Link: BBC NEWS | England | London | Text messages warn of clip joints

Text messages warning of the dangers of London’s “clip joints” will be sent to visitors as they approach the venues.

Westminster City Council hopes the messages will stop tourists being exploited in Soho, central London.

This week Ben Harvey examines jamming…

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Now, I do realise this may well be a heretical thought to voice on this site, of all places, but I have to put my hand up and say that I think there are some occasions when mobiles are just a comprehensive pain in the arse. Not just at the cinema or a wedding, but mostly just when you can’t be bothered to listen to the cretin next to you in a bar or in a queue or on the train (Honestly; I’ve got no idea why I’m still going out with her).

I first looked into mobile jammers a couple of weeks ago, when I was struck by the thought that it would be a perfect little practical joke to play on the inaugural SMS Text News Unlimited drinks do – an event full of the brightest minds in the industry, with Ewan having marshalled entrepreneurs, scientists and engineers into one room by the simple dint of lavishing them with free booze. I made enquiries as to just how easy it was to get hold of a jammer, my intention being, of course, as obvious as it was childish.

Like most of my little ideas, however, this one never reached fruition because of the high likelihood of it killing someone. Since home-made jammers work by spewing out random bursts of radiowaves, this, apparently, can be slightly inconvenient if you happen to have a pacemaker because not only will it make your heartbeat peak and slump as rapidly as an X-Factor winner’s popularity but it will also stop your friends from being able to call for an ambulance.

There is also the slight consideration that walking around with what amounts to a small radio station in your trousers can’t really be doing your spuds much good.

Anyway, my research onto the matter led me to wonder – why aren’t they used more often? By the government, which is famous for not having any spuds at all? For example, recent weeks have seen the annual issuing of exam-results, leading with grim inevitability to the now-traditional debate about whether or not GCSEs and A-levels are getting easier.

It’s a superb piece of timing, by the way, because it gives a solid, newsworthy story to write articles and columns about at exactly the same time every year, coinciding nicely with Silly Season – when newspaper editors go on their summer holidays, leaving their publications in the hands of their deputies. It’s called Silly Season because you end up with stories like this, and with Parliament in recess it’s a godsend for idiot hacks groping around for stuff to fill a paper with.

Anyway, this years’ debate has had a new tint to it, courtesy of teachers who claim that the exam-halls are rife with mobiles, with the precious little children industriously googling the answer to every single question they’re asked. Now, such behaviour isn’t new - I myself was thrown out of university for cheating in my final exams; I was studying Philosophy and Metaphysics, and was caught looking into the soul of the boy sitting next to me. The thing is, if such a perfect method of cheating can be eradicated by plopping a little black box in the exam hall, why don’t schools do it…?

Schools, universities, hospitals, prisons, churches…it’s not hard to think of locations that might just benefit from having call-free areas (churches especially – also, celibate priest won’t even have to worry about their goolies being microwaved, will they). Anyway, it turns out that there is a good reason why we’re not all walking around with simmering nut-custard; it’s because jammers are rather illegal. They were pre-emptively outlawed by the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949, which banned anything that “interferes with the radio signals of another device”. And although British law does have some refreshingly eccentric nuances to it, such as the people of Chester being able, after dark, to shoot longbow arrows into Welshmen, it is still strange that we’re using a law that’s almost 60 years old to regulate a technology that’s only been widespread for about 20.

Playing devil’s advocate, though, we can’t retrospectively bugger-about with laws simply because they’re inconvenient, because that would play merry-hell with existing businesses (such as the Chester branch of Kevlar R Us, [proprietor – Dafydd Llewellyn]).

Legal issues aside, it all does tend to come down to the simple adage that – as much as we’d like to – we as individuals don’t really have the authority to prevent other people from communicating. Voltaire once fatuously said, “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” – but he was French, which explains why he thought he was entitled to come out with such drivel.

Perhaps something a little more fitting for our cramped 21st century lives would be “I may not care about the conversation you’re having, but I’ll grudgingly permit you to have it, so long as you don’t even vaguely inconvenience or vex me, in which case I’ll find out where you live, break into your house and fill your steam iron with my wee”.

There you go. I guess that Metaphysics and Philosophy course was worth doing after all…

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Read more Ben Harvey here.

Yesterday morning I met with Marc Allera, Director of Sales for 3UK at the One Aldwych hotel in central London.

