The UK Mobile Report

T5 suffers nightmare opening

Heathrow's spanking new Terminal Five had a bad Air day on its launch this morning.

The baggage handling suffered serious screwups with passengers waiting for over an hour on arrival.

Some flights left without bags.

Meanwhile on the dot of 11am 200 or so protestors jammed the arrivals area wearing T-shirts saying 'No more airport expansion'. They said they were taking part in a peaceful protest against plans to build a third runway.

Police left them to it preferring to film and photograph them from a gallery, while TV film crews jostled to capture comments from the protestors despite being asked by media handlers not to leave the departure lounge.

BAA dumps fingerprint plan

BAA has scrapped plans to fingerprint passengers using Terminal Five.

Two weeks ago it unveiled the new terminal saying finhgerprinting was essential.

It now appears to have caved in to civil liberties activists who said fingerprinting was unecessary.

T5 goes live tomorrow.

3 offers cheapest modem

3 has reduced the price of its Pay-as-you-go USB modem to £69.99.

It then charges £10 a month for 1Gb; £15 for 3Gb; and £25 for 7Gb.

This makes it cheaper than many fixed broadband deals if taken over a 2 year period.

Ofcom: too little, too late

Today we learn that Ofcom is to crack down on misselling in the mobile phone industry.

While this should be welcomed it is also nothing short of scandalous. This publication and many others have highlighted problems with misselling and cashback fraud for almost two years.

Two years in which Ofcom has done practically nothing and loads of buyers have been scammed and cheated. For the most part the operators have paid lip service to the problem claiming to be doing something while not succeeding collectively to stamp out the problems.

The cashback problem is one that was glaringly obvious. Ofcom was totally negligent in hoping that the problem would go away as a result of a voluntary code of conduct.

This slowness to act confirms the view of many that Ofcom is feeble and toothless when it comes to the nitty gritty of protecting consumers. It's a sorry state of affairs but UK regulators are notorious for their light touch and neither Labour or the Conservatives look likely to do anything about it.

Better consumer protection could make a huge difference to millions in all sorts of ways, sadly it is not something that attracts much interest from politicians or their quangos.

Here is the BBC story on the matter.

Laptops keep PC sales alive

PC sales in Europe and the Middle East (EMEA) are set to grow by 14.4 per cent in 2008 according to researchers IDC.

Though PC sales are sluggish, the growth will be spurred by virtue of laptop and notebook sales, with total sales expected to reach 100 million.

Notebook sales to consumers and small to medium businesses are expected to be the most healthy, in contrast to a decline in desktop PC sales overall.

Laptop sales are currently 20 per cent up year on year. In 2007 PC sales were also very healthy recording almost  16 per cent year on year increase.

Perhaps the best news for buyers is that prices are expected to drop around 12 per cent this year.

Met Police calls for mobile vigilance

You may or may not have noticed the Metropolitan Police's current marketing campaign urging members of the public to think again when they see someone who has more than one mobile phone.

The Met is spending loads of cash putting ads in papers and mags, and on radio.

I just saw the one page ad in the newspaper. It reads: "Thousands of people have mobiles. What if someone with several seems suspicious?"

It goes on to suggest - in a kind of Orwellian way - that you don't have to decide if they are suspicious, you just have to phone a helpline, and the Met will decide what to do.

Not surprisingly the campaign raises lots of issues. Does this mean anyone with more than two phones is a suspect and should now be careful revealing this ownership to friends and strangers? Should members of the public report anyone with lots of phones to ensure they don't not report someone they should report? (Excuses for the double negative, but you get what I mean).

Oh what the hell. How about a helpline that you can call to report any particularly bizarre helplines?

Lebara ramps up

Lebara Mobile, the cheap overseas calls mobile operator, is ramping up its marketing by giving away SIMs at some tube stations.

It's an attractive offer if you make a lot of calls abroad and you have a spare phone for such use, or if you don't mind swapping your SIM in and out.

Most overseas calls are 4 or 5 pence per minute. At my local station they were giving them away with £5 credit too.