HTC slashes price of HTC U Play by 10000 Rs, exclusively available on Amazon.in for INR 29,990

HTC Corporation announced today that the recently launched HTC U Play  will be available exclusively on Amazon.in for Rs 29,990. Launch of HTC U Play was announced in February along with HTC U Ultra. At the time of launch the price of phone was said to be Rs 39,990.

HTC U Play - Sapphire

HTC U Play comes in Sapphire Blue and Brilliant Black colour options and will be available exclusively on Amazon.in. The device is available at zero cost EMI to customers for a limited period.

The HTC U Play 5.2” smartphone comes with a 64 GB internal memory and 4 GB RAM along with 3D contoured liquid surface and a lustrous, symmetrical, curved glass construction that reflects light beautifully. It also supports additional micro SD cards up to 2 TB. Aptly labelled as the phone that is made ‘For the Playful You’ the HTC U Play comes with HTC Sense Companion. This personal companion is always learning from you and comes with built-in voice recognition so that it’s able to respond to your voice.

Other features include HTC USonic²microphones that analyse your inner ears with a sonar-like pulse, and then adapts to you. The HTC U Play is equipped with a perfectly symmetric thin design and a unique combination of 16 Megapixel rear and an UltraPixel^TMcamera technology on the front that provide vivid light, colours and details to take brilliant selfies

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ASUS partners with Home Credit to offer 0% Interest EMI on Smartphone purchase

Taiwanese smartphone maker ASUS  today announced its partnership with one of India's leading NFBC Home Credit. This partnership will allow users to purchase ASUS smartphones on EMI without having to worry about the interest. However there will be a fixed processing fees of Rs 399 or Rs 599 for 6 months or 7 months terms respectively.

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This strategic step was taken to ensure that consumers have easier access to ASUS smartphones, enabling them to live their digital lives without any hindrances as there is a lot of dependency on today's 4G mobiles.  The schemes, available across Zenfone 3 Max 5.2, Zenfone 3 Max 5.5, Zenfone 3s Max, Zenfone 3 5.2 and Zenfone 3 5.5, will enable customers to purchase these smartphones with hassle-free financing options.

Commenting on the partnership, Peter Chang, Regional Head - South Asia & Country Manager - ASUS India, said, “We have always believed in empowering our consumers with products that perfectly combine advanced technology and luxurious specs. We are very excited about our partnership with Home Credit. Consumers will be able to purchase our smartphones, while also giving them the freedom to select a financing option that suits them the best.”

Speaking on the collaboration with ASUS, Artem Popov, Chief Sales Officer – Home Credit India, said, “We are delighted to partner with a leading smartphone brand like ASUS. We are optimistic that our association to offer quick and easy loans at zero percent interest and easy EMI options will make buying ASUS phones much easier and convenient throughout our 8500 Points of Sale spread across over 70 cities in 15 Indian states.”

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5G Indoor Wireless Equipment to Represent Only 5% of $10 Billion Global Market by 2025 - ABI Research

5G deployments indoors and in venues may be delayed by one year or more when compared to outdoor 5G deployments starting from 2020. ABI Research estimates the global equipment market for in-building wireless, including active distributed antenna systems (DAS), passive DAS, and repeaters, for 2025, will reach close to $10 billion. The overall system revenue in 2025, which includes services and equipment, will grow at a CAGR of 15% to top $19 billion in 2025. Out of this market, 5G in-building wireless equipment will account for $509 million in 2025.

"As 5G nears full specification, mobile network operators will face challenges for indoor mobile coverage, including signal propagation, next-generation fronthaul/backhaul, and massive MIMO," says Nick Marshall, Research Director at ABI Research. "Early 5G deployments indoors and in venues will be a migration building on the features of LTE-Advanced and LTE-Advanced Pro. This will happen technology by technology and frequency by frequency, avoiding costly 'rip and replace' style deployments."

5G is a multi-technology HetNet, comprised of a combination of different cell types and access technologies to seamlessly adapt to an array of use cases and applications. NFV migrates cellular signal processing to a remote telco data center, while MEC, in a countervailing trend, migrates IT compute and storage to the network edge within the building or venue for low latency use cases and applications. Massive MIMO, a key challenge that 5G will face as it nears full specification, refers to the use of multiple antennas at the base station and mobile device.

"We believe that future 5G networks will rely on network functions virtualization, or NFV, and mobile edge computing, or MEC, to alter the architecture and topology of the RAN by leveraging telco data centers to virtualize signal processing in the cloud," concludes Marshall.

With 5G standards yet to be finalized, many equipment vendors are actively researching and developing 5G equipment with a variety of approaches. These companies include Nokia Mobiles with its AirFrame/AirScale Radio Access, Ericsson with its ERS, and CommScope with its OneCell.

ABI Research profiles these companies and more in its In-Building Wireless in the 5G Era report, which also includes a discussion on the challenges of 5G for in-building wireless.

