This week in mobility – 19 December 2014
As we reach the final Friday before Christmas, just 5 more sleeps, Santa’s made an early pass to deliver a glorious selection of mobility stories this week.
As big stories go, the news of BT being in exclusive talks to buy EE for £12.5bn is colossal. The acquisition of the UK’s largest mobile network would allow BT to offer ‘quad-play’ bundles – covering all your connectivity needs with one contract. Meanwhile, Blackberry has gone back to their business-focussed roots and launched the Blackberry Classic with a full ‘Qwerty’ keyboard. Blackberry describes the Classic as a ‘no-nonsense’ smartphone.
Here’s my pick of the week’s other mobility news:
According to Ovum’s “2015 Trends to Watch: Enterprise Mobility” report, enterprise mobility will continue to be one of the hottest topics in IT, and high on the list of priorities for all CIOs. The report highlights key trends to watch in 2015 including a mismatch between employers and employees, integrating enterprise mobility into a larger workspace strategy, as well as increased support and pressure for mobility programs from senior executives.
Back in November I covered mobile operators plans to boost coverage and get rid of those frustrating ‘notspots’. This week further progress has been made with Culture Secretary, Sajid Javid, announcing that a £5billion deal has been struck with four mobile providers to cover 85 per cent of the UK’s land mass by 2017, a significant step up from 69 per cent.
Meanwhile, across the pond, T-Mobile will soon let customers roll over their unused 4G LTE data from one month to the next, for up to a year. To launch in January, ‘Data Stash’, could eliminate the industry practice of confiscating unused data that consumers have already paid for. Presently planned only for America, it is an initiative to keep an eye on – a concept likely to be popular with the frugal British public.
Before we finish, quickly back to Santa, the most productive mobile worker of us all. Obviously we’ll skip next Friday’s round-up due to timing. But my top story for the week may possibly have been sighting Santa’s sleigh. Clouds permitting, there’s apparently a very good chance of seeing the Big Man at work on Christmas Eve.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this week’s news – Would a BT ‘quad-play’ bundle work for you? Have you been pining for a classic Blackberry? Let me know by sharing your comments here or getting in touch via Twitter at @CiscoUKI or @GrahamFranklin.
