As someone who hates to be cheated (who doesnt?), the thought sometimes crosses my mind as to whether the GSM companies might be taking us for a ride.

Once upon a time, we willingly paid N50 per minute to keep in touch with loved ones and carry out business transactions. With the advent of Per Second Billing and further drops in call tariffs (due to competition or regulation?), voice calls now vary between N20 – N40 depending on your talk plan with your carrier and who you are calling (call rates are higher when you call outside your network).

To find a way around the exhorbitant rates of making calls to other networks, many of us now carry SIM cards of virtually all the networks and make calls to the appropriate network. Others simply visit a commercial call centre and pay N20 per minute, while others yet go for the CDMAs which are relatively cheaper.

I can safely argue that many Nigerians do not know the call tariffs they are on. They basically are aware of the name of the plan e.g. XtraCool or Classic Plus and know that making intra-network calls are cheaper. But very few of us do check how much we are actually charged per call.

I decided to run some random tests and discovered that with all the networks there were discrepancies in the billing. In many instances, I was overbilled – for example, I was charged 56 kobo per second on my MTN Xtra cool instead of 53 kobo. Surprisingly, I also noticed that I have also been undercharged – On Etisalat, I was charged N29.50 instead of N30 for a 60 second call at 50 kobo per second.

So my question is, what could be the cause of the erratic pricing?
Human or Computer glitches? NCC where are you?

I enjoin you to pull out your pencils and calculators and carry out your own random tests. You will discover how much you are actually paying for that call and in the end maybe brush up your maths skills!

CDMA network operator, ZOOMmobile(formerly Reltel Wireless), is offering a range of smartphones for N14,999 each this season.

The available smartphone options include:

1. Treo 700p
2. Palm Centro
3. Motorola Q
4. Treo 755p
5. Samsung IP 830W

Just pick an 0707 hot number and any one of the above listed smartphones.

In our opinion, this offer is a steal.

When I first read the news in today’s edition of The Guardian, I thought, “What?” Then I went online and ran into the same statement on several news sites. Here is the report from DailyNews Online:

Zain, a mobile operator in 22 countries across the Middle East and Africa, yesterday announced the launch of commercial services in Ghana with the inauguration of the first 3.5G network on the continent outside South Africa.

The Guardian reports it in those exact same words – suggesting that the news item was lifted directly from a press release by Zain.

Let us note a few points:

1. Zain does not have a South African network, so this statement cannot mean that Zain Ghana is the network’s first 3.5G platform on the continent outside of South Africa
2. Both MTN Nigeria and Glomobile have been running commercial 3.5G services since January this year, so it cannot be true that Zain Ghana is the first 3.5G network on the continent outside of South Africa.
3. Even Zain Nigeria has had a 3.5G network on ground for many months, though no formal commercial announcement has been made about services on that platform

This is absolutely unacceptable as far as journalism is concerned. It is false and I am not sure how this will be explained away.

Irrefutable FACT: Zain Ghana is not the first 3.5G network on the African continent outside of South Africa.

For mobile phone enthusiasts and others who simply love to keep up with the times, trading in a phone is probably the most economical way to do this.

I have used over 32 different phones since GSM arrived on our shores years ago, and trading in an existing phone for a newer model has made it convenient for me.

In more established climes, network operators often let subscribers pick phone models at subsidised rates when they sign up for a mobile contract. Then there is the option to upgrade the selected phone when the contract is renewed.

While this practice has not taken root here, phone users can still enjoy phone upgrade services via trade-in. In other words, you can now upgrade your phone once a year by trading in your existing handset for a newer model.

The Mobility Nigeria phone store offers an excellent mobile phone trade-in service. This is in addition to other unique benefits.

The package is unmatched yet in the mobile industry in Nigeria, and you really should check it out if you change your phone at least once a year.

The phone store is entirely an online operation and the service is delivery only. As such, we do not have an open store for customers to walk in and make purchases from.

Visit the phone store to purchase your phone today.

There are many instant messaging applications available for s60 smartphones. Some are java and others are native apps. Some support one service alone e.g. iCQ or Yahoo. Your best bet is an application that provides unified acceess to several services.

Here’s my list, in no certain order:

1. eBuddy (java)
2. Palringo (native)
3. Nimbuzz (native)
4. Fring (native)

My favourite is Fring. The user interface is smooth, and it unifies 12 services, including: Yahoo, Googletalk, ICQ, Skype, Twitter, Gmail notifier, Facebook, among others.

The Gmail notifier is particularly useful.

While Nimbuzz is almost at par with Fring, it lacks the Gmail notifier and I just haven’t been able to get used to the user interface.

But, hey, take your pick. Now you can stay in touch anytime, anywhere that your network has coverage.

GSM Arena reports that Apple’s only current smartphone, the iPhone 3G, outsold the numerous devices based on the Windows Mobile platform not only in USA but on worldwide scale in Q3 2008!!

Geeks may beef the iPhone all they like – and, yes, the iPhone suffers in capabilities and advanced features. But in terms of user experience, nothing touches it. Meanwhile, for all of Windows Mobile’s capabilities, it has the crappiest user interface and user experience of all mainstream smartphone Operating Systems at the moment. And we are seeing the results.

Symbian S60 has stepped up with the release of its 5th edition, though it does match up to what the iPhone offers, but at least it is a big improvement. Blackberry has stepped up some too. Android is here already with an enticing offer. But the Windows Mobile interface is still stuck in the 70s.

