The new killer App is…MMS

Posted on April 7, 2011 by Will Atkinson

The new killer app is … MMS

By Natalie Apostolou at MipTV in Cannes • Posted in Mobile, 6th April 2011 21:28 GMT

Discover your path to profitability in the cloud – London, April 13

Ditch the iPhone and forget about social media, the new killer app is actually MMS, claims tech author and 3G strategist Tomi Ahonen.

Ahonen told an audience of digital and content executives at MipTV in Cannes that the humble mobile phone trumps iPhones, television and social media as the platform with greatest reach and built-in revenue.

“There are about 100 million iPhones on the platform. Now multiply it against all mobile phones. That’s 2% of your audience. If you develop an iPhone app and you are a media brand, you are deliberately ignoring 98% of your available audience. That’s a pretty rotten strategy in my mind,” he claimed.

He added that with smartphones accounting for just 17% of the world’s handsets, the game has not yet changed enough to change the fundamentals.

“If you want to make money now, not some time in the future, stick to SMS and MMS,” he said.

Conceding that apps would one day be huge, he said however that it would take at least ten years to get there.

Ahonen dismissed the power of Facebook and Twitter, positing that MMS has 2.4 billion active users today, “MMS is bigger than the total internet. The planet’s biggest multimedia platform -that people actually pay for.”

“If you want to know how to reach the world, its not Twitter, not Facebook, its MMS and its three time bigger than email,” he adds. To content players he warned, “if you’re in television today and you don’t understand MMS, you’re a dinosaur. You’ll be out of business.”

While MMS’s no frills sibling, SMS, has 4.2 billion active users of text messaging and 1 in 7 people are consuming media content on a mobile phone. “In India today, one third of all SMS sent is media, not person-to-person messages. This is your future.”

He highlighted that with 5.2 billion total mobile phone subscriptions globally – versus 1.7 billion TV sets, the small screen synergies need to be exploited. Adding that the average person checks handset 150 times a day, once every six and a half minutes.

While for Gen Y, his research shows that “10% of youth think it’s okay to send text messages while having sex.” Surely there is an app for that. ®

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Exclusive Ipad Deal £75 for Business coming 1st March

Posted on February 22, 2011 by Will Atkinson

Apple ipad (16GB 3G) for just £75

The 1st March see’s the launch of the Sprint Communications & Printing.com Bury exclusive ipad deal for business.

Businesses when signing up to a Vodafone or 3 network data tariff will be able to purchase an ipad for as little as £75. This offer will run initially throughout March and with limited stock businesses are being encouraged to pre-register.

“This offer is a great opportunity for local businesses to get the very latest technology at an affordable price. We are delighted to be the first in the country to offer such low rates for these devices. Businesses only expect to make a moderate contribution or do not expect to pay for new mobiles when they take out a mobile contract. We beleive the same principal applies to data devices like the ipad “. Will Atkinson, Sprint Communications NW commented 

To pre-register please click here or email: “Ipad Promotion” to will.atkinson@sprintcomms.co.uk

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Orange Pocket Landline – launched 4th Jan 2011

Posted on January 4, 2011 by Will Atkinson

Pocket Landline gives you all the credibility of a local business landline number, with the convenience of a mobile – and no lost customers.

Never miss a call – calls to your chosen landline number are redirected to your mobile.

  • port your current landline number to Pocket Landline
  • or choose one or more local area codes for your service e.g. 0203, 01582, 01923
  • add up to 10 landline numbers or mobiles to the service
  • callers to your Pocket Landline numbers pay standard landline rates

You can manage your Pocket Landline service through one easy-to-use website. Just log in to see details of your current products and adjust your settings:

  • set your availability
  • change the ringing order of your mobile phones
  • manage your audio files including welcome and busy messages

 You can also view useful statistics including:

  • where your callers are geographically located
  • when your busiest times are – by hour, weekday and month
  • call history including call duration and time to answer

Pocket Landline – Monthly Price plan
Pocket landline Plan 1: £15 Allows one Pocket Landline number to be routed to your existing Orange business mobile. Great if you’re a sole trader.
Pocket Landline Many to One Plan 2: £15 per landline number: Choose more than one Pocket Landline number, all routed to a single mobile. Perfect for promoting separate aspects of your business or widening your geographical customer base.

