A mobile payment joint venture from the UK’s biggest carriers, first announced over a year ago, today finally received “unconditional” clearance from European regulators. The move means that now Vodafone, Telefonica’s O2 and Everything Everywhere (the JV from T-Mobile and Orange) can proceed developing a cross-carrier mobile payments platform — not unlike the Isis initiative in the U.S. They… → Read More
Simfy, the so-called German Spotify, has struck a strategic partnership with O2 Germany (Telefónica).
In a similar arrangement to Aspiro-owned WiMP’s recent on-deck deal with telco Telenor in Scandinavia, the simfy music streaming service will be pre-installed on handsets sold through O2 and integrated into its app store, web site and retail points of sale. → Read More
Placecast is announcing a fairly significant partnership with European carrier O2 to enable geo-fence marketing campaigns for a number of brands for the carrier’s users.
Via, O2 More, an opt-in service for O2 customers; brands like Starbucks and L’Oreal will send the carrier’s users exclusive offers and information via SMS and MMS on their mobile phones when they are inside a geo-fenced area… → Read More
Telefonica-owned O2 UK, the largest mobile operator in the country with over 20 million customers, is rolling out ‘International Favorites’, a new low cost international calling service with the aim to double its market share of overseas calls.
Unsurprisingly, it’s powered by Jajah, the VoIP company its parent Telefonica Europe purchased last December for 145 million Euros. A similar service was… → Read More
[UK] We didn’t exactly heap praise on O2′s Incubator Project, describing aspects of the scheme as ‘pretty dumb’. However, in what appears to be a U-Turn, the mobile operator has, at least to some degree, addressed one of our main criticisms.
Rather than a single startup receiving support, O2 will now sponsor a number of start-ups for an initial period, one of which will then receive extended… → Read More
[UK] O2′s newly announced Incubator Project would normally be the kind of scheme that we’d happily share with readers (and possibly recommend). On this occasion, however, not only is the whole thing vague – it’s neither a traditional incubator nor straight up commission – we think the mobile operator is going about it in the completely wrong way. The deal, as far as we can tell, is as… → Read More
The reports from a few days ago that the Jajah deal with O2 closed at $200 million were correct. Telefónica Europe (aka O2) just announced that it bought Jajah for 145 million Euros ($207 million) in an all-cash deal.
Jajah, which provides Internet calling services and thus competes with Skype, was on the block since at least November (which TechCrunch was first to report on), following … → Read More
Last month, we wrote about the VoIP startup Jajah being the target of a bidding war. Today, it appears that war is over, with the winner being O2, and the price being $200 million, according to a report sent out by the financial website TheMarker, and being circulated by Reuters.
It was believed that Microsoft and Cisco were two other companies that were vying to get the company. Back in June… → Read More
There appears to be a good old bidding war going on for another VoIP startup, Jajah, following yesterday’s news about the acquisition of Gizmo5 by Google, a source in Silicon Valley with knowledge of the talks informs us.
Details are scarce at the moment, but Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Telefónica Europe (O2) are said to be looking to buy the venture capital-backed company for a price ranging… → Read More
If you’re part of the very, very, very small segment of Crunch readers who happens to live in Germany, and you’re an O2 customer, and you bought a TG01 – look out! Your new toy might make your computer feel a bit woozy inside. → Read More
We’re all quite excited here to find out that O2 and Movistar will get the Palm Pre in GSM form, opening the phone up to unlocking, hacking, and all sorts of molestation. UK, Ireland and Germany will get the phone on O2 and Spain will get it from Movistar. When, you ask?
Christmas.
That’s right: by the time Palm pinches off the GSM Pre Apple will have probably released iPod Touches with cameras… → Read More
In case the last HTC Touch HD pics didn’t satisfy your craving, this massive gallery certainly will. Also, the site causally mentions that O2 Germany will be the first carrier worldwide to launch the WME smartphone sometime in November with a 659 Euro price tag. No word when that exclusive deal is up though. theunwired via wmpoweruser via BGR → Read More
A study from O2 has found that strangers are more connected to each other than they ever have been.
