Dutch Net Neutrality, The Way It Supposed To Be

Dutch Net Neutrality http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
Network operators in the Netherlands will no longer be able to charge customers for using rival messaging or VoIP Services like Skype and similar.
The Dutch parliament approved a Net Neutrality bill forcing mobile Internet providers to let customers use Skype and other rival services on their networks without charging extra or giving preferential treatment to their own offerings.
While network operators, Vodafone ( VOD), T-Mobile and the Royal KPN ( KPN) NV lobbied against the bill and whined about higher consumer prices and not being able to provide quality assurance, the Dutch parliament voted to end traffic discrimination.
The Dutch Government's move is first of it's kind in EU! But the Chilean government has beaten the Dutch for being the first, according to Engadget.

Get HTC ChaCha For Free From Vodafone!

HTC ChaCha The facebook phone. http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
HTC ChaCha has come to Vodafone and the phone is available for free on select plans. If you live breath and sleep, facebook, then this is the phone for you, your facebook phone, It is not THE facebook phone but comes pretty close to it. The phone comes complete with "f" button below the keyboard to help you with sharing your life away on the facebook.

Press Release;

Share music, photos, location and status updates with a dedicated Facebook button

The HTC ChaCha is available now on Vodafone, bringing an all new mobile experience of Facebook. Featuring a dedicated Facebook button, the HTC ChaCha that lets you share a whole range of things with your friends and family in an instant. Take a photo - straight to Facebook. Make a video - straight to Facebook. Show whatever, whenever, at the touch of a button.

HTC ChaCha's Facebook chat widget also means you can group all your friends together, and see when anyone is online, start a live instant chat and juggle between as many private conversations as you want. Available free on £26, 24 month price plans including 300 minutes, unlimited texts, 750MB of mobile data and 1GB of BT Openzone WiFi allowance, the conversation never ends with HTC ChaCha.

Plus, it has a QWERTY keyboard, 2.6" touchscreen, 5MP rear camera, 0.3MP front camera, Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth.

For more information on the HTC ChaCha, visit the Vodafone online shop

*click on the images below for the hi-res version*
*select A4 landscape or A3 before printing this email*


HTC ChaCha
Free on £26, 24 month price plans
(Including 300 minutes, unlimited texts, 750MB of data and 1GB of BT Openzone WiFi allowance)
Specifications:

Dimensions (mm)
114.4 x 64.6 x 10.7
Weight (g)
120

Standby time (hours)
GSM Up to 430

3G standby time (hours)
Up to 640 hours

TouchScreen
Capacitive touchscreen

Processor
800 MHz

Screensize (inches)
2.6

Talk time
GSM Up to 450 mins

3G talk time (minutes)
Up to 400 minutes

Internal memory
512MB

Operating system
Android 2.4 (Gingerbread)

Vodaphone via Engadget

HTC Desire 2 At MWC?

HTC Desire 2 http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
Looks like among many other goodies, we will be seeing HTC Desire 2 at the MWC, the Mobile World Congress.But the evidence is only the screen shot above mentioning the device, HTC Desire 2! The blog, HTCInside acquired the purported screen shot of Vodafone Germany’s internal inventory system.
If HTC Desire and HTC Desire HD are anything to go by, HTC Desire 2 should be an interesting Android 2.3 device, perhaps.
HTCInside via BGR

Vodafone : "Egypt Lovers." Were Egyptian Government And They Forced Us To Send TXT Messgage!

http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/

LONDON – Egyptian authorities forced Vodafone to broadcast pro-government text messages during the protests that have rocked the country, the U.K.-based mobile company said Thursday.

Micro-blogging site Twitter has been buzzing with screen grabs from Vodafone's Egyptian customers showing text messages sent over the course of the demonstrations against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year-old regime.

A text message received Sunday by an Associated Press reporter in Egypt appealed to the country's "honest and loyal men to confront the traitors and criminals and protect our people and honor." Another urged Egyptians to attend a pro-Mubarak rally in Cairo on Wednesday. The first was marked as coming from "Vodafone." The other was signed: "Egypt Lovers."

In a statement, Vodafone Group PLC said that the messages had been drafted by Egyptian authorities and that it had no power to change them.

"Vodafone Group has protested to the authorities that the current situation regarding these messages is unacceptable," the statement said. "We have made clear that all messages should be transparent and clearly attributable to the originator."

The company also said its competitors — including Egypt's Mobinil and the United Arab Emirates' Etisalat — were doing the same. Etisalat, known formally as Emirates Telecommunications Corp., declined comment.

