"I had a patient who developed inflamed tendons in her thumb from using her smartphone, and was unable to use her hand for weeks due to pain," said Tim Hutchful from the British Chiropractic Association. "The phones are far too small, with keys that are too small," she said, noting that pain in the upper limbs forced one of her patients to stop texting, and instead switch to voice-recognition software. As well as hand injuries, experts point to problems among smartphone and tablet users arising from hours spent leaning over tiny screens. "The weight of an average human head is between 4.5 to 5.5 kilograms," said Hutchful.In an ideal posture, where a vertical line can be drawn from your ear through your shoulder, hip, knee and ankle, "the weight is carried efficiently", he noted.But if the head is constantly held forward to squint at a screen, then the unusual posture makes the head feel up to four times heavier, increasing strain across the whole body, he explained. "Text neck" is, in effect, the latest manifestation of repetitive strain injury (RSI), a condition that affects one worker in 50 in Britain.RSI is the name given to a group of injuries affecting the muscles, tendons and nerves, primarily of the neck and upper limbs. It is particularly prevalent among workers who spend long periods using computers and computer mouses. It is a treatable condition, but experts warn that it is essential not to ignore the early warning signs.In France, RSI is the main cause of sick leave in the workplace.Emmanuelle Rivoal, a Paris-based physiotherapist and osteopath, has observed an increasing number of patients who are paralysed by pain "because they spend more than five hours a day in front of a screen".While stressing that he did not want to "demonise smartphones", Hutchful offered some pointers for gadget aficionados to avoid injury, such as keeping smartphone use at under 40 minutes.- TelecomTiger

A number of retailers in North America are already selling cut-price PlayBooks in a bid to shift units, and RIM confirmed at the beginning of last week its tablet would go on sale in selected outlets priced at $199, albeit for a limited period of time, but a far-cry from the initial $499 price tag attached to the 16-GB version at launch. "Although a number of factors have led to the need for an inventory provision in the third quarter, we believe the PlayBook, which will be further enhanced with the upcoming PlayBook OS 2.0 software, is a compelling tablet," insisted RIM co-chief executive Mike Lazaridis. "RIM is committed to the BlackBerry PlayBook and believes the tablet market is still in its infancy," he said. However, RIM also warned that its third-quarter revenue will miss its previous guidance of between $5.3 billion and $5.6 billion. The company also admitted it no longer expects to meet its full-year earnings per share guidance of between $5.25 and $6.00. RIM also said it expects to book a $50 million charge related to the network outage that occurred earlier in the quarter. In addition, RIM also warned that it expects total fourth quarter unit shipments including smartphones to be lower than the third quarter, "due to several factors including lower than expected sell-through in the third quarter and RIM's current view of fourth-quarter - TotelTelecom

The deal gives Verizon more capacity as it builds out its high-speed fourth-generation network nationwide, a competitive advantage as AT&T devotes more resources to getting the T-Mobile buyout past regulatory muster. AT&T has said the $39 billion deal, which the Justice Department has sued to block, is crucial to freeing up its network for data-hungry devices such as the Apple Inc. iPhone. AT&T has met resistance to its plan over concerns it would be anticompetitive and raise consumer prices, in part because the carrier would leapfrog Verizon as the largest in terms of customers. Friday's Verizon deal would seem to give the carrier a smoother path toward approval, as the cable companies' spectrum was otherwise unused. J.P. Morgan analyst Philip Cusick said Verizon would be paying about 54% more for the block of spectrum than the cable companies paid in 2006. Verizon said it will pay $2.3 billion to Comcast,$1.1 billion to Time Warner and $189 million to Bright House. The carrier is expected to reach at least 200 million Americans with its 4G network by year-end, compared with about 70 million from AT&T. Verizon Wireless is co-owned by Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC. Verizon Communications recently added 16 cents to $37.93 - TotalTelecom

For most players "even the revised price doesn't cover their variable costs. That's clearly indicative to say that industry will take a practical view on their pricing at various points in their lifecycle," Kapoor said."Boards and investors of companies now have lesser tolerance for non-performance and indiscriminate burn of cash." Earlier this month Bharti announced a disappointing 38% drop in second-quarter net profit as a weaker rupee and a surge in interest expenses drove up costs and its customers made fewer telephone calls. Net profit in the July-September quarter fell to INR10.27 billion ($225 million) from INR16.61 billion a year earlier. Bharti increased call charges in India by up to 20% in July, but that is yet to translate into higher average revenue per user, a key performance indicator for telecom companies. Its ARPU in India fell 4% sequentially to INR183 in the second quarter, while average usage slipped 5% to 423 minutes. Kapoor said the company, which is about 32% owned by Singapore Telecommunications Ltd., plans to launch fourth-generation mobile telephony services before the end of its current fiscal year in March 2012 and expects data usage to rise in coming years. "We are definitely moving toward a data explosion. The data story in India, given the mix of our demography, can go nowhere but north," he said, pointing to the rapidly- TotalTelecom

According to reports, two main reasons for the decline of MNP service users is firstly, when a subscriber puts in a request for porting, he hits numerous roadblocks in the way. And, second, incumbent operators dish out freebies to users who put in a request for porting in a bid to stop him from moving. As a result, out of a total 20 million requests for porting by users, nearly 5mn have not been carried out. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had estimated a 10% porting rate in the first 15 months. As compared to other countries, India is still lower 4-16% of the subscribers using MNP service. Whereas in Hong Kong 27% of the total user base shifted operator when MNP was introduced in 2000, added reports - TelecomNewsIndia

Reports stated that Rajya Sabha ex-member Janardhan Yadav ( Bharatiya Janata Party) whose pending bill is around Rs. 22.29 lakh leads the list of ormer MPs defaulting upon their bills. Others in the list include ex-Lok Sabha MP Basavaraj Patil ( Congress) whose dues amount to around Rs. 17.20 lakh followed by late Rajya Sabha MP K. Mohammad Khan (Congress) who owed Rs. 15.28 lakh to MTNL. The list of defaulting sitting MPs is led by Rajya Sabha MP Narender Budhania (Congress) with Rs. 13.37 lakh unpaid followed by Lok Sabha MP Ram Sunder Das (Janata Dal-United), with Rs.9.49 lakh, and Bhakta Charan Das (Congress) whose dues are Rs.3.3l lakh, added reports.- TelecomNewsIndia

"Operators would prefer to reuse their existing macro sites," Ewerbring insisted. He told Total Telecom that it is more cost effective for operators to enhance the performance of their macro networks, for instance by attaching additional carriers to their base stations, than it is to build out a vast network of pico and micro cell sites. One of the main reasons for this is that it costs operators more to rent, build and backhaul additional sites than it does to optimise existing ones. There are also maintenance costs to consider, he said. "The cost of going out and fixing one of thousands of small cells every time one is accidentally broken, painted over or is [stolen] is going to drive up opex," he warned. Ericsson is not anti-small cells, however. As part of its heterogeneous network, or HetNet strategy, the company in February this year unveiled its antenna integrated radio (AIR) unit, which as the name suggests cuts down on size, power consumption and installation time by integrating a cell site's antenna into its radio unit.- TotalTele