According to the study, the average person is now connected by just three degrees within a shared “interest” instead of six. In fact, it found that people are usually a part of three main networks: family, friendship, and work. → Read More
I like to pound on AT&T when given the chance, but I can’t justifiably rag them over iPocalypse. Apple dropped the ball when the iTunes servers crashed from everyone and their mother trying to update their first gen and/or activate the 3G model. They didn’t even bother sending out a release over the matter, which is sort of a PR no-no, IMO. But what else is new these days? Walt ragged on… → Read More
O2 has confirmed that unsubsidized iPhones will be available in Apple retail stores, O2 shops and Carphone warehouses for roughly £350 ($685) sans contract. Ouch. → Read More
Aw, lucky!!! New O2 customers in the United Kingdom will be able to grab an 8GB iPhone 3G for free with monthly plans of £45 and up. The required contract is only 18 months, too. Mike Butcher of our TechCrunch UK site says… The news is pretty astounding. From going from a device which costs over £300 to virtually free at POS will supercharge iPhone sales in the UK and make it a real contender… → Read More
Rumor has it that O2 will sell the 3G iPhone for $193 or may give it away for free to folks who sign up on an $140/month service plan with 3,000 minutes of talk time and 500 text messages. They may also offer the iPhone for about $500 on a prepaid-plan and may offer a free upgrade to current iPhone owners if they renew for 18 months. That said, Crazy Spice may also star in a lurid shiesse film… → Read More
Rather than bombarding you folks with two successive 3G iPhone rumor posts, I’ll do so in one so as not to piss off the iPhone haters. First, Leander Kahney at Cult of Mac has a hot tip that the new iPhone will include the following: 3G GPS 2 x memory (16GB and 32GB) 22 percent thinner Better battery life We’ve already suspected all of the above to be true except the 22 percent thinner… → Read More
Head over to O2′s iPhone shop. They are no longer selling the 8GB and 16GB iPhones… but if you click on “Find out more” you can order a 16GB. What is going on here? Are we in Crazy Land among the Crazyputians? Is up down and down up? Perhaps we’ll never know. → Read More
Register Hardware takes a gander at the S730 from HTC, also available on O2 as the XDA Atmos, and gave it a slightly above average score of 75 out of 100. The S730′s keyboard won some big-time praise as “one of the best HTC keyboards we’ve used,” according to the review, and the device’s form factor is described as “chunky yet comfortable”. Connectivity… → Read More
‘Tis their intention ta dry off and then buy an iPhone. Join ‘em? Pull a pint and twiddle your muff because Ireland’s O2 will be selling the iPhone (translation: “tha’ bleedin’ iPhone, ye ponce”) at $600 for the 8GB and $750 for the 16GB. For about $50 a month you get up to 1GB of data and the standard SMS and talk times. Don’t be a wee sleekit… → Read More
European telecomm O2 is expecting 200,000 iPhone sold in the UK by the end of the year while analysts expect up to 400,000 in the next few months. It’s this news that buoyed O2′s hopes in Europe and made everyone — including big Steve — purdy happy. The real takeaway, however, is that O2 will be carrying the 3G iPhone in Europe. O 2 has signed a multi-year deal with Apple… → Read More
The BBC visited five UK-based Carphone Warehouse stores to see if rumors were true concerning customers being told that if they didn’t buy insurance on their iPhone and they happened to lose it somewhere, it would cost them at least £630 and a whole new contract to replace it. While it’s true that they’d have to buy a new phone, the 18-month contract would not start over. → Read More
O2 is reporting that they sold “tens of thousands” of iPhones over the weekend, which means that tens of thousands of Brits are wandering the streets with mini-computers as we speak. O2 is very please and believes this is in line with expectations. As there are only twenty thousand people in Britain at any one time — they’re too polite to push onto the island so most of… → Read More
Do you live in London like Pete Doherty and have an iPod Touch? Well then! Leave that pipe at home and head out into the streets baby, ’cause you’ve got yourself some WiFi for that iPod Touch thanks to The Cloud. A new plan called Cloud Unlimited Music will be available today for £3.99 or ~$8 and allows iPod Touch users to access the internet as much as they want. Basically… → Read More
So, when is the UK getting the Apple iPhone? British mobile provider O2 continues to flirt with the iPhone, dropping little hints here and there that it will be the UK home for Apple’s cellphone++. Apparently, the company’s CEO mentioned, you know, just casually, that the iPhone will help the company “maintain momentum” as it heads into the remainder of the year. Then… → Read More
Apparently the iPhone will be hitting European shores in Q4, instead of Q3 as some had guessed. Bad news for our pals across the pond who are waiting for Cupertino’s latest and greatest. But hey, you guys get plenty of cool phones before we do and by Q4 we’ll probably all be in flying cars anyway and you’ll have forgotten all about the iPhone! Steve Jobs thinks that Apple will… → Read More
After a 30-percent overall increase in the months leading up to the iPhone release, Apple’s stock has continued to climb since last Friday. They’ve now hit their all-time high stock price, trading for as much as $132.97 on Nasdaq. AT&T, on the other hand, closed down 1.3 percent (54 cents) and has seen a slight loss over the last few months. So Tuesday Apple’s stock… → Read More
There’s really not too much to say about this heretofore unseen Helen cellphone from O2. I could say that it sorta has an HTC-like vibe to it, but that could be just because it’s running WinMo 6 like the Wing. I could also say that its 3G-nessm, which includes UMTS, is impressive, but that’s only true because I’m an American whose country has the worst cellphone networks in… → Read More
For our readers on the other side of the pond, we have some lovely news for you. Seems O2 has unveiled its latest music phone, the Cocoon. It’s a white clamshell with a “sleek and stylish” design, dedicated music buttons on the side, quad-band GSM with 3G, and 2GB of on-board memory. Sounds pretty luxurious so far. But it gets better. O2 has included a microSD slot so you can… → Read More
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
San Francisco, CA
Berlin, Germany
