So this is my story, I go to MTN the other day to take out a Cellphone contract for my wife on what we believed was a prepaid number, seeing as we bought the simcard more than 5 years ago and has since been using it to make calls and top up just like you would do with a normal pre-paid sim, just to find out that we cant take out a contract as the number belongs to a company called CELL2CELL.

So I then I remembered that my mother in-law took out a recurring monthly airtime contract on that number a few years back that tops up the number with R50 airtime every month, now this was almost 4 years ago and nobody notified us that the number would become the property of CELL2CELL. Today I tried to port the number to MTN from CELL2CELL and was simply told the number does not belong to me and I can’t get it back.

After numerous phone calls I got hold of CELL2CELL and soon as I mentioned porting the lady quickly, without hesitating, referred me to a very arrogant manager called Mark, clearly sounding like they are used to dealing with extorting clients on a daily basis out of their cellphone numbers. It seems that CELL2CELL automatically took ownership of the number without my wife’s consent and then continued to automatically renew the 2 year subscription without even contacting her or my mother in-law.

Surely this must be unlawful in some way? I know the new consumer protection act would avoid this from happening, but there has to be a way to get back the number.

I have searched the web and have come across a number of similar complaints regarding CELL2CELL not wanting to release cellphone numbers of clients.

Now my question is how can CELL2CELL take ownership of my wife’s number without her consent? And how can they automatically renew a contract on her number when she has clearly not given them any permission to do so?

And its not just CELL2CELL I hold responsible here, its also MTN who provides services to crooks like CELL2CELL, and the stores that provide cellphone services through CELL2CELL.

Next time you see a great offer in a store stay as far away as possible, not even when someone calls you claiming to be MTN, Vodacom, or Cell C, rather go to their stores and deal directly with them.

The first set of Windows Phone 7 mobile phones are set to hit the South African market in early December 2010, but is this too little to late from Microsoft? With Android, iPhone and Blackberry smartphones currently dominating the smartphone market, is there room for another mobile OS? Microsoft seem to think so with the release of Windows Phone 7.

Microsoft is promising a fresh and new user experience with Windows Phone 7 guaranteed to shake up the marketplace, delivering a phone that integrates the things people really want to do and puts those things right in front of them.

Two Windows Phone 7 devices will be available to the public in early December 2010 on all major networks. The two Windows Phone 7 models are manufactured by HTC, now know more for their Android devices like the HTC Desire. The two initial models are the HTC 7 Mozart and HTC 7 Trophy, the latter being exclusive to Vodacom, they will be joined by models from Samsung and LG early in 2011.

According to Nkosi Kumalo, mobility business group lead in South Africa, users can expect to pay from R150 per month on contract for the Windows Phone 7 devices. MTN already have the HTC 7 Mozart on their price list starting at R 289.00 on MTN 100 including 75MB of free data.

Since WordPress launched its first mobile application for the iPhone in 2008, the popular blogging platform has also released apps for Blackberry and the Android platforms. Now two years in WordPress has officially reached 1 Million users making use of their mobile applications.

With cellphones becoming the new personal computer this is not just for huge landmark for WordPress but for blogging also. The WordPress mobile apps allows you to express yourself no matter where you are, saw something worth sharing with the world just snap a picture with your phone and blog it right there and then.

To celebrate this huge milestone WordPress has released an app for one of two new platforms in its scope, WordPress for Nokia is the latest platform to get the WordPress mobile app.

You can, of course, write and edit posts and pages, manage your comments queue and keep an eye on your blog’s statistics while on the move. If a seagull just snatched your hot dog and is making a run for it, you can snap a picture of the commotion or even record a video describing how it felt and how much you’re suing for. All from within the app.

There are two version available for WordPress for Nokia, one for new Symbian^3 devices like the Nokia N8 and then another version for older phones like the X6-00, C6-00, N97, and 5800 XpressMusic.

You can grab your copy of WordPress for Nokia here or from the Nokia OVI Store.

WordPress is the most popular blogging platform on the planet, in fact it is not just popular for blogging but many developers use it for so much more than a blogging platform.

One nice thing about WordPress is the fact that there are mobile applications available for it, but up until now it was limited to Android, iPhone and Blackberry users.

A while ago I helped the guys over at RLabs set up a WordPress blog to enable the authors to blog from their mobile phones, unfortunately I had to go the email route and later on the MXit to WordPress application was born due to the fact that the authors was not holders of smartphones but mostly low end Nokia phones.

WordPress has now released the beta version of WordPress for Nokia. WordPress for Nokia allows you to post new posts and pages, edit existing content on your blog, manage comments, check stats and more on the go for your WordPress.com or self hosted WordPress 2.7 or higher blogs.

WordPress for Nokia is currently supported by S60 or Maemo powered Nokia devices and is Open Source allowing developers to be able to modify the application.

For more information or to download WordPress for Nokia head over to the OVI Store or visit the WordPress for Nokia page.

Last night in a hanger at Lanseria airport, Telkom launched South Africa’s fourth mobile network operator 8ta. The past couple of months we saw numerous advertisements about Heita!, although rumor had it that Telkom was behind it no one was certain until now.

Telkom certainly means business with its new 8ta mobile network by offering prices that undercuts competitors by a large margin, and making it really affordable to phone to landlines from mobile phones.

8ta already has 800 base station constructed across the country and plans to add another 3200 over time to improve its network coverage. And although 8ta only has 800 base station it already has full national coverage thanks to its roaming agreement with MTN.

When it comes to broadband the Telkom 8ta network supports HSPA and is capable of download speeds of up to 7.2Mbps and can be upgraded to support 21Mbps in future.

