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Getting them hooked

by Eddie Hold on February 23, 2018 at 12:57 am

I gave my daughter, Charlotte, her first phone when she was just five years old. It was hardly an appropriate age, but what’s the point of having kids if you cannot use them in the occasional social experiment.

Telecom and Tapas

by Eddie Hold on February 22, 2018 at 3:36 pm

It’s nearly time for Mobile World Congress, a show that provides a chance to catch up on the latest mobile solutions, as well as feast on the best tapas and sangria Barcelona has to offer (along with 100,000 of our closest colleagues). While it's still a phone show at its heart, MWC has expanded significantly in the past few years. Here are a few of the highlights we expect to see.

Beneath the surface

by Eddie Hold on February 21, 2018 at 7:43 am

A few months ago, I started thinking about buying a compact camera. My friends thought I was crazy; after all, my smartphone has a pretty good camera. But I wanted advanced features such as the ability to change the speed and aperture, features that often belong on a DSLR, rather than a compact camera, and especially not on a smartphone camera. Except, of course, I’m wrong...mostly.

The Smartphone Wall

by Eddie Hold on February 7, 2018 at 9:42 am

Huawei is a giant among most smartphone players with an impressive presence in most parts of the world. In the European market, the handset manufacturer’s latest phones are well promoted by the carriers, both in store and through advertising; and, as a result, the OEM is enjoying consumer acceptance that other smartphone makers should be quite envious of. So if there was one manufacturer poised the break the duopoly of Samsung and Apple, as most carriers would like, it is Huawei… except, of course, in the U.S.

Back To Basics

by Eddie Hold on February 2, 2018 at 10:16 am

A few years ago a friend of mine was mugged in London. Two men waved knives at him and demanded his wallet, his smartphone... and then his other phone. This final demand threw him a little, as he only carried one phone, and it took a while (and a quick frisk) to convince the muggers that they would have to share a single smartphone. I’m sure they walked away muttering about their poor fortune as, apparently, the odds are quite high that someone wandering the streets of London will be toting a couple of devices.

Speed and Compression-Based Data Tariffs – Will Consumers Bite?

by Brad Akyuz on January 16, 2018 at 11:59 am

Commoditization of Cellular Data has been a major theme discussed throughout the year as unlimited data plans have become the de facto offering in the U.S. mobile market. We have seen the same commoditization trend with voice and SMS in the past two decades, as mobile carriers first sold voice minutes and SMS in various size packages, but they were eventually thrown in for free when we started paying by the size of our cellular data bucket.

Inevitable Path of Consolidation – What’s Next for Sprint?

by Brad Akyuz on January 15, 2018 at 9:49 am

In my last predictions piece The Cable Threat is More Real Than Ever, I covered how the cable players are poised to become even more of a threat in the already competitive U.S. mobile market in 2018. With cellphone penetration reaching saturation levels, switcher activity has become the mainstream method for subscriber growth, and this is where the established players run into problems...

The Cable Threat is More Real Than Ever

by Brad Akyuz on January 15, 2018 at 9:47 am

When Comcast launched its Xfinity Mobile service in 2017, it wasn’t taken too seriously by the competition, due to its lack of retail presence and limited device/service portfolio. This perception changed rather drastically when Comcast announced it had a quarter million subscribers within the first five months of its pilot launch.

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