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HTC, CRY comes together with initiative 'Aarzoo: ek wish har Arzoo poori karne ki' to improve quality education access for girls

Sonal (Name Changed) is an activist and she is only 12 years old. She is a member of the "Little star children's group" from Shahbad dairy that works towards educating children on protecting themselves against abuse. Like the other members of the group, she has been working with other children from the basti who are yet not associated with the children group.

She is a part of Aarzoo – a movement, a promise to fulfill dreams of countless young girls from the lower income group families by facilitating guidance and resources to supplement their dedication and enthusiasm. In association with 'CRY - Child Rights and You', and as a part of its corporate social initiative, HTC Corporation, a leading innovator in mobile and virtual reality technology, has launched the initiative ‘Aarzoo: ek wish har Aarzoo poori karne ki’’ in India.

The initiative brings together HTC and CRY in an effort to create education and basic training opportunities for the girl child from the under privileged sections of our society. As a part of this initiative, beginning February 2017, HTC will, for a period of six months, contribute part of consumer sales proceeds towards delivering an on-ground impact on girl child education for 1500 girls through CRY.

‘Aarzoo’ aims to bring positive changes in the lives of the under-privileged girls by giving them the opportunity to learn whilst working towards recognizing, promoting and protecting their rights. In order to build mass reach and awareness and establish connect it will involve the use of Digital consumer connect campaigns as well as on ground activation via events and activities. HTC employees will also join the drive by donating their time towards the cause – volunteer for CRY. The initiative will culminate with a large children festival in Delhi.

Speaking on the association, Mr. Faisal Siddiqui, President-South Asia, HTC said, “According to DHS data around the world, female literacy rates are improving but India ranks 38th among the 51 developing countries for which comparable data is available. Indonesia, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Tanzania — all rank higher than India. We firmly believe that education is the birthright of every child, especially girls as their education and awareness helps build a better and progressive society. We are pleased to associate with a reputable organization like CRY, which has been dedicatedly working towards providing a better childhood to children to take a step forward towards fulfilling this vision of ours. I would like to reiterate our commitment towards providing quality education and enable better prospects for the girl child in the country."

                       

Welcoming this initiative, Ms Soha Moitra, Regional Director- North, Child Rights and You (CRY) said, “Education is a powerful tool with which we can empower the girl child. It not only helps them to become confident individuals but also goes a long way in fighting several social evils and issues like child marriage, abuse, maternal and child mortality, malnutrition etc. Educating a girl child is the first step towards transforming society and we are extremely glad that HTC is championing this cause and supporting us in making education accessible to every child. We believe this initiative will go a long way in empowering girls and bringing them into the mainstream.”

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Reliance JIO Free Offer extended till 15 April, Summer Surprise offer for prime members on recharge of 303 or above

When every thought that they might be using the JIO freebies for the last time today, Mr. Mukesh Ambani yet again made it official that the offer is extended for last time. This time the offer is extended for 15 another days, i.e. you can enjoy the existing offer till 15th April, 2017. Along with that the members who have opted for prime membership will be entitled to first Surprise of many surprises to come. As 'Summer Surprise' Offer, prime members who recharge for Rs 303/- or more will get services for the initial 3 months on complimentary basis. That means you get Unlimited Data (28 GB at 4G speed, with 1 GB FUP per day) for 3 months with recharge of Rs 303/-.

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The letter from Mr. Ambani also states that over 72 million people have already enrolled for prime membership and they are still counting. As per the letter this 15 days window is to ensure smoother transition from free to paid services. The official letter reads:

"Jio’s free service period is COMING TO AN END. Users who do not recharge by the extended date of 15th April will experience degradation and/or discontinuation of services.

But, I am conscious that this is the largest migration from free to paid services in history.We are committed to doing this gradually, so that both Jio and Jio customers have the time to adjust, fine tune and perfect this transition."

The letter from JIO MD also touched upon the investment and efforts organization is putting into getting infrastructure ready for seamless experience for customers.Below is the text from the letter.

"Jio has created the world’s largest greenfield 4G LTE wireless broadband network, with over 100,000 mobile towers. And we will add another 100,000 towers to our network in the coming months. This greenfield investment – of over Rs 200,000 crores – is the largest anywhere in the world. We are acutely aware that we have small pockets of congestion on our network. With our investment in network expansion, you will see a dramatic improvement in service quality in the coming weeks.

Mobile Number Portability (MNP), which allows consumers to retain their existing mobile number when they switch to Jio, is available for all consumers. Lakhs of consumers have already used this facility. If you have not done so already, I invite you to do MNP and make Jio your permanent home. For International travellers, Jio’s International roaming is now available across the world, with best voice and data rates in industry."

The zest of today's letter is that JIO is in no mood to leave any stone un-turned to gain maximum market share in Industry. The dynamics have changed a lot since JIO's entry in market as rival companies are offering a great deal on data and voice plans to compete with JIO. Vodafone's merger with Idea also brings interesting twist in the tale. We must say its all good for the consumers and the best time after initial Reliance CDMA entry which ended charges on incoming calls.

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