How i wish the Philippines could properly implement the Comes with Music program of Nokia. In Singapore, buying a Nokia phone allows you to enjoy one full year of free music downloads. In the Philippines, w cannot implement such a scheme because of (1) the record labels and (2) there’s a rule that value added services should go through a company that is owned by a Filipino. Which means Nokia may have to go through a third party service provider or through a telco, which completely defeats the purpose of having the Ovi store and the Comes with Music freebies. …read more

With Nokia Messaging gaining great territories over its captivated email market, Nokia has expanded the service to include any form of messaging — whether it be email, instant messaging or “social messaging” which simply means updating your social networking profiles / status messages via the Nokia Messaging service.

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Right now you can preview the service if you have a Nokia N97 (S60) or a 6700 (S40)via the beta labs. The messaging app goes as far as using the GPS navigation to determine where a person is — if you’ve updated your Facebook status saying you want to have coffee, the AGPS …read more

A bit late in the news but if you’ve been wondering why BlackBerry email has been removed from the E71, this could be one of the many reasons. Nokia Messaging is out of beta and apart from local WiFi services, Nokia has announced their stand alone service for up to 10 email addresses into your phone. Local rates apply of course.
There is no charge as of the trial period but Nokia hints that your local telco will be able to integrate Nokia Messaging into their list of data services. Currently, these are the features for Nokia Messaging:
What’s new in …read more

Steve Jobs is mad. He’s mad at Canada. Not at the Canadians in particular. but to Canadian telcos who are described to have the most horrid data plans, it makes the whole thing disgusting. Tris from Maple Leaf 2.0 has A LOT to say about this.
The 6 Apple Stores in Canada will demo the iPhone 3G but will not sell them. But this isn’t what’s appalling – Steve Jobs is diverting shipments of iPhone 3G to Europe. Rogers tries to defend their stand:

Rogers has historically been criticized for being the most reluctant of Canadian providers to decrease its data fees. …read more

Announced yesterday, Alltell Wireless is pushing their new Rev-A technology that does 3.1MBPS for downloads and 1.8 MBPS for uploads. This service is spread across 18 areas including Little Rock, Charlotte, New Orleans, Phoenix and Tampa in urban and rural areas.
Here’s a quote from the press release:

Alltel’s existing broadband Wireless Internet service enables remote access to corporate intranets, productivity enhancing applications and a variety of consumer products, such as Alltel TV and XM Radio Mobile. Rev. A will enhance the performance of all of those services. Alltel plans an initial rollout of Rev. A to 18 market areas and dozens …read more

Huge news for the Asian telco industry. But just to put a little perspective … there’s been a lot of speculation on the Google Phone business model since 2005. With Google’s core competence being contextual advertising (wasn’t it search a long time ago?) they’ve never really kept secret about their plans to use the 700MHz spectrum for a completely free, advertising driven telco and broadband (?) service.
Free, advertising driven telco.
Well, Asia has just opened up it’s first and it’s in the Philippines. Pardon me, I had to break the news in my personal blog simply because of regional implications. I …read more

Mark from Work Boxers wrote about a very sensitive topic which us mobile phone consumers have, at one time or another experienced. This has to do with value added services or VAS that come with the telco service of choice you apply for. Whether you’re on prepaid or a postpaid subscription you will have access to a milieu of services including wallpaper and ringtone downloads, news, daily jokes or Bible quotes, Mobile TV, …. the list goes on and on and on.
In short — the FCC is warning consumers of the hidden or undisclosed costs of Value Added Services …read more

Here are three good deals that any telco should offer your post paid plan subscriber. As in.
No hidden fees!
Doesn’t it suck to find out that your $30 dollar phone plan has $20 dollars more worth of “hidden charges?” The reason why I have stuck to my telco for more than three years is that the billing statement is so easy to read. A is A, B is B. I don’t have fancy sounding lingo like “currency conversion charges” or “additional miscellaneous fees” suspiciously printed before the sum total of my bill.
Incentive to renew!
You have a great phone plan, but …read more