Time and again it has been rumored that SoftBank is shopping around for a major mobile carrier. Over the past few months there has been endless speculation about a possible acquisition of T-Mobile U.S. by SoftBank, and a subsequent merger with Sprint, which it owns. Apparently federal regulators aren’t warming up to the idea, so perhaps SoftBank has started looking elsewhere. There’s increasing speculation that it may be considering a bid for UK-based Vodafone. Though this doesn’t mean that the T-Mobile deal is gone for good.
Vodafone has already significantly reduced its presence in the U.S. It had a 45 percent stake in Verizon, which it has decided to sell back to Big Red for $130 billion. While its not offering itself up for sale, there have been rumors about AT&T considering a move on UK’s second largest carrier. Word on the street is that the carrier may offer as much as $80 billion for Vodafone. AT&T has only recently started downplaying the rumors.
According to analysts, if a Vodafone takeover deal is reached, Japanese banks could provide SoftBank with funding. Its already set to make billions of dollars from Alibaba’s U.S. IPO, SoftBank has a 37 percent in the e-commerce website. Analysts also believe that if Vodafone sells off its European assets, it may simply spin off wireless businesses in markets like India.
SoftBank and Vodafone haven’t commented on speculation as yet, so there’s no indication if talks have actually begun. As far as the T-Mobile deal goes, both companies are said to have held talks, but apparently regulators have warned that they’ll strike down any takeover deal.
SoftBank Reportedly Considering Bid For Vodafone , original content from Ubergizmo, Filed in Cellphones, AT&T, softbank, vodafone, 
Those who happen to be in the UK, love the Samsung Galaxy S5 and have a mind to pick one, and are eligible in their contract to get a new handset, might be interested to hear that Vodafone UK will be receiving pre-orders for the Samsung Galaxy S5 from March 28th onwards, where they will also be selling the device in a shade of gold as an exclusive.
Vodafone Germany has just announced a new SIM card based encryption for data communication over its network, where they intend to expand this particular feature to voice communication, too. Apparently, Vodafone has plans to secure customers’ data communication using a SIM card based solution that was made possible in the past thanks to the use of separate smart cards or tokens. Vodafone Germany came up with this particular solution after working alongside its security partner Giesecke & Devrient (G&D).
Disasters can come upon us in the blink of an eye without us knowing any better. Take volcanic eruptions for instance – that, as well as a tsunami or an earthquake could just happen in a split second without any prior notice, leading to untold loss of lives as well as damage to property. In the event of a natural disaster, setting up a communications line is extremely important, and Vodafone knows this. Which is why the carrier’s philanthropic arm, Vodafone Foundation, has introduced a mobile network in a backpack format which tips the scales at 24-pounds. Known as the Instant Network Mini, it might be small in size, but huge on performance.
It seems that AT&T can’t catch a break these days when it comes to bidding on other companies. According to our report from earlier, it seemed that AT&T was willing to bid for UK carrier, Vodafone, and was willing to pay 
Vodafone has just unveiled that they too, have their very own branded smartphone that is known as the Vodafone Smart 4G. This particular handset is also the first from the mobile carrier to carry LTE connectivity, where the manufacturer of the Smart 4G would be Coolpad of China. Hence, it goes without saying that this is starting to shape up to be an extremely affordable device.