I started off with a question submitted by Paul:

How are the retail stores working out for you?
Marc: Very well indeed. We recently hit our key milestone of over 200 stand alone stores with another 50-60 to open this year. We’re actually opening at a quite a pace — 17 stores opened this week with another 25 due to open next month. It’s an aggressive policy — combined with our 130 concession stores in Superdrug.

We’re also testing concession stores with HMV. For instance, you can now find a 3UK shop in the Reading HMV — each concession staffed by 3UK teams.

Interesting! I like the concept of concession stores. I thought it was a little too soon to ask Marc how the HMV shop was performing. I wonder if they’ll notice higher than average ARPU from HMV-originated customers? Or maybe the opposite?

The next question I put to Marc was one close to my heart. It really is annoying not being able to discuss my account or make changes with the team in a 3UK store. They currently have to ask you to phone customer services. Pop into a Vodafone shop, by contrast, and the person behind the counter can do anything with your account that you need.

Why the disconnect between 3UK stores and Customer Services?
Marc: Well the main barrier for us to deliver better service in-store is our system. While our call centre agents can handle every enquiry you might have, our system doesn’t allow our in-store team to do similar. We’re mid-way through a major project to address this change — and we expect to complete by around March next year.

Well that’s good news. Very good news indeed. Whenever I’ve popped into a 3UK store, the team there have found it rather challenging to do anything with me — to upgrade me, to get me to buy more, or whatever — because it involves me phoning customer services and then having to wait 24 hours for any gizmos to arrive. A frustrating situation for an obsessed mobile geek like me. But a light at the end of a tunnel come March 2008.

Next, Rob emailed me following up on my post a few weeks back about the fact 3UK will match the Flext price plans offered by T-Mobile.

Do you plan on marketing your Flext tariffs more? I don’t like only having 200 text messages on my plan, for example.
Marc: When T-Mobile first introduced Flext, we made a very similar offering available too. I can’t comment specifically about this because we’ve a major tariff refresh coming this October.

Ah excellent. If recent performance from 3UK is anything to go by, the new tariffs are going to be shockingly good.

Quite a few people asked if I could talk to Marc about the customer segments they’re aiming for (e.g. Professionals vs Budgets):

What key customer segments are you aiming for?
Marc: We’re aiming for as many high quality customers as possible.
Ewan: What does high quality mean?
Marc: Well, happy, loyal customers who pay on time and who stay with us a long time. We’re a challenger brand — you saw this with the £15/month price plan.

(Note: o2 reacted by launching a £15/month ’simplicity’ tariff… only, without a handset — 3UK’s offering came with a decent Nokia, if memory serves)

Marc: We’re aiming to be a beacon of light in the market place. Our £15/month tariff got a lot of people into our stores — who then chose to upgrade to more expensive price plans, whilst we’ve got the likes of X-Series which really adds credibility to our offering.

Another chance to address a 3UK bugbear —

Ewan; Why is the Nokia N95 not shown anywhere near the X-Series site (www.three.co.uk/xseries)?
Marc: We’ll need to take a look at that.

Cool, cool, it just winds up the N95 X-Series fanatics not seeing it there.

A question from Kat:

What’s your favourite X-Series application?
Marc: Most definitely MSN Messenger. It’s great for staying in touch with my mates when I’m on the go.

Then it was time to ask Marc one of my favourite interview questions.

Ewan: What was your first handset?

[ Marc pauses in deep thought ]

Marc: Geez, it was a Nokia. I can’t remember the version. But I remember paying something like £2/minute on Vodafone when I was a student.

And your favourite handset ever? From a nostalgic perspective?
Marc: It has to be the Motorola StarTac, I loved it.

What about your first 3UK handset?
Marc: Ah, simple — I had an NEC 606, then an NEC 808 then an NEC 835.

And what do you use today?
Marc: The Nokia N73 [ He's got the nice, snazzy black N73 ] and I’ve got an Nokia N95 back at the office — I’m thinking of converting to that as my primary handset.

I thought it would be useful to get some background on Marc himself — so I asked him straight.

What’s your background?
Marc: My last role was as General Manager for Sega Europe — I was also Sales Director there for four years (during the time when Sega had recently launched the Dreamcast). Prior to this I worked in the home entertainment division as Head of Trading for John Menzies.

So, safe to say that Marc knows consumer retail back to front then.

