Vodafone: iPhone impact on Verizon was temporary
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Verizon Wireless saw some subscribers  defect to AT&T Inc  to get the iPhone but the impact was  short-lived, said one of Verizon's parents, Vodafone Group Plc  , on Wednesday.
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4G or not to be 3GSM Mobile carriers risk been leapfrogged by new entrants unless they work together to speed up the development of technologies such as mobile payments, according to Vodafone chief exec Arun Sarin.â¦
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The FTSE 100 was trading lower on Monday despite sharp gains for Vodafone after the UK's largest mobile phone company sealed the $18.8bn battle for control of Hutchison Essar.
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The Internet phone provider now faces paying out hefty damages and a possible shutdown of its service.
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Vodafone Group Plc  said on  Thursday it was concerned that the current model of iPhone  mobile phones -- Apple Inc's  latest "killer" gadget --  did not operate on fast 3G networks.
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We're just not meant for each other Verizon Wireless was the first company offered exclusive access to the iPhone, but turned Apple away because of problems with the proposed business model. Cingular had no such reservations, and will be selling Steve Jobs' "revolution" later this year.â¦
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The wide variety of operating systems on mobile phones is hindering the growth of cool mobile Internet applications, according to Arun Sarin, CEO of network operator Vodafone.
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Blog: A group of Vodafone Group investors have gotten support from a major U.S. proxy advisory firm to pressure the company to spin off its stake in Verizon Wireless.
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InfoWorld - Mobile developers around the world are in an uproar over a change Vodafone has made in the U.K. that dramatically decreases the quality of their products and that they fear could prevent new and innovative mobile services from reaching the market.
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(InfoWorld) - Vodafone Group intends to keep its stake in Verizon Wireless, despite a proposal submitted by a large shareholder recommending a change in the holding. The issue of Vodafone's 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless comes up during virtually every earnings report from Vodafone. Vodafone typically argues that while it keeps an eye on the investment and probably won't hold on to it forever, growth at Verizon continues, so the investment is sound for now. On Thursday, Vodafone said that Efficient Capital Structures, a group that controls 210,000 shares of the company, submitted several resolutions, including one suggesting that Vodafone either spin off or issue tracking shares of its Verizon Wireless interest. Vodafone is required to submit the resolutions for vote during its annual shareholders meeting July 24. Vodafone said that its share in Verizon has generated significant value and that a change in the structure of that investment would lose some of that value. A tracking share would probably trade low because of limited transparency, Vodafone said. A spinoff would also likely lead to lowered value because of difficulties in tax structures and because the board doesn't think the United Kingdom is the natural place to list such shares. Another resolution from ECS seeks to put a cap of Â£1 billion ($2 billion) on any acquisition or a maximum of Â£5 billion in aggregate acquisitions in any two-year period before 2010 unless the deal gets shareholder approval. Vodafone argues that such a rule would prevent it from competing for assets and would have precluded the company from making some historical buys, such as acquisitions in Romania, Turkey, and India. The proposals from ECS add to pressure mounting on Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin. Last year, around 10 percent of shareholders voted against his re-election to the board. The vote came a few months after Vodafone revealed a Â£14 billion loss for the year ending in March 2006, marking a record loss for a U.K. company.
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UK deal not past the round-of-golf stage Speculation was rife this week that O2 was about to sign a deal for UK distribution of the hypefest which is the Apple iPhone, though on Monday it seemed that Vodafone would be getting the deal, and prior to that those in the know were saying Carphone Warehouse was a dead cert.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Mobile developers around the world are in an uproar over a change Vodafone has made in the U.K. that dramatically decreases the quality of their products and that they fear could prevent new and innovative mobile services from reaching the market. Wireless Ink, a New York-based company operating a service called Winksite that lets anyone develop their own mobile Web page, is one company impacted by the change. Winksite has a Web site that visitors can access from their PCs to sign up for a service that lets them build mobile Web pages. When users visit the Winksite page from their mobile phones, they see a totally different Web site that lets them view and discover sites developed by other Winksite users, said David Harper, the founder of Winksite. But since the change at Vodafone, U.K. mobile Winksite users instead see a reformatted version of the PC Web site. That's because Vodafone recently implemented new technology from Novarra that is designed to reformat Web sites that were created only for PC users for better display on mobile phones. But mobile service developers say that when Vodafone installed the new technology, it also began stripping out the user agent string when mobile phones access Web sites. The user agent allows a Web site that is designed for mobile phones to detect the type and capabilities of the phone visiting the site, much like the way that Web sites detect which type of browser a visitor has. The user agent string allows a mobile site publisher to deliver a view of the Web site that is optimized for the particular phone. In addition, companies that sell ring tones or graphics rely on the user agent to determine which content to send to the user that will work on their phone, Harper noted. Companies that are on Vodafone's "white list," which is a group of Vodafone-approved services, were notified of the change and the operator is passing the user agent correctly for those services, developers say. Some developers complain that it's difficult to find out how to get on the white list, it can take several months to get added, and that Vodafone requires white list companies to make certain changes to the way the included sites operate. If all operators had a similar process, service providers like Harper would have to get on the approved list for every operator around the world. That's comparable to asking any Web service to be approved by every ISP in the world in order to operate. "If this were to spread from carrier to carrier, it would be horrible," Harper said. About 10 percent of his traffic comes from the U.K. He worries that small mobile companies that are solely targeting the U.K. will be even harder hit. Winksite users include individuals as well as companies like Warner Music, which uses the service to build Web sites for music artists. It's unclear if Vodafone removed the user agent capability for "diabolical" reasons, such as to maintain firm control over the content that users can access, or if it was a legitimate mistake, Harper said. On a developers forum hosted by Vodafone, one poster who appears to work for Vodafone has defended the move and said that most customer feedback has been positive. He also said that many other European operators are in the process of implementing similar technologies. Vodafone was not available for comment after its regular business hours. Lucca Passani, a mobile services developer who has blogged extensively about the problem, worries that if Vodafone hasn't gotten user complaints, there's a simple reason. "The great majority of consumers won't realize that they have been deprived of a service and will not complain," he wrote. Harper and other developers don't take issue with the technology that can translate sites designed for PCs but they say that Vodafone doesn't need to block the user agent string for mobile sites in order to support that capability. "The bottom line is, they've done something a bit evil and they need to fix it," Harper said.
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Baby steps Hands on I'll admit it. I'm an unashamed fan of the iPhone. I had an unlocked device in the UK running on my cheapskate Vodafone tariff before November's official launch.â¦
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Global telecommunications giant Vodafone on Thursday said it would retain its 45 percent stake in US company Verizon Wireless, rejecting proposals from an activist shareholder group.
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Shares in Virgin Mobile fell back below July's float price on Tuesday as analysts and investors interpreted a trading update from the company as a surprise revenue warning.
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A small, rebel shareholder sought to  step up the pressure on Vodafone Group Plc  on Tuesday,  saying the British mobile phone company had no clear strategy  for its stake in U.S. joint venture Verizon Wireless.
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Vodafone Group Plc  said on  Thursday it was concerned that the current model of iPhone  mobile phones -- Apple Inc&#39;s  latest &quot;killer&quot; gadget --  did not operate on fast 3G networks.