Awesome Mobile Phone Technology

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[2026-05-31 image ©InfoBip] As of now Samsung have deleted their Samsung messages App on Android and encouraged their users to use Google Messages, or indeed any other messaging system. Google messages is primarily based on RCS messaging and whilst it has a number of other features over the simple SMS messaging, it is end to end encrypted. RCS will revert to SMS if for whatever reason, usually a lack of signal, RCS cannot work.

At the same time Apple is making changes to it's messaging system and rolling out RCS within it's infrastructure.

Perhaps more interesting RCS messages can be send from Apple to Android and vice versa. Previously Apple kept a fence around their messaging system and if a message was destined to Android it was sent as SMS.

Just a note the SMS is not going away it will still be used for many purposed most notably for companies to send messages to customers or the NHS to send appointment details to patients etc.

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[2026-05-24 image ©BT] A U-turn by BT has brought back the BTMobile brand. It was killed off and all customers moved to EE. Now it is back for BT customers. A BT customer can purchase from BT a new BT Mobile connection on a pay monthly plan.

A year or so back BT decided to market all their customer facing products as EE, but recently there has been a U-turn and BT will still be used for customer products and the BT-Mobile product has been re-introduced for current BT broadband customers. One reason for the change of mind could be that the BT brand has a high recognition within the UK and the link between BT and EE not as well understood. When BT broadband customers are looking for a mobile contract, as many may be with the landline switch off, a BT brand will be more familiar to them. Indeed if a customer does not see the BT - EE link they could just choose a mobile brand for the many out there.

Currently BT-Mobile os only open to BT broadband customers but they could widen the net soon. Although they will be competing with themselves [BT vs EE]

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[2026-05-24 image ©TFL] Not surprisingly Boldyn Networks have been chosen to provide a mobile broadband network across the London Underground. The provision will allow emergency responders to keep in touch in any emergency situation throughout the London Tube, DLR and Overground where the stations and lines are underground. Overground stations and lines have connectivity as would the surrounding area.

Boldyn have been partnering with London Underground to provide small cells throughout the underground to allow staff and passengers to be connected through out their journey. They have agreements with the mobile operators for the use of their cells.

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[2026-05-24 image ©vodafone] On a similar note to the previous post, Vodafone have introduced a 5G home router for £20 per month on a 24 month contract. The contract has a limit of 150Mbps which is fast enough for most of us. Great for Netflix, emails web but maybe not for high intensity games. It is alos worth noting that Three offer a similar product and indeed have been pushing this as the way to get broadband to the home for a number of years now. Looks a good deal.

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[2026-05-17 image ©WifFHire] I keep getting adverts for WiFiHire who will rent out a WiFi router (travel sized) which uses an eSIM card to connect to the mobile network for unlimited data - a great idea.

But, the cost seems to be £21 for 3 days, and up to £100 for a month. As many have pointed out in the comments, you can purchase a 4G / 5G router on Ebay for less than £30 [some much less] and an unlimited SIM from one of the mobile operators for less than £25pcm. Or even just hotspot with your phone.

Whilst I would wish them well, they may struggle with these prices.

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[2026-05-17 image ©vodafonethree] Vodafone and Three merged in late 2025 with Vodafone having 51% of the joint company and Three 49%. Just recently it has announced that Vodafone was buying out Three and taking over the whole company.

It would seem logical that the name will revert to just 'Vodafone' and over time this will be the brand. At the moment they are building towards Three and Vodafone customers being able to use either network, thus improving the connectivity to customers.

The joint company is currently moving towards closing Three / Vodafone shops that duplicate the service. It seems likely that the Three name will disappear from the high street and the Vodafone name will be THE name of the company.

The full move from Three to Vodafone will take a number of years as there are millions of Three customers on contracts and transferring these to Vodafone will take a while.

[mobilephonetechnology]

[2026-05-17 image ©freshwave] Freshwave are a company that provides indoor 4G and now 5G within office buildings. They use small cells which are also used on lampposts or other street furniture to enhance the coverage in busy streets, but in this case the small cells will be inside buildings. The new cells will have 5G connectivity.

They will have agreement with the 3 mobile operators to allow all their customers to use the Freshwave small cells. throughout the building. This will allow anyone inside the building to use their mobile, with a good service given that the normal service inside there large buildings can be patchy.

It also means that a business within the building can use 4G / 5G as their primary communication medium. This will be of most interest to smaller businesses, and could help them especially as a startup in order to get communication up and running quickly. As I am a fan of using 4G / 5G for a small business, many could use this technology in preference to getting WiFi connected.

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[2026-05-03 image ©click4assistance] It looks like SMS, as a way for phone users to send messages to one another, is now dead. Well, the Samsung SMS App is being discontinued, and they are recommending Google Messages, as do most Android phones. Google Messages will normally send a message as RCS. This means that the message is sent over the data network and encrypted. So you will need a data connection, WiFi or 4G / 5G for Google Messages to send RCS messages. In addition, RCS allows for multimedia to be added to the messages and as they are sent as data there is no change, in contrast to MMS messaging.

