Mobile Phone News

Where there's muck there's brass

Fonebak, the Mobile Phone recyling company announced an increase in profits of 18% last year.

The company recycled 3 million handsets giving them a profit of £3.75 million and allowing them to pay a maiden dividend of 1 pence.

With new EU legislation on the horizon: tightening the rules on Mobile Phone disposal making Networks responsible for environmentally friendly disposal, Fonebak looks to be sitting pretty.

Last year 150 million Mobiles were upgraded in Europe.

Benefon

Benefon are launching new handsets under the brand of TWIG. They will be Mobiles incorporating GPS and Sat nav technologies. Benefon have been around for a while with a chequered history but the new handsets might bring them back into the mainstream.

Insure yours with Loyal Insurance.

Nokia plans 'Wibree'

Nokia has announced that it has been developing a new technology to rival Bluetooth. Known as 'Wibree' this new development enables small devices, such as toys and watches to communicate with each other.

'Wibree' will be smaller, cheaper and use only a fraction of the power of Bluetooth enabling it to be used in a greater number of applications.

Watch this space.

Pre-teen talkers

Over 90% of 12 years olds in the UK own a Mobile phone. Of nine year olds the figure drops to 24%, but at 10 over half a Mobile.

In a survey of 11 - 17 years olds a quarter said they felt unwanted if they went a day without receiving a text or a call.

Of those surveyed 10% said they'd made or received a call during a lesson and over half admitted to have sent a text.

Murphy sniffs out Mobiles

A 15 month old English springer spaniel called Murphy has become Britain's first sniffer dog trained to sniff out Mobile phones at Norwich prison. The phones are deemed a security risk as they allow inmates to contact witnesses, take photographs of staff and visitors. 

For the moment Murphy will be on his own there are no plans to train anymore dogs to sniff out Mobiles until the results of this trial can be assessed.

At Loyal Insurance we weren't sure that Mobiles smelt.

TV on the move

ITV and the Mobile Phone network 3 have made two tv channels available to the network's 3.7 million customers. For a monthly charge of £5 per month (on top of the normal network charges) customer will be able to watch ITV1 and ITV Play via their Mobiles.

Adverts usually shown on the channels will not be shown on the Mobile service - known as 'simulcast tv' - instead viewers will be shown trailers for upcoming shows. Some films may not be shown due to rights issues.

It looks as if more and more of us will be watching TV on the move either by 'simulcast' services, when the programmes are shown at the same time as they are on traditional TV or by downloading programmes from websites onto Mobile devices such as I-pods. 

Watch out for other simulcast services over the next 6 to 12 months.

 

TV on the move

ITV and the Mobile Phone network 3 have made two tv channels available to the network's 3.7 million customers. For a monthly charge of £5 per month (on top of the normal network charges) customer will be able to watch ITV1 and ITV Play via their Mobiles.

Adverts usually shown on the channels will not be shown on the Mobile service - known as 'simulcast tv' - instead viewers will be shown trailers for upcoming shows. Some films may not be shown due to rights issues.

It looks as if more and more of us will be watching TV on the move either by 'simulcast' services, when the programmes are shown at the same time as they are on traditional TV or by downloading programmes from websites onto Mobile devices such as I-pods. 

Watch out for other simulcast services over the next 6 to 12 months.

 

Will you get an invite??

Most interesting party of the year has to be the one being thrown by Charles Dunstone of Carphone Warehouse for John Caudwell who recently sold his Caudwell empire (including the retail chain Phones 4U) for well in excess of a billion £s.

This is something of a surprise as over the years there has been little love lost between Carphone and Phones 4U, however, it seems that these two giants of the industry seem to have more mutual respect than has been in evidence over the years.

The party is to be held in October and will apparently be relatively low key......all these things are relative I suppose. If you don't get your invite soon you've probably been overlooked, along with the rest of us.

   

Nokia top of the list for theft

A study of 112,000 thefts of mobile phones has revealed that Nokia is the brand most likely to be stolen. Nokia accounted for nearly half of the Mobiles stolen and it's models made up 7 of the top 10. However, it is not clear whether Nokias are being specifically targeted or whether this is simply a result of the fact that Nokia does has a strong position in the market therefore there are alot out there to be stolen.   

The top 3 Mobiles stolen were found to be:

1 Nokia 6230 - 15.4%

2 Samsung D500 - 8.2%

3 Motorola Razr - 5.4%

Street Crime

On June 28th 2006, Detective Inspector Kenny McDonald from the National Mobile Phone Crime Unit, said that a staggering 45% of street crime was linked to a Mobile Phone. Whilst a Mobile Phone was involved in 10% of all crimes.

He went onto explain the need for stolen Mobile Phones to be registered with www.immobilise.com which will block the Mobile Phone from being used again therefore making it less attractive to steal.