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Archive for April, 2009
Vodafone offer free mobile broadband for a day
Apr 30th
Customers of Vodafone UK are to get a new flat rate 50p daily rate for mobile data starting from May 1st – and to launch the offer the operator is offering free browsing for 24 hours.
Tomorrow (Friday) is ‘Freeday’, so pay as you go and contract customers who don’t already subscribe to a monthly mobile internet bundle will be able to surf the web for nowt. After May 1st it’ll just be 50p a day flat rate – a 50% reduction on the old £1/day flat rate tariff. The usual ‘it’s unlimited but really there’s a limit’ terms apply – and Vodafone are upping the cap from 15MB to 25MB.
If you’re more of a power user than a casual browser, and assuming you’re a pay monthly contract customer, Vodafone’s add-on packs are still better value for money – £5 a month for the length of your contract or £7.50 a month with no ties.
More curious, however, is what Vodafone customers do with their mobile internet connection. Stats from the company reveal that the most visited sites are Facebook, Google, BBC, YouTube, Windows Live, Bebo, and eBay. The top Google searches are Facebook, Bebo, eBay, Hotmail, YouTube, Yahoo, MSN, Google, Flirtomatic and BBC.
Yes that’s right, the top eight most searched term on Google by Vodafone customers is ‘Google’. Now we all know who to blame if the Internet breaks.
Mobile phone sales plummet in 2009, but Apple bucks the trend
Apr 30th
With the recent gloomy financial results from Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Motorola, the news that phone sales have plummeted by 13% in the first quarter of 2009 was to be expected. However, Apple has continued to buck the trend with strong sales of it’s iPhone handset.
Research firm Strategy Analytics have reported all five of the biggest mobile phone manufacturers had seen drops in sales, with the number of phones shipped worldwide in the first three months of this year dropping to 245 million units.
The only positive gain in the sector was unsurprisingly the iPhone, with Apple gaining 123% rise in sales. That compared to Nokia sales dropping 19%, Sony Ericsson 40%, and Motorola a whopping 46%.
Motorola’s sales fell 46% to 14.7 million units, and Sony Ericsson shipped 14.5 million handsets, down 40% from the first quarter of 2008. Samsung and LG faired a little better, with sales falling 1% and 7% respectively.
SIM4travel offers United Mobile Customers a Way Forward
Apr 30th
SIM4travel, a Truphone company and the leading supplier of global travel SIM cards, is offering United Mobile customers affected by the termination of the United Mobile service a free SIM4travel SIM with free £5 credit when they top-up £10.
United Mobile customers have been left without service just as many are preparing to go away for Bank Holiday weekends or as they prepare for their summer holidays.
SIM4travel is able to offer a continuation of service for those customers affected by what has happened recently with United Mobile to ensure that, as much as possible, they are not left out of pocket and out of service. Customers interested in the offer should visit www.sim4travel.com/replace for more information.
SIM4travel and Truphone are committed to helping consumers manage the costs of using their mobiles abroad – by offering great call rates back home and the ability to receive calls for free in most countries. SIM4travel prides itself on the call quality, reliability of service and the value for money its SIM card offers, and is committed to maintaining its position as the premier global network.
SIM4travel guarantees:
• Customers will receive calls for FREE in 36 countries
• Great rates in 100+ countries
• Customers get a UK number starting +44 7509
• No tie-ins or lengthy contracts, just pay as you go
• 24/7 customer support from anywhere in the world, 365 days of the year
“It’s never a nice thing to see a business struggle, particularly in these tough economic times, but we’re keen to ensure that as many customers as possible continue to make great savings on their roaming charges – and with SIM4travel quality offering that’s what they’ll get”, said Geraldine Wilson, CEO of Truphone.
Vodafone UK join the Twitterverse
Apr 29th
Whilst Vodafone’s UK press office have been twittering for a while, the company have only just setup their own consumer-facing profile.
It’s still early days – at the time of writing they had 90 followers and were following 51 people – but it’s a step in the right direction. Whether it’ll be used for one way ‘broadcast’ marketing purposes – or real proper interaction – remains to be seen.
You can follow at http://twitter.com/vodafoneUK
XConnect Names Richard Shockey, ENUM Pioneer and IP Communications Expert, To Advisory Board
Apr 29th
Appointment Expands IP Communications Routing and Addressing Knowledge
LONDON – April 28, 2009 – Richard Shockey, a pioneer in ENUM (Electronic NUMbering) and expert in VoIP (Voice over IP), has joined the advisory board of XConnect, the leader in VoIP and Next Generation Network (NGN) interconnection services.