Yahoo

Mobile Banking Coming To Indian Handsets, Thanks To Nokia, Bharti Airtel, Vodaphone And Banks.

Image courtesy of watblog

Mobile Banking, India, Nokia, Bharti Airtell, Vodaphone  http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
With mobile phones reaching over 650 million people in India, banks and mobile service providers are hard at work hoping to provide financial services on the mobile device. The country is still growing in financial and banking like the rest of the economy and banks reach much much less that what mobile service providers do.
Indian mobile banking was taken much further, recently by Bharti Airtel and Vodafone when both announced different ventures related to mobile banking.. Bharti Airtel Announced a partnership with the State Bank of India while Vodafone agreed to become a Business Correspondent for ICICI Bank.

Airtel and SBI will invest about Rs one billion to set up the joint venture which will engage Airtel's retailers as Customer Service Points (CSP) all over India in a phased manner.Once deployed existing and new Airtel mobile customers will be able to visit these CSPs and open new SBI bank accounts and utilize banking products and services available at these CSPs. In Addition,existing SBI customers will be able to reach their accounts via these CSPs.
The ICICI Bank and Vodafone Essar Ltd venture will offer a range of financial products similar to the above, such as savings accounts, pre-paid instruments and credit products through a mobile phone platform.Vodafone is hoping to replicate its success in Kenya and other countries where it has 20 million customers for financial services.

Nokia was among the first to start mobile payment services with a pilot projects in Pune, Chandigarh and Nasik in partnership with Yes Bank. Those pilots are now ready to go commercial.

“Mobile payments will be the next step for delivering financial services to hundreds of millions of “underbanked” people or those who are under-served currently, both urban and rural customers, especially in emerging economies. Our vision is to make mobile money part of our phones just like we have made camera an integral part of the handset, ... Technology is not an issue but getting the ecosystem in place is the important part. We have partnered with utility companies, telecom firms, gas companies to enable mobile payment,” says Gerhard Romen, Director, Mobile Financial Services, Nokia

But the new comers are not planing to hand over the crown yet,

“Since more than 90 per cent of the mobile subscriber base is pre-paid, consumers are used to paying upfront at a mobile retail shop. The comfort factor is very important, especially when we are dealing with money,” says Samaresh Parida, Director (Strategy), Vodafone Essar. Vodafone.

“India thus provides an ideal case for leveraging low-cost mobile services to provide financial inclusion to the un-banked population in the country. SBI is interested in inclusion and Airtel is a microcosm of India and increasingly rural, so both will leverage the expertise of the parent organisations to provide low-cost, secure, easy-to-use banking services,” says Sriram Jagannathan, CEO, mCommerce, Bharti Airtel. 

Perhaps, there is a lesson to learn for our service providers and banks are looking to provide mobile payments, with merchants like Starbucks taking their own initiatives to provide a way to pay for cup of coffee with mobile phones.

Hindubusinessline Via IP Carrier (Image from watblog)

T-Mobile UK To Be Exchanged For Vodafone Turkey?

T-Mobile UK for Vodafone Turkey.
The buzz in the mobile circle is that T-Mobile UK is planing to exchange it's operations in the UK with Vodafone's operations in Turkey.
Vivendi, the french telecom giant has been on the prawl lately acquiring and expanding it's operations in the continent and beyond in to Africa and Orient.
The latest moves involves acquiring African arm of Zain, a Kuwait based firm, in addition to the Vodafone Turkey for T-Mobile UK deal between Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom. While Vivendi has admitted the Zain efforts, it is holding back on the T-Mobile UK deal but widely expected to be announced this week.
Via Rethinkwireless

Tags: T-Mobile, Vivendi, Zain, Vodafone, Deutche Telecom, T-Mobile UK

HTC Will Ship At Least Two More Android Based Phones This Year.

http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
HTC was first to the market with an Android-based smartphone last year, when it teamed up with Google and T-Mobile to launch the G1 in the U.S.

After announcing its second Google phone, the HTC Magic, / Android G2 (which is being sold first in Europe by Vodafone), HTC is saying that they not done yet. The Handset maker will release at least two more Google phones this year.

