deutsche telekom

During the IFA Preview today in Munich, Deutsche Telekom confirmed that Windows Phone 7.8 will have Rich Communications Suite (RCS-e) functionality. The functionality was noted earlier in the leaked details and will come in the form of a separate application and integrated with Windows Phone 8. The RCS-e services will be a cross platform, cross network functionality Previously, RCS-e was announced during the Summit a few weeks ago for Windows Phone 8 but it's a technology that most people are not familiar.

In Deutsche Telekom's presentation they discussed using Joyn services that will provide chat, file transfer and video chat features between carriers. . Joyn will be interoperable between Orange, Telefonica and Vodafone networks for now with O2 Germany coming on board after launch.

The service will provide free chat and file transfers and charge for video chat. Commercial availability is planned for October. It will be interesting to see how the RCS-e services match up with existing services such as Skype. Equally interesting will be to see if the U.S. Carriers can play nice to establish such interoperability.

We've seen things like this before--think Sprint's horrid proprietary PictureMail years ago--but RCS-e at least sets some standards. Personally we think 3rd party services like IM+, Kik, Nokia's Pulse and others are the future but we're glad to see Windows Phone 7.8 getting it too, it should make carriers a little more inclined to support Windows Phone.

Source: Unwired; via: wmpoweruser

We've seen the Omnia 7 in Australia get updated to allow for tethering and now Deutsche Telekom is getting into the action.  Microsoft has updated their "Where's My Phone Update?" page to show Deutsche Telekom's Samsung Omnia 7 is now being scheduled to receive the Mango update. 

Good news for the Omnia 7 and if all goes as planned, the update should start rolling out within the next few days (within 10 according to Microsoft). Unfortunately there is still no change with Telefonica and the Omnia 7. The Spanish carrier is still showing the Mango update in the testing phase.

Thanks goes out to everyone who tipped us on this!

We recently caught wind of Deutsche Telekom's plan to roll out Mango to HTC devices beginning next week and later cover Samsung handsets. Chip.de now reports that the German-based operator is looking to kick start the process as early as Monday, September 26th.

Hopefully more details surrounding the Samsung wave of the roll out will be released sometime soon. 

Source: Chip.de (Bing Translate) Thanks Malte for the tip!

For those with the super sleek and snazzy HTC Mozart, we getting word that Deutsche Telekom has finally starting pushing the long sought NoDo update for that phone today. Originally scheduled for "end of April" we'll give a "close enough!" pass to DT here.

No more info at this time as far as firmware changes, but HTC almost always includes some under-the-hood changes e.g. the driver required for the hidden WiFi app.

No word on the Omnia's update getting pushed out but we think it's just a matter of time.  Anyone else can confirm their update in comments? Go ahead..

Thanks, Fisi_zubi, for the tip

We covered LG complaining last week about the somewhat dissatisfying performance of the Windows Phone 7 platform, which was expected with iPhone and Android absorbing majority of the news. However, the comment made was still received with mixed feelings.

Contradictory feedback - reported by Yahoo! - from German carrier Deutsche Telekom, largest mobile provider in Europe and mother of T-Mobile:

"We are ahead of budget, Microsoft is very pleased."

Which Ingo Hofacker, Head of Consumer Marketing at the mobile giant, provided. It is a good sign that they are witnessing WP7 devices selling off shelves at speed, and one can only predict this trend to continue as updates come this year.

Thanks Philipp for the tip!