Mobile Network Comparison

February has arrived, and it has brought the release of the Nokia Lumia 710, which runs Microsoft’s lush Windows Phone 7.5 Mango operating system. At first look, it seems like a more affordable version of the Lumia 800 – the 710 is slightly larger, although lighter, and doesn’t have the overall sleekness that the Lumia 800 has. The home, back and search touchscreen icons that are placed on the bottom of the Lumia 800 have been replaced with physical button ons the 710.

Although the retail price of the Lumia 710 is £170 less than the Lumia 800, the specifications of the phone are pretty similar. You get a 1.4GHz processor and 512MB RAM with both phones, more than enough to run the new Windows Phone 7.5.

Obviously, with the price being so different, you’re going to expect a difference somewhere and sure enough the camera is only 5 megapixels compared to 8 megapixels on the Lumia 800. There’s also only 8GB of internal storage, instead of 16 GB and there is no SD card slot if you want to boost your storage space. However, the camera isn’t as bad as you would have thought, and pictures are processed without any lag, which is always great.

The new Nokia Lumia 710 also comes with removable back covers which you can switch around to customize your phone, there are a few colours to choose from and no doubt there will be a range of patterned ones to be released this year.

The biggest difference has got to be the screens, although they are both the same size, the Lumia 800 is AMOLED, whereas the 710 is only LCD, the colours are quite flat-looking, and overall it looks less pleasing to the eye than the 800’s beautiful screen.

The Lumia 710 was intended to be a middle-priced version of the 800, and it does it’s job superbly, if you don’t have the money to buy the 800, but want a new Windows Phone, the Lumia 710 may be for you. There are currently some fantastic tariffs available that come with a free Lumia 710:

• 3 – £22/month for 500 mins, 5000 texts and 1GB data
• O₂ – £18.50/month for 200 minutes, unlimited texts and 100MB data
• Orange – £20.50/month for 100 mins, unlimited texts and 500MB data
• T-Mobile – £31/month for 600 mins, unlimited texts and 750MB data
• Vodafone – £20.50/month for 100 minutes, 500 texts and 250MB data

If you’re looking for a slightly more high-end phone than the Lumia 710, there are currently some great deals for the Lumia 800 on 3.

Continue Reading

It’s been about three weeks since the huge mobile internet security leak on O₂. We thought we’d just give you a bit of a debrief of what exactly happened and the subsequent fallout.

Firstly, as we initially reported all mobile networks and virtual networks using O₂‘s signal were found to be leaking private phone numbers to every website you visit using mobile internet. The information was being revealed through HTTP headers that are sent to web servers when you access them. In this case, O₂ was adding a special HTTP header called x-up-calling-line-id which contained your phone number.

Once this was made public, a veritable media scrum occurred as outraged customers made their ire known across Twitter and the blogosphere. Even the Information Commissioner’s Office got involved:

When people visit a website via their mobile phone they would not expect their number to be made available to that website. We will now speak to O2 to remind them of their data breach notification obligations, and to better understand what has happened, before we decide how to proceed.

Due to this coverage, O₂ scrambled together to get the issue fixed and by the early afternoon of 25th January 2012 our readers were reporting that their number was no longer being revealed to our HTTP header checker.

O₂ also quickly published an official blog post apologising and explaining what happened and also clarified that the issue had been in effect all the way since the 10th of January.

Technical changes we implemented as part of routine maintenance had the unintended effect of making it possible in certain circumstances for website owners to see the mobile numbers of those browsing their site.

As part of their apology, O₂ also admitted:

We share mobile numbers with two age verification partners, for child protection purposes. For those customers that have not verified with us that they are over 18, we share your number with Bango.net and Eckoh.com who then verify your age before you are able to access sites with over 18 content.

In retrospect, it’s worth questioning whether this is at all a sensible way to carry out age verification. Instead of giving all age-verified sites a database of phone numbers and ages, surely it would be better to do this within the network? A simple HTTP header such a X-Over-18 and a value of Yes or No would surely be more suitable than providing people’s phone numbers and requiring the web service to do a database lookup? Worse, O₂ still haven’t given a complete list of their “trusted partners” with whom they will still be sharing your phone number without your consent.

If you have any more questions about what this security breach entailed and how you might be affected, feel free to ask us in a comment.

Continue Reading

Giffgaff, one of our favourite networks, have launched yet another marketing campaign this time with London radio station KISS FM. This time, instead of just unlocking chickens, they want to unlock your life.

Just as Giffgaff allow you the freedom to use your mobile with cheap-as-contract rates but without the strings attached such as fair use policies and 2 year iron-clad contracts, KISS FM will allow you to unlock the rest of your life. And it doesn’t just have to be from your expensive mobile contract – it could be long hours at work, fashion disasters, or that blind date you agreed to and are really regretting. Radio DJ Jez could be calling you up live on air to help unlock your life.

If you’re fed up with bitterly cold early mornings, rush hour traffic and no time for a lunch break, they could speak to your boss and get you the day off or even hook you up with a recruiter and a free laptop for searching for a new dream job. And not only that, you’ll get a new unlocked phone of your choice and a brand new Giffgaff SIM card.

We can’t help you unlock your life completely but we can give you a Giffgaff SIM card free of charge. And, unlike KISS FM, our SIM will be sent to your home and come with £5 bonus credit! So if you’re fed up of your old mobile network, join Giffgaff today with a free £5 credit boost to get you started and probably the lowest PAYG rates in the UK.

Continue Reading