Pat Phelan: Bits, bytes and telecomsMobile, Roaming and Social Media

I spent some time today with Myles Standish founder of Call15

Whats Call15?
Its a complete new way of calling from Ireland (only), It uses the O2 network, you dial an access number beginning with 15 and you get a preset amount of international minutes.
As a special opening offering Call15 are giving away a free SIM to [...]

If I was to buy an iPhone in Ireland and didn’t want to get hit with the “Paddy Tax” here is what I might do.
I would pick up one from one of thousand sources especially Cork where there are going to be 1500 free iPhones given to Apple employee next week.
So imagine I have picked [...]

This press release was sent to Global networks today. RTE the national Irish channel have covered it already.
Press-release
Irish taken as fools as O2 Ireland iPhone package comes with attached “Paddy tax”
Irish company Cubic Telecom today blasted the prices that people will have to pay for the iPhone when it’s introduced in Ireland on March 14th. [...]

We had a great craic at 3GSM and were joined by a huge gang.
Following on from the blast we had the we have decided to do the same at VON.x

Join MAXroam, QIK and Global Roaming for a night of Irish goodness.
We would love you to join us at The Tied House San Jose for a [...]

In an Orwellian style move T-Mobile Germany is planning on getting rid of headsets that allow it users to access Nokia’s fantastic new OVI service.
“T-Mobile Germany is supposedly planning on getting rid of all Nokia handsets that can access the Ovi service. Apparently they are in fear of competition with their own in-house content [...]

If you have been around here for a while you will know that Jawbone is my favourite bluetooth headset.
They have just launched a special edition set designed by Yves Behar, founder of Fuseproject studios
The three models – in black, white and copper-brown – are called dirty talk, trash talk and sweet talk, with discrete logos [...]

There has been numerous instances of this over the past few months.
“A British businessman has been hit with a £11,000 (US$22,000) mobile data roaming fee after his wife used an “unlimited” data account to download several TV shows via a mobile phone. A report in the Sunday Times says that the wife of a business [...]

Again we have a large multinational carrier pulling a fast on the Irish consumer.
This time its O2 in the guise of the launch of the long awaiting iPhone.

The pricing for us poor oul Paddies bears no relation to the UK pricing, I can personally guarantee having been terminating minutes in both countries for over ten [...]

Iotum today announced global availability of its popular FREE Conference Calls application on Facebook under agreements with Internet communications partners Truphone in the U.K., Abbeynet in Italy and MOI Telecom in France.

Starting today, users can join an iotum FREE Conference Call using one of three methods:
1. Direct dial from home, office, or [...]

I am not a huge Skype fan I think that is pretty obvious to anyone who reads here regularly.
Therefore news last week that Skype has hit 100 billion minutes therefore is not going to make me rip off my clothes and take to the streets of Cork in celebration.
Firstly, everyone of these minutes were [...]