What are you most excited by when it comes to the mobile industry?
Marc: The pace of change. For example, when you look at what we’re offering today — and what we offered a year ago, the speed of change is staggering. In 3-5 years, I can’t wait to see what we’ll be able to offer customers. It’s very exciting.

What do you use your mobile for most?
Marc: Calling first and foremost, then texting, taking pictures and football results. I just love the Premiership Scores application we offer — this year’s version is even better.

(Marc, by the way, is a Liverpool FC supporter)

What’s the best mobile application you’ve seen recently?
Marc: It has to be the Premiership Scores application - just brilliant for information on the move for a supporter like me.

I then thought I’d ask Marc to give me one line on each of the major operators. I thought it’d be rather interesting to see how he described his competition.

So, Marc, one line on Vodafone:
Marc: Big, red, strong
T-Mobile?
Marc: Inconsistent in channel, good work and progress on mobile data
Orange?
Marc: Culling loads of dealers — going through pain in the independent channel
And o2?
Marc: The best mobile retailer that we’re up against

Time was pressing so I asked Marc a few quick questions not specifically related to mobile:

What’s the last thing you saw?
Marc: The Departed - a brilliant film

The last album you bought?
A Headcandy compilation.

Marc likes is banging music! Nice. I’ve got quite a lot of Headcandy albums.

The last thing you downladed on your phone?
Marc: A Rafa Benitez ringtone

[ Rafa's the manager of Liverpool FC ]

Good man! Nice to meet a mobile industry executive who actually downloads stuff to his mobile.

Link: eBay Auctions by SMS Expands to 3 More Countries

SMS aggregator mBlox has said it’s working with application service provider Dynetic to offer a new SMS re-bidding service to eBay customers in the UK, France and Belgium.

The service, which launched in Spain back in September last year, enables eBay users to receive alerts when they’ve been outbid on an auction - and if they want enter a new higher bid.

The UK service costs 12p per message, and uses mBlox’s inbound and outbound premium SMS platform.

According to Ian Jordan, Head of Product Development, Operations and Innovation at eBay UK, “Traditionally web auctions are a desk-based activity and many auction biddings end prematurely because people leave their PCs. The possibility to participate beyond the PC from a mobile phone will have massive implications for the dynamics and value of the auction process.”

Link: Cells ‘react’ to GSM signals claims research | The Register

New research claims that cells can react to a GSM-like signal in as little as ten minutes - though if whether this could causes cancer remains open to interpretation.

Those who believe that mobile phones do cause cancer, and/or a wide variety of other ailments, suffer from two problems: the fact that long-term studies have shown no causal link, and the fact that there is no known mechanism for phones to affect cells. This study would seem to address the latter issue.

Link: Swedish Beers: Swedish Beers Mobile Networking, Weds 12 Sept 07

Uber-cool (and slightly Baltic-themed) mobile networking event Swedish Beers is back from its summer break - and heading to London on Wednesday 12th September.

Run by a highly talented team of individuals - including recent Flower Fairy recipient Helen Keegan, the event is being held in the back bar at the Nordic Bar in Newman Street from 6pm. It’ll feature the usual chat, mingling and talk of mobiles, marketing, media and life in general. And if the last few events are anything to go by, it’ll probably overtake the whole bar pretty quickly. You’ll find the Nordic Bar on Newman Street which is the North side of Oxford Street, nearest tube Tottenham Court Road or Oxford Circus.

Unfortunately, the bad news is the event sponsor has had to postpone their sponsorship of Swedish Beers as they’re not quite ready to shout out about the wonderful things they’re up to. So it would be *really* marvellous if another generous sponsor could help with the bar tab. Otherwise, it’s buy your own drinks night. And as Helen puts it, “if it’s the latter, it will be your challenge to find someone who has a works expense account to buy drinks for you all evening ;)”

If you’re interested in sponsoring the bar, meeting loads of mobile folks and gaining some real good karma for buying people beer, give Helen a call on 44 794 053 8802.

Link: Wembley kicks off over text ad | Advertising | MediaGuardian.co.uk

Wembley Stadium has issued a legal warning and a £500 bill to a mobile company that kicked off a guerrilla marketing campaign by projecting its logo on to the sports venue.

Texperts, a question-and-answer text service, projected its logo on to the side of the new Wembley two weeks ago as part of a £1m rebranding campaign that included projections on the MI6 headquarters and Battersea Power Station.

