SoftBank has been in talks with Sprint to acquire the US carrier with an offer of $20.1 billion. That deal would close on July 1, but it won’t happen if Sprint accepts Dish’s counter offer of $25.5 billion. And now we have a war of words between the two bidders.

Both SoftBank and Dish have created their own websites regarding the merger, while the Japanese carrier funded a study to question the claimed benefits of a Dish acquisition of Sprint.

Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen earlier said, “Sprint shareholders will benefit from a higher price with more cash while also creating the opportunity to participate more meaningfully in a combined Dish/Sprint with a significantly enhanced strategic position and substantial synergies that are not attainable through the pending SoftBank proposal“.

But these benefits are “unsubstantiated and unrealistic“, according to the SoftBank-funded study. Industry expert Scott C. Chandler writes, “Dish’s $37 billion estimate of the NPV (net present value) of total synergies created in the proposed Dish/Sprint merger is unusually high and there are multiple reasons to believe that Dish’s projections are neither achievable nor credible“. He is also pointing to the fact that Dish and Sprint are “two dissimilar companies” operating in “different sectors“, which would make the claimed synergies hard to achieve.

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, who is to meet with Sprint’s major shareholders this week, earlier said that his company’s experience with TD-LTE would help improve Sprint’s LTE efforts in the US. He has also referred to Dish’s bid as “incomplete and illusory“.

Ergen slammed back: “We are an American company and the modernization of Sprint’s network will have to be done from the US. You have to climb the towers here, and you’ll have to have U.S. employees who speak English. Operations command control will be in America. That’s good for jobs“.

Regarding SoftBank’s study, Dish says, “The study was paid for by SoftBank and lacks the credibility that comes from third-party objectivity. We remain confident Sprint shareholders are going to accept the offer from the company that brings the most to the table, including the best price and strategic plan going forward. Dish is offering more money, greater synergies, and we’re bringing over $10 billion of spectrum“.

Meanwhile, regarding another bid, we reported earlier about Verizon’s plans to buy out Vodafone with a $100 billion bid to take full control over Big Red. But it appears like that bid could reach up to $130 billion.

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Talks about Verizon having plans to buy out Vodafone’s 45 percent share of Verizon Wireless are not new, but it might happen sometime in the near future, at least according to Reuters. Verizon is said to be preparing a $100 billion cash and stock bid to take full control of the biggest US wireless carrier.

Apparently, Verizon, which owns 55 percent of Big Red, has hired bank and legal advisers to prepare the bid and the matter is expected to be discussed by Verizon’s board in the coming week before their annual shareholder meeting. They are hoping to end up in a friendly deal, but if Vodafone is not interested in an agreement, Verizon could take a bid public.

As for the $100 billion, Verizon is planning to raise $50 billion in bank financing and come up with the rest with its own shares.

So far there hasn’t been any confirmation from Verizon, and Vodafone has declined to comment. But that big amount probably won’t be enough for buying out Vodafone’s stake in Verizon Wireless, which is the most profitable part of Verizon. And Verizon saw almost $2 billion in profit in Q1 2013.

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Everybody is excited about the arrival of Samsung’s latest and greatest smartphone, the Galaxy S4, and the thrill increases when an online retailer comes out with an awesome offer. Carphone Warehouse has just announced that they will be giving away a free Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7-inch tablet along with pre-orders for the S4.

In order to get in on the deal, you must act fast since the offer will only available to the first 2000 people who order the S4 on a pay monthly order. At the time of writing this the deal is still there, but it probably won’t last long as a free dual-core Jelly Bean powered tablet with the S4 is a great deal and to make things sweeter they have also added an accessory pack with a screen protector, case and car charger into the offer. Carphone Warehouse will ship the device on April 26^th.

So, all of you folks over at UK, are you going to order the device from Carphone Warehouse? Or are you going with Vodafone or EE or O2?

As for those of you in the US, AT&T announced that the S4 will be available for pre-order on April 16 for $249.99 with a two-year contract. Interested? Or are you thinking about Sprint or MetroPCS?

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If you’re resided in the UK, you may have taken notice of the new iOS 6.1, which for Vodafone has had a few problems getting pushed out fully to all the iOS handsets.

Some users may have had problems connecting to 3G whilst using iOS 6.1 on the iPhone 4S with the Vodafone network. The following statement from Vodafone gave more information on the subject:

We’re aware of an issue caused by Apple iPhone 4s handsets that have been upgraded to iOS 6.1 which impacts performance on 3G. Some customers may occasionally experience difficulty in connecting to the network to make or receive calls or texts or to connect to the Internet. Apple is working on a solution to their software issue. These connection problems are intermittent.

While Apple’s investigations continue, we would recommend that anyone who has not yet installed iOS 6.1 on their iPhone 4s should delay doing so until Apple has confirmed that their problem has been fixed.

Vodafone has now worked on a fix with Apple, and they have now given the okay for Vodafone customers to update to iOS 6.1 on the iPhone 4S.

If you did download the 6.1 update and came across the 3G connectivity issue, it’s probably best that you follow Vodafone’s advice and update to the newest 6.1.1 for the iPhone 4S handset. How has your luck been with iOS 6.1 in the UK?

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Apple’s newest iPhone announcement is coming, and soon. With less than a day before the announcement we are bound to hear lots of last minute rumors or bits of news that potentially confirm some of the things we already know about the new devices coming tomorrow.

As far as confirming features goes, it seems that Vodafone Germany has just received stock of new non-SIM cards that will be shipped out to early iPhone 5 adopters. The image above shows the nano-SIM that is expected to hit with the iPhone 5.

Being that Germany already has the nano-SIM cards ready to go, it’s more than possible that the iPhone 5 will launch in several countries on the same day as the U.S. This isn’t that surprising of a move, if it turns out to be true.

