Category: Networks / Carriers

It might be raining, but I can charge my phone and keep dry

With the British summer becoming a bit of a wash-out, Vodafone have stepped up with a solution. It’s an umbrella. Sure, we’ve seen umbrellas before. I’ve got a collection of broken ones in the boot of my car, but none of those will act as a high-gain antenna …

Three Announce New EU Roaming Deal

Three have today announced a fantastic new roaming deal which gets the internet in the hands of more people who travel within the EU and like here in the UK there is no need to worry about limits. For £5 you get 24 hours internet access….and best of all it …

Signal Boost – Just why is there no handover?

Signal Boost is something we’ve covered a few times here at Coolsmartphone. Put simply, it’ll route your mobile calls over the nearest WiFi hotspot at no extra charge. It’ll use your text, picture message and voice bundles so there’s no VoIP twiddling to do. When we mentioned Orange …

Vodafone Launch EuroTraveller Roaming Deal

Vodafone have launched a brand new roaming deal today which is available to both business and non business customers on the UK network.  For a charge of £3 for the day you use your phone you will now be able to take your UK package abroad with you …

Status: OMG! WiFi at the Tube station

Use the Tube? Use one of the stations listed below? Hey, you’re in luck. You’ll soon be bathed in free (for a limited time) WiFi while you stand on the platform. Better still, some stations have been turned on today, so you might start seeing people like this …

O2 and Voda to share network infrastructure

Telefónica UK (O2) and Vodafone UK are to begin “pooling” their two networks – both 900MHz – to create “one national grid running each operator’s independent spectrum.” They’re doing this partially to ensure that 4G coverage can be rolled out as quickly as possible, but also to improve …

The Samsung Galaxy S3 and The USA

The Galaxy S3 is finally heading to the United States of America! Samsung have announced the phone for the five mobile carriers over in the United States all in one sweep. The device will start on the biggest four carriers for around $199 on a two year contract and …

Three Remove TrafficSense For High Users

Three have now stopped the TrafficSense service for restricting speed to the top 5% of users duringi peak times TrafficSense™ is there to help make sure all our customers get a fair share of our network. We continue to develop and refine it. The initial trial of one …

HTC Desire C – Now available on Three

Everyone is pretty skint at the moment so, although we weren’t expecting it, the Desire C is pretty good value. You can pick one up on Pay As You Go with Three for £149.99. Their “All in One 15″ package costs £15 and gives 30-day access to all-you-can-eat …

Vodafone launch the Smart II – A smartphone for £70

We’ve just added our review of the Huawei Y 100 a bargain-basement handset. Now, Vodafone have one too, and they’re selling it for just 70. It’s obviously the follow-up to their Smart and runs Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and has a 3.2″ HVGA screen. All the usual GPS, WiFi …

Coolsmartphone Survey: Customer Service and Mobile Operators

This is a liveblog……. We at Coolsmartphone are in the process of compiling a survey around Customer service from the major mobile operators in the UK. For this we need your help.  We need your experiences, good, bad or indifferent, in order to give us a general overview …

Everything Everywhere redesigns Customer Service, to be Handset based

Everything Everywhere, the company formed by the merger of Orange and T-Mobile have revealed a complete revamp of their customer service division with what they claim is a revolutionary change in the way their service is delivered. Everything Everywhere are to invest £50 million on stores, customer facing …

Deal Of The Day: 12 month SIM-only with £100 Cashback

Posted over in our forums today by Nitram_cpr is a rather good deal on the Three network. I am currently on Tesco PayG but am always looking for good deals and found this: http://www.quidco.com/three/ Basically if you sign up for a 12 month sim only deal you’ll get £100 …

Vodafone Price Changes for Pay Monthly Customers

Vodafone have made some changes to their charges for certain elements for pay monthly customers. From 1st July 2012, customers who go over their monthly data allowance will have a charge of £5 for an additional 250MB levied,  also the cost of calling 118 500 or 118 404 …

Sony Xperia U gets priced on T-Mobile, and it’s cheap!

The sexy Xperia U, which we snapped in Barcelona, is now available on T-Mobile for a mere £15.50 per month. It’ll be hitting retail stores in the next few days and, during the two year contract, you’ll get 250MB of data, 500 texts and 100 minutes per month …

Are you feeling hot tonight? Phone your oven

Are your spuds constantly getting burned? Having trouble with your cakes going flat? Everything Everywhere and AGA ovens have a solution. SIM cards are to be slipped inside new AGA iTotal Control ovens to give you complete control over your control knobs. Using an app, text or website …

Price increases on Three – Customers informed

Times are hard, there’s a recession on and prices have risen. Three have now started increasing the cost of some plans and this morning Liam received an email about his £35-a-month plan… From 16 July 2012 we’re changing our prices and putting up your monthly bill by 3.6%. …

Opinion: Handset Makers, Not Good enough, Must Try Harder

It is seven months since the launch of the latest incantation of Google’s mobile operating system,  Ice Cream Sandwich. Since October 19th 2011, there have been 3 revisions and the OS is now on version 4.0.4 Within a few days of the release of the SDK, ROMs started …

The Olympic torch live – thanks to the mobile networks

So, this summer is going to be rather big here in the UK. The Queen is having a bit of a bash shortly and, in a couple of months, we’ll be hosting the ruddy Olympics. Before each Olympic torch is sold on eBay it actually gets held aloft …

HTC reportedly making a Tizen phone too.

   Since Nokia chose to depart from their ex-partner Intel, the pair’s love child, Meego, was expected to become a somewhat neglected entity. But, it wasn’t long before Samsung, amongst many others, picked up the buck and started building Tizen and it seems they haven’t looked back yet. …

Windows Phone On the Rise?