Shockey is a founder and has been co-chair since 2002 of the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) ENUM Working Group. He also is co-chair of the recently-formed IETF working group DRINKS (Data for Reachability of Inter/Intra NetworK SIP), dealing with provisioning data for VoIP/NGN peering federations, and has participated in IETF working groups on other subjects including SIP (Session Initiation Protocol), the dominant IP-based communications signaling protocol.
In addition, Shockey has helped develop several commercial products based on ENUM, the protocol devised to enable routing of IP-based calls and services using telephone numbers.
ENUM registries are at the heart of XConnect’s peering and federation infrastructure, routing voice and multimedia calls and advanced services between communications service providers in a scalable and highly optimised manner. As an internationally recognized expert on routing, addressing and signaling, Shockey is poised to keep XConnect in the forefront of VoIP peering.
“Richard is the godfather of ENUM technology and services,” said Eli Katz, CEO and founder of XConnect. “He probably has the greatest understanding of this vital infrastructure component and its commercial applications of anyone in the industry. We welcome him to our advisory board, where he will strengthen our leadership in the carrier ENUM and federation-based interconnect sector.”
Shockey said: “I’ve always admired the business focus, innovation and technical expertise that XConnect has brought to next generation networks. As XConnect recognizes, ENUM-based services are the future of global IP service interconnection. I hope I can help the XConnect team leap to the next level of success.”
From 2000 until early this year, Shockey was a director and distinguished member of the technical staff at NeuStar. Previously, as a consultant, he developed IP communications solutions for such companies as HP and Xerox.
In addition to his IETF roles, Shockey is a member of the board of directors and technical working group co-chair of the SIP Forum, an organization of IP communications companies that promotes adoption of SIP-based products and services. He also chairs the SIP Forum’s SIPconnect task group, which produces specifications for interconnecting SIP-based IP PBXs with service providers.
A frequent speaker on ENUM, SIP, NGN and related topics, Shockey also has written numerous articles on NGN technologies.
Shockey was educated at Washington University in St. Louis. He and his wife live in suburban Washington, D.C.
# # #
About XConnect
The global leader in network peering, XConnect is trusted by more than 100 IP-based service providers to supply neutral, secure, federation-based interconnection and ENUM-registry services. London-based XConnect’s comprehensive services enable service providers to reduce interconnection costs, improve service quality, simplify operations, and offer rich multimedia IP communications on a cross-network basis. Backed by Tier 1 venture capital firms including Accel Partners and Venrock Associates, XConnect operates the largest worldwide ENUM-based IP-peering federation, the Global Alliance, and the world’s first national VoIP/NGN interconnection federations, in the Netherlands and Korea. XConnect has led industry consolidation via the acquisition of the European carrier ENUM exchange e164.info and U.S.-based peering service IPeerX Inc. For more information, please visit www.xconnect.net.
Note to Editors: A JPG image of Richard Shockey is available here.
Contact:
Laura Abbott, for XConnect +1 203-869-8217 laura.abbott@comunicano.com
Clickatell Nominated for Prestigious World Technology Award
Apr 29th
Company Honored as Innovative with Greatest Likely Long-Term Significance in Communications and Technology Sector
New York, April 28, 2009 – The World Technology Network (WTN) announced that Clickatell has been selected as a nominee for a 2009 World Technology Award, presented by the World Technology Network, in association with TIME magazine, Fortune magazine, and Science magazine, among others. Clickatell is eligible to be selected as the Winner of the 2009 World Technology Award in “Communications and Technology.”
James P. Clark, founder and Chairman of the World Technology Network, commented “The World Technology Awards program is not only a very inspiring way to identify and honor the most innovative people and organizations in the technology world, but it also is a truly disciplined way for the WTN membership to identify those who will formally join them as part of our global community. By working to make useful connections among our members, we look forward to assisting Clickatell continue to help create our collective future and change our world.”
Winners will be announced on July 16, 2009, in New York, at the World Technology Awards gala ceremony at the TIME & Life Building at the conclusion of the two-day World Technology Summit. The World Technology Awards honor individuals and corporations from twenty technology-related sectors viewed by peers as being the most innovative and doing the work of the greatest likely long-term significance. Award categories range from communications, biotechnology, space and energy through to ethics, design and entertainment.
