The new logo of Cell C has been revealed a vhenge that was urgently needed to lift Cell C´s image.
Cell C´s new branding is called HSPA+ Network a 4Gs network, which the company is saying means. 4 Great speed and 4 Great Service. Although the use of the wording is not new to Cell C.
At the beginning of the year Cell C announced that they would lounch the 4G service to its South African customers. Although Vodacom and MTN are calling this move and “Urban legend.” Later Cell C admited that they are not close to have a 4G Network as the 4G standard has not been finalized.
Both companies Vodacom & MTN had filled a formal complaint about Cell C´s using the word 4G fro their new marketing campaign saying that is misleading.
Source: MyBroadband.co.za
Mobile broadband is becoming popular for connecting to the web. The mobile broadband is deliver in data cards, is ideal for those that use the internet very “lightly”
The mobile broadband has a higher speed most ADSL connections. The standard is 7.2Mbps but with time will increase to 21Mbps.
New generation of mobile technology is going to be on the market soon in the form of LTE and will have speeds of up to 100Mbps.
The negative side of mobile broadband is the data costs, and the strength of the signal.
Neotel, iBurst, WiMax are mobile broadband providers.
Source: iafrica.com
Vodacom - South Africa´s larger mobile network provider has joined forces with Nedbank in order ti launch a cellphone based cash transfer service. Similar to the same service in Kenya.
The new service has been named M-Pesa. This product will allow customers that do not have access to bank accounts to transfer money using their cellphones. In the future they should be able to pay bills and even buy products.
The British company Vodafone, the biggest shareholder of Vodacom, was the company that developed this mobile service.
It is believed that only one out of five Africans owned a bank account but a much larger proportion of population have a mobile phone.
MTN said that it expects that use of this service immensely by next year 2011. MTN has already launched MobileMoney in South Africa.
Source: Reuters Africa.
A new study on mobile telephone usage has shown that people are increasingly using their mobiles as a PC.
This study reports that non voice programs on the mobile are been used more and more. Also the use of cell phones for features like: Video recording, internet usage, cameras, e-mailing, gaming..etc has confirmed that people are prepared and happy to use their cell phones as a PC.
Mobile phones recently has become the device for texting, photo sharing, gaming, e-mails, chatting…etc.
More than 55% of customers that have a mobile phone use the internet over the cell phone, and access the internet almost every day. Also 11% of charity and donation help is done using mobile phones.
Source: Eworld Post.
The Blue Label Telecoms - JSE in company with Symantec (an international security software) are piloting a phone security suite in South Africa.
JSE is bringing the new security software to the mobile operators in South Africa. Also one of the reasons why Symantec is happy to work with the Blue Label is the good access they have to the mobile prepaid market.
As Smartphones are becoming increasingly popular also the importance to protect them against the viruses that are also increasing in the Smartphones. Is also important to point out that at the beginning of August the first SMS Trojan Horse was found in Android.
The new software is designed to fight against e-mail and SMS spam and to also prevent malicious attacks that use diallers to contact premium numbers.
Customers interested in the new security software can download a pre-configured version of the software and pay the monthly fee of R14,95.
Source: Tech Central
AdMob has donated mobile internet ad impressions to the SHOUT campaign in order to help fighting crime in South Africa.
In this campaign subscribers can ad their comments to the fight against crime. The mobile campaign has been active in the las few weeks and since driven loads of traffic to the SHOUT campaign mobisite.
This campaign is showing the power of mobile phones for marketing purposes as it has reached a large number of South Africans.
People in South Africa without fixed internet line know they can use their mobile phones to access internet and give thoir point of view in the fight against crime.
AdMob has immensely helped by giving plenty of exposure of the SHOUT mobile across the AdMob ad network in all South Africa.
Source: bizcommunity.com
To see a youngster without a mobile phone attached to the end of their arms is very rare indeed.
Experts believe that our future generations won´t be able to function without a cellphone. Although is not very clear whether this will create anti-social people or help advance their development making them functional adults.
A 16 year old teen was given her first cellphone when she was 11. She now has incredible thumb skills, as she rarely uses her cellphone to make calls but to send SMS.
Social Networks are another way in which teenagers keep in touch and in the case of this young lady even four hours a day!
Teenagers would rather choose a cellphone over new clothes they tend to spend most of their monthly allowance in their cellphone contracts.
The difference between the new generation and past generations is that the new generation uses cellphones for communication only. A cellphone is a way for us to keep in touch with friends and family, to look for entertainment to do banking etc. Cellphones are not dominating our lives “is ho we do life”
Source: Times Live
Just after a month Vidamo has improved considerably the marketing side of the property industry. Their marketing strategy allows estate agents to promote SMS instructions across all marketing material.
If a client sees a property he likes then he could send a text message and can instantly see pictures and details of the property on their mobile phones through dynamic mobile websites.
The marketing difference is that instead of a customer having to look in the traditional website, the customer can receive the information on the property straight from the state agent to their mobile phones.
This new system has created thousands of leads when in use the first month. This system interfaces the estate agent existing web and creates mobile sites. This method keeps all the information sent to the mobile synchronized with that on the web without giving extra work tot he estate agent.
Source: Biz Community.
Cellphone network Cell C´s new ad in which funny-man Trevor Noah features has had mixed reactions within consumers. Some people even considering it a “sick joke”.
The new ad campaign which is aimed to re-launch Cell C´s, has not gone well with customers.
Cell C´s president said that they are taking the re-launch very serious and is not their aim to deceive customers about the cellphone network industry.
In the advert Trevor Noah calls Cell C being the “worst” network provider. Few days later in a newspaper ad appeared and apology to Noah assuring him that Cell C was serious about turning things around!
Source: Times Live.
The mafia in Italy is using a TV show about football which allows text ticker to send coded messages to their bosses in jail.
The program allows football fans to send SMS text messages. This messages then are broadcast along a ticker tape at the bottom of the screen.
Prosecutors believe that members of the mafia send football related comments and remarks to the program, this texts in fact contained important messages for their bosses that are in jail. One of the messages read “All is well Paolo”
“What was shocking was the apparent inoffensive comments of the SMS messages but in reality they were sending precise communications to mafia bosses which don´t have any other means to have outside world communication“.
The unusual way of “outside communication was discovered when conversation was intercepted between two mafia men and how one was telling the other one how he would send a text message to the program.
Unfortunately that means that the program won´t allow their fans anymore to send text messages to the program.
Source: Telegraph.
