vodafone
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A running list of every company backed by the $93B SoftBank Vision Fund
When SoftBank announced the first close of its $93 billion Vision Fund back in May, it was hard to understand how the company would even manage to deploy so much capital in an already saturated ecosystem. For starters, it seemed like a good idea to keep a running list of all Vision Fund investments for reference. We will update this list on a regular basis. Read More
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India’s top mobile operator Airtel is buying smaller rival Telenor India
Less than a month after Vodafone confirmed it is in talks to merge with Idea Cellular and create India’s largest mobile operator, one piece of M&A has been confirmed in that space. Bharti Airtel has gobbled up smaller player Telenor India in a deal announced today. The Airtel-Telenor deal is subject to regulatory approvals, but both sides said it should be completed within the next… Read More
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Crunch Network
Convergence crosses the pond
Imagine a world where you buy mobile phone, data, voice and television services from a single provider. A world where you don’t worry about running out of wireless minutes, exceeding text message limits or running up roaming charges. A world where you talk, text and stream video on an iPad, TV, laptop or mobile phone, seamlessly using the same user interface and applications across… Read More
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Crunch Network
Africa Roundup: Zuckerberg’s visit, IBM’s new research center
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s surprise August/September trip to Nigeria and Kenya put the global spotlight on Africa’s emerging IT ecosystem. Unsurprisingly, when one of the world’s most recognized tech entrepreneurs pops up at startups and tech hubs few have heard of it draws attention. News of Zuckerberg’s unannounced visit broke with social media photos of him… Read More
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Vodafone Publishes Highly Detailed Report Into State Surveillance Requests
Carrier Vodafone has published a report detailing the surveillance demands that were made on its users by government agencies and authorities in 29 of the different countries around the world in which it operates. The report covers the period 1 April 2013 and 31 March 2014. Read More
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U.K. 4G Choice Ramps Up, As Vodafone Follows O2 With August 29 4G/LTE Launch
After U.K. carrier O2’s announcement last week that it plans to launch a 4G/LTE network on August 29, Vodafone has confirmed it plans to launch its own LTE network on the same day — albeit, the network will only go live in London initially, with plans to switch on 12 more cities by the end of the year. O2’s launch will hit London, Leeds and Bradford on day one, with 10… Read More
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Verizon Reportedly Preparing $100B Bid For Vodafone’s Verizon Wireless Stake
Verizon Communications is preparing a $100 billion cash and stock bid to take full control of Verizon Wireless from Vodafone Group, reports Reuters. Verizon’s board is expected to discuss the potential buyout next week ahead of its annual shareholder meeting. Read More
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Updated: Vodafone BlackBerry Users In Europe, Middle East And Africa Hit By Email Outage Caused By Vodafone Router Error
BlackBerry users on the Vodafone network in Europe, the Middle East and Africa have not been receiving emails today as RIM’s network suffers another outage. Early this morning Reuters reported that email delivery issues were affecting Vodafone BlackBerry users, and the carrier confirmed the problem. Vodafone says services are currently “being restored”. Read More
Latest Crunch Report
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EU Gives ‘Unconditional’ Clearance For UK Mobile Payment JV From Vodafone, O2 And Everything Everywhere
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… Read More
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Vodafone Buys Cable & Wireless For $1.7B, Gives Mobile Carrier Bigger Window On Enterprise, Broadband
Big news from the UK this morning: Vodafone, one of Europe’s biggest mobile operators, has made a formal offer to buy up the assets of Cable & Wireless Worldwide for £1 billion ($1.7 billion), a deal that catapults Vodafone into running its own fixed line network in the UK and specifically will give it a much bigger view to winning enterprise business — a big challenge to BT… Read More
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Vodafone and Canonical Release a Webbook in South Africa
Vodaphone and Canonical today announced the Vodacom “Webbook”, the fruit of a joint effort to develop a low-cost mobile computing solution for South Africa. Most of the specs are about what you’d expect for such a device, with one extremely interesting twist: it’s powered by a Freescale IMX 51 processor (Cortex A8) CPU in order to lower cost and power consumption. Read More
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Vodafone Launches Their First Silicon Valley R&D/Investment Center
Vodafone. It’s a brand that most folks here in the states would, at first pass, almost certainly chalk up as “that one European company that puts their name on a bunch of football soccer jerseys” — that is, if they recognized it at all. And yet, Vodafone is essentially the biggest wireless carrier in the world. They’re the top carrier by revenues, and second to… Read More
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Vivendi's $11.5B acquisition of Vodafone's 44% stake in SFR approved by EC
The European Commission yesterday granted French entertainment and telecommunication services conglomerate Vivendi approval for its acquisition of Vodafone’s 44% stake in SFR, the company announced this morning. The transaction, which is valued at 7.95 billion euros (roughly $11.5 billion), should be completed in the next few days. Vivendi will then own 100 percent of SFR, a French… Read More
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Vodafone Releases Webbox $100 Web-Surfing Keyboard For Emerging Markets
Emerging markets need the Internet. Whether they’re looking up commodity prices or contacting loved ones overseas, users in developing countries like South Africa and Ghana need a way to get online and this unique device from Vodafone looks like a logical and quite elegant way to do just that. The device is a keyboard with a standard set of RCA cables sprouting out of the back. You plug… Read More -
Two Amazing Startups You Should Check Out: Cardmobili And RouletteCricket
I was in Amsterdam late last week to sit on the jury for Vodafone’s Mobile Clicks startup competition, and I saw four genuinely great fledgling companies strut their stuff. In the end, plastic card-killing startup Cardmobili came out victorious – they won both the €100,000 1st place prize and the public voting award – more on them below. Runner-up and winner of €50,000… Read More
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Cardmobili and RouletteCricket: great startups, Vodafone Mobile Clicks winners
I was in Amsterdam late last week to sit on the jury for Vodafone’s Mobile Clicks startup competition, and I saw four genuinely great fledgling companies strut their stuff. In the end, plastic card-killing startup Cardmobili came out victorious – they won both the €100,000 1st place prize and the public voting award – more on them below. Runner-up and winner of €50,000… Read More
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Vodafone announces Mobile Clicks 2010 finalists, €150,000 up for grabs
Vodafone has announced the four finalists of its Mobile Clicks competition to find the best mobile Internet start-ups based in either Spain, The Netherlands, Portugal or the UK. The shortlist includes startups working on field-worker remote reporting; mobile loyalty cards; mobile application “lifecycle management” and so-called ‘2nd screen’ gaming, where you interact… Read More
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Vodafone Launches Mobile Clicks Startup Competition, Dangles €150,000 In Prizes
Vodafone has launched Mobile Clicks 2010, a competition to identify and reward innovative mobile Internet startups. Now in its third year, the competition will be open to any fledgling mobile Web startup – provided your market is The Netherlands, Portugal or the UK. Vodafone has set aside a prize fund of €150,000 (2/3 of which will go to the overall winner, the remaining €50,000 to… Read More
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Vodafone pays €100,000 for a Flickr widget, App Star winner announced
You can’t blame Vodafone for wanting developers to jump on its mobile platform, and a good old-fashioned developer competition with cold hard cash up for grabs is as good a way as any. Yet I’m not sure a slideshow widget for Flickr is quite the winner they had in mind when they decided to launch the Vodafone App Star competition and put €1m of prize money behind it. But… Read More
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