Pocket Landline One to Many (up to five mobiles) £20: Ideal for larger businesses who want to manage inbound calls across a team. One Pocket Landline can be routed to up to 10 mobiles.

For more information contact: will@sprintcomms.co.uk m: 07813 194023

 

 

 £20

 

 

 Pocket Landline One to Many (up to 10 mobiles)

 

 

 £30 

product description monthly price
Pocket Landline Allows one Pocket Landline number to be routed to your existing Orange business mobile. Great if you’re a sole trader. £15
Pocket Landline Many to One
 Choose more than one Pocket Landline number, all routed to a single mobile. Perfect for promoting separate aspects of your business or widening your geographical customer base. £15 per landline number
Pocket Landline One to Many (up to five mobiles)  Ideal for larger businesses who want to manage inbound calls across a team. One Pocket Landline can be routed to up to 10 mobiles. £20
Pocket Landline One to Many (up to 10 mobiles) £30
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GSM Gateways – Reduce calls to mobiles by up to 70%

Posted on December 17, 2010 by Will Atkinson

If you spend over £150 a month on calls to mobiles, a GSM gateway could mean dramatically lower costs for your landline to mobile traffic – by up to 70%. How? By taking advantage of the fact that mobile to mobile calls are cheaper than landline to mobile calls.

This managed service is already used by many small, medium and large companies, including legal firms, call centres, denistis, doctors, estate agencies, finance organisations, transport companies and government bodies, all organisations making lots of calls to mobiles. They have now realised huge savings on the cost of calling mobiles and without capital outlay.

And there’s no capital outlay required!
The great news is, the customer doesn’t incur an upfront hardware cost – we will meet the cost of the necessary equipment (subject to terms), configured to cater for your call volumes. The service is installed, fully managed and maintained for you.

There’s another advantage: research has shown that consumers are more likely to answer a call from another mobile number, even if unknown, than an unknown landline number – so the chances of connecting first time are greatly improved, a major advantage.

Finally, a GSM gateway provides a disaster recovery option for inbound and outbound calls, giving you emergency capacity that’s entirely separate from your landlines.

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5 Things you probably didn’t know about Mobiles!

Posted on December 17, 2010 by Will Atkinson

 

1. 999 is 112 even when the phone is locked

The Emergency Number worldwide for Mobile is 112. If you find yourself out of the coverage area of your mobile; network and there is an emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any existing network to establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly this number 112 can be dialed even if the keypad is locked.

2. There Are LOTS of Them

There are half as many active cell phones on the planet as there are people. When you think of the general wealth distribution across the planet, it’s pretty remarkable to have over 3.3 billion active mobiles. Then again, Luxembourg’s mobile phone penetration rate is 158%. Yep – that’s 158 active cell phones for every 100 people.

3. And They Make a Mess

125+ million phones are discarded every year. Given the rate at which people go through cell phones (Koreans replace on average every 11 months), it’s easy to see how the environmental side can get out of control. At least there’s gold in the garbage!

4. Koreans Love to Text Message. Seriously.

Korean teenagers between 15 and 19 years of age send well over 20,000 text messages a year, on average (60.1 texts per day). I don’t care how fast StarCraft has made your fingers – that’s a lot of time that could have been spent… I dunno… talking to people. According to the Korea Times in February 2006, “over 30% of South Korean students send 100 text messages a day”.

5. The First Cell Phone Came Out in 1983

Well, at least, the first to get FCC acceptance. It was called the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. Before you lolz at the cheesebag name, wait until you hear what it stands for: Dynamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage.

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Otterbox Cases – The “Chuck Norris” smartphone cases

Posted on December 17, 2010 by Will Atkinson

The OTTERBOX – Smartphone case is the ultimate case for iphone or Blackberry.

In the field of no nonsense protection for your devices Otterbox products cannot be beaten. Its the ideal case that offers much needed protection for daily use without adding unnecessary bulk.