Aside from having the balls to issue as legal warning that comes with a bill attached (”Would you mind paying this legal bill?”), I have to wonder why Wembley Stadium didn’t also bill Texperts for water rates, cookie costs, electricity and a few drinks for the lads. Is it now standard practice to write a legal letter to someone and attach a bill to it? Heh.

I picked this Guardian story up thanks to quite a few people who emailed me it. Have a read down and see if you can spot the SMS Text News role?

Link: SMS Alerts Reduce Missed Doctors Appointments by 27%

Healthcare messaging company iPLATO have helped reduce missed appointments across the borough of Lewisham, in South London, thanks to the power of SMS.

The deployment of the companies Patient Care Messaging to GP surgeries across the Lewisham Primary Care Trust area cut missed appointments down by 27% over the last year. Once registered on the system, patients receive reminders about appointments and other health-related messages via SMS straight to their mobile handset.

Honor Oak Practice Manager Marie Searle commented: “We have an ethnically and socially very diverse population in Lewisham. A vast majority of patients already use their mobile phone to run their daily lives and our experience of using this system from both the staff and patients” perspective has been very positive.”

Telcogames, a global publisher, developer and distributor of mobile games has acquired Viva La Mobile a leader in
real-time multiplayer games for mobile devices. Viva La Mobile has been live with their proprietary Redstar multiplayer platform for the past three years with great success. So far 3 Australia; 3 Austria; 3 Hong Kong; Smartone Vodafone Hong Kong; PCCW Sunday Hong Kong and Telstra are all live carriers cumulatively generating over 1.4 million paid for
multiplayer game sessions.

In addition to real-time multiplayer, the Viva La Mobile Redstar platform allows payment flexibility with pay per play billing, free play and subscription models. It also offers chat, high scores, international leader-boards and tournaments under its mobile games championship(MGC) brand with carrier grade servers hosted in several locations worldwide
reducing the integration required for carriers and eliminating any cost on behalf of carriers.

Orange Israel will be Telcogames’ first customer to launch Viva’s multiplayer games in September. Launch titles will be Super Puzzle Bobble multiplayer from Taito and Viva’s own critically acclaimed Badlands multiplayer game. Other single and multiplayer titles Viva has created include Rubiks Cubed, Aqua Dig and Fire Frenzy amongst others.

Jamie Conyngham, CEO Telcogames said “The Viva acquisition allows us to continue offering our clients the latest advances in mobile games. Gamers in many European countries have yet to see branded real-time multi-player games such as Taito’s Super Puzzle Bobble and we intend to change to make this part of our offering to our global distribution base”.

David Kainer, MD Viva La Mobile stated “Telcogames global distribution will allow us to get people playing our games around the world and to enjoy the great experiences we have built into our games.  We will also be able to take our technology to the next stage with the full backing of Telcogames, a global player”.

Every Monday (or, er, Tuesday if it’s a Bank Holiday) we send out flowers to a deserving person in the mobile industry.

The recipients are nominated by SMS Text News readers. The only critera for nomination is that they must work somewhere in the mobile (or related) industries and that you must rate them.

So please don’t hesitate to email me with your suggestion together with a few lines about why they are deserving. We’ll add them to the flowers list and put their name in lights. It could be them we’re sending flowers to next week.

I caught this one on the wires today — I’m not surprised to read that students want an emergency text service introduced for their college. With today’s communications capabilities, there’s no reason why Universities shouldn’t implement this kind of service. The cost is negligible vs the benefit / peace of mind value.

Link: KKCO - HomePage

Virginia Tech underwent tragedy last April with the massacre of more than thirty students, and just this week a student was stabbed in the throat at the University of Colorado Boulder. Now students at Mesa State say they want to be informed right away if an emergency like this were to hit home.

This is bread and butter for emergency broadcast services like omnilert.com.

We recently caught up with Stuart Brown of MediaBurst and asked if he’d like to answer one of our SMS Text News interview questionnaires. MediaBurst has a lot on the horizon so it was great of Stuart to take the time to answer our questions. Here’s what he had to say.

Read the rest of this entry »

Remember the Nokia N-Gage? This rather ill-fated attempt by the handset giant to get into the portable games console market sort of fell flat on it’s face. But never to fear - the N-Gage brand has been wheeled out again, this time as a games platform for existing Nokia N-series handsets.

