Is 2015 the year of Quadruple Play?

Quadruple Play, or Quad Play, is the name given to services that provide a customer with mobile, internet, landline, and television. It’s an area that is growing in the US and in Europe, but will 2015 see Quad Play take off in the UK?

Why choose Quad Play?

There are three main factors in a customer’s decision regarding their TV, phone and data provision:

• cost
• convenience
• quality

In order for Quad Play to attract customers, they need to provide competitive packages, with good quality products. The big selling point for buying all four services from one provider, is the convenience. You would be paying just one bill per month, and the hope is that it would be cheaper than the four individual bills. However, along with the convenient combination of services, also comes the increased potential for technical problems. Companies wishing to move into Quad Play provision must counter this with swift and excellent customer service.

It is also important for the consumer to remember that buying a bundled service makes it harder to switch one component. If you have a 12 or 24-month contract for all four services from one provider, but find that their broadband speed is insufficient, or their mobile network coverage is patchy in your area, it can be really tricky to change your deal.

This is why it is important to consider the details of the packages, as well as their price.

The competition

Currently, the only major player in terms of Quad Play provision is Virgin Media, who were also the first company to offer Quad Play. Beginning as a merger of NTL and Telewest, the acquisition of Virgin Mobile in 2006 has meant almost a decade of building on their unique position. As of 2012, Talk Talk have also offered all four services, but have yet to make much of a dent in the TV market.

The number of Quad Play providers is only likely to increase over the next twelve months, with Sky planning to roll-out mobile services next year, using Telefonica’s network.

In theory, Sky are in a great position to capitalise on their position, as their TV package is considered by many to be the most extensive – particularly as they keep certain channels, such as Sky Atlantic, only available via their own service.

BT – already providing businesses with mobile services – is also said to be in talks with EE. It is particularly interesting to note that BT are moving ‘full circle’ after selling BT Cellnet – their original mobile network – to Telefonica in 2005, becoming O2. Before proposing the current deal with EE, BT had also been considering a re-purchase of O2.

If the deal is finalised, it is very likely that BT would nudge Virgin Media into second, in terms of Quad Play companies’ share of the revenue. EE themselves currently hold over a third of the UK mobile market by revenue.

The way of the future

There is no doubt that more and more companies are seeking to provide Quad Play service, but it is vital that customers do not get swayed by the advertising, and the freebies, but continue to demand excellent service for their money.

Whilst at Fivebars Mobile we don’t (yet!) provide Quad Play, we do offer excellent value for money, and outstanding customer service. If you’re looking for a new deal on your business phones, have a look at our website, and try our free, no-obligation Tariff Review.

Right Now I’m A-Roaming … but not for long!

In June of last year the European Commission announced that they would be cutting the price caps on data roaming charges by more than half. Previously the caps had been set at 45 cents per megabyte; as of 1^st July 2014 they were set at 20 cents per megabyte. 

They also reduced the caps on making a call (from 24c to 19c per minute), receiving a call (from 7c to 5c per minute), and sending a text message (from 8c to 6c).

This was decidedly Good News. It meant that business owners who had to travel in the EU were facing smaller phone bills, and that families and individuals who were holidaying were less afraid to keep their phones on lest they be whacked with an unexpected data roaming charge.

And now?

As of 15^th December 2015, roaming charges will be no more.

Members of the European Parliament have voted – by 534 votes to 25 – to ban these extra charges all together. The proposed reforms need to be approved by the Council of the European Union, however, before they take effect.

There have been concerns amongst some parties – some network providers, and internet service providers – that the system is unworkable or open to abuse.

It is possible that removing roaming charges could reduce revenue to some companies, but there are hopes that this will be countered by the industry as a whole working together to invest in building networks that can handle an increasing volume of data. There is also the less easily measured factor of whether a large enough number of people who currently turn their phones off whilst abroad to avoid roaming charges, would continue to use them during that time instead.

A proposal by Italy to set a ‘fair use’ limit might also prevent the problem of people abusing the system. As it stands, by committing to banning roaming charges, the EU has potentially opened the doors to businesses and individuals getting the cheapest mobile phone deal from any EU country, and using it elsewhere. The ‘fair use’ proposal would mean that a certain percentage only of a user’s phone usage could be in another country to that of their original deal.

But why?

No doubt there will be those of you who are wondering why the EU even care about roaming charges; businesses decide upon their own terms and conditions, don’t they?

There are two main reasons that the EU have been steadily reducing roaming charges over the last seven years. Firstly; they care because we’ve told them to. That’s all part of government. But secondly; they care because of their digital single market policy.

The European Commission is centred on the plan for a single European market, where Member States can trade freely, with no barriers. They have said that the digital single market holds “one of the main keys to a new dynamic across the European economy as a whole, fostering jobs, growth, innovation and social progress”.

