The company will bundle the Hero with a Spotify Premium subscription for the duration of the handset’s two-year contract, so users can download unlimited tracks from the internet music service. 3 is the first UK mobile operator to offer a Spotify Premium bundle.

“This partnership continues our commitment to bring popular internet services to our customers,” 3’s director of products and services, Charlotte Blanchard, said in the company’s announcement on Monday.

Blanchard added that bundling Spotify Premium with the Hero was a “first step” in the operator’s relationship with the web-based jukebox service. The company intends to extend the Spotify relationship across a range of its products, including some of its mobile broadband deals, she said.

The operator’s Hero deal, which includes unlimited texts, email and internet browsing, costs £35 per month over 24 months, with an additional £99 upfront fee.

A subscription to Spotify Premium, which allows the user to download tracks to their iPhone or Android handset, ordinarily costs £10 per month. Over the two years of 3’s Hero contract, this brings the total value of the bundled service to £240.

A spokesperson for 3 told ZDNet UK that the operator will start selling the Hero sometime in early November, but could not specify the precise date.

Source:  ZDNet

The new joint venture will create the UK’s leading mobile operator. It will have a combined mobile customer base of around 28.4 million, representing approximately 37 percent of UK mobile subscribers*, based on figures at end December 2008. By integrating Orange’s broadband activities, the joint venture will also have the capabilities to offer convergent solutions to its customers in the future. The business will have pro forma 2008 revenues of approximately € 9.4 billion (£7.7 billion) and EBITDA of € 2.1 billion (£1.7 billion) **.

This combination will bring substantial benefits to UK consumers. It will result in expanded network coverage and enhanced indoor and outdoor network quality for 2G and 3G services, as well as better customer proximity through a larger network of own shops and improved customer services. The combination will place the joint venture in a better position to invest in innovative new services and to exploit new technologies. The new enlarged business will also be able to compete more effectively with the other two large mobile operators in the

market.

The key areas for the opex synergies of the joint venture are:

- Network & IT: Large-scale site rationalisation leading to significant savings

notably in site rental expenses, network operations and maintenance

expenses

- Distribution and Marketing: Higher proportion of sales through own shops,

resulting in lower distribution costs; a reduction in the combined number of

stores and savings in marketing costs primarily post roll-out of a new branding

strategy

- Other cost savings: Potential to reduce general and administration costs;

eliminate duplication in core support functions; optimise the workforce notably

in customer service, network and G&A operations

To achieve these opex synergies, the joint venture would expect to invest £600 to

£800 million in integration costs over the period from 2010 to 2014. Those costs

would primarily relate to the decommissioning of mobile sites, the rationalisation of the network of retail stores and the streamlining of operations.

· On the capex side, large scale savings are expected over the first five years following completion of the transaction, resulting from the integration and unification of the networks and from jointly expanding 3G coverage. The potential for capital expenditure savings, net of integration capex, is estimated at £620 million on a cumulative basis over 2010-2014, prior to stabilising at approximately £100 million a year from 2015 onwards.

These benefits will result in significantly improved operational performance, with long term EBITDA margin expected to be superior to those of the current market leaders thanks to size effects and with capex efficiency expected to be best in class.

To create the new joint venture, Deutsche Telekom would contribute T-Mobile UK on a cashfree, debt-free basis, including T-Mobile UK’s 50 percent holding in its 3G network joint venture with Hutchison and gross tax losses carried forward of at least £1.5 billion. France Telecom would contribute the whole of Orange UK including £1.25 billion of intra-group net debt in order to equalize the value of the contributions to the joint venture. Immediately after closing Deutsche Telekom would grant a £625 million shareholder loan to the joint venture, which would be used to simultaneously reimburse £625 million to France Telecom. As a result, the joint venture would have indebtedness of £1.25 billion, represented by two

shareholder loans of £625 million held by each of Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom.

The Board of the new joint venture company will have balanced representation from Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom. The management team would be led by Tom Alexander, currently CEO of Orange UK, as CEO and Richard Moat, currently CEO of TMobile UK, as COO. The governance of the joint venture would attribute extensive operational decision-making to the management team.

The T-Mobile UK and Orange UK brands will be maintained separately for 18 months after completion of the transaction. During that period management will review branding alternatives for the joint venture and will develop a new branding strategy recommendation for shareholder approval.

This transaction is expected to create substantial value for both shareholders and to be accretive from 2010 in terms of free cash-flow per share and from 2011 in terms of earnings per share. Both Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom would recognise their respective interest in the joint venture using the equity method after closing. It is planned that the joint venture will distribute 90 percent of its free cash flow to its two shareholders.

Prior to the signing, which is expected to be end of October, both Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom will undertake confirmatory due diligence and will complete the definitive documentation. The final agreement is subject to the approval of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Telekom and the Board of Directors of France Telecom, and the completion of an agreed transaction would be conditional on approval by the relevant competition authorities.

Source: T-Mobile Press Release

Continuing on the success of this model, Nokia released E72, which is slightly upgraded phone but majority of the features remain the same as in E71. Here is the list of most important changes/updates in E72:

• 3.5mm headphone jack
• Better feel keyboard
• 5 megapixel camera
• 250MB phone memory
• HSDPA/HSUPA
• QuickOffice software included

See Nokia promo video below for this phone:

The BlackBerry Curve 8520 smartphone is the latest BlackBerry® smartphone in the Vodafone UK range, which includes the BlackBerry® Storm™ 9500 smartphone – an exclusive to Vodafone.

