T-Mobile has become the latest mobile operator to reveal roaming plans ahead of the EU price caps coming into place on 1 July.
The operator promised customers are ‘guaranteed’ never to run up an unexpected data roaming bill and, unlike its competitors, the Internet and Broadband Travel Boosters can be used outside Europe.
The boosters will come into effect on 19 June, across all consumer and businesses plans and can be used on smartphones and mobile broadband devices.
The end of bill shock?
“We are really proud to be the first UK operator to ensure our customers can continue to be connected, anywhere in the world – and have the peace of mind they’ll never come back to an unexpected bill,” commented Ben Fritsch, head of propositions at T-Mobile.
Once a customer has landed in another country, they will be directed to a page where they can purchase one of the boosters in order to continue using the Internet. A number of bundle sizes are available, and all last for 30 days or until the data has been used up.
The cost of the booster is dependent on the size and the category of country visited.
Varying costs
The cheapest booster costs £1 for 3MB of data in Europe, which increases to £25 in Group D countries, which includes the likes of Brazil and Japan. The cost will either be added to the customer’s monthly bill or deducted from their Pay As You Go credit.
Last week, Three launched its Euro Internet Pass to allow customers to use as much data as they went while abroad for £5 a day, although there were a number of restrictions, such as a lack of tethering. Vodafone has launched a similar Eurotraveller service, which lets customers use their UK price plan abroad, and includes calls and texts.
However they do not make provisions for outside Europe (with the exception of some overseas territories and departments), and the services are opt-in, rather than automatic.
“Where the other networks put the onus on customers to be savvy and sign up to the plans, T-Mobile customers will automatically be alerted to its Boosters every time they try to go online abroad – and it applies outside of the EU,” said Ernest Doku, telecoms expert at uSwitch. “With the new EU regulations coming into force at the start of July, it is encouraging to see that providers are taking the lead and are already responding to the obvious demand for affordable data by offering customers the chance to curb their mobile spending while in the EU.”
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Samsung's Pincer Movement Android Strategy to Winning the Mobile Enterprise - ZDNet
While iPhones dominate the post-BlackBerry era of enterprise smartphones, analysts such as IDC expect Android to catch up by next year.
If that comes to pass, I am guessing that Samsung will be both on top in Android, but also challenging Apple overall.
I spoke late last week with Tim Wagner, the Dallas-based vice-president and general manager of enterprise sales for Samsung Mobile. I came away very impressed by Samsung’s pincer movement strategy in the enterprise, which both tackles the concerns of CIOs around Android - security, fragmentation, usability - as well as wooing the corporate workers that are Bringing Their Own Devices into the office.
(Full disclosure: SAP is a close partner of Samsung on mobile device management technology which I’ll discuss later.)
Let’s start with the consumer/worker side. Besides being the top smartphone vendor (by shipments) and the only other vendor besides Apple to reap substantial profits, Samsung has been successful with high-end, professional devices. Its Galaxy family of Android smartphones and tablets has been a huge hit, with more than 50 million sold, including 7 million Galaxy Note “phablets” and 28 million of its flagship Galaxy S II smartphone.
(Read more about the 260 enterprises that are doing large-scale deployments of Samsung Galaxy Tab tablets and smartphones.)
Its successor, the Galaxy S III, looks set to top the S II. The newer model already has 10 million pre-orders in advance of its U.S. availability in July.
Consumers and reviewers are drawn to the Galaxy S III’s specs: 4.8-inch AMOLED touchscreen, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, 8 megapixel, 1080p camera, and more.
Credit: Samsung
Cash for Clunkers
But Samsung isn’t resting on those laurels. Its trade-in program, called SAFE2SWITCH, lets people exchange their current smartphones for an S III at very competitive prices.
The prices are as good or better than the ones offered by popular used electronics sites like Gazelle.com, and includes devices with little or no resale value.
For instance, a good condition 16 GB iPhone 4 with AT&T that fetches $160 from Gazelle will get $165 from Samsung.