So is that the end of SMS? Despite what many of the technical press may claim, NO SMS is not dead. If an RCS connection cannot be made between the transmitting and receiving phones using RCS, then this will degenerate to SMS. Also, when your bank sends you a message, or you are sent a code to authenticate an app this will still be SMS.

SMS is quite different to other messaging systems as it uses the control channel to send the message, not the data channel. No SMS messages are not encrypted, but it is just about impossible for anyone to gain access to the mobile control channel, and probably not worth the effort. Many will also state that the message stays on the mobile operators servers in the clear whilst in transmission. Again, this will be difficult to "hack". Are we confident that WhatsApp (or other application) are truely end to end encrypted>?

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[2026-04-26 image ©VodafoneThree] Now that VodafoneThree are a combined company what changes are being made?

The combined company have indicated that Vodafone customers will be able to use the Three network and vice versa. I guess the swap will be when the home network has NO signal, not when there is a better signal from the other network. To achieve this, changes to the infrastructure will be necessary. Whilst many people have found they can roam onto a different network, this is not universal. I have heard of three customers who have no signal, but a Vodafone customer has a good signal.

A second noticeable change is that the combined company are reviewing their shops with a view to shutting shops where they have duplicates. In some shopping areas, the shops are next to each other, or at least a few shops down the street, so I would expect one or other of these shops to close. However, from a plus point, in the centre of Sheffield there is no Vodafone shop but soon (I hope) the Three shop will be able to answer any of my queries.

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[2026-04-19 image ©Netgear] The demand for wireless radio transmission grows year by year, but the amount of suitable electro-magnetic bandwith stays the same. This has led to either technologies trying to use frequency that is difficult to manage (as is the case with mmWaves for mobile communications) or there are competing organisations keen to use what frequency is availabkle.

This is the case with 6GHz bandwidth where WiFi want to use this to add capacity, and also Mobile Network Operators also want to use this bandwidth. The first part of their bandwidth, the lower end of the frequency band, has been allocated to WiFi. In a typical UK compromise, OfCOM have agreed that WiFi and Mobile Technology will share the upper range. In particular 6GHz will be available in high density areas (cities) for Mobile Phone Technology as well as WiFi.

Now I am a supporter of Mobile Phone Technology and would like the Upper 6GHz band to be available to Mobile communications alone, and I guess WiFi supporters would take the opposite view. This latest proposal by OfCOM will lead to issues of interference, especially for Mobile Carriers, making the deployment of the band complex or even impossible. Some European countries have taken what I believe to be a better solution and allocated the whole band to one or other of the technologies.

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[2026-04-19 image ©O2] I saw an advert on the TV the other day advertising O2 Satellite. O2 are the first of the UK operators to extend its "regular" mobile operation to satellite connection. The mode of operation is that a user will be connected to the normal ground-based mobile masts where there is a signal, but when there is no signal, the phone will connect to a satellite for connectivity. I understand that satellite connection will cost £3pcm for subscribers. There is a short list of Apps that use this connection, which includes WhatsApp and Google Messages, but not Chrome or any other browser. We can expect the list of Apps to grow over time.

Also, OFCOM recently approved an application by VodafoneThree to use satellites in their operation. Whereas O2 will use StarLink VodafoneThree will use AST satellites. Currently there are no details of the cost of this service nor of the Apps that will be available. Althopugh it should be noted that VodafoneThree demonstarated a Video Call over a satellite connection from Rural Wales to Newbury. It is expected that OfCOM will approve an application for EE fairly soon.

Note that currently, a standard voice call is not available over a satellite connection, mainly due to the lag being too high.

One major concern is whether the satellite connection will result in fewer ground-based masts being sited in rural areas, and not-spots being covered via satellites. In their literature, O2 claims the satellite connection means they have 97% geographical coverage, up from 88%. Will this all mean the ground-based geographical coverage will be reduced over the years, and rural coverage will be via satellite at an extra cost to rural users? Personally, I would pay for the extra coverage if this helps my phone connection when I am walking in the countryside, but that is my choice, as I have ground-based coverage at home in a city suburb. People who live in rural areas may not feel the same way.

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[2026-04-12 image ©O2] We are all aware that 5G, which was installed at the start of the decade, was not full 5G; it used 4G for the backhaul to the Internet. Only recently have the mobile operators been installing full 5G, called 5G standalone. Over the past few months O2 have been giving regular updates claiming more of the Uk covered with 5G SA.

The most recent press release from O2 claims that their 5G SA can reach 85% of the UK population. This is a good figure but needs to be built on, which I suspect O2 are doing. The question is whether O2 has a target for geographic area coverage, which is a much harder figure to get up towards 100%.

The other mobile operators are more secretive in their numbers. Hopefully, they will be building their numbers as well.

