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Virgin Media and O2 announce £31 billion UK merger
The £31 billion puts BT, Sky and Vodafone on notice -- if it's approved.
Virgin and O2 might merge to create a UK telecom giant
Virgin Media and O2 might unite in the UK, creating a mobile, cable and internet behemoth.
European mobile carriers will share location data to track COVID-19 spread
More governments are relying on phone location tracking in a bid to track and contain the spread of COVID-19. Eight European carriers, including Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile), Orange and Vodafone, have agreed to share phone location data with the European Commission to help measure the coronavirus' reach. That immediately raises privacy issues, but an official talking to Reuters stressed that the EC would protect users.
Alphabet's Loon, telecoms unite to boost high-altitude internet
Alphabet's Loon just got a big boost from telecoms in its bid to provide high-altitude internet to the world. The company has partnered with several industry giants to form the HAPS Alliance, a group devoted to promoting the use of stratospheric vehicles for internet access. Most of the allies are telecoms like Deutsche Telekom, SoftBank, Bharti Airtel, China Telecom and Telefonica, although the group also includes a diverse range of equipment makers like Airbus, AeroVironment, Ericsson, Intelsat and Nokia.
Alphabet's balloons broadcast LTE two days after Peruvian quake
When a magnitude 8.0 earthquake hit Peru Sunday, the Alphabet spinoff Loon was quick to respond. Within 48 hours, Loon delivered its internet-relaying balloons and began providing LTE coverage to users below. While more balloons are on the way, Loon says the speed at which it responded is a testament to the company's potential.
Alphabet's Loon forms advisory board to score internet balloon deals
Alphabet's Loon knows it needs to land carrier deals if it's going to turn internet balloons into a viable business, and that means tapping industry veterans who know how to make those deals. To that end, it just formed an advisory board that will help it find partners. The initial three members aren't household names, but you'll definitely know the companies they've worked for -- it's almost a who's-who of wireless.
34 major tech companies are uniting to fight cyberattacks
Cyberattacks are a global issue that can cause havoc regardless of who's involved, and key members of the tech industry are uniting in a bid to fight these attacks. A group of 34 companies has signed the Cybersecurity Tech Accord, an agreement promising to defend customers around the world from hacks regardless of where they take place or who the perpetrator might be. They're promising to boost defenses for customers (including users' capacity to defend themselves), establish more partnerships to share threats and vulnerabilities, and -- importantly -- refuse to assist governments in launching cyberattacks.
Facebook has big plans to bring internet to more people in rural areas
Over the past few years, Facebook has been rolling out several initiatives to bring free and cost-reducing internet to people in underdeveloped areas all around the world. That includes things like Terragraph, a millimeter-wave wireless technology that not only serves connectivity but does so in speedy form -- it runs on the same frequency as the one being tested by operators for proposed 5G cellular networks. Then there are others such as the Telecom Infra Project (TIP), a collaboration between tech industry firms to accelerate the development of internet infrastructure in rural areas. OpenCellular, meanwhile, is a low-power base station optimized for underserved regions across the globe. In order for all of these projects to be successful, though, Facebook can't do it alone.
O2 is bringing free 1 Gbps WiFi to the City of London
Workers and residents in London's "Square Mile" will enjoy free 1 Gbps WiFi connections, thanks to a new deal between the City of London Corporation and mobile carrier O2. The multi-million pound deal will see Cornerstone Telecommunications Infrastructure Ltd (CTIL) -- a joint venture between Vodafone and O2 owner Telefónica -- place "small cell" 4G mobile hotspots on lampposts, street signs, buildings and CCTV arrays in order to provide blanket superfast internet coverage across the city.
Sky Mobile will open signups on October 31st
It's taken more than two years, but Sky is finally ready to launch its own mobile service. At its annual Investor Day, the company confirmed it will open registrations for Sky Mobile, its O2-powered network, from October 31st. The move will ultimately allow Sky to sit alongside BT, Virgin Media and TalkTalk as a true "quad-play" provider.
UK competition watchdog slams Three and O2 merger
The UK's competition watchdog has called on the European Commission to block a proposed acquisition of Telefonica UK, which runs O2, by Hutchison Whampoa, the company behind Three UK, unless both companies agree to a series of strong concessions. In a letter, Alex Chisholm, CEO for the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), says he will only approve if Hutchison Whampoa agrees to sell Three or O2 after the acquisition. Such a move is the only way, he argues, to retain adequate competition in the UK mobile industry. If this isn't possible, Chisholm suggests breaking off one of the networks and facilitating smaller sell-offs. "Absent such structural remedies, the only option available to the Commission is prohibition."
O2 tracks and sells what customers are doing on the Tube
If you're with O2 and regularly use the London Underground, you should know that the network is trying to track your phone and pass that information on to advertisers. If that sounds like a huge invasion of privacy, well, in some ways it is -- however, the silver lining is that all of the data is anonymised and aggregated before it's visible to any marketing folk. O2's owner Telefonica struck the deal with Exterion Media last summer, the latter of which owns every billboard on the subterranean transport system. It then came into effect on Thursday, monitoring customers' journeys, app usage and browsing activity over Wi-Fi.