While Gazelle won’t buy a Nokia Lumia 900 on AT&T, Samsung will pay $225.
Even the discontinued Dell Streak tablet on AT&T, Samsung will buy for $55 (Gazelle won’t buy).
You can scan the QR code below and get an immediate quote for your smartphone:
This trade-in program applies to both consumers and enterprises with thousands of devices.
A trade-in program is only good if it’s convenient for users. Samsung has that covered. The Galaxy S III will be available on five U.S. carriers - AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless and US Cellular - who collectively have 95% of the market (see slide 14).
Samsung also seems to have learned that pricing as aggressively as Apple and betting on volume is key. The 16 GB model that costs $199 will match the iPhone 4S, while the $249 32 GB model beats its iPhone counterpart.
All of these moves are smart because BYOD and CoIT means that enterprises are lifting device restrictions and giving workers choice over their mobile gear.
The other part of Samsung’s strategy is to woo CIOs. To start with, the S III features a major upgrade in Samsung’s SAFE (Samsung Approved For the Enterprise) program.
Launched last year, SAFE is Samsung’s attempt to create an enterprise-class offshoot of Android that addresses the very legitimate fears that IT has about Android today.
This is less about directly hardening Android, though there is some of that, such as AES-256 bit encryption. But it’s more about giving IT administrators using Mobile Device Management (MDM) software the ability to mange and secure the devices themselves.
Using MDM software from one of five vendors - MobileIron, Juniper, SOTI, AirWatch and SAP (Afaria) - IT administrators already could control the Galaxy S II using 95 policies. That’s far more policies and features than are available on other Android devices.
Quadrupling its Manageability
With the S III, IT administrators now have access to 338 IT policies, said Wagner, or nearly four times the Galaxy S II.
338 policies doesn’t match the number of policies offered on BlackBerry devices (reportedly 500+ on the latest version of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server). But it appears to top the number of policies available to iPhone and iPad administrators by a healthy margin.
Another new feature of SAFE: Samsung is now testing all third-party software as working properly and bug-free at the launch of major Samsung Android upgrades such as the version of ICS running on the Galaxy S III.
Before, Samsung would only require partners like VPN providers Cisco and Citrix test the software themselves. That didn’t reassure the CIOs that Samsung heard from, Wagner said.
The Galaxy S III also has some content sharing features tailored to on-the-go businessfolks. AllShare Group Cast lets co-workers share and collaborate on documents, presentations and more.
Finally, the 338 policies and Samsung certification will be available on older Galaxy devices like the S II that are upgraded to Samsung’s newest version of of Android.
Not Perfect
As impressive as SAFE is, it’s not perfect.
Samsung has been criticized for the slowness of its Android updates to make their way down to older devices. It’s unclear whether that’s improving or not.
Wagner also admits that Samsung won’t be testing third-party apps every time they release an update - something CIOs won’t be overjoyed to hear.
Still, apart from the incumbent RIM, Samsung has made the strongest reply to What a CIO Wants.
Also, if IDC is right that Android smartphones in the enterprise are set to explode, than Samsung’s moves are well-timed. SAFE’s technical merits combined with the sexiness of the Galaxy line could help it become the de facto standard for Android in business, and the only credible rival to the iPhone.
Samsung already has 44 large-scale enterprise pre-orders for the S III in the U.S., according to Wagner.
“The only real way to bring Android to the enterprise is to bring the entire platform to a high level of IT compliance,” he said. In this regard, “we have a 6-12 month headstart over other Android OEMs.”
Nokia 808 PureView topples standalone in blind camera test - Phones Review
The Nokia 808 PureView smartphone has attracted a huge amount of interest with its 41-megapixel camera. On the day when it’s being widely rumored that a US release will be announced there’s even more interest so we thought we’d bring you news of a recent Nokia PureView 808 blind camera test where it toppled a standalone camera.