HTC CEO Peter Chou is said to have said "at least" three,Android based phone at a technology meeting in Taipei.Yahoo

Tags: HTC Magic, Android G2, Vodafone

Google Phone G2 Coming Soon, HTC Magic By Vodaphone Coming In April 2009

http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
Vodafone UK’s site has a new page for the HTC Magic 3V, Android G2 and tells us that the phone will launch in April 2009. But lacking are the pricing information, launch date but there is a button to press so you can register for updates.
The site has some graphics and the 3d view did not work on my browser! But the images are not much different from what we have seen so far. The details about the phone is also available including the blurb below. But if you dig into the would be Android G2 specification, you will notice the screen size has only a single dimension, 3.20 inches.

"Everything you love about the internet, exactly how you want it. The HTC Magic will keep you entertained and up to date wherever you are.

Sleek, stylish and exclusive to Vodafone, the Magic is powered by cutting edge technology. So web essentials like Google Maps and Google Search work brilliantly. You can create shortcuts to your favourite sites and download fun games, news feeds and widgets. Then decide where everything goes - so you can get to it all easily.

Love putting friends in the picture? The HTC Magic's 3.2 megapixel camera shoots photos in sharp focus. You can admire the results on its extra large high-resolution screen. Or upload your photos for your friends to see - with superfast internet, they'll upload in a flash."

You can see the page here.

Tags: Android G2 specification, HTC Magic 3V, Android G2, Vodafone, Google Phone G2

HTC Magic 3V (Android G2) Officially Announced

http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
Vodafone has announced HTC Magic 3V (Android G2) officially at the mobile world congress. It is the same HTC phone that was suspected to be the Android G2. Gizmodo has already reviewed the phone and we will post about that in another post.
From various sources, the phone is a few steps up from the Android based G1 but with some quirks of it's own. The main complain seem to be the cramped up soft keyboard. But everyone agrees that it is a much better phone than the Android G1.
Here is the Vodaphone Press Release;

BARCELONA — Feb 17, 2009 — Vodafone and HTC Corporation today announced the HTC Magic smartphone, Vodafone’s first Android-powered mobile, which will be available in the spring.

The stylish new handset is exclusive to Vodafone in the UK, Spain, Germany and France (SFR) and available on a non-exclusive basis in Italy. Customers can ensure that they are the first to receive information about the HTC Magic’s availability, pricing and pre-ordering by registering their interest via their local Vodafone website from today.

The introduction of the HTC Magic is the result of a successful relationship between Vodafone and HTC, and Vodafone’s joining, late last year, of the Open Handset Alliance.

A tablet-style device, with a sleek design and unprecedented compactness for a smartphone featuring the Android platform, the HTC Magic enables a superior mobile internet experience, providing broad flexibility for personalisation via the application-rich Android Market. Available in white in the UK, Spain and France, black in Germany and in both colours in Italy, the HTC Magic will be for sale in several other Vodafone markets over the next few months.

“Delivering an unbeatable mobile internet experience for our customers is a priority for Vodafone, so we are very excited to be introducing our first Android-powered smartphone in the spring,” says Patrick Chomet, Global Director of Terminals, Vodafone Group. “Following our joining of the Open Handset Alliance, we have worked very closely with HTC to bring this cool new phone to the market. Our customers want to access a wide range of the most attractive mobile devices to help them make the most of their time - the HTC Magic helps meet that need.”

“The HTC Magic embodies the compact style and sophistication for which HTC has come to be known, with the powerful and intuitive internet experience for which the Android platform was designed,” says Peter Chou, president and CEO, HTC Corporation. “We are proud of our partnership with Vodafone and excited about making the Android-powered HTC Magic available to Vodafone customers in Europe.”

"The announcement of the HTC Magic is an important step for Android and the Open Handset Alliance," says Andy Rubin, Senior Director of Mobile Platforms at Google. "With it, Vodafone is opening up the mobile web for consumers across Europe and giving more third-party developers a platform on which they can build the next wave of killer applications."

Available from free on various price plans, the HTC Magic has a 3.2” QVGA touch screen display and features a trackball and navigational buttons for quick, easy access. The HTC Magic includes a variety of email options such as Google Mail™, POP3 and IMAP as well as Google Talk™ for instant messaging.

The HTC Magic has a variety of powerful mobile internet capabilities beginning with an Android-optimised Webkit browser. It also features the popular Google™ applications, Google Maps™ and Google Search™ as well as favourites like YouTube™. In addition, Android Market allows for quick and easy downloading of games and applications utilising Vodafone’s fast and reliable network.

Full details of availability and pricing will be available in the future in local Vodafone markets.

For further information please contact:

Vodafone Group
Media Relations
Tel: 00 44 1635 664444

Tags: Android G2, Mobile World Congress, Vodafone, HTC Magic 3V, HTC Corporation, Android G1