telefonica

Telefonica, one of the world's largest carriers, has signed a deal with Microsoft to promote far more heavily the software giant's Windows Phone 8 operating system and devices running it.

The carrier said in a statement on Wednesday that over the next year, it will enhance its marketing efforts for Windows Phone 8 and Windows Phone 8 devices. The company will focus those marketing efforts in several of its major markets, including the U.K., Germany, Spain, and Brazil.

Telefonica said that its move is designed to enhance competition in the marketplace. The company said Wednesday it wants … Read more

Telefonica is throwing cold water on a report that AT&T made an offer to acquire it.

In a statement released Monday, the Spanish telecommunications giant said that "in relation to press rumors published today, Telefonica states that it has not received any approach, nor any indication of interest, neither verbal nor in written form, from any party."

Telefonica was responding to a story published Monday by Spanish newspaper El Mundo saying that AT&T had initiated a tender offer to acquire the company to the tune of 70,000 million euros ($93 billion) and take … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Mobile network operators traditionally use Mobile World Congress to call for lower taxes and more wireless spectrum. This year, a new word has entered the wish list: harmonization.

The mobile industry today must deal with a hodgepodge of electromagnetic frequencies that differ from carrier to carrier and country to country. Franco Bernabe, chief executive of Telecom Italia, wants to see not just more spectrum for wireless operators, but also spectrum that's not so fragmented.

"It's not just about having the right amount of spectrum. It's critical that the spectrum is harmonized on a global basis,&… Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Telefonica today showed off B2G, the Mozilla browser-based operating system for mobile phones, saying it's good enough to sell to today's feature-phone customers later this year.

You may or may not agree. To help you judge, here's a video of Carlos Domingo, Telefonica Digital's director of product development and innovation, demonstrating a prototype phone at a press conference today at the Mobile World Congress show here. At the event, Telefonica announced its mobile OS pact with Mozilla.

Having watched the demo myself, the phone looked workable but awfully pokey. And touch input-- specially the keyboard--was … Read more

BARCELONA--Half of Telefonica's customers are in Latin America, where smartphones are scarcer than in wealthier parts of the world. But the mobile network operator hopes Mozilla's new browser-based operating system, B2G, will change that.

"What we're selling the most in these countries is feature phones, which is ridiculous, said Carlos Domingo, Telefonica Digital's director of product development and innovation, in an interview at the Mobile World Congress show here in Barcelona, Spain. "We think we can bring smartphones to the masses in developing countries with this approach."

How affordable, exactly? The B2G phone … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Mozilla took a big first step in making something real out of B2G, its browser-based mobile operating system, by signing on mobile network operator Telefonica as a partner.

In addition, the Firefox maker discussed another step, a close relationship with mobile processor maker Qualcomm to create the hardware for the first phones, expected to launch later in 2012.

Those are two very important steps. But they're only one of dozens that it must take to create an operating system competitive with Apple's iOS and Google's Android, much less one that fulfills Mozilla's grander ambition. The … Read more

It would be counter-productive to make voice, text, and data roaming too cheap, Telefonica has argued in response to strict new proposals by a member of the European Parliament.

Excessively low retail caps would make it too unprofitable for new investors to enter the European mobile market, and stymie the Commission's goal of increasing competition, Telefonica regulatory chief Robert Mourik told a European Parliament debate on Tuesday.

"Don't prescribe a structural solution if you don't think it will work in the first place," Mourik said, referring to less stringent proposals put forward by the European Commission. &… Read more

I can't ever remember Catherine Zeta-Jones making political statements when she was T-Mobile's femme fatale. She might have said one or two things in favor of Welsh nationalism.

However, the rather fetching spokesperson for Telefonica Germany has managed to get herself fired by the company after uttering words that were rather supportive of the Gadhafi family.

ABC News offered that Vanessa Hessler, an Italian-American supermodel, was dismissed from her contract by Telefonica Germany, a subsidiary of the Spanish company, after she spoke of her "very beautiful love story" with Mutassim Gadhafi, 36-year-old son of the now … Read more

Three of the top wireless providers in the U.K. are joining forces to speed up the deployment of mobile payments that will allow shoppers to pay for things with their cell phones, according to Reuters.

Thursday the news service reported that Everything Everywhere, the joint venture between Orange and T-Mobile, Vodafone and Telefonica's O2 have agreed to create a mobile commerce system that would bring together retailers, banks and advertisers.

For years, there's been talk that consumers would be able to use their phones to buy things using a technology called Near Field Communications, which allows very … Read more