EE, O2, Three and Vodafone have joined forces to form a joint company focused on accelerating the 4G network rollout on the frequency freed up by the analogue TV switch off.

The company is called Digital Mobile Spectrum Limited and is responsible for ensuring Freeview customers continue to receive clear TV signal, while the 4G network is rolled out on the 800MHz spectrum – which is scheduled to start in spring next year.

The creation of this joint venture means 4G services can be accelerated, with the UK's competitive 4G network becoming available as soon as possible in 2013.

Ofcom and Government

This has all come about after Ofcom and the Government met with mobile operators to discuss how the UK's 4G network rollout could be accelerated – allowing all carriers to get in on the super-fast network, after EE was allowed to launch its service early.

There's still the small matter of the spectrum auction for the networks to fight over, but apparently everything is now in place to allow it to be processed as quickly as possible.

There's still no exact date for when the likes of O2, Three and Vodafone will be able to join EE in offering 4G to customers, but it could now be in the first half of next year with this major stumbling block out of the way.

The Huawei Ascend W1 has apparently been leaked in photos, sporting a design which may look familiar to some HTC owners.

Of all the initial Windows Phone 8 handsets set to launch alongside the new mobile platform at the end of the month, the Huawei Ascend W1 is the one we know least about.

We've already heard all about the HTC 8X, HTC 8S, Nokia Lumia 920, Lumia 820 and to a slightly lesser extent, the Samsung Ativ S, but the Chinese firm has held back information on its offering.

One X clone?

Now images have appeared on Chinese site Blog of Mobile, showing a fetching blue handset, which sports a very similar camera layout to the HTC One X round the back.

On the front there's a slightly more original design, with a small lip at the bottom of the handset giving you a flash of the blue case in the sea of black glass which greets you.

The Ascend W1 will reportedly pack a 4-inch WVGA display, 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage, 5MP rear camera, VGA front snapper and a 2,000mAh battery – so not really a One X, or even One S contender.

According to a report yesterday, the Huawei Ascend W1 could land for around $300-$350 (£185-215/AU$290-340), making it the cheapest of the Windows Phone 8 pack.

Once upon a time, Symbian was everywhere. It was the de facto operating system for mobile phones for years, before the iPhone was a twinkle in Steve Jobs' eye.

And now it's gone, with Nokia officially putting the humble operating system into maintenance mode.

The decision to kill off Symbian has been in the works for a while, although nobody quite expected for Nokia to pull the plug with such a whimper.

Following its last update, FP2, a user of Nokia's Drive app for the Nokia E7 lodged a bug report, only to get a response that Symbian is now in maintenance mode, and no new features will be added to the OS from here on out.

"Thank you for your improvement ideas, thus (sic) Symbian is in maintenance mode and no new features will be implement[ed] without extremely good reason (business case). We have written down your ideas for future development if there is a chance that new features will be released," read the response.

A long time coming

In many regards, Nokia's commitment to Symbian has been its achilles heel in the smartphone race. While the FInns pioneered early smartphones with the N95 and N96, it was totally unprepared for Apple, then Google's entry into the smartphone market.

Eventually, rapidly declining Symbian sales saw the phone manufacturer take the step of partnering with Microsoft to exclusively release Windows Phone devices. It also decided to rename the operating system as "Nokia Belle".

The name change did little to salvage market share, leading to the decision to put the operating system into maintenance mode.

With no updates to the operating system other than bug fixes, this is undoubtedly the end of the line for the mobile operating system that drove mobile phones into the mainstream.

Vale, Symbian. Rest in peace.

Via: Phone Arena

A recent report from ad network Chitika indicates iPhone 5 users are connecting to the web more than any other smartphone.

The Chitika study found that since it launched on September 24, the iPhone 5 has rapidly risen through the ranks, and now singlehandedly accounts for three per cent of web traffic from mobile phones.

When combined with previous iOS devices, Apple's ecosystem contributes to 46 per cent of all mobile web traffic. That's a significant lead over its nearest rivals, Samsung, which accounts for a total of just 17 per cent.

Samsung vs Apple continues

It's not just the iPhone 5 performing well though. Chitika claims that the Galaxy S3 from Samsung, launched back in May this year, currently accounts for two per cent of mobile web traffic.

While there's a huge difference between Apple and Samsung, it has also become obvious that the Korean giant has become the leading Android handset maker, with all other mobile devices accounting for just 37 per cent of traffic combined.

Chitika conducted the study by conducting a user agent analysis on "millions of mobile ad impressions, spanning a 7-day time frame from October 3rd through October 9th, 2012".

While there is debate about how reliable information garnered through ad impressions is as a tool for measuring web traffic, it does reinforce the idea that the current smartphone marketplace is becoming a two horse race.

Via: TechCrunch