Hyundai Goes Mobile In The U.K.

By Digital Trends Staff Published October 25, 2009

Hyundai Goes Mobile In The U.K.

You’ve seen their cars, you might even drive one. Yet you’ve probably never considered using a Hyundai mobile phone. But the company is entering the UK mobile phone market, and plans to have between 3-5% of it within five years – some high ambitions for an already crowded field.

The company’s plan is to initially use the Advantage Cellular hub. Advantage is a company that spans the entire telecoms chain, so Hyundai can be up and running quickly.

Recommended Videos

But this venture is actually just an extension of Hyundai Mobile Europe. That’s already operating in Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria and has sales partnerships running in Poland, Italy and France, with more planned for several other countries this year. So far it’s offering 15 different handsets.

Roland Prinz, director of the new Hyundai Mobile UK, said:

"The central location and ability to get set up immediately was the reason for selecting Advantage Cellular, and we can use the facilities here to provide physical stock within the territory, rather than suffer delays shipping from the Far East to our UK customers."

"We are now eager to meet with networks and distributors that have direct routes to market, especially those focusing on the retail sector."

Hyundai plans to offer around 15 handsets a year in the UK, with the first arriving in the first half of 2009.

Topics

Hyundai
LG

Digital Trends Staff

Digital Trends has a simple mission: to help readers easily understand how tech affects the way they live. We are your…

Mobile

T-Mobile announces expanded 5G Home Internet access across southern U.S.

T-Mobile 5G gateway sitting by window.

On Tuesday morning, T-Mobile announced that it has expanded access to its residential 5G Home Internet service in 51 cities and towns throughout Florida, Georgia, and North and South Carolina.

Specifically, this is the service that T-Mobile launched in April. Subscribers to the service receive a wireless "Internet Gateway" device to install in their homes, which can be managed with a companion app. The Internet Gateway is all wireless, as opposed to a traditional wired broadband modem. In theory, can be installed anywhere in your home in approximately 15 minutes.

Mobile

T-Mobile beats out Verizon for title of fastest mobile network in U.S.

Woman using phone while listening to headphones

For the first time in PCMag’s 12 years of testing mobile networks in the United States, T-Mobile has been named the fastest mobile network. With average download speeds of 162.3Mbps, T-Mobile greatly outperformed the competition in most cities. After years of lagging behind, how did T-Mobile turn it around?
Investing in C-band
In the race to provide 5G service, the major carriers pursued different strategies. Verizon and AT&T expanded their use of mmWave, a band of spectrum that provides high speeds but doesn’t travel far. Indoor places with heavy traffic like airports are perfect for mmWave, but it's unsuitable for outdoor broadband, especially in less-populated areas like the rural stretches between cities.

What did T-Mobile do differently? It bought Sprint. The acquisition gave T-Mobile access to a cache of midband airwaves, increasing their capacity to offer 5G service. T-Mobile was the only carrier with nationwide 5G that was considerably faster than 4G. In cities like Chicago, Las Vegas, New York, and Tucson, Arizona, T-Mobile 5G phones made use of 5G around 90% of the time.

Apple

Apple has decreased App Store prices in the U.K., South Africa, other countries

App store icon showing three notifications.

Apple has announced some pricing changes in a number of markets around the world. As local taxes and exchange rates change in key markets, Apple App Store users may find that the prices of their favorite apps or in-app purchases have shifted somewhat. Over the next few days, App Store prices will be decreasing in the United Kingdom, South Africa, and all territories that use the Euro as their primary currency. On the other side of the coin, Apple is increasing prices in the countries of Georgia and Tajikistan due to an increase in the value-added tax of 18% for those nations.
Developers have been notified of these changes and how they will affect their earnings from app sales. In some instances, the changes are legislative, such as with the recent changes in Italy to the Digital Services Tax. Developers will now receive a higher cut from the proceeds of their app sales in Italy.

These tax code changes come alongside a redesign of Apple's online store. After the site was down for an hour on Tuesday, it reappeared with a new set of images and links to its main product lines, dedicated store pages, and other resources like accessories, support, and guides. In the past, the online store being down has usually preceded an announcement of a new device, but in this case, there doesn't appear to be any new products.