The world’s top handset manufacturer has signed up for Telefónica’s carrier billing service, which will let customers buy apps and content through the Samsung app store and charge it to their phone bill. Read more »
British privacy advocates have reacted with horror to the idea of EE and market research firm Ipsos Mori selling anonymized customer data. On balance, they shouldn’t worry so much. Read more »
Intel Capital and others have put $9 million into Irish outfit FeedHenry, which provides a mobile app development and deployment platform, along with backend-as-a-service, for mostly enterprise customers. Read more »
Expect Labs more than doubles its current funding with latest round. The startup wants computers to be able to predict the kind of information we need instead of us having to ask for it. Read more »
According to analysts at Informa, IP-based platforms such as WhatsApp now carry more messages than SMS infrastructure does. However, we should be cautious about how we interpret the figures. Read more »
Tu Go extends essential functionality to Wi-Fi-connected devices, making the service you’re already paying for more relevant and easier to use. It may be the first time a telco has created a genuinely sensible OTT app. Read more »
The deal will make Sky the UK’s second-largest fixed-line broadband and voice player. It also makes it more likely that the O2 UK mobile business will be open for a merger with one of its rivals. Read more »
Raco Wireless is already connecting plenty of appliances, vehicles and gadgets to the internet of things using T-Mobile’s 2G networm, but with new carrier partnerships the M2M specialist can connect those things in more places. Read more »
EE, Vodafone, Three, O2 and BT have all won spectrum in the auction, which the regulator Ofcom says will lead to full 4G coverage by the end of 2017. Read more »
The Spanish telco has beefed up its enterprise cloud portfolio by integrating its recently-announced Instant Servers IaaS play with FeedHenry’s Mobile Applications Platform. Read more »
Mobile operators have treated Skype as a threat for years. Now they’re going to profit off it by allowing customers to buy Skype Credit directly through their phone bill or pre-paid allowance and taking a cut. Read more »
EE has been able to roll out 4G earlier than its rivals because it’s been allowed to reuse its 2G and 3G spectrum for LTE. Now its rivals look set to get the same opportunity. Read more »
An obscure Spanish manufacturer has revealed two test devices for Mozilla’s mobile operating system. Telefonica, which is pushing hard on Firefox OS, will be showing them off at a Sao Paolo event later this month. Read more »
The three biggest mobile operators in Spain have all launched Joyn, the consumer-facing brand name for Rich Communications Services. But, with entrenched over-the-top rivals such as WhatsApp, is this long-gestating platform too late? Read more »
The France-based operator group is the latest to deploy an app that competes directly with the likes of Skype and WhatsApp, but also potentially steals away its own paying customers. Apart from evolving because it has to, what does it hope to gain? Read more »
You know what’s cool? $1.1bn. Especially when, like the Irish government, you were only expecting a fifth of that. And, with carriers finally free to roll out 4G, that won’t be the only boost to the Irish economy. Read more »
The Spanish telecoms giant has made its big infrastructure-as-a-service play with Instant Servers, which it claims will beat entrenched rivals through better reliability and scalability. Read more »
Mobile data will grow 18 times over the next five years. To successfully address the shift from voice-to data-centric usage models, operators need to act on multiple fronts, because no single solution will be sufficient in isolation. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Many interested in deploying software defined networks are eager for the agility and programmability they can provide. But the fear of breaking their network means IT is leery of deploying SDNs. Apigee has updated its API management products to work on SDNs to alleviate those fears. Read more »
The deal will see the Spanish telecoms giant bundle augmented reality tech with its advertising offerings and promote the Aurasma app to its 300 million customers. But will marketing use-cases finally make the technology fly? Read more »
Apigee, a company that helps manage and monitor APIs, snagged a $20 million round of funding led by new investor Focus Ventures, with participation from current investors Bay Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, SAP Ventures and Third Point Ventures. Read more »