The 808 PureView has won a lot of respect from critics with its PureView technology and Carl Zeiss optics and has already been launched in India ahead of its global launch. The blind camera test looked at the camera of this smartphone against the cameras of some of the best and latest phones available. The other smartphones in the test were the iPhone 4S, Samsung Galaxy S3 (I9300), Nokia N8 and HTC One X and along with those the standalone camera was the Olympus PEN E-PL2.
News of the test and results came to us from Phone Arena, sourced from GSM Arena where you can see the test fully detailed along with the images used. It involved readers’ votes on photos taken with the devices. All of the above smartphones have received praise for their camera set-ups although it was not exactly surprising that the 808 PureView with its 41-megapixel sensor came top. However, the fact that it also managed to beat the Olympus camera may surprise many people.
When the votes were revealed they showed that plenty of people couldn’t distinguish which images were from the 808 PureView and which were from the Olympus Micro Four Thirds camera, which alone shows how impressive the camera of the 808 PureView is. Not only did the 808 PureView triumph but the votes came in at 570 vs. 243, a clear victory with over double the amount of voters favoring the PureView as opposed to the Olympus.
No doubt the results of this blind camera test will drum up even more interest in the 808 PureView and we’ll certainly be following events today after a teaser from Nokia on its US Facebook page with the date of June 18 on it a few days ago. Just some of the other specs and features, for those who want a reminder, include a 1.3GHz ARM 11 processor, 4-inch AMOLED display with resolution of 360 x 640, 512MB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage (expandable with microSD), that massive 41-megapixel rear camera with 1080p video capture and a VGA secondary camera and it runs on the Nokia Belle OS.
For complete specs and features head to this GSM Arena page. Have you been waiting for the Nokia 808 PureView to arrive in your region? Are you hoping to hear release details today and have you already decided this will be your next smartphone purchase? Send your comments to let us know.
Samsung Targets Enterprise With 'SAFE'-Branded Galaxy S III - PC Magazine
With more and more consumers picking up iPhones and Android-based devices, it's no surprise that employees want to use their gadgets to access work-related emails and files.
In an effort to help IT teams find safe-for-work smartphones, Samsung today launched its Samsung Approved for Enterprise (SAFE) program, with the upcoming Galaxy S III as the first SAFE-approved device.
Having conquered the consumer space, Samsung - which recently topped Nokia for the first time in 14 years - is now eyeing the enterprise market.
"It's now safe to say that the 'Next Big Thing in Enterprise' is here with the near-term availability of SAFE-branded Galaxy S III devices at five U.S. carriers," said Tim Wagner, vice president and general manager of enterprise sales at Samsung Mobile, in a statement. "The highly desirable, SAFE-branded and QA-tested Galaxy S III smartphone systematically defragments Android to provide a consistent level of IT compliance for individuals who demand the very best in both their personal and professional lives."
As of June 1, 7.1 percent of Android devices were running the most recent version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich, but the majority - 65 percent- are still on Gingerbread, according to Google stats.
The SAFE program works with mobile device management (MDM) and VPN providers, who utilize Samsung's SDK to integrate their products into Samsung devices. Samsung then tests those solutions to make sure they comply with rules set out for regulated industries such as healthcare, financial services, and government, Samsung said.
Samsung is also launching SAFE2SWITCH, which will offer cash to those trading in their own phones for a SAFE-branded Samsung device.
The news is likely not welcome for the struggling Research in Motion, which has long dominated the enterprise space thanks to its secure BlackBerry devices. But Android and iOS have slowly been eating in to RIM's enterprise market share as IT managers figure out ways to safely adopt the newer mobile platforms in the office.
The Samsung Galaxy S III is making its debut this month on all four major wireless carriers in the U.S., plus U.S. Cellular and C Spire. For more, see PCMag's Hands On With the Samsung Galaxy S III and the slideshow below.
For more from Chloe, follow her on Twitter @ChloeAlbanesius.
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