Hasta La Gadget!

Think you’re carrying a tad too much debt? Spanish telecom giant Telefónica wants to reduce its red ink to 47 billion euros ($62 billion) by the end of the year, so it’s decided to sell its Irish mobile and broadband business to Hutchison Whampoa’s Three for 850 million euros ($1.1 billion). If regulators approve the deal, it’ll let Telefónica hack about 750 million euros of debt from its books, while giving Three a 37.5 percent share of the nation’s mobile business and a strong number two position behind Vodafone. The deal follows a £200 million ($273 million) sale of Telefónica’s fixed phone line business to Sky. Considering the whopping level of debt, though, that may be just the start.

[Image credit: Wikimedia Commons]

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Internet

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Via: WSJ (subscription)

Ugh, you’ll say, another beautiful, gradient-hued, minimalist iOS weather app. Thanks—I’ve already got five. But Three is different, we promise. Sure you get just the basic weather info without tons of bells and whistles, but the one bell and/or whistle you do have is a phenomenal one. Three has made it so you’ll never be caught chilly at night without the proper layers, because it tells you exactly what to wear.

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Mobile carrier Three in the UK will be the first UK retailer to offer the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S4 that is set to be unveiled in New York City this March 14th, and with just a couple of days left to go, you can more or less say that the ground is full of excitement. Three revealed their “hand”, so to speak, that they will be carrying the Samsung Galaxy S4 as the mobile carrier has already begun to take down pre-registration details on their site.

According to Three, “Register your interest now and we’ll make sure you’re one of the first to hear all about it, and how you can get yours. Then you’ll be able to enjoy all the internetting you want with all-you-can-eat data on our Ultrafast network – without paying a hefty premium.”

Phones4U also wants a piece of the action with a page of their own, while Carphone Warehouse has already put up a landing page which will ensure you remain abreast with the latest updates concerning the Galaxy S4. How many of you will make the jump when the Galaxy S4 is released?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Apple To Diversify Manufacturers For Low-Cost iPhone, HTC One Developer Edition Announced,

UK carrier Three has detailed its LTE price strategy, intending to charge no extra data premium for the use of its 4G network, though subscribers will have to wait until it actually gets rolled out later in 2013. LTE will be “available as standard” on every Three price plan, the carrier says, albeit requiring a device – such as the iPhone 5, BlackBerry Z10, or Nokia Lumia 920 – that can actually access the 4G frequencies.

The pricing strategy is at odds with the only existing commercial 4G network operating in the UK, from EE. There, the strategy has been to charge a premium for faster access: although EE still offers Orange and T-Mobile UK contracts, subscribers on those plans only get to use the 3G networks at most. EE has been criticized for the expense of its agreements, along with the limitations of its data allowances, though given the captive audience there’s minimal motivation for it to be more generous.

That’s all set to change later in 2013, however, when the other UK carriers aim to have their own 4G service up and running. Three has already begun paving the way to what it calls “Ultrafast” connectivity with DC-HSDPA, of which there’s currently around 55-percent population coverage. That will continue to spread ahead of LTE, with 80-percent population coverage expected by the end of Q1 2013.

Beyond that, Three intends to add in 1800MHz spectrum to its DC-HSDPA service. The carrier is known for offering “true unlimited” data on some of its packages, the promise of which is likely to get speed-freaks drooling when you factor in LTE.

Three promises UK LTE with no pricey data (but you’ll have to wait for it) is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
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If you didn’t get enough mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we’ve opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This week brought a resolution to HTC’s kerfuffle with the custom ROM community, along with a handful of special edition Samsung smartphones and new efforts toward spectrum sharing with the US government. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the “best of the rest” for this week of January 28th, 2013.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile

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