The BIC phone has very little to do with famed pen / razor / etc. maker BIC outside of the branding agreement, but we suppose the disposable nature of dried-up writing utensils and this curious cellphone is somewhat similar. Granted, the official word from Orange is that this handset is "not a throw-away product," but unless users mail off a registration form to the carrier and wait for the phone to be activated, the mobile (and the hour of calls it comes with) will be rendered useless in two months. The selling point here is the unpack-and-talk nature, not to mention the €49 ($77) price, but those hoping to grab a low-cost phone, hack it and use it elsewhere may be heartbroken to find that this one does nothing more than talk, text and tune into FM radio. Check it out soon (if you're so inclined) in French convenience stores.

[Via The Red Ferret Journal]

Read - Orange press release
Read - More details

Following a rather unceremonious rejection of a $41 billion offer earlier in the month, rumors are swirling that France Telecom is adding some extra cash onto its bid for TeliaSonera, a juggernaut carrier and ISP serving Nordic and Baltic countries. France Telecom's flagship brand is Orange, and if some sort of deal does go through, it could theoretically lead to Orange becoming one of the dominant carriers in the world with control over a huge swath of European spectrum. The talks, which are apparently still underway, are said to be extremely fragile -- they could end in tears of joy or sadness at any moment -- and France Telecom would like to get a deal done by Monday or Tuesday at the latest. More on this one as it develops.

Update: The bid is dead -- again. Something tells us this isn't the last time we're going to hear about this.

For those fortunate enough to be planning a trip to this year's Glastonbury, you can rest assured that forgetting your mobile charger won't be the worst thing that could possibly happen. Reportedly, Orange will erect a seven-meter high recharge Pod tent in which patrons can stop by and reinvigorate their winded handset. Said tent will boast 500-watt solar panels and a 500-watt wind turbine in order to generate electricity for the lifeless phones, and Orange is hoping to juice up 100 devices per hour. If only such conveniences were everywhere...

[Thanks, Adam]

Slowly but surely, Nokia's winning over even the most skittish critics of its push into the content space, and the latest win might be the most symbolically satisfying for them of all. France Telecom, parent of Orange -- an early dissenter of the Ovi plan -- has announced that it has entered into a broad agreement with Nokia to co-brand its services with Espoo's own, much the same way T-Mobile Germany and others have done. The three-year deal will see music sales coming from Orange's stores and search and mapping solutions coming from Nokia, while both companies will offer video games. Despite the massive investment, it's starting to look like that 2010 payoff date Nokia has planned might not be unreasonable in the least.

[Via textually.org]

We'll make this brief. Orange spokesperson Therese Wenger told the SDA news agency that it has secured rights to release the iPhone (3G version, presumably) in Switzerland and more than 10 other countries -- take that Swisscom! Other countries include Austria, Belgium, Poland, Portugal, and Romania. And France of course where it's already on sale. See, that was quick and leaves room for a dozen or so other iPhone related announcements today.

Update: Official Orange press release now out.

[Via 20minuten, thanks Pascal M. and Pae]

We liked the Viewty in black. We liked its Prada forebear in silver. Heck, we even liked in pink. But a shocking shade of purple? That might be pushing the limits of decency, even among the most loudly-accessorized mobile maniacs. Alas, Orange is trumpeting the arrival of its "exclusive" purple Viewty, featuring the same 5 megapixel camera, xenon flash, HSDPA, and full touchscreen that made the original a winner. It can be had for as little as zilch on the right contract, so we've gotta throw the question out there: any takers?

Perhaps spurred to action by T-Mobile's cooperation with 3, Vodafone's and Orange's UK networks have fleshed out some details over how exactly they'll be sharing infrastructure going forward. Starting this year, the two carriers will begin tag-teaming some cell sites across the country, leading to a roughly 15 percent reduction in the total number of sites needed (or so they say) in the first two years of the plan. They're quick to point out that they'll both continue to maintain totally separate networks and be solely responsible for the quality of service provided, it's really just a simple matter of slapping both companies' repeaters up on the masts. Seems like a win / win, we figure.

[Via MobileBurn]

Still struggling to figure out a way to turn a profit on the whole concept, carriers and infrastructure suppliers apparently have no bones about continuing to go full speed ahead on mobile TV R&D, trials, and deployments. NextWave Wireless' TDtv standard has one key advantage over competitors like DVB-H, DMB, and FLO, though: because it utilizes unpaired UMTS spectrum, it makes use of frequencies and technologies that carriers already possess. On the flipside, it has taken considerably longer for TDtv to come into its own, while DVB-H has secured a deathgrip on Europe and FLO has done the same in North America, so it's unclear at this point just how much impact it'll ultimately have. Anyway, Orange and T-Mobile apparently have shown enough interest to find out for themselves, with both carriers committing to TDtv trials in the UK that'll have West London customers receiving up to 24 telly channels and 10 digital radio stations when the system launches in the second half of the year.