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[2023-03-15 image ©The Verge] Whether you are in cam Android or camp iPhone all phones look the same slab format. Recently folding or flip phones are about although these fold out or flip to a slab phone, maybe bigger and with a fold in the screen. [And they are more expensive for poorer overall features]. The top of the range iPhone 17 or Samsung S26 Ultra are as best as there is. And our phones have been like this for years with out any variation. In the original days of mobile phones there was much more variation. One thing that we have all taken for granted is the soft keyboard that takes up lots of space on out screen - a flip-out hardware keyboard is better but currently no manufacturers.

At MWC 2026 Techno demonstrated a modular mobile phone. You can get a base, upon which you can build what you want from your phone. Some of the add-ons include a telephoto lens making the phone more like a camera. Now whether this is the solution only time will tell but Techno are not building phones like everyone else.

[mobilephonetechnology]

[2026-03-15 image ©vodafone] Vodafone are only one of the companies that are taking about the use of satellite in mobile phone technology. There is a lot of discussion about the use of satellites to provide coverage in areas of poor or no connectivity and the use of these LEO satellites is seen as a cheaper (for the companies) alternative to covering the whole of the UK with ground coverage. It is likely that direct from satellite will not work indoors, unless the home or business owner fitted some form of external receiver that is re-transmitted within the building.

There is some discussion about whether having satellite coverage would be an extra cost to the customers. Many who have poor coverage at home are not happy, other who live in cities and suburbs may pay the extra to get connectivity when away from home.

Various figures are published about the speed of direct to satellite for mobile phone connectivity speed. This, at present, does not match the speed of ground based connections. However proponents of satellite (StarLink being one) would indicate this speed will only get better.

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[2026-03-08 image ©3G] How much do you pay for a mobile phone contract in the UK? Overall in the UK this is much cheaper than the US. But how cheap is too cheap for us to expect 100% coverage.

For a Vodafone PAYG customer the cheapest 1Gb per month seems to be £15 [I am sure you can get this level much cheaper] whereas the cheapest unlimited is £24

I have an unlimited Vodafone contract and can do everything on my phone. No need to borrow WiFi in coffee shops, airports, stations, friends houses etc - just always use my data. Even at home I will use my data, and for certain apps where they is a choice to upload / download on WiFi, I will switch this to use module data - I am paying for it why not. Following on from the previous post, this service for this price is great when compared to the US. Actually for the Uk it may be too cheap to allow VodafoneThree, O2 and EE to build a 100% coverage network.

On the other hand are people who buy the lowest price contract and use WiFi all the time, at home in coffee shops, in trains , at friends and family houses etc. My reluctance to use public WiFi is security but if you are careful it can be safe. So the argument for these people is that they will use mobile coverage when there is no alternative. Again is the price paid the correct level for the coverage expected?

The difference in the two approaches is stark in my family. When I go to visit I do not use their WiFi; just everything, including hotspotting, is via my phone. My family members (and friends) need access to my WiFi when visiting. Am I being unfair resenting this sharing of my WiFi - many would say I am.

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[2026-03-08] Image from YouTube @girlgonelondon. As many of us I scroll through lots of YouTube videos. I found this recently which was in regard to the differences between UK and US use of mobile phone technology and thought I would discuss the video. The first obvious difference is that in the US mobile phone = iPhone; the vast majority of people have these and there are few Android phones around. This does colour her comments.

[1] In the US people tend to speak into their phone and listen to the phone speakers. So everyone hears the whole conversation; in the Uk there is less loud phone conversations.

[2]We, in the UK tend to use Whatsapp for messages whereas in the US there is a predominance of SMS or iMessage.

[3]She then goes onto note that in the UK mobile phone tariffs are much cheaper than the US, something I have mentioned before. She indicates that this has to do with the size of the country and the infrastructure needed, but maybe our prices are just too cheap to get the investment in our infrasctructure.

[4]Finally she indicates that the coverage in the UK is better than the US. Much of this is due to the vast distances between towns in rural US. I would guess that coverage in New York and London are comparable.

Interesting viideo - follow her on YouTube @girlgonelondon.

[mobilephonetechnology]

[2026-02-22 image ©Samsung] Much was promised by 5G but here in the Uk the 3 networks have been slow to implement 5GSA [Stand Alone] and the associated key features on 5G. One of these key features is Network Slicing. This is the ability to run a number of virtual netroks on the real network, each of which will have their own specification. For example a network slice could be run to manage a specific large scale IoT application that does not need the full "standard" mobile network. Similarly a specific network slice could be set up to give football supports access to real-time low latency add-ons to the match.

But in the UK the only network slice set up was at the Kings Coronation. Here ITV used a network slice to connect their mobile cameras to that transmitted back to ITV Centre in real-time. This was a low latency requirement for their specific application.

Now that 5GSA is being rolled out over the Uk we should expect to see more use being made of network slicing.