Mobile Network Comparison

Spotify, the subscription-based streaming music service in now available on Windows Phone 8 handsets. If you have a smartphone and like to listen to music, it’s one of the must-have apps currently available. The current release is still officially a beta form but we haven’t noticed any obvious creases or bugs so there’s not reason not to go ahead and install it now.

For those who don’t know, Spotify is a cloud-music service that lets you listen to any song from a massive library of millions of artists’ catalogues. You don’t need to own any of the records to listen to them and all music is streamed from the web rather than downloaded permanently onto your PC or other device. Without a doubt, Spotify’s library of artists is truly impressive both in depth and range. You’d be hard pressed to find a song that’s not on there (as long as it’s already out) regardless of whether it’s the latest Top 40 hit or a new single from a tiny band in your village.

Spotify is a free service but the catch is that you’re limited to a certain monthly allowance of music streaming and you’re forced to listen to advertisements in between songs too. You also can’t use the mobile phone apps with a free account. In order to remove the ads, unlock unlimited listening and get music on the go, you need to pay a £10 subscription fee – about the same price as buying an album a month.

There are a few issues with Spotify – the ads are annoying and repetitive and if you pay for a subscription, you lose all access to your starred tracks if you ever let it lapse. Also, for a cloud-based service it is not well user-oriented. Each of your devices is treated entirely separately so if you start listening to a record on your phone it’s not simple to finish off the LP when you get back to your computer or tablet at home. Also, it’s a peer-to-peer (P2P) app meaning that you’ll be using up some of your upload bandwidth allowance distributing music to other users so that the Spotify servers don’t get overloaded. This isn’t great for people with a low monthly data limit.

However, these relate to the service itself (which will hopefully improve) and not to the app in particular. If you already use Spotify and are happy with it, the app is pretty much an obligatory download. The app looks great on Windows Phone 8 devices with a really lush and clear interface. It’s also very easy to use and navigate between artists, albums, songs and playlists. It’s even simple to share music amongst other Spotify users.

You can download the app free of charge now. And if you’re not already a Spotify subscriber, you can even sign up for a free 30 day trial to check it out for yourself.

Are you a Spotify user? Have you used Spotify on a smartphone? Or is there another music subscription service that you prefer? Let us know 🙂

We recently reported on Nokia finally losing its crown to Samsung after an unprecedented fourteen years at the top. Much has been made of Nokia’s adoption of Windows Mobile and the rise of smartphones. But we maintain that this is not the whole picture. There’s a bit more to it than that and we can not take anything for granted.

We have already written a bit about the various ways in which big mobile companies are trying to get as big a part of the market as possible as they are vying for mobile dominance. But today let’s take a slightly new perspective on handset sales. Instead of the normal perspective, an instructive way of analysing the trends in the market is by focussing on services provided rather than anything else. We can identify three separate phases in the evolution of the mobile industry each with their own dominant manufacturers.

For example, in the early days mobile phones had one use and one use only – to function as a phone. To make and receive voice calls. Here Nokia did the best.

Next came the advent of text messaging and other text-based communication such as email and BBM. This is where BlackBerry with their full keyboard layouts and business nous performed particularly well.

Nowadays, of course, we’re in the era of the ubiquitous smartphone. The focus is now all online with 24/7 internet access to services in the cloud. Here, as is becoming clear, the main contenders are Apple and Google and the main manufacturers of phones are Apple and Samsung.

Of course, there’s a bit of a lag. Nokia was still doing strongly well into the smartphone/cloud phase and BlackBerry was hanging on too with their internet capable devices. But the overall trend is what matters the most. The companies that are providing phones for the right services that consumers want do the best.

A good take-home message from this is how fickle the market is. Someone who only bought Nokias 10 years ago or was in love with their BlackBerry in the early 2000s will probably be using an iPhone or Samsung phone today.

Unlike with the mobile networks, there’s little loyalty and less scope for lock in. Even that market is opening up now but with all your contacts and messages now in the cloud, there’s nothing to lose by upgrading an old ZTE phone to a new Samsung one if they are both on Android. Even switching between Android and iOS is simplicity itself.

The lesson to learn from this is that Samsung’s dominance now need not last forever. Someone with the latest Samsung Galaxy SIII today might as well buy a HTC phone when their contract next gets renewed. There’s no reason to stick with Samsung if there is a better option elsewhere. With the new range of Sony phones looking very promising, their future dominance is far from guaranteed. As long as Samsung remains a pure hardware company, there’s even less room for complacency today.

Of course, it could easily see this as a reason to branch out more into software or even mobile network services. Company bosses and shareholders alike may be eyeing up more long-term revenue sources. Time will tell…

What’s your take on this? Do you agree with our argument? Where do you see Samsung phones in 5 years from now – still on the top or failing like Nokia is today? Please let us know.

Three Mobile have stepped up to be the first mobile network to offer unlimited data on 4G. In contrast, EE was roundly criticised earlier this year when it launched the UK’s first superfast mobile internet service. This is because the largest data allowance on offer by EE at launch was only 8GB a month.

This may sound like quite a lot but people are finding that with powerful smartphones, you need a lot of data to make the most of them. If you watch a TV show or film on your commute to work, it will run through that 8GB rather quickly. In fact, you’ll only get just over 10 hours of video streaming out of your whole bundles – that’s just over 20 minutes a day! And that’s not including email, web browsing, music and all the other things you want to use internet on your phone for.

In fact, such a small allowance makes even less sense when you think about the reasons why you want 4G internet. The whole point of having superfast broadband on your phone is that it’s, well, superfast. With 4G internet, you could get through your 8GB limit on EE in as little as fifteen minutes leaving you no allowance for the rest of the month!

Even worse, EE decided to take full advantage of the monopoly granted to it by Ofcom and market 4G internet as a premium service that attracted a hefty price hike. The 8GB package from EE will set you back a whopping £56 every month.

In response to this criticism, EE quickly launched a new plan offering 20GB of data. However, they also decided to charge through the nose for it – the normal price is £76 a month! Yes, that’s not a typo. This tariff is currently on offer at £61/month instead but over the two year contract that makes a total of £1464! And that’s not including any overage charges you might be liable for.

So that’s why we commend the news from Three Mobile today. The price war will be well and truly under way when Three’s more usable 4G tariff comes out and at no extra cost to customers. Hopefully the other networks will quickly follow suit. Offering unlimited data on 4G is certainly throwing the ball back into EE’s court. And we hope it will be a real game changer to the market.

Three Mobile are due to turn on their 4G service later in 2013. They will use the 1800 Mhz spectrum band their bought from EE last year and all existing customers can use it at no extra charge once it becomes available.

Three are already in a good position as they have a strong reputation as one of the best value main mobile networks. They are also renowned for having the best data network in the country and some very attractive offers for people who need unlimited data on their phone. In fact, Three Mobile users account for far more than their fair share of mobile internet data usage in the UK because of their generous packages. They have been pioneers of the forward-thinking all-you-can-eat unlimited data price model and this news looks like they are pressing forward with this plan.

Did EE shoot themselves in the foot by launching a separate brand for 4G and preventing existing customers use it? Are their price plans really that miserly with data and overpriced? And which network do you think you’ll choose for 4G services?