July 2010 - The Insider

Running the world’s first commercial 4G mobile network has given TeliaSonera a head start and a few head-aches as well. 4G users have changed their mobile surfing habits simply as a result of gaining access to quicker mobile broadband, 10 times quicker to be exact. As might be expected, the people who jumped on the 4G bandwagon first were those already interested in technology. According to a survey conducted by the operator 100 days into its LTE experience, over 90 percent of users had upgraded...

No matter how clever communications technology becomes I’m still not convinced it cannot adequately replace face-to-face meetings. We are very much a matrix organization in the TM Forum with people located all over the world and mainly working from home. We communicate regularly by email, Skype, GoToMeeting and conference calls and, for the most part, the communications is effective. But there’s nothing that beats getting together in one place to ‘chew the fat’ and interact personally. This is not...

This week at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2010, Microsoft Corp. was highlighting market opportunities for hosting and communications service providers as adoption of cloud services among small and midsize business (SMBs) continues to rise. Microsoft is offering to help service providers take advantage of those opportunities through its software, services and programs that enable them to become trusted advisors and full-service IT providers to businesses. That all sounds grand but Microsoft...

If your bank had a systems glitch that prevented you from making any transactions over its network, and I do mean ANY transaction, how would you feel? Let’s put this in some context. You would be unable to do any online banking via the internet or mobile, use an ATM machine, cash a check, make the mortgage repayment or even use your debit card or credit card. How long would you last before getting really annoyed - caught in the middle of shopping at the supermarket, filling your car with gas, paying...

A fascinating report from Cards International confirms what most retail merchants have been saying for years - banks are ripping them off with charges! What’s even more concerning is that retailers feel that they are suffering ‘unjustifiably’ high fees on credit and debit card sales and that these will become the norm for emerging contactless and mobile phone payment methods, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC). As if we haven’t had enough issues already raised by lack of Near Field...