UK-based mobile content provider, Monstermob, has confirmed that it has received an approach for the company. The news was welcomed by investors with shares in the firm climbing ВЈ0.11 to ВЈ0.67 on Tuesday morning, bringing some relief to stockholders, which have received three profit warnings from Monstermob this year.

“The board wishes to stress that discussions are at a preliminary stage, the proposals being considered are subject to a number of material pre conditions and there is no certainty that any offer will be made for the company,” a statement to the Stock Exchange said.

After struggling against the tide in the UK, where ringtone sales are dwindling, the company refocused its efforts on Asia, particularly China. However, the company has faces more problems overseas.

In Malaysia, Monstermob subsidiary UnrealMind, has had three of its SMS-based services suspended for three months for allegedly breaching industry guidelines, according to reports.

One of the services that has been frozen is a football competition which the country’s regulator, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), alleges fails to comply with SMS regulations or competition rules. UnrealMind has been forced to refund subscribers to the service.

The game goes on – and thanks to T-Mobile, soccer fans can watch all the action live and in color, even on the go: MobileTV is transmitting up-to-the-minute live images, live broadcasts and match-day highlights directly to mobile displays on no less than three channels in time for the start of the German Bundesliga on August 11. Fans won’t have to miss a single crucial scene, even if they can’t watch the match on TV. T-Mobile has acquired the rights for mobile live transmission for the next three seasons for all matches in the first and second Bundesliga, as well as the secondary rights for summarizing highlights, and broadcasts. The offer is based on the signal of PREMIERE, which T-Com also uses for transmitting its online Bundesliga offering over the VDSL high-speed network.

The MobileTV offering for Bundesliga fans covers three channels:
# The Live channel transmits one complete Bundesliga top match every day from Friday to Monday, plus three selected second-league matches, including Monday’s top match.

# The Broadcast/Live channel transmits live broadcasts on Saturdays, switching between all Bundesliga matches, followed by live broadcasts of the second-league matches on Sundays as well as additional live broadcasts of complete first and second-league matches on the other match days.

# The third offer is the Highlights channel, which screens up-to-the-minute summaries of all first and second-league Bundesliga matches of the respective match day, the goals of the week, the best scenes from the match days and a host of soccer news and background info in a moderated Bundesliga show. The Highlights channel also broadcasts a moderated daily sports news program covering sports news from all over the world.

Both the Live channel and the Broadcast/Live channel – T-Mobile is providing both channels together with private broadcaster PREMIERE – go on-air 30 minutes before kick-off with individual preparatory reporting on the match being covered. The first analysis is broadcast at halftime. The final whistle and live broadcast are followed by an in-depth news report covering all goals. The Highlights channel is available 24/7.

The MobileTV offer can be accessed on the t-zones portal under MobileTV and for selected cell phones, on the bookmarks page on the web’n'walk portal under the Bundesliga menu, respectively. The use of MobileTV requires a 3G-capable mobile device. MobileTV can currently be used via the web’n'walk portal with Nokia devices N70 and 6680.

The Bundesliga offering is a component of the MobileTV service from T-Mobile. Use of MobileTV is subject to a monthly or daily charge. The flat rate of EUR 7.50 permits unlimited use of MobileTV for a month; access for 24 hours costs EUR 2. The price includes use of the entire MobileTV offer of T-Mobile. No additional costs are incurred for data transmission.

In addition to MobileTV, soccer fans can also stay on the ball away from home with the latest MMS and SMS news from T-Mobile and learn everything worth knowing about their favorite clubs. T-Mobile is offering video MMS news with its “Mein Team” (My Team) goal ticker as of the start of the 2006/07 Bundesliga season. This covers the very latest summaries of a favorite club’s encounters, or the top match of the second league. The “Meine Liga” (My Division) goal ticker provides a video of the goal of the day and a complete summary with all results of the match day. The goal tickers are also available as SMS news messages with additional information on all first and second-league clubs. Wallpapers with club crests and logos, ringtones, soccer songs and even an exciting soccer game are available for download. An overview of all T-Mobile soccer offers can be found on the Internet at www.t-mobile.de/fussball.

A clear success for T-Mobile: Germany’s number 1 mobile communication company provided its customers and the many visitors to the 2006 FIFA World Cup™ matches with a vast range of top-quality mobile communication services. The network performance, both in the stadiums and the packed city centers and public viewing arenas, proved itself capable of managing the great surge in demand. One in three of the 3.2 million spectators were signed in to T-Mobile with their mobile phones while visiting a stadium. While the games were underway, some two million calls were made from the stadiums. During the 2006 FIFA World Cup™, more than one billion calls were made through T-Mobile’s mobile communication network, with up to three times as many calls made on the fan miles, in the stadiums and at traffic junctions on World Cup match days than on days when no matches were held.

All users of the German T-Mobile network benefit from the high quality of the infrastructure, meaning that T-Mobile’s extensive preparations for the sporting event of the year have paid off. The company consistently expanded the supply of mobile communications in the stadiums, cities and at important event locations. In order to ensure an ample supply of mobile communication in the stadiums, in the teams’ hotels and on the fan miles, T-Mobile set up 50 additional – mostly temporary – mobile communication stations in the run-up to the 2006 FIFA World Cup™ and expanded existing sites by around 500 mobile communication transmitters. To put this in perspective, it takes 50 mobile communication stations to supply a city like Kassel, with 200,000 inhabitants, with sufficient mobile communication. In order to provide sufficient capacity for data transfer via UMTS and HSDPA, T-Mobile activated a second frequency at more than 60 UMTS stations in the FIFA World Cup stadiums, thereby doubling their capacity. By upgrading some 10,000 existing UMTS network elements, T-Mobile enabled ultra-fast HSDPA data transfer across the country even before the FIFA World Cup.

For football fans, T-Mobile offered an extensive range of mobile information and entertainment services for the 2006 FIFA World Cup™. One particularly outstanding offer is the MobileTV service. This supplied live broadcasts of important games directly to mobile phones via UMTS streaming. The channel “T-Mobile 2006 FIFA World Cup™ Highlights” also offers summaries and expert analyses of all matches following the FIFA World Cup – made by PREMIERE. The MobileTV service was used for a total of more than 700,000 minutes. The top matches were those of the German national squad: The preliminary round game against Ecuador and the quarter-final match against Argentina. And web’n’walk also enabled football fans to follow every goal on their mobile phones, be it via the internet, in the multimedia portal “t-zones” or with MMS News and SMS News.

The offering aroused a great deal of interest among customers, causing the use of the GPRS, UMTS and WLAN-based data services to rise considerably during the 2006 FIFA World Cup™. The entire data volume transmitted via T-Mobile’s mobile communication network was significantly greater than in previous months, at almost 500 Gigabytes per day during the sporting event. Particular contributors to this increase were the MobileTV services, various news services, mobile internet access via UMTS/HSDPA and increased use of HotSpots.

Eleven percent more SMS messages and 18 percent more MMS messages were sent via the T-Mobile network compared to the usual daily figures.

T-Mobile supported the organizers of the 2006 FIFA World Cup™ with innovative mobile communication services. Among them was FIFA’s VIP chauffeur service with more than 1,300 vehicles, which was organized via Push to Talk, the walkie-talkie service from T-Mobile. Plus, over 200 members of the 2006 FIFA World CupTM organizing committee used modern BlackBerry® handhelds from T-Mobile for mobile e-mail communication and scheduling.