Orange has announched that it will offer a new service that combines a mobile phone with a VoIP service. A single mobile handset will act as a landline and a mobile. The handset will operate in the customers house using WiFi (Wireless Internet) to access a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol - making phone calls over a broadband connection) connection. Outside the customers house, the handset will work as a normal mobile phone.

The service is very similar to a BT service called BT Fusion. The Orange service will be available in November.

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The Carphone Warehouse is set to expand into the USA, according to some industry insiders. A deal with American firm Best Buy will allow Carphone Warehouse to sell mobile handsets through its retail stores. It will also allow Carphone Warhouse to use Best Buy’s broadband technical support, called the Geek Squad. This will help alleviate TalkTalk’s (part of Carphone Warehouse) problems with complaints about a lack of support for its broadband service.

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Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, is proposing to cap mobile termination charges to 5.3 pence per minute. Termination charges are the fees that a mobile operator charges another mobile operator when a customer calls someone on their network. Termination charges are blamed for the relatively high cost of calling a mobile on a different network or calling a mobile from a landline. Ofcom has decided that competition alone is not enough to reduce these charges.

Ofcom and its predecessor, Oftel, has been controlling termination charges since 2004. At that time, a review found that mobile networks were fixing the termination charges and customer had no choice but to use the mobile network that the destination number was on. Vodafone and O2 were not allowed to charge more than 5.63 pence per minute. T Mobile and Orange use a different, more expensive, spectrum and so were allowed to charge a higher rate at 6.31 pence per minute.

Termination charges account for approximately 50% of the cost to call a mobile from a BT landline. Any reduction in these charges is good news for consumers.

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Vodafone has struck a deal with BT to offer broadband by the end of this year. The deal will allow Vodafone to “bundle” broadband and mobile products together. Vodafone is entering a very tough market, with three major players, Carphone Warehouse, Orange and Sky, offering free broadband. Although there is no doubt that Vodaone has the muscle to make it.

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Pipex has purchased two businesses, Toucan and Bulldog, increasing its customer base by 1.14 million.
Toucan has been bought from American firm IDT for £24 million. Toucan has 185,000 broadband, home phone and mobile customers.

Pipex has bought Bulldog from Cable and Wireless for £12 million. Bulldog has around 100,000 broadband customers.

This move will allow Pipex to offer “triple play” products. Triple play is the term used to refer to a provider that can offer broadband, mobile and home phone products (or broadband, digital TV and home phone products). Triple play is becoming an essential strategy for telecoms companies to survive in an ultra competitive market.

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BT has launched a new service called BT Movio that will allow customers to view TV programmes in real time on a mobile phone. BBC One, ITV 1 and E4 will be available live, without some movies. A streamlined version of Channel 4 will also be available.

The first mobile network to offer the BT Movio service will be Virgin Mobile and it will be available from October 1st. The service will be available on a new phone called the Virgin Mobile Loster 700TV. Virgin customers on a tariff of more that £25 will get the service and the new Loster 700TV for free. Other customers can buy the phone for £199 and the service costs £5 per month, with the first 3 months free.

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The Phonespot have a fantastic deal on the top selling Samsung E900 phone.

As you would expect, the phone itself is free of charge. You will receive 275 cross network any time minutes with Vodafone.

The best news is that the line rental, normally £35 per month, is free for 12 months on an 18 month contract. So you will only pay for the last 6 months of the contract. That saves you a massive £420. What a bargin and a truely stellar deal.

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According to IDC, mobile penetration has passed 100% in many European countries. Many experts believed the mobile market had reached saturation point and could no grow anymore. This has proved to not be the case, with a 7% year on year increase in mobile shipments in the 2nd quarter of 2006. This is partly due to 3G devices becoming available at affordable prices.

Nokia is still the main player in the market. Shipments of mobile devices in the 2nd quarter:

• Nokia 14.5 million
• Motorola 7.1 million
• Samsung 5.1 million
• Sony Ericsson 4.5 million

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T-Mobile is offering cut price roaming for its customers for this years football World Cup. Customers will be to buy 40 minutes of talk time for £10 to use when making or receiving calls while abroad. Thats 25 pence a minute and certainly a lot cheaper than the standard 75 pence to £1 per minute.

More details of this offer to follow..

At long last Virgin has accepted an offer of £962 million from NTL for Virgin Mobile. This will create the UK’s first “quad play” provider offering home phone, digital TV, broadband and mobile products and is part of NTL’s vision of become a massive force in the telecommunications market. NTL recently merged with fellow cable provider Telewest. NTL will rebrand as Virgin, but only if Richard Branson is happy with improvements to NTL’s rather dodgy customer services. Virgin has a good name in terms of customer services and its focus is on keeping its customers happy. That attitude is likely to be forced on NTL in an attempt to bring NTL out of customer service hell. This is great news for existing NTL customers.

More info:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4874694.stm