Which countries could possibly launch the same day as the U.S.? While it’s all guessing and speculation, I’d put the UK, Germany and Canada at the top of the list for countries most likely to get the iPhone 5 the same day, or VERY shortly after the United States gets it. What do you think?

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Can you hear me now? We’ve all had the experience of dropped calls and loss of signal, but it looks like one way to get better cell phone reception is to open a special umbrella. Originally conceived as the Voda-brella, the since renamed Vodafone Booster Brolly is an umbrella filled with gadgetry that boosts your signal strength. And it can charge your phone too.

Somehow, this seems like a quintessentially Londoner thing to do, but inventor Kenneth Tong actually grew up in Hong Kong. In any case, the umbrella has a built-in high-gain umbrella that is able to catch the radio waves from a Vodafone transmitter. There’s also a low power signal repeater, so what you get in effect is a small “signal shower” above your head.

Yes, there may be some health concerns here, but you can’t deny how useful this could be. Of course, it’s really only useful on a rainy day (which never happens in the UK), though I suppose the Booster Brolly can turn into a Booster Parasol on a sunny day. What’s more, the Booster Brolly is also lined with a dozen 2V solar panels, giving you a source of power to juice up your handset. It can be used to power a flashlight too, in case you get lost in the dark.

Of course, this is just a mad scientist’s concept at the moment, so there’s no saying when and if it’ll ever reach a commercial release.

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The smartphone was originally announced back in March and while it doesn’t look terribly different than other Android smartphones from HTC, it boasts that same kind of glasses-free 3D viewing that you’d find on LG Optimus 3D and, more recently, the Brando Gadmei P83. It just doesn’t make sense to have some clunky 3D glasses in tow when you want to watch videos and view photos on your cell phone, right?

As far as the specs go, you get a dual-lens camera on the back for shooting 3D content (up to 2MP stills and 720p 30fps HD video), 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-core processor, 1GB RAM, Android 2.3 Gingerbread, and a 4.3-inch qHD display. The camera has a tilt-shift feature as well. The 3D-ness extends beyond photos and videos too, as they’ve refreshed HTC Sense UI to include 3D menus, an active lockscreen, and a 3D weather app with 3D animations.

Sprint has the exclusive on the HTC EVO 3D in the United States and that version boasts WiMAX connectivity. Expect it to sell for $199 on a two-year contract. Over on the other side of the pond, Vodafone UK has confirmed it’ll nab the EVO 3D, but other European carriers will likely get it too. In lieu of WiMAX, Euro folk will get the usual combo of Wi-Fi and 3G.

The post HTC EVO 3D ships with Sprint, heading to Europe too appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

While many people consider things like video games, digital cameras, GPS and browsing pages and pages of Google results are a must for a mobile phone,  there are others who just want to make a call, as simple and directly as possible.  Obviously we’re talking about the elderly here, they usually aren’t concerned with being able to go on Facebook, download apps and twitpic self-portraits; although we have seen our share of savvy old timers.   Emporia has gone and made simple menus, gigantic buttons, adjustable text size and a long-lasting battery life, that’s what’s important, yeah!   We hope they also increased the volume amplification too, “hello? hello? I cant hear you!” no more of that.

If you’re drooling on the keyboard right now, perhaps are squinting at the screen because this font is too small all the while yelling at the kids who are walking on your lawn, this phone may be for you.   Being one of the most straightforward mobile phones in the world, the RL1 lets you text, make calls, store numbers, set alarms, birthday reminders and use a calculator. Yes, it’s 1991 again.  Oh wait, you can change Ringtones too, and blast them super loud of course.  How are you going to find this thing when you misplace it if you cant hear it when you phone it.   So be a good grandson and buy this for your nanna.  The RL1 will cost just $99 (£60) on Vodafone’s monthly pay as you go plan of course.

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For some unspecified reason, Google has “temporarily suspended” the rollout of Android 2.3 Gingerbread to the Samsung Galaxy S through Vodafone. They say that there are “no known performance issues,” so there really is no stated reason why Google would want to stop the update from coming out just yet.

We do have to remember, though, that this is Samsung. They don’t exactly have the best reputation for Android update timeliness, right? I’d imagine the ripple effect will affect other Galaxy S owners around the globe too.  In related news, Vodafone Australia customers can look forward to Gingerbread on their Galaxy Tabs.  We’re not sure what’s going on, but Android users waiting for the sweet update can’t be happy.

The post Google Stops Android 2.3 Gingerbread from Hitting Galaxy S appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Vodafone to carry Google Nexus One at the end of this month

The Google Nexus One has been available for some time in its unlocked form directly from Google, but it would be nice to get your hands on a healthy subsidy on the hardware price. Yes, T-Mobile USA customers have that, but what about our friends over in Europe? Vodafone wants to fix that.

That’s why Vodafone UK has just announced that it will be launching the Nexus One at the end of this month. They’re not even calling it a superphone and not a smartphone. I wouldn’t go quite as far as that, myself, but the Nexus One is certainly an attractive piece of hardware.

As a quick refresher, the Nexus One offers the 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 3.7-inch AMOLED touchscreen, 5MP autofocus camera, and a trackball with a tri-colour notification LED. Naturally, it has the full suite of Google apps, Android Market, and so on too.

So, why would you want to get a Nexus One from Vodafone UK rather than buy one yourself? Well, the outright price from Google is still about $500. However, if you choose to sign a new qualifying two-year contract with Voda, they’ll give you the Nexus One for free. Plans start at £35 a month and include 1GB of data.

I wonder if Rogers (or Wind) are going to pick up and subsidize the Nexus One in Canada. That’d be nice.

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