Yes, we understand there are a few orange highlights on LG's new KH1800 for its domestic Korean market, but still -- "Orange color phone" just really doesn't seem like a wholly appropriate go-to-market name for this puppy. It doesn't really matter what color they make it, though, it's certainly not the most attractive LG we've seen, and with a 1 megapixel primary cam, the spec sheet isn't doing it any favors, either. Heck, not even the 13.3mm thick case is impressing us, though the international 3G roaming capability should find it a customer or two. Anyway, looks like South Koreans can get their paws on the Orange color phone in all its decidedly un-orange glory now for 352,000 won (about $372).

[Via PHONE Magazine]

Because the mobile industry isn't nearly monetized enough as it is (we jest, we jest), big players have come out of the woodwork at Mobile World Congress this year to announce some pretty heavy initiatives with the goal of revolutionizing the way we're hit up with advertising on our phones. Nokia has actually come forward with two mobile ad headliners: first, the Nokia Media Network is now official, bringing together ads on Nokia's own sites as well as 70-plus publishers' and carriers' properties under a single umbrella, all made possible by the company's 2007 acquisition of Enpocket; second, Nokia Siemens Networks has announced a turnkey solution for folks wishing to bite the targeted mobile ad bullet, spanning from consulting to infrastructure and ad delivery. Meanwhile, the big five carriers in the UK -- Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile, O2, and 3 -- have announced that they're working with the GSM Association to develop a common standard for measuring mobile ad reach, a marked change in some of the carriers' typical policies of keeping customer metrics well out of reach of potential advertisers and therefore limiting interest. One of those carriers, O2, has separately revealed that it has launched its own mobile advertising service (take that, Nokia Media Network) following a 2007 trial that will allow advertisers to get really, really down and dirty with their target demos -- age, location, browsing behavior, and so on -- through a system that generated a 6 percent click-through rate in testing. As long as the average phone display stays QVGA or lower, we're pretty sure we're not down with teeny, tiny banner ads all up in our business, but it's the wave of the future, it seems.

[Via mocoNews]

Read - Nokia Media Network
Read - Nokia Siemens Networks
Read - UK mobile companies to develop advertising standards
Read - O2 sets sights on mobile advertising market

Not to be outdone by a powerful Android presence, the boys and girls at the LiMo Foundation have brought it strong with a series of announcements at Mobile World Congress. Yeah, the SDK is en route, but that's just the beginning; first up, and perhaps most notably in its effort to fight the Android juggernaut, LiMo has managed to sign up a slew of new partners. Most notable on the refreshed roster include ACCESS (which just hooked up with MontaVista, itself a LiMo member), Samsung, and carriers Orange and SoftBank.

The foundation is backing up its talk with some walk, too, in the form of several production-ready handsets: the U9, Z6w, Z6, E8, RAZR 2 V8, and RAZR 2 V8 Luxury Edition from Motorola (all devices that have previously been launched using MOTOMAGX, Moto's own special flavor of mobile Linux), the Samsung i800 which is destined for Orange's airwaves, and the N905i, N905iu, N705, N705iu, P905i, P905iTV, P705, and P705iu -- a mouthful of models from members NEC and Panasonic for Japan's NTT DoCoMo. Also rocking out at MWC are prototypes from LG and Aplix along with the Purple Magic low-cost flip from Purple Labs. Is it all enough momentum to give some balance to the mobile Linux landscape and serve as the yin to Google's yang? Seems like a strong possibility, but we'll have to hold our horses until developers are playing with the final tools and handsets are in wide circulation.

Read - LiMo Foundation unveils first LiMo handsets
Read - New LiMo Foundation members introduced

We're still talking about a submicronic fraction of US sales, but Orange is happily touting that it hawked over 70,000 iPhones in their first month since launch, a figure that lies squarely in the middle of the 50,000 to 100,000 it had hoped to sell in that period. Perhaps more interestingly, 48 percent of those sales went to Orange customers, implying that the other 52 percent sold were unlocked -- the only carrier-direct unlocked iPhone model currently being sold anywhere. Question is, what's going to happen to all these numbers once the 3G action goes down?

[Via Mac Rumors]

Doesn't seem quite right to outfit a buttoned-up, all-business phone like the ASUS M530w in such playful colors, but maybe that's exactly why we like it so much. Eschewing the original blacks and grays for oranges and whites, the new version appears to retain everything about the phone that made it so lovable to begin with: HSDPA connectivity, 2 megapixel cam, microSD expansion, full QWERTY, and Windows Mobile 6 (wait, did we just call WinMo 6 "lovable"?). We imagine it'll be every bit as hard to find in the US as it was the first time around, but at least the visuals are a little more entertaining to look at from afar, are they not?

[Via Unwired View]