Carphone Warehouse launches new tablet and phone bundles

Carphone Warehouse has launched a trio of new bundles that could see you get yourself a new handset and slate on one monthly bill.

Dubbed 'tethering' deals, Carphone reckons it's saving you money by alerting you to the fact you can tether your tablet to your phone's 3G connection, something that has been a feature of Android since FroYo (Android 2.2).

The deals will see you net a Samsung Galaxy Tab and Samsung Galaxy Apollo together from £31 a month, the BlackBerry PlayBook and Curve 9300 together from £36 a month or, slightly out of leftfield, the Archos 101 and HTC Wildfire S together from £31 a month.

Marketing maestros

None of these devices are exactly at the bleeding edge of the mobile market, but we doff our hats to the clever plan to shift old Galaxy Tabs and stagnant PlayBook stock.

Carphone also invested in a spot of research to support its new deals, finding that only 9% of tablet users connect their slates to their smartphones' data connection.

The survey of 3,481 people conducted by YouGov also found that Android tablet owners are twice as likely to tether to their phones than iPad owners – probably because Android tethering is free and iOS tethering is not.

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Carphone Warehouse and Talk Talk separate

Carphone Warehouse and Talk Talk will officially 'demerge' today, with the ISP and retail chain splitting and being run as independent companies.

Ambitious plans for both companies – Talk Talk acquired Tiscali last year, while Carphone Warehouse has a 50 per cent stake in the European arm of Best Buy – already make this an interesting time for the two companies, but the split is also about risk.

ISP Talk Talk was apparently worth 60 per cent of the combined value of the company, but the might of the likes of Virgin Media and, most prominently, BT and the growing profile of superfast broadband means that tough times could lie ahead.

TALK and CPW

"The company will demerge into two entities; TalkTalk will list under the ticker "Talk" and new Carphone Warehouse will list as "CPW"," confirmed Reuters' stock watch report.

There is still talk that Talk Talk is ripe from a takeover by either one of the major mobile phone operators or even BSkyB, a company which is keen to extend its ISP reach.

Talk Talk is also one of the partners in the BBC-led IPTV partnership Project Canvas, which has been granted provisional approval by the BBC Trust and is currently being looked at by the Office of Fair Trading.

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