Mobile Royale - An Asian Perspective on Mobile Industry

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Dialog launches International Breaking News service

Dialog Telekom, the pioneer in launching breaking news alert services to mobiles, has launched a new International Breaking News service. The service features CNN. Users have to send a SMS as ACTCNN to 678 for activation.

oneConnect coming soon - where's Google's response?

Yahoo oneConnect (tm) will be coming to your phone soon. With the ability to fulfill most of your web connectivity needs like social networking with text messages etc. too. Now that is a revolution. But why is Google still waiting to make a response? It is no doubt that many users use Google than Yahoo (folks like me even search on oneConnect over at Google), so many users will benefit from a Google mobile app and I feel that Google should not stick only with Android. Read more on oneConnect here.

Kit Double and M Friend

Following Dialog's introduction of the Kit Double service, Mobitel has also introduced a new service called M Friend. What's special in this is that you don't have to have the both connections under your name. Mobitel has also launched a new service to replace your old inactive Mobitel SIM for just Rs.100! Expect more details. Come on mobile networks! YOU COMPETE - WE (subscribers) ROCK!

Where has Airtel Lanka gone?

Airtel Lanka was said to be launching early this year, but so far we haven't got any news on them. If Airtel was launched soon, with their rumored rates of Rs.2 per min, we could have seen a good reduction of rates from Dialog too, as their anniversary is coming close too. I see some new half-painted mobile network towers these days, but I think these are of Mobitel, which seems to have completed their target 85% 3G coverage on it's network. Mobitel's 3G coverage range in 3G base stations are impressive, as I've already mentioned. But they still lack one thing to be a perfect network - Free Missed Call Alerts. But all in all, I feel that now Mobitel is in a competitive level with Dialog, technological wisely.

China to disable great firewall for the Olympics?

There are news that China will be taking down their so called Great Firewall in the Olympics season. The officials deny of all these info, but this could result in the Olympic visitors telling their friends that a Great Firewall doesn't exist and that is all talk. Read more at TechDirt here

Skyfire coming to N95

The new web browser for Windows Mobile enabled mobile phones, Skyfire, is close to completion of a new Skyfire version on the N95. An engineer at Skyfire revealed that it is working great at an IntoMobile news discussion. It seems that we can expect Skyfire on S60 devices soon!

The Tigo Scandal

Refer to this link at ElaKiri.com, a Sri Lankan forum, to find out an interesting case of Tigo secretly and illegally listening to subscribers' telephone calls. I don't know whether it's true or false, but the amount of unpleasant experiences I had with the same network leads me to think that "a smoke doesn't come without a fire". Once Tigo used to charge you Rs.1.18 every few seconds if you were in a GPRS login process which took more time than normal (again, the error was on their side), it did cost me hundreds of rupees (of course, with their snail like EDGE speed), and after so many complaints, they only paid me Rs.50 back. All these resulted me in switching to a different network. However, when it comes to customer service, Dialog is second to none. According to my knowledge, Tigo is the first network in Sri Lanka to start charging for customer service (Rs.3), but you still have to wait in a queue (and the bonus doesn't help because you can't use it until you end up all the credit in your account, be it Rs.50 or Rs.1500), while at Dialog, they instantly pick up your call totally free. I won't mention Mobitel, they have not responded to a complaint that I logged one and a half months ago (where Dialog takes only around three days), but at least their staff is friendly and the network has a nice 3G coverage. I've never talked to a "friendly", Tigo customer agent, they always ask you to send them a fax if you want to complaint and most of the agents are a bit too "proud" and "big headed".
- This post was not aimed at attacking any of the above mentioned networks, and only expresses my personal experiences and views.