Apple starts offering carrier billing for iTunes in Germany
Up until now, Apple's held out on offering carrier billing for services like iTunes and the App Store. But it looks like that's coming to an end, at least in Germany. As reported by TechCrunch, Apple seems to have quietly flipped the switch on this feature, which lets digital goods be charged directly to a phone bill, for people using O2's wireless network. A spokesperson for Telefonica, the owner of O2, confirmed to the publication it is in fact working with Apple on carrier billing. If you're an O2 wireless customer in that country, it means you can start charging Apple Music, iTunes, App Store and iBooks purchases directly to your monthly bill. Access is limited at the moment, but Telefonica says everyone on O2 will get it by the beginning of November.
Three UK's owner is buying O2
A huge mobile shake-up has just kicked off in Britain. Telefonica has agreed to sell O2 to Hutchison Whampoa, the owner of Three UK, for £10.25 billion. We knew it was likely, after the pair entered "exclusive negotiations" back in January, but now it's essentially a done deal. Provided the purchase is approved by regulators, it means the UK's four major networks will soon become three: Vodafone, EE and the combined might of Three and O2. The confirmation comes by way of Telefonica, although the company is saying little beyond the amount of money involved. For instance, it's unclear if Hutchison Whampoa plans to maintain O2's brand and services in the UK, or merge them entirely with Three.
Sky confirms launch of its own O2-powered mobile network
Talks between Three owner Hutchison Whampoa and O2 haven't yet reached a conclusion, but already some of the UK's biggest companies are keen to take advantage of a future merger. After briefly flirting with Vodafone in a recent trial, Sky has confirmed it will become a quad-play provider with the launch of its own O2-powered mobile network in 2016. According to Sky, O2's current owner Telefónica UK will provide access to the carrier's 2G, 3G and 4G services, allowing it to go up against BT, Virgin Media and also TalkTalk, which signed a deal with the operator in November, to offer phone, broadband, TV and mobile bundles.
BT is in talks to buy back O2
Following in the footsteps of Take That, S Club 7 and 5ive, BT appears determined to get the band back together. The company has confirmed to us that it is in talks with European communications giant Telefonića to buy back O2, almost a decade after it sold the operator for £17.7 billion. It's no secret that BT is currently readying its own mobile service (with a little help from EE), but according to to Spanish news site El Confidencial, it could be willing to hand over a 20 percent stake as part of a "strategic alliance" between the pair.
UK carrier O2 dropping its mobile wallet service after less than two years
O2 UK's carrier-independent Money mobile wallet may have proven a little too ambitious. The network is shutting down the service on March 31st so that it can investigate "new and better ways" to handle payments -- in other words, it's not satisfied with Money's performance. Both the market and O2's parent company Telefonica have changed in the past two years, the provider tells Computerworld UK. We can't say we're shocked by the closure when there are now many more ways to pay with your phone in the country; it's a fiercely competitive space. Still, the news will be disappointing to shoppers who were hoping that O2's clout would give Money an edge over its rivals.
LG unveils the Fireweb, its first Firefox OS smartphone (video)
So far, Firefox OS has been limited to ultra-basic smartphones like the ZTE Open. LG is expanding the platform's reach today by releasing its inaugural Mozilla-powered handset, the Fireweb. The 4-inch device is still designed for newcomers between its 480 x 320 display, 1GHz Qualcomm processor and 4GB of expandable storage. However, its 5-megapixel camera is a big improvement over shooters in preceding phones -- this is the first Firefox OS phone with both autofocusing and an LED flash. Appropriately, LG is pricing the Fireweb above its simpler counterparts. Vivo Brazil is selling the Fireweb today for $449 BRL ($207 US) to pay-as-you-go customers, or $129 BRL ($59 US) to regular subscribers. It's now more expensive than LG's cheapest Android device, the $399 BRL ($184) Optimus L3 II. Hop past the break for both a video demo of the Fireweb and details of a Firefox OS market expansion that now includes Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay. Update: We've tweaked the post to reflect that the handset has 4GB of storage, not 2GB as previously noted.
Pinterest launches an Android widget, but only for Telefonica customers
If you can't stop checking Pinterest while on the road, today's your lucky day... provided that you subscribe to the right cellular carrier, that is. Pinterest has just released an Android widget that's available exclusively to customers on Telefonica's networks, including O2, Movistar and Vivo. The portal shows both personal feeds and popular items, letting users pin their favorite things from the home screen. At present, the Pinterest widget is available only as a download for O2 UK customers. Telefonica will start preloading the software on O2 phones within a few weeks; rollouts to the brand's other carriers are coming "in due course."
Telefonica pens deal with Evernote, gives global customers one year's free premium access
You've got to hand it to Evernote, it's taking the initiative when it comes to getting its popular productivity tools into as many hands as possible. We've already seen Deutsche Telekom customers score access to it's premium services for free, now over 247 million Telefonica customers are getting the same -- a $45 saving. The partnership kicks off in Brazil via the Vivo brand, whose customers can get a year's access to the top-tier features starting today. Unlike the German deal, it's unclear whether existing customers of the premium service still qualify, but like the versatile tool's logo, if they don't, those customers may never forget.
