Huge achievement for the Telecom markets. The impact of having a mobile phone is quite far reaching than just enabling communications.  Cellular Phone became a life style for many, a life saver for some and integral part of their livelihood for a whole lot of others. As per the statistics, at the end of 2007, as per ITU report, one in two in the world now have a cellular phone. Wow!

Source: 49% of humans have mobile phones: ITU
THE number of mobile phone users world soared to over 3.3 billion by the end of 2007, equivalent to a penetration rate of 49 percent, the International Telecommunications Union has said in a report.

Africa showed the strongest gains over the past two years and more than two thirds of all mobile subscribers were from developing countries by the end of 2007, the ITU said. This is ‘a positive trend that suggests that developing countries are catching up,” the report said. Mobile subscription growth stood at 39 percent annually in Africa between 2005-2007, and 28 percent in Asia over the same period. India and China added 154 million and 143 million new subscribers respectively. The global annual average growth rate stood at 22 percent, the ITU said.

Are you a virgin Mobile customer? Have you heard about face book? You might be able to earn free airtime minutes, if you happen have a good network of friends on face book. Read on.

Facebook has a brand new Sugar Mama, thanks to a unique new application that lets friends earn wireless airtime for other friends who are Virgin Mobile USA customers. The national provider of wireless communications services and plans without annual contracts has designed the “Fund My Phone” application, allowing Virgin Mobile USA’s more than 5 million customers to get their Facebook friends to help pay for their wireless minutes.

“Fund My Phone” is an extension of the popular Sugar Mama mobile marketing program first launched by Virgin Mobile USA in 2006. Customers who opt in to Sugar Mama are invited to earn up to 75 minutes per month by viewing a variety of ad spots and other creative materials and answer a few questions. Customers also earn airtime by completing surveys online, responding to branded text messages or forwarding Sugar Mama spots to friends to share. Over 700,000 Virgin Mobile USA customers have opted-in to Sugar Mama since its launch, earning more than 26 million minutes of free airtime.

Virgin Mobile USA’s New ‘Fund My Phone’ Application on Facebook(R) Platform - FierceWireless

You can carry an ipod, olympus recorder, Palm PDA, a cell phone, a digital camera, a gaming console, a GPS navigator, a jump drive, a laptop to access internet, …………….. or you can have a smart phone that can do all of these and more. Smart Phones for sure are redefining the Mobile life styles. Cellular Life Styles Apart explores the M-powered life styles.

AT&T Raises Messaging Rates
Effective March 30, AT&T customers who do not subscribe to a bundled messaging plan will have to pay $0.20 per SMS and $0.30 per MMS. The cost of sending each will rise by $0.05

In CBS Test, Mobile Ads Find Users
CBS plans to announce on Wednesday that it is trying one of the first serious experiments with cellphone advertising that is customized for a person’s location. Its CBS Mobileunit is teaming up with the social networking service Loopt, which allows its subscribers to track participating friends and family on their mobile phones.

Apple’s iPhone is 3rd most shipped smartphone
According to a recent report from Canalys, Apple’s iPhone is the third-best selling smartphone in the world. The iPhone had a 6.5 percent market share worldwide during the fourth quarter

Americans Recycled less than 10% of Mobile Phones
Only 9.4% of Americans who bought new mobile phones last quarter recycled their old handsets, a survey from iSuppli Corp’s consumerTrak service says. This is double the number of phones recycled in the third quarter of 2007 but well below the numbers hoped for

Will Watch Ads For Free Games
The vast majority of people — 90 percent, to be precise — will watch ads if it means they get to play games for free, according to a report presented by RealNetworks at the Casual Connect conference in Amsterdam.