Communications-as-a-Service (CaaS) technology brings together business applications, the Internet and the world’s public-switched telephone network (PSTN) to provide businesses with new ways of enabling communication. Here’s how to leverage this new technology. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Vodafone and O2 are joining forces in Britain to share their grid and try to roll out 4G services faster than planned. It’s being painted as a great deal for consumers — but it’s actually being driven by the actions of their rivals. Read more »
Up to €300,000 in seed funding and a pro mentor to boot? Sounds great – but it seems the equity demands for Deutsche Telekom’s new Berlin-based ‘incubator’ hub:raum are pretty fuzzy indeed. Read more »
Hot on the heels of Telefonica’s Wayra accelerator, Deutsche Telekom has opened up a rival incubator in the German capital Read more »
Spain’s Blink Booking offers last-minute hotel reservations, so it’s only appropriate that one of the several high-profile names in its funding round is that of Lastminute.com co-founder Brent Hoberman Read more »
After similar launches in the UK and Ireland, mobile giant Telefónica is bringing its Wayra accelerator program to Germany later this year — with a six-month scheme for tech startups that comes with up to €50,000 in seed funding. Read more »
Five key technology sectors are enabling the smart city: smart grids, smart transport, smart water and waste management, smart building systems, and the enabling ICT platforms for the smart city. Key players like IT companies, telcos and utilities must learn how to harness those technologies, and quickly. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
At MWC executives of two prominent operators said the industry has significant challenges in the form of over the top providers commoditizing their revenue streams without those companies putting any significant investment of their own into the network. Here’s what operators should do. Read more »
Searching for a new lease of life, Mozilla is joining forces with Spanish operator Telefónica to build handsets that have web technologies at their heart. But can Mozilla succeed where Palm failed? And is there room in a difficult market for more players? Read more »
Martin Geddes thinks the telecom industry has reached its peak. As he explains, telecom is like the railroad business at the height of the railroad barons. It has acquired its maximum share of the economy, and the only way now is down. Read more »
Spanish telecoms giant Telefónica — the world’s third-largest mobile firm — saw profits cut in half after a troubled year. With Nokia, Siemens and Deutsche Telekom all facing a torrid time, is the writing on the wall for Europe’s mobile businesses? Read more »
Mobile data is picking up momentum in Latin America as the number of 3G connections in the region doubled in 2011. Operators in Latin and South America are shutting down their CDMA networks, replacing them with UMTS systems, resulting in a huge surge in data adoption. Read more »
Some numbers out today that underscore the challenge telecoms operators have had in attracting customers to their pay-TV platforms, includin… Read more at paidContent »
Telefonica (NYSE: TEF) has put its digital eggs into one basket — centralizing all its global digital operations into one new unit — and w… Read more at paidContent »
Apple’s smartphone could’ve been available on five carriers this fall instead of just four, according to U.S. Cellular’s CEO Mary Dillon. Dillon revealed during the carrier’s earnings call that her company turned down the iPhone because Apple’s “terms were unacceptable from a risk and profitability standpoint.” Read more »
VMware has signed deals with Verizon and Telefonica to offer virtualization on phones provided by the operators. The net result of this deal is that employees who want to combine their work phone and their personal phone will soon be able to do so. Read more »
As our demand for data increases, so too do the number of mobile devices and services. Add to that the infrastructure needed to support such connectivity, and a wide, complex picture of the mobile industry emerges. This report examines the various sectors of the mobile landscape and what the future holds for each. Hardware, cloud services, mobile search, advertising, location-based services and the growing ubiquity of the Internet of Things will all play an important role in the concept of mobility as it shifts and evolves over the next several years. With the help of more than a dozen contributors, GigaOM Pro presents a comprehensive analysis of the companies and trends that will lead us into the next era of mobile. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Do mobile operators have what it takes to be a killer force in the mobile advertising industry? Telefonica’s UK mobile operator O2 has recen… Read more at paidContent »
The operator Telefonica — owner of many mobile and fixed businesses spanning from Latin America to Europe — is getting its digital house i… Read more at paidContent »