Nominated for its innovative SMS Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Gateway, Clickatell provides companies around the world with the ability to deploy mobile messaging services in hours. “We are pleased with the recognition and owe it all to our innovative customers. Developers from social networking creators, like mig33, healthcare service providers, like ComplyRx, innovative banks, like First National Bank, and leading retailers, like Fruit & Veg City are the real heroes,” exclaimed Pieter de Villiers, CEO of Clickatell. “They understand that people want to transact, communicate and receive real value from their mobile phone. Using Clickatell to offer text services is easier than ever – developers can deliver new ways to engage customers and ultimately improve the bottom line through cost savings and new revenue streams.”
Nominees for the 2009 World Technology Awards were identified based on an intensive, global process over a period of many months in which current individual WTN members (primarily elected WTN Fellows from previous Awards cycles, who now number over 1000, spread out over 60 countries) made their nominations based on who they think is doing the innovative work in their field of the greatest likely long-term significance. After the WTN gathers further information from nominees, WTN individual member then vote on their preferences within their category. The top five selections in each category are announced from the podium on stage at the Awards ceremony, and inducted into the WTN membership as Corporate Members. The Winner receives an Award on stage and makes comments about their innovative work to those assembled.
A selection of WTN members in the 20 different award categories who nominated/judged/voted in recent years includes:
- Tim Berners-Lee, Director, World Wide Web Consortium (W3c)
- Niklas Zennstrom, CEO & Founder, Skype
- Gordon Moore, Co-Founder, Intel
- Kilnam Chon, Professor, Korea Advanced Institute Of Science And Technology (Kaist)
- Richard Marks, Manager, Special Projects, Sony Computer Entertainment
- Lawrence Lessig, Professor, Stanford Law School; Author “The Future Of Ideas”
- Philippe Van Nedervelde, Executive Director, Foresight Institute Europe
- Calestous Juma, Professor Of The Practice Of International Development, Kennedy School Of Government, Harvard University
- Gary Shapiro, President, Consumer Electronics Association Of America
- Don Peppers, Co-Founder, Peppers & Rogers Group; Author “One To One Future”
- Dan Gillmor, Author, “We The Media; Grassroots Journalism By The People, For The People”; Former Technology Columnist, San Jose Mercury News
- Gregory Stock, Director, Program On Medicine, Technology, & Society, UCLA
- Fred Von Lohmann, Senior Intellectual Property Attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Leslie Vadascz, Former President, Intel Capital
- Ann Winblad, Co-Founder, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners
- Richard Dasher, Executive Director, US-Asia Technology Management Center, Stanford University
- Josh Wolfe, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Lux Capital
- Albert Teich, Director, Science And Policy Programs, American Association For The Advancement Of Science (Aaas)
- Daniel Goldin, Chairman, The Intellisis Corporation; Former Administrator, NASA
- Molly Coye, President, Health Technology Center
- Bert Keely, Architect, Tablet Pc, Microsoft
- Jim Fruchterman, President & CEO, The Benetech Initiative
- Alexandra Weber Morales, Editor In Chief, Software Development Magazine
This year’s World Technology Awards ceremony will cap the 2009 World Technology Summit taking place on the 15th and 16th of July at the TIME Conference Center in the historic TIME & Life Building in New York City. This year’s Summit — which has as its theme “How to Save the Future,” will also include demos from the stage, and exhibits from the floor. For more information on the World Technology Network, World Technology Awards and World Technology Summit, please visit www.wtn.net.
About The World Technology Network
The World Technology Network is a New York-headquartered organization that was created to “encourage serendipity” – happy accidents – amongst those individuals and companies deemed by their peers to be the most innovative in the science and technology world. WTN’s areas of interest range from IT and communications to biotech, energy, materials, space, and related fields such as finance, marketing, policy, law, design, and ethics. Each year, WTN members are brought together through an ongoing global series of regional roundtables, global Summits, and other events. The WTN has also convened the World Energy Technologies Summit at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. The central events in the WTN calendar include the annual World Technology Summit and World Technology Awards – the culmination of a global judging program through which new members are nominated and selected and by which the network grows and is refreshed.