Are we on the verge of cataclysmic shiftings in smartphone sales? Or is this a flash in the pan? Time will tell?

Surgery performed through the mobile phone? Sounds like something from a James Bond movie.
Sorry to disappoint you, this did not take place in a movie. It happened in real life.

A surgery procedure was performed by a surgeon based solely on a step-by-step procedural instruction sent via text message from what looks like a senior surgeon.

According to CNN report, the surgery was successful and the patient is on the road to recovery.

Click here to watch the video.

Software wise, the Nokia E71 is powered by Symbian s60 third edition, feature pack 1. The implementation of the symbian OS on the E71 is very robust and brings in some new innovations to the s60 platform.

First up, you can access your contacts, make calls and send SMS straight from the stanby screen. This is as intuitive as it can get. The contacts, messaging and the calendar environments have also been tweaked a bit to make it easier to use these features.

Another thing that should interest the business user is the dictionary that comes pre-installed on the E71. While this is not an advanced dictionary, it should be sufficient for most users.

Then there’s the novel switch feature that allows the user to create two different environments that can be switched at will. The two environments will have different sets of applications. For example, one environment may be configured to have business applications, while the other features applications for entertainment.

Finally, the rest of the applications on the E71 are pretty much standard for s60 and should not be strange for those who are already familiar with the platform.

Nokia N97

The N97 sports the following specs:

• a large 16million 3.5” touch display of 360 x 640 pixel resolution
• a full QWERTY slide-out keyboard
• Symbian S60 5th Edition OS
• Tri-band HSDPA
• 32GB internal memory
• 5 megapixel camera
• microUSB jack (USB 2.0 HiSpeed) and supports charging over USB
• microSD card slot with support for SDHC cards upto 16GB in size
• Wi-Fi
• GPS
• auto screen rotation and a proximity sensor for auto screen turn-off during calls
• stereo Bluetooth
• 3.5mm audio jack
• TV-out
• FM radio with RDS
• 1500 mAh battery (same as on the E90)

The N97 is expected to start shipping in the second quarter of 2009. This is my type of device – the QWERTY keyboard and huge built-in memory are tripping me already!

But, what is Nokia up to with mixing up their “E” and “N” series features on one phone. QWERTY keyboards used to be the preserve of E-series devices. Ah, but who really cares?

MORE DETAILED NEWS:
- Touchscreen Nokia N97 is the next step ahead with full QWERTY
- Nokia N97 – Nseries with touch and QWERTY

At times, it is easy to forget the progress that has been made over a period of time. The mobile sector is particularly one in which innovations come by the day.

For me, it has been years of adventure in mobility, from my first phone, a very basic Motorola T2288 to my present, the Nokia E90 communicator. The T2288 had a WAP 1.1 browser, I used the browser only on a few occassions and that in the later part of its lifetime with me – and, was it limited or what?

And do you remember those horrible antennas that stick out at the top of most phones then?

In contrast, the E90 has a highly capable web browser (that matches Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 in some ways and is better in others), office editing tools, a capable e-mail client, instant messaging apps, and much more. I used to have a desktop at home and a laptop. I no longer do. My E90 fulfills their roles so well that i only use a PC at the office now. The present crop of devices outgun and out-everything mobile that was available then. They also outgun the PCs of the late 90s and early 2000s.

Here in Nigeria, quite a lot of people own and use more than one SIM, and from different networks. If you are one such person and would prefer to carry around only one phone, Samsung has got something right up your alley.

The highlight of the Samsung D780 is that it lets you use two (2) SIM cards from two different networks – and with both lines active at the same time.

The screenshot on the left shows the standby screen with network indicators and names for both Zain (Celtel) and Etisalat. Click on the thumbnail for a larger image. You can send and receive SMS on both lines, place and receive calls on both lines, and browse the internet – this time on whichever of the lines you select as your primary line. The secondary line cannot be used for internet access.

Samsung has implemented the dual-SIM functionality well. I tried it out with a line from Zain and another from Etisalat. Calls and SMS woked well for both, and yes, internet browsing worked well via Zain GPRS (Zain was set as primary line).

Other good points include the large and bright display, and comfortable keypad.

Low points of the phone include its mediocre music and video player interfaces, and the OpenWave browser. It has been a long time I ran into an OpenWave browser on a mobile device in years. It works well for mobile-friendly sites like MobiNaija.com, wap.Yahoo.co.uk, and Alireta.com. But if you throw anything beyond simple sites at it, you can expect a painful browsing experience.

Network connectivity is also limited to GPRS and EDGE. 3G would have been a lot nicer, but considering that modern EDGE networks can match 3G speeds, maybe there’s really little to miss.

Quick Specifications

Size and Weight: 115 x 49.6 x 15.7 mm. 108.5 gm
Display: TFT display. 256, 000 colors. 240 x 320 pixels
Data: GPRS, EDGE
Camera: 2 MP, no flash, 1600×1200 pixels. Video recording
Memory: 32 mb + microSD slot (none in retail box)
Connectivity: USB. Bluetooth
Messaging: SMS, MMS, EMail
Others: Dual SIM

MobiNaija Rating: 4/5

Here is a video production available for free download to your mobile phone, PDA or PC. It was produced from a video shot on a Nokia E61i at Lokoja, well known as the confluence point for the rivers Niger and Benue: Lokoja.3gp (about 400kb in size)