Now for the pricing everybody has been waiting for. 8ta will initially only launch a prepaid offering to the market with a post paid offering to follow withing the next few months with low-end, feature phones and smartphones from all the major manufacturers.

Calls from 8ta to Telkom and Neotel landline phones will cost the consumer 65c per minute while calls to cellular phones on any other local cellphone networks will cost R1.50 per minute. In addition to the lower rates, 8ta will offer consumers 1 second free airtime for every 3 seconds they talk. Also calls from 8ta to over 100 international destinations will cost consumers a flat rate of R2.50 per minute.

Good news for SMS fanatics is that SMS messages from the 8ta network will cost 50c per message but for the first 5 SMS messages you send on a day you will receive 50 free additional SMS messages to use for that day.

Internet on the 8ta network will cost R1 per megabyte for out of bundle data with prepaid data bundles available from as low as 25c per megabyte. Prepaid data bundles available at launch are as follows:

1. 100MB for R50
2. 250MB for R100
3. 500MB for R150
4. 1GB for R250

Things are looking good for Telkom with their 8ta mobile offering, but if consumers will switch over only time will tell. Telkom does not have a great reputation when it comes to customer service and this may be held against them.

What do you think? Will you be giving 8ta a try?

MTN is kicking dust in the face of competitors when it comes to introducing new phones to the local South African market, they did it when they launched the iPhone 4 and now again it seems that they will be doing it with the release of the HTC Desire HD and Samsung Galaxy Tab P1.

MTN will be the first local cellphone operator to introduce a tablet to the South African market on contract, everybody has been waiting for the iPad to become available seeing as consumers in our neighboring country Namibia are already enjoying the Apple iPad on contract from the only mobile network operator. MTN already has the Samsung Galaxy Tab P1 on their price list and by the looks of things it’s affordable.

Apart from the Samsung Galaxy Tab, MTN also has the all new HTC Desire HD, the next generation Android phone that is set to compete head on with the Apple iPhone 4, on their price list.

Prices taken from the MTN SP Website:

There is also a Windows Mobile 7 phone on the list called the Mozart, go check out all the packages on the MTN SP website.

Hat tip to Gerhardt Fourie.

Motribe is a brand new mobile startup that just launched from the beautiful city of Cape Town.

Motribe is a platform that allows anyone, anywhere to build, manage and generate revenue from their own mobile social communities.  It provides a simple and easy way for enthusiasts, brands and community managers to launch social networks optimised for the mobile web.  It alleviates the initial investment of building and testing and puts a powerful set of functionality onto your mobile service right away.

To put it simple, with Motribe just about anybody can now run their very own mobile social network according to how they would like it with features such as Chatrooms, Broadcast Messages, Blogs, Photo Sharing and even Analytics and support for Advertisements so you can monitize your mobile social network.

Go check out Motribe to start your very own mobile social network, or check out the current mobile social networks available on Motribe.

Recently I started working on my own project called TweSMS, the ideas was spawned by Rafiq Phillips after there was a demand for twitter users outside the US to receive their tweets via SMS.

After I started working on TweSMS I eventually saw the great potential there still is in the mobile market, especially in Africa. Think about it this way, how many people own a cellphone? Vodacom reported in their latest financial report that they have 40.5 million mobile users, now this is just Vodacom and what if you add MTN into the equation who dominates the African market. I would say we can look at a figure like 100 million mobile customers in Africa.

Now ask yourself the question, how many of them doesn’t have access to Internet? I would say 90% if not more. This just shows you how much potential there still is in the mobile market.

I am surely starting to shift my attention from web start-ups to mobile start-ups, or at least something that combines the two. In fact I already have plans for a new mobile service in the education arena that involves SMS messaging.

If you have plans or dreams to try and make it big, try shifting it towards the mobile market as there are still plenty of undiscovered opportunities in the market.

If you would like to stay up to date on whats happening in the Mobile Arena check out WebAddiCT(s);

I have been putting blogging off for a couple of days due to my latest private project taking all my time. A while ago I read a message by Rafiq owner of Web AddiCT(s); where he asked if anybody was willing to write a Twitter notifications to SMS app.

After some investigation I found 2 current services of which one was closed down and the other one really expensive, almost R1 per sms. This lead me to investigating all the viable methods to send out sms messages from South Africa and having played with the twitter api before stared coding on some basic functionality.

I introduce to you TweSMS, TweSMS will allow you to receive SMS messages for different twitter notifications. Currently TweSMS only supports sending SMS messages for Twitter Direct Messages but will soon have functionality to be able to receive replies and even friend updates via SMS.

I am really proud of this project and would like to thank Web Addict(s); for the inspiration and support with this project aswell as Clickatell. I see big things in the pipeline for TweSMS and we are already testing away on the system.

For more info on TweSMS read the Web Addict(s); post, follow @twesms on twitter or visit www.twesms.com

Any person out there can se how cellphones are revolusionizing our daily lives. Take the average person out there, well I can almost say take any person out there, they own a cellphone with access to the internet and it doensn’t matter where they are they will always reach for their cellphone to seek information. As a result mobile applications have become more and more popular helping people find all sorts of things from music, chatting to checking bank balances.

Google saw the growth of the mobile application industry and announced their beta version of Adsense for Mobile Applications. After all advertisers are always looking for ways to reach potential customers when they are engadged with mobile applications.

Google AdSense for Mobile Applications allows developers to earn revenue by displaying text and image ads in their iPhone and Android applications. For Google’s beta launch, they’ve created a site where developers can learn more about the AdSense for Mobile Applications program, see answers to frequently asked questions and sign up to participate in our beta. Advertisers can also learn about the benefits of advertising in mobile applications.

Check out this short video of Google AdSense for Mobile Applications.