ICT

Mobitel offers customized Internet data plans

With Internet usage moving on an upward trajectory, Mobitel recently introduced three new customized data plans. Catered towards high internet usage customers, these new data plans are categorized based on frequently used applications such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Linkedin, etc.

The National Mobile Service Provider's new data plans are attractively priced and are designed to support a range of Mobitel's pre-paid and post-paid Internet customers. The data plans are categorized as such: Social Networking at Rs.99 + taxes per month (990MB), Mail at Rs.49 + taxes per month (490MB) and YouTube at Rs.249 + taxes per month (2490MB).

The introduction of these new Internet data plans provides greater flexibility to Mobitel's customers, giving them the opportunity to pick a suitable plan based on their internet usage patterns.

The latest International Telecommunication Union report published end June 2012 states the number of Internet users in Sri Lanka at 3,222,200, recording a 28% increase in users within 6 months. Facebook users in Sri Lanka crossed the 1 million mark last year, and at present, 61% of the country's total internet users are on Facebook, a total of 1,529,700 Facebook users.

With Internet usage consistently growing, Mobitel's range of flexible data plans aim to keep up with the latest trends, catering to their customers' most innate needs.

HTC flagship smartphone to begin rollout this week

Taiwan's HTC on Sunday announced its much-anticipated new flagship smartphone will go on sale in three countries this week, although the rollout elsewhere will only take place by the end of April.

The announcement comes after the company reportedly delayed shipments of the HTC One due to parts shortages, dealing a blow as it looks to lift sales and compete with the iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy.

"The new HTC One will roll out in the UK, Germany and Taiwan next week and across Europe, North America and most of Asia-Pacific before the end of April," the company said in a statement.

"We appreciate our customers' patience, and believe that once they have the phone in their hands they will agree that it has been worth the wait."



 

Mexico mogul Slim secures Olympics broadcast rights

Carlos Slim, the telecoms tycoon and world's richest man, has secured broadcast rights to the 2014 and 2016 Olympic Games, sending shares of his America Movil wireless phone company sharply higher on Friday.

The company announced late Thursday that America Movil had snagged the rights to the coveted quadrennial winter games, which will be held in Sochi, Russia next year, as well as the 2016 summer games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

His company, also known as AMX, the leading provider of wireless services in the region, "has acquired broadcast rights on all media platforms across Latin America." International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge, in a statement on AMX's website, called the deal an "important agreement to ensure fans across the continent are able to have the best broadcast experience of the games."

Richard Carrion, the IOC's finance commission chairman, said "the agreement ensures there will continue to be free Olympic Games television coverage across Latin America, but also allows viewers the choice of following the action on other media platforms as well."

Slim, who also controls and retail/industrial group Grupo Carso, earlier this month came in first place on an annual list of the mega-rich compiled by Forbes magazine, with a fortune pegged at about $73 billion -- up $4 billion from a year ago.

His America Movil has 261.6 million wireless subscribers across the Americas, and approximately 64.1 million landline customers. America Movil did not disclose what they paid for the rights, but the announcement that it had acquired Olympics broadcast rights sent its stock soaring.

At around 1030 local time, (1630 GMT) the company's shares were up 2.10 percent over the previous day's close.

AFP

BlackBerry Z10 launched in Indonesia

BlackBerry on Friday launched its new Z10 smartphone in Indonesia, the company's third-largest market, as it rapidly loses ground elsewhere to rivals such as Apple and Samsung.

Some 300 buyers gathered at the upmarket Central Park mall in the capital Jakarta by midday, many queued outside from 07:00 am, to snap up the Z10, already launched in Britain and Canada, and set to hit US stores next week.

The Z10 is seen as critical to Canada-based BlackBerry as it seeks to revive its sagging fortunes and regain its lost global market share from Apple and other smartphone makers such as Samsung.

BlackBerry users have dropped in numbers in many of its key markets, but sales are still robust in Indonesia, a nation of 240 million people recognised as the smartphone maker's biggest market outside the US and Britain.

However Google Android overtook BlackBerry as the most popular operating system in Indonesia in the second quarter of 2012 with more than 50 percent of the market share, the US-based International Data Corporation (IDC) said.

That is the most recent period for which rankings are available.

BlackBerry still has "many loyalists (in the country) who will still run at the first sight of the (Z10)", Sudev Bangah, the head of IDC's Indonesia operations, told AFP.

"With the launch of the Z10, we feel that this market share is going to pick up a little bit more, however not significantly (enough) to offset the Android," he said.

The Indonesia launch came after Samsung unveiled a slim, feature-rich Galaxy S4 in New York on Thursday.

The South Korean consumer electronics giant said the device would roll out in 155 countries in late April.

AFP

Vodafone licences for three big cities in India, not extended

India's government has told the Indian unit of British mobile phone giant Vodafone that its licences for three big cities cannot be extended and it will have to bid again, the company said on Saturday, The government has also refused to extend the licences of India's mobile carrier Bharti Airtel, the sector leader by subscribers, in the same three lucrative urban centres, according to local media.

"Vodafone is deeply disappointed with the summary rejection of its request for extension of licenses in the Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata service areas," the company said in an emailed statement.

There was no immediate comment from Bharti.

The refusal to extend the licences is one of a raft of regulatory issues faced by mobile operators in the world's second-largest cellular market by subscribers after China.

Vodafone, the second largest carrier, and Bharti, have been at war with the Congress-led government over its demand that they bid again for spectrum in the three cities where they have been operating for nearly two decades.

Their licences are due to expire in November 2014.

"Unless you participate in auctions and get your bid confirmed, you would not be entitled to a a wireless licence," the telecom ministry told Vodafone, according to local media.

Vodafone said the decision showed no acknowledgment of the company's pioneering role in "entering the market when there was no concept of mobile telephony in India" or for its investment of huge sums to set up a network.

AFP