New figures published by Kantar Worldpanel reveal that Windows phone is finally on the rise.  Helped by Nokia’s new range of Windows Phone handsets they now have a 6% market share in Germany and 4% in the United Kingdom, France, Italy and the US. Android however stretched their …

O2 Announce New EU Pricing From July

After the Ofcom ruling where networks have to lower the cost of roaming within the EU, O2 have today announced their plans starting from 1st July and initial impressions look very good. Data will now cost you £1.99 for a day when you connect and that will get …

Orange brings TVcheck to the UK

Having launched in France last year, Orange is about to make a foray into the UK social tv market with the launch of TVcheck. In a press release today Orange said that the TVcheck app enhances your live TV watching experience by allowing you to check in to your …

T-Mobile Announces Unlimited “Orange” Broadband

The merger of T-Mobile and Orange into Everything Everywhere took another step today with T-Mobile’s announcement of a home broadband service using Orange broadband’s unlimited plans. Orange Unlimited broadband plans are now available from T-Mobile telesales and are being rolled out to T-Mobile shops and the online shop. …

More SIM-free Samsung Galaxy SIII Pricing

The guys from Unlocked-mobiles have stepped forward to announce their pricing for the Samsung Galaxy SIII. It’ll set you back £549.98 Inc VAT for the UK SIM-free 16GB version in blue or white. Specs include… · Exynos quad core 1.4 GHz processor · 4.8″ inch screen · Wireless …

T-Mobile confirm the Galaxy SIII

The only UK network not to confirm the Galaxy SIII so far was T-Mobile. Their Everything Everywhere partners, Orange, have said they will be ranging it and now we’ve just received word from T-Mo to let us know that they will also be offering it up… T-Mobile UK …

Phones 4U to retail the Galaxy SIII – Free from £36 a month

The boys at Phones4U have confirmed that they will be taking the Samsung Galaxy SIII and have added a range of options for the 1.4GHz quad-core beast when it arrives. They have a pre-order page and, if you do put your order in now, you’ll get a “premium …

Three confirm the Galaxy SIII – Free on certain plans

Will the next network please step into the ring please? Yes, it’s Three. They’re confirmed that the Samsung Galaxy SIII will be available on their network AND they’ve gone a bit further than other networks and given us some prices. You’ll be able to pre-order it tomorrow and …

Vodafone get an exclusive on the 32GB Samsung Galaxy SIII

Well yes, just as the people around me were talking about it, we’ve got confirmation that Vodafone will be carrying the all-new Samsung Galaxy SIII too. They’ve scored a bit of a coup here too, bagging the 32GB version as an exclusive from launch, but hey – they’ll …

O2 Confirm the Samsung Galaxy SIII

Well, we kinda expected this, but O2 have just confirmed that they’ll be ranging the Samsung Galaxy SIII and it’ll be available in stores on May 29th. If the chatter on this train is to be believed (most people are from the event) then you can put bets …

Orange to carry the Samsung Galaxy SIII

We’ve just had confirmation from trusted sources at Orange that they will indeed be taking up the Samsung Galaxy SIII. Pricing, plans and availability will be announced soon but you can bet that it’ll be at the end of May. Expect other networks to follow suit shortly 🙂 …

Get on the Dog and Bone, Special Pet Plan Available Soon.

Go on, admit it.  You have often sat at work, gazed into space and thought “I wish my Tiddles would just ring me.”  Own up, how many times a day do you check your phone just to see if you have a missed call from Rover? Well, the …

ZTE Tania Debuts With Virgin Mobile

ZTE have today announced that Virgin Mobile will be the first UK operator to carry the new ZTE Tania. The Windows Mobile 7.5 carrying device will be available from the middle of May on pay monthly and pay-as-you-go. The Tania has a TFT capacitive touchscreen, a display of 480 …

Virgin Media Now Stocking HTC Sensation XE And HTC One V

In a press release today, Virgin Media revealed that they are now offering the HTC Sensation XE and the HTC One V from free on contract. Virgin Mobile is a virtual operator in the UK, using the networks of  T-Mobile and Orange ensuring maximum possible coverage. If you …

The Next Galaxy shows on Vodafone

The network has just added this landing page ready for the upcoming “Next Galaxy”, which we all presume is the Samsung Galaxy SIII. The launch takes place on May 3rd, which which is only 10 days away, and you can plonk your name down on the Vodafone site …

Three bins the Business business

Looking for a business contract on Three? Move along please, there’s nothing to see. Three, according to Mobile News, have decided to stop taking on business customers to focus more on normal consumers instead. Dealer codes have been cancelled and business contracts will no longer be sold. According …

European networks kick Nokia when they’re down

Reuters are reporting that European carriers faith in Nokia is quite low at the moment. They’ve gone as far as to say “If the Lumia with the same hardware came with Android in it and not Windows, it would be much easier to sell” This comes off the …

Three launch the Galaxy Y

The entry-level Galaxy Y may not be for everyone, but for the money this will get many onto the smartphone ladder and looks pretty swish too. Powered by an 832MHz CPU it’s got a 2 megapixel camera, 3.0” QVGA screen and it sounds like Three are chucking in …

Tesco Tops Which? Satisfaction survey

It has been announced that Tesco Mobile has come top in Which? magazines annual Mobile Phone Satisfaction Survey for 2012. Beating competition from the big four providers, the supermarket was the only network to achieve a 5 star rating for cost. Tesco claim that this is due to …