About Clickatell
Clickatell enables businesses, governments and communities to leverage the ubiquity of mobile messaging to inform, alert, notify, transact, interact and share information. Delivering mobile messaging solutions since 2000, Clickatell is a global leader in mobile communications specializing in SaaS messaging services and Bulk SMS gateway connectivity to small, medium and large enterprises in a variety of vertical markets. Clickatell’s multi-modal capability and worldwide coverage gives organizations the power to deliver any message to any device anywhere in the world. Reaching 775 networks in more than 200 countries, Clickatell serves 8,300 customers including BBC, Continental Airlines, CNN, First National Bank, Metropolitan Life, Oracle, Shell, and other industry leaders. Clickatell products and services increase customer acquisition, improve loyalty and build trusted brands through direct, personal, easy, and immediate communications. A Sequoia-backed company, Clickatell is headquartered in Redwood City, CA, and has offices in Cape Town, South Africa. For more information, please visit http://www.clickatell.com/central/campaigns/redir.php?cid=96210
PR Contacts:
- Kelly Brieger, Clickatell, 650-704-1748, Kelly@kbpr.net
- James P. Clark, Chairman, The World Technology Network, jpclark@wtn.net
Dialogue Continues International Expansion With New Office & WAP Billing In South Africa
Apr 29th
Leading provider of interactive mobile solutions, Dialogue Communications, has continued its international growth trend with the opening of a new office in South Africa. The new office, based in Cape Town, extends Dialogue’s reach into three continents, and will focus on bringing more comprehensive SMS and WAP billing solutions to the South African market.
Dialogue will now be able to offer the South African market a complete WAP billing package, enabling users to purchase items from the mobile internet on their mobile handset and have the item billed directly to their mobile account or debited from their pre-paid balance.
Guiom Peersman, Managing Director of Dialogue Communications explains: “We are thrilled to be able to introduce WAP billing in South Africa by offering our customers an easy to use complete billing and collection service that we will continue to focus on throughout 2009.
“This year has already seen some exciting developments for Dialogue, and the opening of the South African office enables us not only to access a new market, but to expand our international capabilities.” continued Guiom.
Dialogue already provides mobile payment solutions across the globe – it is a leading accredited payment intermediary for Payforit in the UK; and recently launched WAP billing solutions in Norway, Sweden and Australia where WAP billing solutions are rapidly developing.
Ends
About Dialogue:
• Dialogue was established in 1994 and has its headquarters in Sheffield, UK and offices in London, Sydney, Australia and Cape Town South Africa.
• Dialogue Communications is a world leader in mobile messaging, mobile electronic payments processing and specialises in the development and operation of value added mobile solutions for an international market.
• Dialogue’s Application Portal supports mobile marketing, advertising, content management and mobile internet site management, instant messaging and email. These solutions are fully integrated with Dialogue’s messaging, location and payment transaction services.
• Dialogue’s customers include mobile operators, blue chip corporations, local governments, media agencies and brands. Dialogue works closely with strategic partners to provide customised solutions via bespoke software development and professional services.
For further information please contact Jessica Culshaw at BCS Public Relations on 0115 948 6901 or Jessica@bcspr.co.uk.
Truphone 3.0 for the iPhone brings it all together
Apr 29th
New architecture delivers improved user experience, simplified management and performance boost
• User experience now slicker and more intuitive than ever before
• Account management outpaces anything else now on the market
• Application faster than ever before – now native on the handset
• Radically improved call quality to make it what we believe is the best in the market
LONDON, 28 April 2009 – Truphone today launched Truphone 3.0, a major new upgrade to its mobile VoIP application for the Apple® iPhone™ that dramatically builds upon the success of previous versions of the iPhone’s first ever VoIP application, enhancing users’ instant messaging and account management experience, faster than ever before, and delivering a new standard for call quality.
Among the many improvements in Truphone 3.0 are increased ease of use, speed of function response, intuitiveness and simplicity – all designed to enhance the users’ experience. Further, Truphone has improved voice quality making the app for the iPhone better than it’s ever been before.
Using Truphone’s integrated messaging tool that unifies all IM communities in a single place, users can now simply manage all their IM communication from a single page within the application, eliminating the need to constantly jockey between different applications or even different pages within an application. IM services currently supported include Skype, MSN Messenger, AIM, Yahoo! Messenger and Google Talk.
“Customers tell us they want three things: simplicity, quality and a good deal. Those principles drive our innovation, and Truphone 3.0 delivers on all three. We’ve dramatically improved our UI and account management tools. We’ve eliminated the need for compression by utilizing new advances in signal processing, making calls crystal clear. And, just as we always do, Truphone 3.0 sets a new benchmark in terms of quality and performance that competitors will have a tough time matching”, said Geraldine Wilson, CEO Truphone.
