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Mobile spam is growing and as a result the largest Omani mobile operator Oman Mobile which owns a customer base of 1.6 million has recently joined an international campaign to fight mobile spam, an initiative of GSMA. Founded in 1987, GSMA is a global trade association representing more than 750 GSM mobile phone operators across 218 countries and regions of the world.

This code is a proactive approach to collectively deal with mobile spam through set initiatives and recommendations, as well as cooperating with other mobile operators to share information and adopt measures that track the source of spam and minimize it continuously.

Under the code, mobile operators commit to including anti-spam conditions in all new contracts, establish a mechanism that ensures appropriate customer consent, work cooperatively with other mobile operators, undertake additional anti-spam activities, and encourage support from the government and regulators.

I think this is a great initiative and am sure other operator’s will follow suit soon.

Came across this new report which was published recently on the UAE telecoms market. 

In this update on the telecoms sector of the UAE, new data published by the regulator suggests that fixed-line growth in 2007 was stronger than what was predicted, with much of the new growth coming from second national operator du. 

In contrast, broadband growth was weaker with penetration having reached just 8.6% at the end of 2007, less than the estimate of 100%. The UAE’s telecoms regulator has published figures showing that there were 904,000 internet subscribers in the country at the end of 2007; this is equal to a penetration of 20.5%. However, of this total, 380,000 (42% of the total) were broadband subscribers with the remainder being made up of dial-up. In a development which has significant implications for the future of internet usage in the UAE, it was reported in April 2008 that unrestricted internet access for residents of Dubai’s ‘free economic zones’ and beyond was about to come to an end. 

Etisalat’s interest in India’s telecoms market complements a wider international expansion drive, which has recently seen the operator acquire telecoms assets in Indonesia and Nigeria, and to express an interest in acquisitions in Algeria and Qatar. Despite these ongoing expansion plans, it was revealed in April 2008 that Etisalat had offloaded part of its stake in Saudi cellular operator Mobily.

Etisalat saw its share of Mobily fall from 35% to 26.25% as part of a plan to sell a total 20% stake in the operator.  The UAE has moved one place up our latest set of revised Business Environment Rankings for the Middle East. Although UAE has been awarded a higher country structure score, but it continues to suffer from a poor score in the regulatory independence category.

Came across this interesting news in GulfNews regarding Mobile Ticketing which I thought will be of interest to my readers.

Ticketing has evolved from pre-printed tickets to tickets printed at a ticket window at the time of purchase, to internet sales where customers print their own bar-coded tickets. The latter method is becoming increasingly popular, since it allows ticket buyers to avoid long lines and enables ticket sellers to eliminate printing and distribution costs - ultimately providing better service to customers.
 

Image of a Mobile Ticket with Bar Code

M-ticketing, the next big step in the evolution of ticketing, will soon replace home-printed and pre-printed paper tickets. M-tickets can be sent to a mobile phone or PDA via SMS. This consists of a bar code that can be quickly read and validated directly from the mobile device’s display screen.”

We at Cellucom are also working in that direction. If you have a requirement for a Mobile Ticketing solution please get in touch with us and we can help you achieve it. Please leave your contact details in the comment section and one of my team member will get in touch with you.

Blackberry recently launched the Blackberry 9000 Bold phone in the US. It looks like a great phone to me. I would surely like to possess this phone as soon as it is available in UAE. We will announce the availability of this phone once it hits the market.

Quick highlights :

Technology: Quad Band 850/900/1800/1900 Feature: Bluetooth, Calendar, Camera, Candy Bar Form, Edge, Email Client, GPS / Location, High-Speed Data GPRS, Megapixel Camera, Memory Card Slot, MP3, Qwerty Keyboard, Smartphone, Speaker Phone, Voice Dialing, Wi-Fi

To know more about Blackberry Bold visit : http://www.blackberry.com/blackberrybold/

Came across an interesting news on the growing demand for Touch Screen mobile phones in Gulf News  which I thought will interest my readers .

“According to research firm iSuppli, global market for touch-screen panels to grow to 341 million units and earn $3.4 billion in value this year. HTC launched its first touch-screen phone - HTC TyTN and HTC P3300- in 2006 and LG launched its Prada in 2007 and Samsung in 2008 while Apple launched its iPhone in 2007, but iPhone is not
officially available in the Middle East.

