simon Holden of Goldman Sachs,
has been touting the business for around £6 billion to the usual suspects
T-Mobile and O2 (a Mobile Insight previous hot tip).
Now we've got China Mobile the world's largest mobile network operator in terms of customers in the frame too, apparently.
But hang on shouldn't Holden be throwing his net wider? If you're thinking of buying a 3G network in the shape of 3, you don't need to know how to operate a network. Ericsson is doing that for 3 under contract.
So perhaps Holden should be looking at the big media companies a Sony or BMG because what 3 UK does very well is sell pop music video downloads.
3 UK itself is still busily trying to deny the rumours. Over in the Sunday Times, group CFO, Frank Sixt, is quoted as saying, "Were not keen to sell 3. After weve missed a target, we dont put the for sale sign up."
Sixt told the publication that, "UK management had initially blamed the large number of deserting customers on poor-quality handsets early customers received."
Considering Italy and Australia are doing well for 3, this is a bit of a lame excuse. Sixt reckons it's poor distribution so he wants to see 3 UK build up its store chain.
Mobile Insight never thought selling 3 handsets from the group's Superdrug outlets was the most logical of moves.
Of course, one of the reason's why 3 Australia does better is that it embraces
content completely. And that includes adult content.
Figures released by the UK's Qualifications and Curriculum Agency (QCA) show that one quarter of all exam cheats were using mobile phones.
The agency has called for drastic measures to prevent such cheating including sitting the exams in metal lined rooms designed to create a Faraday cage. The aim is to block mobile phone signals.
The QCA wanted to recommend the use of mobile phone signal blockers but the practice is banned by Ofcom, the UK's telecoms watchdog.
Other suggested measures include searching pupils with metal detectors. "New types of mobile phone blocking paint could be available in the future," said Professor Jean Underwood of Nottingham Trent University, which carried out the study for the QCA.
Phones were being used to text friends to ask for exam answers or to access the Internet to cheat in exams.
Out of 4,500 candidates penalised for cheating in 2005, around 1,100 had smuggled in mobile phones.
The Inquirer reports that Apple Computer might not have got the iPhone
name trademarked as widely reported. A Candian firm, Comwave, has been selling a
product called the iPhone in North America for some time.
www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36205 ...
In Site of the Week (by Tony Dennis)
This
week
BBC Three Mobile
Mobile Insight recently discovered that there is as a WAP site run by the
British broadcaster , the BBC, for its BBC3 channel - BBC3
Mobile site. What this site does is enable you to download video clips of
certain BBC programmes like Torchwood, Comedy Soup and (theoretically) some
episodes of the Sci-Fi hit, Dr Who. Anybody who wants to try BBC 3 Mobile out
should text the word 'THREE' to 81010. Or type the following URL into their WAP
browser :-
