Archive for the ‘Vodafone’ Category

Vodafone 360: H2 Will Not See Light of Day

July 28th, 2010

Vodafone has been in quite a standoff with both Orange and T-Mobile in the UK. The mobile network operators have been trying to win over consumers with promotions, smart phone exclusivity deals and superiority in basically every facet and aspect they have as an advantage that is applicable to the mobile phone industry.

One of the things that Vodafone tried out not so long ago was the range of bespoke Vodafone 360 units. Thing is, if you were one of the people who grabbed one of the said handsets, such as the Samsung manufactured M1 and H1 range, and enjoyed using the device then there is very bad news for you.

Those who are looking forward to upgrading their mobile phones with the latest 360 handset will not be able to. Vodafone has given an official announcement that no more bespoke 360 phones will be made and released following their Samsung made units. The company will, instead, focus on the development of their 360 services and will be including their 360 platform on company released handsets. This is a snippet from the official announcement posted by Vodafone:

“From now we will be focusing all efforts on expanding the range of handsets and platforms that support Vodafone 360 and in developing and enhancing the suite of Vodafone 360 services. Consequently there will be no further development of bespoke Vodafone 360 handsets.”

That means that the company’s follow up to the Samsung made H1, the H2, will also consequently cease production. As of now, the company’s 360 service allows people to access contacts on different mobile phone units. It also gives users access to many music files, downloadable video clips as well as mobile games via their 360 shop.

With the halt in bespoke devices, the company will have all the means to focus on delivering noteworthy developments in terms of apps and all the time to improve their services further.

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Internet Education: Vodafone Brings 450 Schoolchildren Online

March 29th, 2010

As said before, internet access should be a right. Unlike other luxury goods, internet access is now becoming a modern day commodity –even more significant than owning a landline or having cable TV. With the strong impact of the internet on society and our constant need to be online, it is no surprise that there is a need to educate children on the ways of the internet.

The difference between a child with net access and a child without one is pretty significant. Many school curriculums today take for granted the fact that children have access to the internet. Research papers, studies and even basic homework are expected to be accomplished with the aid of being able to find reference materials and data instantly online.

Beyond practical usage, getting net access also allows children to stay in touch with their peers. With many post school, interaction happening on internet forums, social networking tools such as Facebook or on the micro blogging site Twitter, children who have no access to the internet are easily alienated from their peers.

The Birmingham City Council has teamed up with mobile network operator Vodafone in order to help bring 450 disadvantaged children the freedom and opportunity to be online. The children will be loaned laptop computers with internet access through mobile broadband connection. In order to keep track of the devices being loaned, Vodafone has been allowed to install Secure Remote Access services on the devices.

More than being able to help the kids out, this is also a pilot project –which means that if it succeeds, it will also be applied across the UK. While plenty does ride on the shoulders of the program, there is plenty of hope that we will see more of this soon.

Get to know more about the Vodafone and City Council project at Mobile Today UK.

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Vodafone’s Twitter Incident Explained

February 11th, 2010

Vod TwitIt is a minor issue, but considering that people ought to know the facts straight, here’s a quick summary of what really happened last Friday.

A Vodafone employee handling the web relations left his desk to talk to a colleague; left onscreen was the Twitter account of Vodafone UK. Another employee thought it was the personal account of the web relations staff and decided to play a little prank by posting “is fed up of dirty homos and is going after beaver.”

As it turns out, the account was actually for @VodafoneUK and of course, the message got retweeted by many who saw it. Employees of Vodafone quickly deleted the post and apologized to the public due to the nature of the post. The culprit was then suspended from the company.

Such is a quick recap of the explanation given by Jakub Hrabovsky, the current head of web relations at Vodafone. In any case, here’s kudos to their great work in quickly fixing up the little fuss.

For Vodafone, that little incident is completely forgettable; the mobile network has been doing great these past few months. While January did start out odd as Vodafone announced that they were removing both the HTC HD2 and the XPERIA X10 from their 2010 line up, this was quickly forgotten when the network operator launched the iPhone.

The launch was successful and they sold 100,000 units within the first week. So far, iPhone subscribers are growing, thanks to the superior 3G service provided by the company. With the re-release of the Femtocell Sure Signal 3G booster, Vodafone has effectively covered even the areas where they have little to no 3G coverage. The operator has also recently expressed interest in releasing the Apple iPad in the UK

Read more about the Twitter incident and Vodafone’s side of the story at Pocket Lint.

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Vodafone 360 M1 – Living in the Vodafone World

December 2nd, 2009

Vodafone 360 M1Making the internet more personal and people-centric seems to embolden both mobile phone makers and their carriers to reinvent the wheel, as it were.  There’s really nothing new here except that what seems like exclusive deals are increasingly turning to have some level of synergistic relationship between mobile phone brands and mobile network providers.

Take the case of the Vodafone 360 service recently launched in the UK and other European cities and comes with the handsets exclusive to the network. We’re talking about the H1 and M1 smartphones you can only get from Vodafone.

A Social Smartphone

Except a strikingly handsome design on a bright red body, the Vodafone 360 M1 looks and feels like it’s more expensive H1 brother.  It does have a smaller 3.2 inch OLED TFT touchscreen display but both share the same wide VGA and 16 millions color depth. A 3 megapixel autofocus camera is a reasonable step-down from the 5 megapixel camera of its H1 Twin. Likewise, you get 1GB internal memory whereas the H1 has 16BM but both can be expanded with their microSD slot. WiFi is not supported in the M1 but you get Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP.

Other than these, the two are basically the same.  They are your quad band GSM and twin-band 3G/UMTS with broadband HSDPA/HSUPA data connectivity that complements the Vodafone 360 service and make it a remarkable social networking handset.  Right after tuning it on, you get a one-touch access to all your VOIP, IM and social networking sights fully integrated with your phone contact. Vodafone also has about 1,000 apps you can download.

Getting into the Vodafone World

With over 300 million subscribers worldwide, Vodafone is pitching its 360 service to put all of them in a social networking hub, allowing multimedia file sharing across the network.  Starting with 8 European countries, you can now preorder the Vodafone 360 M1 and H1 from its website free of charge with a 24-month contract. While the H1 has a starting monthly of 35, you can be sure that the modestly specified M1 will get a lower monthly.  If only for these wonderful handsets, it may a good time to set into the Vodafone world.

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