The service, due for full global roll-out in November 2007, brings multiplayer gaming to to the N73, N81, N93, and N95. It’ll allow you to try all N-Gage games for free, and participate in the online “N-Gage Arena”.

“As we expand our focus from a dedicated game phone to a gaming service, we are making getting and playing games even easier,” said Jaakko Kaidesoja, head of the games business at Nokia. “The N-Gage service combined with powerful devices, world class titles and brands, and interactive social networking features, takes the mobile gaming experience beyond traditional boundaries.”

There’s also been a few titles announced for the N-Gage platform, including EA Sports FIFA 08, The Sims, 2 Pets, Tetris, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour. If you’re a fan of the classic Nokia Snake game, watch out for Snakes Subsonic too. Nokia have also announced that they’ve got game publishers Capcom and Vivendi on board, as well as the rather popular Crash Bandicoot game.

Early indications put the cost of each game at 6-10 euros (about £4-£8), and will be available to purchase via operator billing (where supported) and credit card billing. There’s also apparently daily and weekly game licenses available - useful if you get bored of your games quickly.

Link: Caribbean Resort Bans Mobile Phones from Beaches

Fancy a holiday to St Vincent & The Grenadines, but find the thought of parting with your mobile worse than having all your limbs removed? Then you may wish to strike off Palm Island from your list.

Elite Island Resorts - who own the luxury Caribbean resort - have banned guests from using mobiles, laptops or PDAs within half a mile of Casarina beach. Chief Executive Rob Barrett has said: “There is nothing worse than lying back in your double hammock, sipping on your strawberry daiquiri and hearing the Motorola jingle in the background.

“We would love to encourage guests to adopt Caribbean time during their stay with us, switch off their mobiles and enjoy the sound of the lapping waves.”

What, no Nokia ringtone? “HELLO? YES I’M ON THE BEACH. THE BEACH!!” (in true Trigger Happy TV style)

Link: Nokia’s iPhone — no, seriously - Engadget

Oh come on, what the hell is that? A Nokia branded iPhone? It was presented during Nokia’s GoPlay event this morning as a glimpse into the future of Nokia interface design. Oh, and it’s due out next year.

Laughably late, Nokia.

Far too late.

(Thanks for the link, Tom)

Fancy standing out from the crowd with a decent ringtone, rather than the standard rubbish Nokia one? Well, now you can, thanks to Voxtone.

For over two years, Voxtone founder and CEO, Nadeem Mughal, has been working on creating a service that enables users to simply and easily request their own ringtone that features professionally sampled music, together with a voiceover unique to you.

Example? Well, I’ve just ordered ‘Ewan is a Beast’ for my voiceover. When I get it, I’ll put it up here as well as stick it on my N95 as my ringtone. I’ll just need to remember to put it on silent when I’m in meetings.

I had a chat with founder Nadeem yesterday. He came across as a passionate and stand-up entrepreneur. He clearly has a passion for music — indeed, his background is in music production across the entertainment industries. Noticing the over-saturation of the ringtone market, he brought his music experience to bear setting up Voxtones to create unique ringtones for every customer.

Right now you’ve got a choice of two voice over artists — one American accent and one English accent and plans are afoot to extend this shortly.

The service has been going great guns in North America (it’s been live there for about 3 months) with the biggest user demographic (perhaps predictably) being the young working professional crowd.

Voxtones won’t record profanity — but other than that, you are limited only by your imagination. Nadeem, for example, has “Mr Mughal, you have a telephone call” as his ringtone on his Windows Mobile device. He reckons it really does feel as though you’ve got a PA everywhere you go. I am gonna definitely try that one out! Wicked!

You can pay for your order online via PayPal (£2.50) or via mobile (£4.50 cost) — and for now, you have to go online to create your order. That’s because you’ve got to fill in the form and tell them exactly what you want on your ringtone.

Voxtone are looking for resellers — do contact Nadeem if you’re interested — plus, they’re busy signing up mobile operators to add Voxtone packs (say, a pack of 10 new Voxtones each month) to the bundle options for their consumers. Standby to be able to add that to your bundle.

Voxtone are privately funded and are looking to do their first round soon.

