This Week in Global Mobile | January 14, 2011

At times it's difficult to keep pace with the latest global mobile developments. I hope this selection of news stories from the past week will help you navigate the growing global network of connectivity:

• Mobile use among U.S. Hispanics rose 26% since 2006, compared to only 18% among the general public, reported Scarborough Research.

• At last week’s CES convention in Las Vegas, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski stressed the need to unleash more spectrum to support mobile innovation.

• By the end of 2011, mobile broadband users will surpass wired broadband consumers world-wide, reported GigaOm in an interesting analysis of global mobile numbers.

• A team of researchers at University of Dar es Salaam reported that over half of all Tanzanians are hooked on mobile phones.

• Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak collected questions from citizens via Twitter, promising to respond to some of them on the microblogging site.

• The Philippines’ telecommunications authority announced controversial new rules for ISPs to follow, including the ability to impose daily data caps on Web users.

• On Tuesday newly-elected Representative Justin Amash (R-MI) held a public forum hosted by Facebook discussing how congresspeople can better connect with their constituents using social media.

• 107 trillion e-mail messages, or nearly 300 billion each day, were sent world-wide in 2010, reported Pingdom.

• Facing intense opposition from its British public, T-Mobile backed down from its plan to limit all data users to 500MB, choosing instead to only impose the restriction on new customers.

• Hiroko Tabuchi wrote an interesting article in NY Times about Facebook’s troubles gaining momentum in Japan, where less than 2% of the population uses Facebook.

• The Korean Police Department is debating whether to formally charge Google against breaking the country’s privacy laws by collecting data on wi-fi networks via its Street View service.

• Companies that employ a social media strategy gain greater market share and earn higher margins, reported McKinsey.

• Nine major public hospitals in Russia switched to fully-digitized medical systems on  Monday using IBM’s Lotus Notes technology.

• Canada-based BlackBerry manufacturer RIM conceded to India’s request to access encrypted messenger and e-mail content after months of negotiations.

• Verizon announced the arrival of Apple’s iPhone to their network in a move which could have far-reaching effects on the mobile market.