Tag Archives: Deutschland

[Pre] Palm Pre Goes Europe

There have been rumors in the last weeks which carrier which offer the Palm Pre in European countries. As of today we know the rumors were true. In Germany, Great Britain, Ireland O2 will be the exclusive distributor of Palm’s new flagship, in Spain the iPhone competitor will be offered by Movistar.

As of now other European carriers seem to be in negotiations with Palm for exclusive distribution. There are no information yet about subscription prices. According to the O2’s german Preregistration site introduction to the german market is planned for october 2009.

» German 02 preregistration for the Palm Pre

[Microsoft] MSN Germany to launch free Movie portal

The future of video-on-demand seems to begin soon. Microsoft Germany announced to launch their MSN Movie Portal. Launch date is set to November 17th, 2008 (monday) – means tomorrow. About hundred movies, TV-series and animations Microsoft will be offered for free watching. As like private TV channels MSN will apply commercial breaks every ten minutes. Per hour customers will have to watch 12 minutes of advertisements.

» MSN Germany

[Stories] Germany now Losing Private Data, aswell

Recently we reported about how different british administrations and companies deal with data privacy of their employees and customers. They lost so many data, we continental Europeans never thought we could ever make that up again.

As a German, I can now proudly tell you guys: T-Mobile Germany alone lost more data sets during a hack than you guys have lost knowingly lost since 2007 ;-) The T-Com’s data sets consist of fone numbers, names, streets, account numbers, email addresses and so on. All in all 14 million cell phone customers’ data sets have been stolen. Moreover T-Com officials had to admit, that besides all the datasets of us John-Doe’s, they lost also lots of datasets by politicians, celebrities and so on. And now the real deal: that hack took place two years ago, but the T-Com didn’t tell their customers (me sic!). Parts of the datasets have obviously been already offered for sale on the internet yet.

The T-Com says this was not an amateur hack. I hope we can believe them…

[iPhone] T-Mobile to Sell Prepaid iPhone 3G in Germany

Starting on 1st of october, 2008, T-Mobile Germany is going to offer the iPhone 3G with a prepaid plan for 569€ including 100€ calling credit. Following features will apply:

  • 0,29€ / min to any german carrier
  • 0,19€ / SMS
  • no included data (Xtra web’n’walk Starter costs 0,90€ every 10 minutes)
  • Use of T-Mobile’s WLan Hotspots not included
  • Switching to a “real” T-Mobile plan is possible, an amount will be paid back then – depending on the plan

The iPhone will still have the SIM Lock and will not work with other german or international carriers.

[iPhone] Sigpate vs. T-Mobile: Court rules in Favour of Sipgate

As we’ve reported earlier this month, german T-Mobile sues german Sigpate. T-Mobile argued Sipgate encourages T-Mobile iPhone customers to break contracts when jailbreaking their iPhones in order to install Sipgate’s VoIP client.

Now Sipgate struck back. Sipgate argued, T-Mobile in Germany advertises unlimited use of Internet, but in reality limits the use to a certain amount of MBytes and certain applications only. T-Mobile for example explicitly permits use of VoIP clients, Instant Messenger apps and VPN clients (although being pre-installed) on their iPhones. In contrast to their advertisements T-Mobile in fact does not offer unlimited Internet access.

The Hamburg District Court (AZ 315 O 360/08) now ruled in favour of Sipgate. T-Mobile is disallowed to use the term unlimited internet access in their advertisements any more. In case of violation of this court’s rule T-Mobile will need to pay 250,000€ fine.

[iPhone] Debitel to Sell 3G iPhone in Germany

The german resell provider Debitel will sell the new iPhone 3G. Contracts have been closed between T-Com and Debitel. Debitel is now allowed to distribute iPhone thru their own Dug stores and thru the Metro-Group’s electronic markets Media Markt and Saturn. Karstadt and Galeria-Kaufhof stores may follow soon. Though it is rumored that Debitel’s iPhones tariffs won’t differ from the original T-Mobile tariffs. Anyway we can now expect it to become a gadget really for everyone here in germany. Good buy then, snobbish avantgarde…

[iPhone] T-Mobile to sell iPhone 3G for 1Euro

T-Mobile will subsidize the iPhone 3G. They just announced to sell the new UMTS 3G iPhone for just 1€, if bought with a two year lasting contract for 89€. With a contract for 29€/month the price for the iPhone will be 169€.

As a loyalty bonus to clients who bought the “old” iPhone, the new iPhone will be offered at a special discount. Exact prices are being worked on currently, said T-Mobile. Moreover the iPhone will be sold not only in T-Com shops or via T-Mobile’s online shop, but thru reseller channels aswell.