Mobiles2day - Mobile Industry News

Today Orange UK has announced that it will be improving 3G network across Scotland, Northern Ireland and North-East England.

Orange promises it’s customers better data services, 99% call set-up success rate and further 3G speed improvement in 2009.

Peter Marsden, vice president IT & Networks in Orange said: “A robust and reliable network is at the heart of everything we do at Orange and we are dedicated to ensuring our customers in each and every region of the UK feel the benefit of this. We are investing heavily to improve our network and this investment is one step closer to our goal of becoming the best UK network for coverage and reliability by 2009″

According to press release, Orange 3G coverage will be improved not only in cities and towns, but also on major roads, rail routes, business parks, conference centres, hotels and airports.

Orange promised that customers will be informed in advance about network improvement works and 2G network will not be affected.

Source

Google has released new version of it’s popular Maps software, version 2.2. This release of version 2.2 of the application for Symbian S60 (3rd edition or later) and Windows Mobile (2005 or later) includes Transit directions which were earlier released for BlackBerry and Java-based handsets.

Transit directions are available on Google Maps in more than 50 cities, in UK Google Maps is covering South East England. Other european countries that have full or partial coverage include France, Switzerland, Poland, Italy, Austria and Russia.

Other new features are star rating of businesses, search results show up faster, and user-generated content will now show in search results.

You can download new version of this software from here: google.com/gmm

Here is a video about Google Maps with mobile transit directions:

Source

Since acquisition of Navteq by Nokia last year, Nokia now is aggressively promoting it’s maps software and location-based services. More and more mobile devices are being released with GPS modules, so potential to generate decent income in this area is huge.

Nokia has released several videos on their website introducing people to Nokia’s Maps and services. Films introduce users to maps services that can be used while jogging, driving, cycling, walking as well as general introduction.

You can watch videos here.

No doubt mobile phones are getting more sophisticated ever day. In today’s press release, LG Electronics announced that it has collaborated with Dolby Laboratories and companies signed an agreement that grants LG a license to embed Dolby Mobile Technology into its handsets.

According to press release:

“Dolby Mobile is an audio processing technology platform designed to deliver rich, vibrant audio and dramatically improve listening enjoyment. Built on Dolby’s extensive portfolio of technologies, Dolby Mobile has been optimized for mobile applications.”

“Dolby Mobile is designed to allow customers to optimize and tailor audio for an enhanced entertainment experience. LG plans to apply Dolby Mobile technology to a wide range of multimedia features on its phones.”

LG is planning to release first hig-end phones which will incorporate Dolby Mobile technology in Q4 of this year.

Two companies held a signing ceremony in Seoul to officially kick off their collaboration.

Source LG Press Release.

Today T-Mobile is launching multi-million marketing campaign to promote their £30 tariffs Solo and Combi. T-Mobile is confident that they provide best value for £30 than any other network in UK. New TV ad will start today and will appear before tonight’s Euro 2008 semi-final. Apart from that there will be billboard signs and ads in newspapers.

Not only T-Mobile promises best deal, it also assures you that in the future if you find more minutes for £30, T-Mobile will either match it, or beat it!

This is a bold move from T-Mobile, this could start a fierce competition between network providers. Flext made a big impact few years ago and this could be another event which will keep UK mobile operators on their feet.