A little bit more on the service:

VoxTone™ is a fully customisable solution for every ringtone and sound notification need.  It comprises a specially produced pre-alert sound, from a wide selection, alongside a personally requested and recorded voice message.  VoxTone™ can say anything a customer requests, such as a personal nickname, company name and any requested sentence.

Customers can design their VoxTone™ at www.voxtoneonline.co.uk which will be recorded by a professional voiceover artist and delivered within 48 hours; either directly to the recipient’s mobile phone or to their chosen email account.  Customers can use their VoxTone™ files not only with their mobile phones but also their PC/Mac, to personalise any alerts they desire. Via mobile VoxTone™ is currently available in both MP3 and WAV formats to T-Mobile, Virgin Mobile, Vodafone, Orange and 3 customers.  Customers can also receive their VoxTone™ via email.  VoxTone™ costs £4.50 when sent directly to mobile phones or £2.50 when sent to an email address. 

Here’s the run down on how it works:

How VoxTone™ Works
•        Visit www.voxtoneonline.co.uk to begin designing your VoxTone™.
•        Real, professionally recognised voiceover operative says your requested name or sentence, no matter how difficult or uncommon it is.
•        Your requested name or sentence can be as long as 80 characters.
•        Choose from 2 different Voice Accents, British or North American, to record your VoxTone™.
•        Comes with exclusively produced pre-alert sounds to further customise your VoxTone™
•        Receive your VoxTone™ via your mobile phone or your choice of email address.
•        Pay for your VoxTone™ via your mobile phone, PayPal or using a credit card.

It’s a super concept, I love it!

I’ll publish mine shortly so you can see how it sounds!

Cubic Telecom’s new service will shortly be arriving. It promises to really poke the existing mobile operators in straight in the eye when it comes to roaming. I’m looking forward to being able to — as Pat puts it — pick up my handset and use it, anywhere in the world, without having to worry about stupid, stupid roaming costs.

There’s a substantial amount of market interest in Cubic Telecom so I’ve decided to publish their release in full below.

Cubic Telecom, the innovative international telecommunications operator, today announced plans to become the world’s first truly global mobile service provider. Cubic Telecom’s service aims to eliminate the high cost of international roaming charges by focusing on introducing simple, high-quality telecommunications services. Their breakthrough technology intelligently uses existing mobile phone network resources to drive down costs. Its core target market is aggrieved customers across the globe who don’t understand why they can’t get value for money when making international calls and roaming. Cubic is working towards free speech.

The company was founded in 2005 by renowned telecommunications blogger Pat Phelan, and is headquartered in Cork with offices in Vancouver, Canada and offers service in 160 countries. To date, he has backed his vision of “working towards free speech” by raising a EUR3.5M investment from private backers in order to develop a suite of innovative global mobile and home phone products under the Cubic Telecom brand, together with its own international virtual carrier network. A further EUR1.5M has been raised to fund a series of international launches of products and services in the coming six months.

Cubic has just completed its first round of telecommunications partnerships, which will see its services becoming available in 160 countries. It is now commencing its marketing partnership round, which sees it seeking wholesale and resale partners. Its initial focus will be on Europe, North America and Australia.

Cubic Telecom’s chief executive officer, Pat Phelan, commented, “We want a world in which you can pick up your mobile phone anywhere and call anyone for as long as you like and not worry about the price. When most people think about driving down the cost of telephone calls, they think of calling from computer-to-computer. We don’t. We deliver simple, high quality, high value telephone services direct to the devices that people like to use - their mobile phones. There’s no software to download, nothing to configure, nothing new to learn. Our service is straightforward and our network caters to all.

“We’re creating telephony products and services that allow the planet to talk at sensible rates.”

Just in case you’re after a refresher, here’s the low down on Cubic:

Based in Cork, Ireland, with offices in Lisbon, Portugal and Vancouver, Canada, Cubic Telecom is an innovative global communications company focused on introducing simple, high quality and high value telecommunications services. Its core target market is aggrieved customers across the globe who don’t understand why they can’t get value for money when making international calls and roaming. Cubic Telecom was founded in 2005 by renowned telecommunications blogger Pat Phelan. Pat wants a world in which anyone can pick up their mobile phone wherever they are and call anyone in any country for as long as they like without worrying about the price. Cubic Telecom is working towards free speech.

I was walking back from breakfast this morning getting more and more annoyed. I headed straight to my desk to write. Cue a rant.

