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.
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
If you want to find out how expensive is roaming?? Try calling or sending a SMS from your mobile phone abroad. This can leave you with a huge mobile phone bill that can run to the thousands.
International roaming it´s the most expensive activity you can do on your mobile, and there is no regulation to stop it!!
Price regulation is non-existent when comes to International roaming, most local mobile companies charge an excessive amount of money per megabyte of data usage when surfing the net overseas, and as nobody quite understands this concept the mobile companies don´t bother to explain it therefore these charges never get looked into.
For you pocket the smarter thing to do is to simply turn off you smartphone while overseas.
Source: smh.com
Cell C – A cell phone operator will be investing around R5-billion on new infrastructure in 2010. One of its new services will be wireless broadband.
The company´s new Chief Executive Lars Reichelt said that Cell C network will be offering to its customers new technology that will be way better than its competitors MTN and Vodacom.
Tests on the new technology are being carried out in six cities at the moment and the new network will be covering over 30% of South Africa by the end of 2010. Also they are expecting to spend quite a few more millions next year (2011)
Cell C is launching a new “re-branding” & marketing campaign and one of the most important company goals is to improve its customer service by making sure customers are satisfy with issues like contracts, billing system and network quality.
Customers will be encourage to “Tell” about their experience through a website and SMS number.
Also this week, the company has launched its first Blackberry.
After all this investment Cell C will be better positioned in the market than its competitors MTN and Vodacom.
Source: Times Live.
A team of programmers from a software company called Entersect based in South Africa, has built an innovative solution for secure Internet banking & transaction. This software company specialises in software development for mobile phones.
Entersect will be the first company to provide secure two-factor authentication. Their aim is to allow transactions that are normally done on a computer to be done in a mobile phone or device. This will allow more security when doing a transaction and completely mobile.
Entersect´s Interactive Transaction Authentication (ITA) system has a truly wonderful solution to the authentication problems in the banking industry. By enabling second factor authentication i.e. Username & Password, with encrypted out-of-band data transmission.
ITA consists of a server receiving authentication requests and relaying the answer message to the user by an application on their mobile phone for the user´s approval. What this means is that each banking transaction that needs customers approval is sent to the user´s mobile phone and a description of the transaction os shown. The customer either accept or reject the transaction.
Source: Money Web.
Neotel (Converged communications Network Operator) has finally released its new prepaid service. This service will offer SMS, voice and basic internet and Neotel´s fixed wireless service will de delivering this prepaid service.
The top-up vouchers can be bought through sales points.
JSE-Listed Blue label Telecoms and Neotel has signed and agreement for JSE to be Neotel´s electric voucher vendor, these vouchers currently are only available in values of R100.
“Neotel´s new prepaid service will allow subscribers to pay only for what they need & use. For the majority of South Africans choosing prepaid over other services is not about a lifestyle but a financial necessity” Neotel´s president added”
Source: Engineering News.
Members of the public can by just sending a SMS verify the authenticity of the fundraising by charities.
The COC (the Commissioner of Charities) is providing the service of short messaging SMS verification service, this will allow the public to make sure that a charity or organisation has the permit to solicit donations.
With this SMS service, fundraising charities will be at a lower risk of scams using their charity´s name.
The SMS service has been launched by the COC due to the number of complaints received by the public as they felt that they have been approach by scam charities.
The COC´s future goals is to help charities to strengthen the way they work and the way they operate. The COC office is planning to held a some small-group networking sessions to discuss management and regulatory issues.
Source: news.asiaone
Vodacom SA will be soon launching the latest range of speaking phones aimed to the visually impaired so they can enjoy the benefits of mobile communications.
So far the Nokia E52 & N86, apart from been Smartphones are also pre-loaded with text-to-speech software. What this means is that text - based information displayed in a cellphone is then converted into speech, allowing visually impaired customers to hear their text messages as well as their contacts, signal and battery strength. These facilities will help the visually impaired to keep in touch with family and friends through mobile communications.
Managing director of Vodacom SA said: “Mobile communications has become essential in our modern life and we are happy to provide to our visually impaired customers a new range of speaking phones. The Nokia E52 & N86 have the features to help the visually impaired use cellphones independently”.
Source: itnewsafrica.com