Priced from free on selected price plans, the BlackBerry Curve 8520 smartphone is ideal for consumers and businesses and of all sizes. Its full QWERTY keyboard features a new touch-sensitive trackpad that makes scrolling through messages and navigating web pages fast and easy. The BlackBerry Curve 8520 smartphone also comes with:

* A 2-megapixel camera with zoom and video recording
* Dedicated keys for music and video
* Built- in Wi-Fi®
* Support for business and consumer mobile email
* Advanced media player
* 3.5 mm stereo headset jack and BlackBerry Media Sync
* MicroSD card slot with support for up to 16GB
* A 2GB memory card

The BlackBerry Curve 8520 smartphone is available at www.shop.vodafone.co.uk/shop/mobile-phone/blackberry-curve-8520 for consumers, www.vodafone.co.uk/curve8520 for small business customers and through Vodafone Account Managers for Corporate and Public Sector customers.

* For consumer and small business the BlackBerry Curve 8520 smartphone is free on a 24 month contract at £25 a month.
* For Corporate and Public Sector customers, the smartphone is priced at £185.
* The BlackBerry and RIM families of related marks, images and symbols are the exclusive properties and trademarks of Research In Motion Limited. Wi-Fi is a registered trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance. All other brands, product names, company names, trademarks and service marks are the properties of their respective owners.

Source: Vodafone Press Centre

Available on an 18 month contract, this value package comes with a usage allowance of 500 Mb per month and download speeds of up to 3.6mbps. So if you are heavy internet user who does downloads, watch online videos and visit graphics heavy sites, 500MB allowance may not be suitable for you.

Customers also receive a free Huawei E160e dongle in either black, white or pink which has been designed to also act as a memory stick so customers can keep their photos, music and films with them whilst on the move.

Source: Orange Press Release

This phone is currently available in US, it will be available in UK during Christmas time 2009.

Here is a quick spec list:

Processor: Qualcomm® MSM7200A^TM, 528 MHz
Operating System: Android^TM
Memory ROM: 512 MB
RAM: 288 MB
Dimensions (LxWxT) 112 x 56.2 x 14.35 mm ( 4.41 x 2.21 x 0.57 inches)
Weight 135 grams ( 4.76 ounces) with battery
Display 3.2-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with 320×480 HVGA resolution
Network HSPA/WCDMA:

* 900/2100 MHz
* Up to 2 Mbps up-link and 7.2 Mbps down-link speeds

Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:

* 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

(Band frequency and data speed are operator dependent.)
Device Control Trackball with Enter button
GPS Internal GPS antenna
Connectivity Bluetooth® 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate and A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g
HTC ExtUSB^TM (11-pin mini-USB 2.0 and audio jack in one)
3.5 mm audio jack
Camera 5.0 megapixel color camera with auto focus
Audio supported formats MP3, AAC(AAC, AAC+, AAC-LC), AMR-NB, WAV, MIDI and Windows Media® Audio 9
Video supported formats MPEG-4, H.263, H.264 and Windows Media® Video 9
Battery Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
Capacity: 1350 mAh
Talk time:

* Up to 420 minutes for WCDMA
* Up to 470 minutes for GSM

Standby time:

* Up to 750 hours for WCDMA
* Up to 440 hours for GSM

(The above are subject to network and phone usage.)
Expansion Slot microSD^TM memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
AC Adapter Voltage range/frequency: 100 ~ 240V AC, 50/60 Hz
DC output: 5V and 1A
Special Features G-sensor
Digital Compass

Palm Pre, the first phone based on the new Palm webOS^TM mobile platform, brings your information from the many places it resides – on your phone, at work or on the web – into one simple, integrated view.

Palm Pre introduces a breakthrough user interface and hardware design that makes it one of the most integrated and user-friendly mobile phones on the market. Featuring a smooth, elegantly rounded ergonomic design and a physical keyboard that slides out only when needed, Palm Pre is engineered to feel natural in your hand and comfortably small in your pocket. When closed, Palm Pre is ideal for phone calls, web browsing, music, photos and videos; when open, Palm Pre is optimized for email and text messaging. It provides an exceptional experience for phone calls, whether held to your ear, over speakerphone or via Bluetooth.

O2 UK website has listed Palm Pre as coming soon model:

Customers who would like to register to receive additional information about Palm Pre and be notified when it’s available can register at:
• UK and Ireland: http://www.palm.com/uk-pre-notify
• Germany: http://www.palm.com/de-pre-notify
• Spain: http://www.palm.com/es-pre-notify

Source: O2 Press Release

Phone has several improvements, most important ones being:

1. Faster Internet download speed

2. Cut, copy, paste (how long did it take to put these basic features in!)

3. Keyboard in landscape mode

4. Video recording

5. Improved search

6. Compass

7. Voice Control

8. Camera upgrade (3 mega pixels)

New iPhone will be available from Apple stores.

You can get full review of new features on Apple’s website.