I can’t tell you how incensed I was when I handed my Apple iPhone to my mother, who, within 30 seconds, had learnt the user interface and was merrily playing music, taking, organising and showing off photos and trying to make phone calls (although the SIM isn’t functional yet).

It really, really annoyed me.

How come she was so able to understand the interface so quickly? How come she wanted one? What?

What’s happening? What’s going on? It took us nearly 6 months to get her to reliably learn to use her RAZR. We tried with a Nokia, but seriously, that was even more challenging.

The source of my anger is that Nokia, billion, billion dollar company that it is, keeps on vomiting out absolute rubbish.

You and I — that is, mobile smarts — get it. We lap up the 5 megapixel cameras. We delight in the ability to install third party apps on to the handset and so on.

Meantime Apple comes along and blows every other handset manufacturer away.

It’s all about the interface, stupid.

And with the latest news that Nokia is shortly to vomit out a music store in a searingly pathetic attempt to make up for the shit, shit, shit MP3 shite music players that it’s been foisting on us for years… I can’t even be bothered to link to the news.

I’m a huge technical geek, yes? I have a 2 gig card in my Nokia N95. I used Nokia’s Apple Mac sync thing, (again, I’m annoyed so I can’t be arsed to find the proper name), to transfer music to my device.

Which I did.

But it didn’t quite work. I mean, the music, some music, transferred. But when I got to my Nokia, it took about 10 seconds to load up the music player (to find the tracks). Only then did I hunt around looking for the playlists…….. which were nowhere to be found.

That’s just a piece of shit.

Piece of rubbish.

You can’t be vomiting out this sort of inept crap when Apple are hawking their beautifully designed, 100% ’syncable’ iPhone that, shock horror, just works.

For months I’ve been doing the Emperor’s New Clothes thing with the N95 — and, in fact, any Nokia. I’ve found myself wondering why I even bother. A multimedia computer? Yes. It’s a sad indication that it’s ‘what computers have become’ though. The music is shit.

It’s always been shit. In fact it’s been shitter — they’ve made it a little better.

Music certainly isn’t the be-all, end-all. But music is a key component to one’s digital lifestyle. That’s why Apple sold ALLLLL those iPods. That’s why you, me and everyone else on the planet carries their perfectly-capable Nokia MP3 player AND their iPod.

Because the Nokia handset’s music functions, despite what the brainboxes in Finland have tried to deliver, is massively, massively substandard. We’re still in the 1990s with Nokia and music.

Will their latest attempt at going multimedia with their new Nokia Music Store get anywhere? Well, the jury is surely out. I won’t be holding my breath. I’m very open to a claw-back. I’d like to see Nokia succeed and I will be the first one to congratulate any triumph that they can deliver. I just won’t hold my breath.

I’ve been singularly unimpressed with T-Mobile of late. I used to be a heavy user of Agile Mobile Messenger - for MSN, GoogleTalk and so on. I often used to conduct business and catch up with friends whilst sat in a taxi going places.

However a little while ago, T-Mobile upgraded their systems to prevent Agile Mobile — or, I imagine, any other instant messaging service — from working via their standard 7.50/month Web ‘N Walk service plan.

This was fair enough. They were pretty explicit about instant messaging not being ‘allowed’ on the low Web ‘N Walk tariff. Instead, customers are urged to upgrade to the next tariff — 12.50/month — to be able to use instant messaging.

I duly did so.

Rubbish.

It’s still not working. I figured it would just work.

What’s more, I used T-Mobile’s online account management service to remove T-Mobile WiFi service from one of my accounts. I then enabled WiFi service on another account. Result? F-All. My WiFi service has been deactivated and……….. the other account’s WiFi service hasn’t been activated. I haven’t got my login details so I can go online from the likes of a Starbucks or wherever else T-Mobile have WiFi support.

Useless.

This kind of flakey service winds me right up. Right up. It isn’t difficult to get this to work properly. Gahh. I sometimes do wonder just how much sticky tape is used to keep the T-Mobile systems running.

Which brings me to Blackberry. There is, I reckon, no better mobile instant messaging device level implementation than the Blackberry GoogleTalk service. It’s so tightly integrated — it’s just phenomenally good.

I was in a Vodafone store today lusting after one of the newer Blackberries with their GoogleTalk integration.

I think I’ll need to dump one of my T-Mobile accounts and swap the E61i to work on 3UK. I can’t be without instant messaging, it’s really beginning to annoy me.

