Telus New Promises

With all the cell phones coming, the competition in the mobile market is not just between cell phone manufacturers, it is between service providers as well. Telus Mobility is one of the biggest player in Canada and to compete they have came out with the "Promises". These promises are aimed at making their customers feels like spoil brats in three ways:

First, they have "our great network promise", guaranteeing that you will not drop a call. They're claiming that their cellular coverage is so good, that if you drop even 1% of your calls, they will credit your account, not sure with minutes or cash back.

Second, they have "our new phone promise", giving you a brand new cell phone, free of charge, at least every three years. Stay on contract with them, renew every three years, and they'll give you a new phone. Of course, the free handset will be far from top-of-the-line. Business users can get credit toward a new BlackBerry or similar device every two years.

Third, they have "our fast client service promise", allowing customers to skip the elevator music for hours on end as they wait for a service rep on the phone. If you have to wait for more than five minutes, they'll credit your account for 5 airtime minutes.

All this is pretty cool, but it will focus more of the older age group because I rarely call the service reps and would never settle with a free low-end phone.

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Mobile Couponing

Now that everyone and their grandmother have cell phones, marketers began to focus more and more attention towards this market. Enpocket and Media Planning Group planning to launch the mobile couponing campaign promoting McDonald's late night deals in the New York metropolitan area.

The coupons will be offered on the McDonald's Late Night Lounge website along with campaigns on several popular mobile internet sites, where consumers are targeted by age and location.

McDonald's said that they are looking for innovative ways to interact with our customers in a way that will create relationships that build brand loyalty. So by targeting the customers with special offers when they are mobile is very powerful for McDonald's.

As for the cell phone users market, they aligns perfectly with the quick serve restaurants' core consumer demographic. People who use cell phone often have habits of late night eating and wanting things quickly, which will drive them into stores.

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Frucall Service

In the age of technology of today, only the village idiot would shop for anything without comparing. With the internet, price transparency is something that is readily available as air. Now you can get that same price transparency with a new service for your mobile phone called Frucall.

What does this service offer? When you are shopping around, you can call at 1-888-DO-FRUCALL and enter the bar code number for the product that you are looking at. The company will quickly do an automatic search to find the best possible price for the product, whether it is in that store, another store, or somewhere online. The service will even look for used items if that is appropriate. You can also hear customer ratings, and eventually you will be able to buy the product right on your phone.

Not every item you buy would work with this service, but since all it requires is a free registration, it can save you some money.

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XM On Alltel

Combining too mobile services together that will fit perfectly into the young mobile user market, Alltel Wireless have partnered up with XM radio. Alltel subscribers will gain unlimited access to select XM radio channels from the XM Radio Mobile service for $7.99 per month.

The combining of cell phones and XM was developed by MobiTV, the global leader in television and digital radio services for cellular, Wi-Fi and broadband enabled devices. Now Alltel is moving in to the emerging market.

Alltel Wireless customers can stream 20 popular commercial-free XM music channels including: The 70s, 80s and 90s decades channels, Top 20 on 20 (Top 20 Hits), Ethel (New Alternative Rock), The City (Hip-Hop/R&B Hits), XMU (Indie Rock), Bluesville (Blues), Highway 16 (New Country Hits), and Viva (Latin Pop Hits).

As for functionality, customers will be able to select these channels by genre. XM will deliver data to make it possible to view the song title, artist and album while listening on a variety of compatible handsets.

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Sony Mylo

This is not truly a cell phone, but it looks like Sony took their PSP and mated it will the T-Mobile SideKick. It is called the "Sony Mylo", which stands for "My Life Online". This is a personal communicator that is Skype-enabled that comes with a tons of multimedia functionality.

This is one of slim cell phones, so the feature will be packed enough for a PC. With a 802.11b connectivity for Skype calls, you can hop on the internet using a full-featured Opera browser, chat it up on Google Talk or Yahoo! Messenger, and send emails while on the go. The slide-out QWERTY keypad makes text entry a breeze.

There is also a built-in media player supporting MPEG-4 videos and digital audio. You can browse through photos and send your music to other Mylo users in range. Packing a 1GB of flash memory, a Memory Stick Pro Duo expansion, and a 2.4-inch LCD (320x240).

There are no cellular communication on this device, which might hurt it at first, but when people come to realize that it means free calls, no contract, no monthly service fees and no nuisance that cellular user experience, it can be a good thing that the Mylo does not have a cellular option.

This device is expected to hit the shelves in the month or two with a price tag of about $350 USD.

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