“With these improvements, we believe Truphone 3.0 is the best application on mobile for our customers’ international calling needs as well as staying in touch with all of their IM communities, in or out of Wi-Fi.”
Similar improvements to Truphone for the Apple iPod® touch will be announced soon.
What Truphone already does
Free calls when in Wi-Fi to:
• Other Truphone users
• Skype and Google Talk users
Free Instant Messages when in Wi-Fi to:
• Skype
• MSN Messenger
• Google Talk
• Yahoo! Messenger
• AIM
Incredible savings on calls to:
• Call landlines and mobiles around the world at cheap rates
Most importantly all these communication opportunities are also available outside of Wi-Fi by using Truphone Anywhere for calls (charged at a local rate in your home country and then routed over Truphone’s network – not for use when roaming), and 3G for Instant Messaging.
Account Management:
• See rates for calls before initiating a call
• Display recent call history, showing the Truphone customer exactly how much a call just cost and how long it lasted with the ability to see a summary of calls made month by month
• Top-up from within the application, without the need for web windows to open separately
• Top-up in a variety of ways: credit card or PayPal
• Change calling tariffs within the application
[ends]
Notes to editors
• Geraldine Wilson, CEO Truphone photograph
About Truphone
Founded in 2006, Truphone is a global mobile communications provider in the business of innovating how people converse in our globally connected world. As the industry’s first mobile Internet operator, the company makes it easy and affordable for users all over the world to keep in touch with friends, family and business contacts overseas or whilst roaming. Truphone is the trading name of Software Cellular Network (SCN). SCN is privately owned, funded by both venture capital investment and angel investors.
Important information
Truphone is not a replacement for an ordinary telephone service and emergency calls cannot be made using Truphone. However Truphone does not prevent emergency calls being made via a handset’s normal cellular service provider. Truphone cannot advise on the legality of VoIP services in specific territories or jurisdictions. It is the user’s responsibility to confirm that use of the Truphone VoIP software and service is permitted in the location in which they use it.
Apple and iPod are trademarks of Apple Inc, registered in the United States and other countries. Google is a trademark of Google Inc. Wi-Fi is a registered trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance. Google and Android are trademarks of Google, Inc. Truphone is a trademark of Software Cellular Network Ltd. All other brands, product names, company names, trademarks and service marks are the properties of their respective owners.
Media contact
UK / Europe:
Rose Ross
Both Barrels Communications
+44 208 255 5225
North America:
Sue Huss
Comunicano Inc.
+1 619 379 4396
Palringo adds Groups Gallery, enabling anyone to find and join the Palringo community through groups more easily.
Apr 29th
Core Facts
- Palringo’s Groups Gallery is a browsable directory that makes it easy for people to find Palringo groups they’d like to join and participate in.
- The addition of Groups Gallery means that Palringo groups are significantly more useful than before: until today there was no way to find out about specific groups other than by word of mouth or guesswork.
- Now, the Groups Gallery enables people to meet others who share similar interests, all in the same virtual place.
- Groups are also a useful way for groups of friends or colleagues to stay in touch. Businesses are using Palringo groups as well as the location functionality to enable better communications between staff and to respond more quickly to customer needs.
- Using a Palringo group for messaging enables voice, text and photos to be shared simultaneously with everyone in the group.
- Statistics: there are more than 21,000 groups on Palringo, and 50,000 Palringo users are members of at least one group. More than 4 million group messages were sent last month. The largest group has 1,995 members.
- Group owners manage how their group is seen in the Groups Gallery by editing the description, adding a photo and selecting the most appropriate category for the group. For privacy, group owners may designate their group as ‘ex-directory’, ensuring their group is excluded from the Groups Gallery.
- Group owners also have tools to manage their community of group members, by promoting other members to help them administer the group or removing rowdy group members.
Quotes
Martin Rosinski, CTO of Palringo, said:
“The number and variety of groups in existence on Palringo is fabulous. Because it’s easy and free to create a group, if you can’t find what you’re looking for you can simply create your own group. Then you can promote your group in the gallery to attract new members.”
“The versatility of Palringo, the way it works across all sorts of mobile phones and operating systems, means it’s extremely inclusive – no-one is excluded because they’ve got the wrong handset, for example. The group functionality takes that a step further because everyone in a group can communicate with everyone else yet only needs to send one actual message. Now, by adding the Groups Gallery, Palringo has just made it a million times easier for new members to find and join any group.”
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