Mobile Time
Tag: Mobile
PeekFON – Emails Everywhere in Europe
This December 15th, Fon will launch the Peek in Europe under the brand PeekFON. The Peek is an efficient email gadget whose unique feature is that it will have no roaming charges in any European country.
The PeekFON will be 99 euros to buy, a reasonable price especially considering that the price includes both the gadget and 6 months of all-you-can-eat email service anywhere in Europe. No roaming charges. No contract.
After that the charge will be 12,90 euros per month for the service but, as opposed to other email machines out there, there is no cancellation penalty of any kind if the user does not want to continue with the service.
According to Martin Varsavsky, CEO of Fon, that fact is the key reason why FON have decided to launch the Peek. The roaming will be handled by the new pan-European MVNO Spotnik, and be seamless to the end-user: their Peek will simply log onto the new GPRS network wherever in Europe they travel to.
PeekFON Martin Varsavsky Interview at LeWeb conference in Paris (Dec. 10, 2009)
Skype for Symbian, At Last !!!
At last, Skype has announced a new beta for the Symbian client.
The beta is still limited to a few Symbian devices, it works well over 3G, Edge and WiFi, and brings many of the features that we have come to love from the service, like free skype-to-skype calling, using Skype credits to call regular phone numbers, receiving calls on your online number, as well as instant messaging features such as chat, group conversations and sending and receiving files (currently limited to images, videos and music).
Source: Symbian-Guru.com
Why Blackberry Will Fail In Lebanon
For the last one year or maybe more, Lebanese tech gadget geeks waited for the Blackberry to land in their country, and at last the service was announced by MTC Touch, one of the 2 local mobile service providers, these state owned companies that are monopolizing the lebanese market are operated by foreign companies.
But the dream was soon demolished when MTC Touch announced its plan price which was way illogical in a country where Lebanese thought they are by far leading the technology knowledge in this part of the world.
The subscription cost is US$45/month including 20 MB of consumption (for local usage only). Extra usage is charged US$1/MB.
Compared to the service offered by Etisalat in the UAE (United Arab Emirates), you would pay in Dubai AED185 (US$50) for local unlimited data and AED295 (US$80) for unlimited local and international usage which compared to the lebanese plan, would let the consumer say, DUH am i screwed in my own country? Just for a real life example, I have a French friend living in Lebanon, he is simply using the Blackberry service from the UAE, and I am sure lots of other people are doing the same.
I have never been a Blackberry user, but I think that all Blackberry phones are not wifi enabled, which forces you to stay within the boundaries of the 20MB data you have per month, which is not really sufficient for a heavy user, even on just a simple work email account, in case we drop net browsing. (i read somewhere that Blackberry will be launching a wifi enabled phone in 2009)
On the other hand, I am an MTC Touch client and I use their GPRS service which cost me US$20/month for 30MB of data, which I believe is fair and enough if used properly, larger packages are also available.
It is more convenient using such plan on a smart phone because it gives you more flexibility specially if you need to push more than 1 email address, I guess on Blackberry you are limited to only 1 email address, please correct me if I am wrong.
Lebanon was considered for many years before the civil war that started in 1975 and ended in 1990, as Switzerland of the Middle East, but I am not sure if this myth is still living specially that technologically we were left behind for quite a long time. Lately Lebanese consumers had a slight hope when the government lowered the mobile calling rates, for the first time since cell phones services were launched around 1995, consumers paid one of the highest cost in the world, the same price of US$0.13 (excl. VAT) per minute and for sms, is now US$0.11-(excl. VAT) and US$0.09-(excl. VAT) respectively.
Without mentioning the bad service on cell phones for the last few months, because as it seems the network when first installed had a certain capacity and the 2 companies are still issuing more sim cards serviced on the same network which is causing lots of technical interference when making calls.
Consumers still believe that these new low rates are expensive compared to other neighboring countries, they are looking for a new hope as rumors have been for long time talking about the privatization of the telecom sector in Lebanon and the arrival of a 3rd company that will push the competition harder.
Until this moment, all these are pure rumors and Lebanese consumers are still paying the highest rate for the lowest service no only in the region, but in the whole world.