The Otterbox Commuter case is a three part design. First there is a screen protector. That is followed by the two part case. This consists of an inner soft rubber shield and an outer ABS plastic frame that wraps around the rubber shield to add rigidity and offer added protection.

All buttons and ports are accessible. Buttons are covered by rubber ‘bumps’ in the rubber shield and ports have rubber flaps that can be opened to provide access and closed to prevent dust, dirt and moisture getting in.

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03 numbers to replace 0800 in New Year

Posted on December 17, 2010 by Will Atkinson

2011 will see the decline of the 0800 number. For the first time in history in 2010 there will be more calls made from mobiles than landlines. (Ofcom)

So why should this spark the decline in 0800 numbers? The main reason is that customers are now getting wise to the fact that while an 0800 number is free to call from a landline it costs upwards of 17p a minute to call from a mobiles. As consumers get wise to the high cost and stop calling 0800 numbers the smart companies are moving to 03 numbers.

03 numbers cost the same to call as a regular landline number and are therefore included in most people’s free minutes hence why they are starting to be more popular than 0800 numbers.

Whats the difference between and 0844, 0800 and an 03 number?

* 0844 numbers: It is free for you to receive calls, and the customer pays the standard national rate call charge. Calls cost 17.2p or higher to call from a mobile.

* 0800 numbers: They are free for the customer to call from a landline but 17.2p or more from a mobile. You pay upto 5p/min to recieve calls.

* 03 numbers: They are free for customers to call from a landline or a mobile. You pay 3.6p/min to receive the call.

What are the additional Benefits of an 03 number?

  • Tracking Marketing/advertising campaigns: You can now monitor the number of calls you get from each individual marketing campaign. For example you have a separate number for your Yell.com advertising, a new one for a leaflet campaign, and another for your website. There are no limits to the number of numbers you can have. This way you can see which marketing campaigns are actually effective. See whether hits on your website are converting into sales calls.
  • Diverting Calls: If you have remote workers and what them to be answering calls, or even if the weather gets so bad you can’t make it into the office then you can simply redirect the numbers from the web portal.
  • Call Recording and Call queuing: The system has the ability to record all inbound calls, and has a number of call queuing features, as well as answer phone services.

What are the costs?

  • -       Line rental is £2/month per number with a minimum 6 month contract. This includes set up and access to the Web portal for call management & reporting
  • -       03 prefix numbers cost 3.6 pence per minute to you to receive the call but just the local rate for your customers.
  • -       Diverted calls to a mobile are charged at 14p/minute
  • -       Additional call features if required such as Call Recording, and Call queuing service are £1/month/service
Call Will for further information and to start using Tracking Numbers Today.
Will.atkinson@sprintcomms.co.uk
Tel: 01706 260444    M: 07813 194023
Posted in Landlines | 6,938 Comments

Hacking smartphones with ease – Dangers of public wireless networks

Posted on December 16, 2010 by Will Atkinson

Hacking smartphones with ease

Rory Cellan-Jones : BBC – Nov 2010

Many of us carry almost every detail of our lives on our phones – so how secure are we from those who might want to know what we’re saying and doing on the move? We know how insecure the voicemail of some famous folk turned out to be a few years back; surely today’s sophisticated smartphones are much less vulnerable?

I’ve been conducting an experiment with a company which offers to protect the phones and e-mail accounts of high-profile individuals – not, I hasten to add, because I fit either category but to find out how vulnerable all of us with modern mobiles might be.

So I challenged Tom Beale of Vigilante Bespoke to do his worst with my iPhone 4. First, I asked him to get through the initial layer of security, the passcode on the front screen. There’s a well-known method for this, which Apple keeps trying to patch, but it proved a matter of moments for Tom, who was soon looking at my contacts.

This is obviously worrying if you lose your phone; in that case, there is a way to remove everything on it remotely. And Apple points out that its latest software update for the iPhone, released on Monday, has now fixed this problem once more.

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Of greater concern was what Tom showed me about the danger of connecting to wireless networks on the move.