Samsung has four main sleek touch-screen phones - the Omnia, the Haptic, the F490 and the Instinct and LG has the Prada, the Viewty, Venus and the Voyager while HTC has the HTC Touch, Touch Dual with Touch FLO, TyTN II, HTC Shift HTC Advantage X7510 lined up to take on Apple.

In the Middle East specifically, awareness of touch-screen technology and its many benefits is growing apace. There is no doubt this is an expanding market - as industry figures will support.

Nokia is expected to launch a series of touch-screen devices in the second half of the year, with the first model - likely the 5800 Tube.

iSuppli forecasts that the market will grow to 833 million units by 2013, expanding at an annual growth rate of 19.5 per cent from 2008. touch-screen module revenue is forecast to grow to $6.4 billion by 2013.”

We recently launched our ecommerce store at UAE’s no 1 online marketplace Souq.com. We have partnered with Souq.com to operate our own e-store to broaden our market reach and achieve instant results. ECommerce scene in the UAE has improved and the spending on online stores has also gone up.

You can visit Cellucom’s online store at www.souq.com/cellucom

Please let me know your experience buying online

The iPhone 3G made its international debut (launched in 70 countries) on 11th July, which was an eagerly-awaited launch expected to boost Apple’s fortunes along with its share of the booming ‘smart phone’ market.

IPhones are the third most popular ‘smart phones’ in the world, with 5.3 percent of the market. The popularity of iPhones has led to copying by competitors such as Nokia and Samsung, which have released touch-screen mobile telephones with Internet capabilities. Blackberry is also planning a touch-screen device.

The Apple iPhone 3G offers critical new features including support for high-speed 3G networks, third-party applications, and expanded e-mail. Its call quality is improved and it continues to deliver an excellent music and video experience.
The iPhone 3G continues to lack some basic features that are available on even the simplest cell phone.

The iPhone 3G delivers on its promises by adding critical features and sharper performance. The iTunes App Store is pretty amazing, and the 3G support is more than welcome. The iPhone 3G is a big improvement over the original model.
Apple has not announced any dates for the launch in GCC as yet except for Vodafone Qatar where probably it will be launched soon. By the time it launches in this region, it may be too late with unlocked versions easily available in the market.

The mobile subscriber base in Saudi Arabia currently stands at 27 million, with penetration 109 per cent. Mobile penetration is currently ten per cent higher than forecast, and subscribers will reach 33.4 million this year, implying a penetration rate of 131 per cent, up from 113 per cent in previous forecasts. Saudi mobile penetration of 2007 was above the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) average of 84 per cent but lower than that of Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE.

Experts fore see that the entry of a third operator, Zain Saudi, “will stir up competition and push the penetration rate above estimated addressable market size for its first two years”. Expected to start operations in July 2008, the new operator is forecast to have 1.3 million subscribers at the end of 2008.
There are lot of opportunities  a whole lot of activities in the mobility sector in Saudi Arabia for retail, value added services

Here are the latest subscriber figures for Middle East as published by Hot Telecoms in its latest report.

I came across the following announcement today from Etisalat for Blackberry users. You will be happy to know that Etisalat is expanding the scope of its BlackBerry service by introducing a Middle East version of Garmin Navigation software for users in the UAE. This will be a subscription based service which will give users the convenience of finding their way around the UAE with turn-by-turn directions and coverage of the entire country.

Users can take their device with them and navigate with ease and enjoy routing around busy traffic, viewing the local weather and even finding the nearest petrol station whenever they want. Users will also get the latest GPS coordinates with automatic updates on a regular basis throughout the year.

The text-to-speech functionality allows the unit to audibly announce the name of streets and lets drivers keep their eyes on the road while navigating through busy traffic and tricky roadways.If users stray off course, Garmin Mobile will automatically calculate the quickest way to get back on track. 
 
I am quite excited by this announcement as I am a Blackberry user, and look forward to experience the Location Based Service in Dubai on my Blackberry device.Garmin Mobile will be supported on Etisalat BlackBerry devices that are GPS enabled which are the 8310 and 8820 Models. If you want to experience Blackberry 8310 and Blackberry 8820 do visit your nearest Cellucom store.

Links:
Blackberry 8310
Blackberry 8820

Dear Customers,