What do you think? Is the removal of roaming charges integral to the process of creating a digital single market? And is this all a good thing? Talk to us at Fivebars Mobile and share your views on our Facebook and Twitter. 

(image - travelandleisure.com)

Top Business Apps for your Phone

Do you remember when conference calls were a logistical nightmare? When your contacts were stored in a ratty-looking rolodex? When you booked flights through teletext, and were sent confirmations by fax?

Ugh.

Thankfully, we are now able to do so much of our business via the internet, that we can make celebratory confetti from our fax paper, and doorstops from our Filofaxes. But that doesn’t mean that you have to be tied to your desk ten hours a day: one study claims that by 2018 more than half of all IP traffic will be via mobile devices. 

Replacing that rolodex

After a networking event, or meeting, you’ll quite often find that you have a pocket full of business cards, some of which you may even want to keep. Instead of manually entering the details into your contacts, there are several apps that will do this for you – with varying degrees of success – using your rear-facing camera and optical character recognition (OCR).

Two of the most popular are ABBYY’s Business Card Scanner, and CamCard. Both are available across a variety of platforms, with free versions for iOS and Android. You’ll have to pay for ABBYY if you want to use it on your Window’s phone, and for CamCard if you want it for your Blackberry. If you often collect multilingual business cards, then we’d recommend ABBYY, whereas CamCard seems to have the clearer website, with better online support.

When you need more

If you like the idea of a Business Card Scanner, but perhaps you aren’t likely to use it often enough to make it worth the sacrifice in storage space, then something like Evernote might be better. Available for Android, iOS, Windows, and Blackberry, amongst others, Evernote allows you to take notes, organise and store them; on your device or on Evernote’s servers. You can also capture images, and OCR is possible.

Getting the most out of it can take a little figuring out, but it is consistently well-reviewed, and very useful.

Project management

The words ‘project management’ will have different meanings, depending on your field. There are a few different apps that can help you to keep an eye on different projects at once. Facebook Pages Manager is great for managing up to fifty Facebook pages, it allows you to view the page activity and insights with greater ease than if you were using the ‘individual’ Facebook app.

It is also worth looking at Basecamp, particularly if you are managing a project with multiple contributors, or your staff/team work remotely. You can create to-do lists, set events and deadlines in the calendar, upload files, and have discussions. The official app is available for Android and iOS, and whilst there are third-party clients available for other platforms, they don’t seem to work as well. For example, Basecamp 8 – for Windows 8 – is fine if you’re viewing one account, but if you are working on multiple projects between multiple accounts, switching between them is nigh on impossible.

If you have any go-to business apps that you want to share, please leave a comment below.

Choose thy love; Love thy choice.

This German proverb is particularly poignant in the modern world. We are surrounded every day by a vast array of choice. You go to get your morning coffee, and you can have it in a hundred different ways, your newsagent stocks fifteen different daily national newspapers, and when you get to work you can browse the internet via Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari… the list goes on.

When it comes to your mobile phone, it used to be fairly easy. You picked a tariff and were provided a number of handsets from which to choose from. Most did the same sort of thing, call, text, and gave you the ability to play snake. Now, it's a different story. With so many smartphones to choose from, all offering different things, it can be a tough choice to make. 

Which OS and handset should I choose?

When it comes to mobile phones for personal use, choosing your operating system (Apple iOS, Android, Windows, or Blackberry) is often based on app development and the handsets available. This is no different when choosing a phone for business use, except that the apps and features that you are looking for may be different.

You should make a list of the applications you need – do you conduct your business via email, over social media, do you wish to make video calls? And then you can check availability and performance across the operating systems. 

There are more apps available for Android and Apple iOS than for any other OS, but the number available for Windows is growing at a huge rate. Frustratingly, most round-up lists only tell you whether an app is available for iOS or Android – despite many of them now offering a Windows version. The most popular social media apps, like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, are all available. 

What else should I consider?

Some other things to think about when choosing your handset and operating system:

• Length of battery life, and whether battery is removable/chargeable from different outlets.
• Hardware design: size, weight, durability. Remember the furore over the ‘bendable’ iPhone 6 plus?
• Reliability and longevity. Do a bit of research: is the phone prone to any particular problems? Is the design one that will last, or a novelty which will leave you feeling (and looking) foolish after a few months?
• Fast performance.
• Storage/memory capacity. Don’t forget that – even if the specs state that your phone has 16GB of internal memory - the OS will use up at least 3GB of that. If you need more space, check if you can expand the memory with a miniSD card.
• Communication performance. 

Finally, it’s definitely worth considering whether your phone is compatible with your other devices. If you conduct your business via a windows PC, a Windows phone might be the best option; whereas if you are an avid MC user, you may prefer an iPhone. You have to love what you choose!