He and a colleague used a netbook computer to set up a wireless access point. They called it “BTOpenzone”, a network my phone and many others look out for and join. I watched as they showed me a range of devices in their office in London’s Soho looking at the network – including my phone.

Tom explained to me that any mobile, when not connected to wi-fi, transmits what he called probe requests looking for networks which it has used previously. “Probe requests are essentially a loud shout – is there any wi-fi access point near me with the name ‘BTOpenzone’?”

My phone then connected to the access point – it was dumb enough just to check the name, rather than comparing the address with others it had previously used.

“Once the device is connected to our access point,” Tom explains, “its user is able to browse the web as normal. Unbeknown to them, the web traffic is being transmitted through our computer. The program examines the traffic between users and websites, looking for data containing cookies.”

Among my cookies – the small pieces of code which smooth our path to frequently-visited sites – was at least one for Facebook. Within seconds, Tom had access to my account on the social network: he didn’t have my password, but the cookie allowed him to masquerade as me.

My attackers could do whatever they liked: change my status, read through my contacts and so on.

They then moved on to the final stage of the demo, using a program they’d written to send me a spoof text message. Having spotted my wife’s phone number on Facebook, they sent a message which popped up on my phone appearing to come from her. In the wrong hands, of course, such a program could provide scope for all sorts of mischief.

I should stress that while we used an iPhone for this experiment, other smartphones are equally vulnerable to these kinds of attacks.

So what should we learn? Obviously, it’s not a good idea to leave your valuable phone lying around, or to respond to texts from friends which seem out of character.

The main lesson must be how insecure you can be if you sit in a public place and go online using an open network. I’d heard about Firesheep, a tool demonstrated recently as a warning of the dangers of open networks and unencrypted cookies. But sitting and watching as your entire life – or rather your social-networking life – is laid bare is very sobering.

Facebook sent me this statement about the security issues this demonstration appears to raise:

“Facebook takes the security of people using the platform very seriously. We advise people to be very careful about the information they access or send from an unsecured public wireless network. We’re working hard to make Facebook the safest platform online, and are currently investigating how to best roll out more secure login processes, including SSL, that will enable people to use Facebook on unsecured wi-fi networks with total peace of mind.”

But Facebook is just one of many services whose mobile users are vulnerable to the kind of attack we’ve demonstrated. So, better safe than sorry: from now on I will be switching off the wi-fi button on my phone whenever I leave the security of my home or office network.

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Pick up a signal from both the Orange and T-Mobile networks

Posted on October 5, 2010 by Will Atkinson

Call and text in even more places

Now you can pick up a signal from both the Orange and T-Mobile networks in the UK which means that you can call and text in even more places.

Orange and T-Mobile have merged in a joint venture and are now run by ”Everything Everywhere”.

One of the biggest benefits to customers will be improved coverage in the UK. Next year customers will be able to switch seamlessly between Orange and T-Mobile signal on the 2G and 3G networks. That means not only will customer be able to use their phones for talking, texting, browsing the internet and emailing in more places than before, but customer will also be able to do it with a stronger signal.

However the networks are allowing customers to take advantage of the shared 2G network now. As from 5th October customers have the opportunity to sign up to use signal from both the Orange and T-Mobile networks so they can call and text in even more places in the UK than before. It means that if their phone isn’t picking up any signal at all on their billing network, it will pick up 2G signal from the other network if it’s available.

If your on Orange your phone will use T-Mobile signal if it doesn’t pick up an Orange signal

  • Your charges stay the same when you use T-Mobile signal
  • Nothing else will change, you’ll just get more network coverage

To sign up go to: orange.co.uk/share or t-mobile.co.uk/share

If you would like more information on this please email: will.atkinson@sprintcomms.co.uk

Everything Everywhere: T-Mobile & Orange networks combine

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Introducing Sprint Telematics Tracking Products

Posted on September 6, 2010 by Will Atkinson

Posted in GPS location tracker, Lone Worker Protection, Main Menu, Tracking Products, Vehicle tracking | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 7,750 Comments