Good news for Mobstar. They’ve done a deal with Danger, the folk behind the Danger mobile internet platform — known chiefly, I think I’m correct in saying, for being available on the uber popular Sidekick devices. Now and again I see Sidekicks here in London, but they’re ridiculously prevalent across America.

Mobstar have inked a relationship with Danger — they’re going to be creating a series of bespoke premium themes for the US market to begin with.

I’ve been really impressed with the quality of stuff I’ve been seeing coming from Mobstar recently.

Can you be too old to text? Nahhh. So proves doyenne of the silver screen, Dorothy Dare, in this story from the Daily Express, picked up by Yahoo News.

Link: Y! India Movies - E-mail, SMS keep Dorothy Dare and Elizabeth Taylor in touch

While most elderly stars would say that using the internet or sending SMS to friends is not their cup of tea, actress Dorothy Dare surely is one actress who knows how to operate the contemporary technology.
The actress who starred in Gold Diggers Of 1935 alongside Dick Powell and opposite Bette Davis and George Brent, says that she uses her computer to keep in touch with her friends.

“All my friends are on e-mail now. Some of us have arthritis so it’s easier to e-mail than write letters these days,” the Daily Express quoted her as saying.

The piece goes on to explain how Dorothy recently received a text from a former colleague aged 100+. Impressive!

I hunted for a picture of Dorothy.. but couldn’t find one so used one of dear Liz Taylor in her prime.

Hello! It’s Krystal here with apologies for the Flower Fairy being delayed this week, apparently if you’re not sending actual flowers you can’t get same or next day delivery, and the bank holiday put me a day behind to begin with.

On that note…

Today’s flowers (actually, we chose chocolates this week) are on their way to this week’s good guy, Ross Elmsly of Sybase365. He was nominated with these kind words by John Maynard over at Vodafone:

Do you know Ross Elmsly from mobile365? Vodafone run Aggregator forums every quarter, giving our customers a chance to get face to face with the product mangers looking after the wholesale stuff, and to chat to each other. They are always well attended and people enjoy them.

At the latest one, there was a draw for a chance to be scared whitless in a fast car by Lewis Hamilton - Ross won the draw.

Thanks John!

Enjoy your flowers chocolates Ross!

Link: Vodafone cranks up 3G data rates for autumn | The Register

 First reported by us here about a month ago, Vodafone have now confirmed they’ll be rolling out HSDPA and HSUPA speed increases on their 3G network this autumn.

Vodafone will be pushing its HSDPA network to a possible 7.2Mb/sec download speed and introducing HSUPA to increase uploading to a possible 1.44Mb/sec, during the autumn as it tries to boost corporate data usage.

Vodafone defines central London as being E1, E1W, E14, EC1, EC2, EC3, EC4, NW1, SW1, W1, W2, W8, W9, W10, W11, W14, WC1, WC2: so everyone else isn’t central.

As well as Vodafone’s definition of central London, service should be enhanced at most UK airports. Which is nice.

Since my article last week with rumours that Monstermob had gone bust, I’ve had quite a few emails from interested parties asking if I know anything else. As it’s been a long holiday weekend in the UK, I haven’t had a chance to do any further research - however it appears I won’t be needing to. Here’s a statement I’ve got from Miguel Lopez-Quesada, General Manager, Corporate Communications at LaNetro Zed - owner of Monstermob:

“As disclosed in a letter to all shareholders from the Chairman, dated August 16th and published on the Monstermob Group plc website (www.monstermobgrouplc.co.uk), as part of the ongoing process of corporate rationalisation and reorganisation within the Monstermob Group the Board has decided to begin an administration process for three UK subsidiaries, these being Monstermob Ltd and two other companies with limited activity (Phunky Ltd. and Mobiprom Ltd.). This decision has been taken to preserve the rights of the creditors of these subsidiaries. The financial and patrimonial strength of Monstermob Group PLC will not be affected in any material way by these measures.

Monstermob Group plc remains as headquarter of the group, based in Lancaster and operating in absolute normality. The administration process is a normal business practice and is being conducted according to the law and with all the guarantees to the parties”.

(Thanks to Marc at Mantra PR for the information)

el Chumpo, AKA “o2″, has cooked up another raft of data plans for international roaming — as has, I think, been commented before.

Paul Worsley caught this via the o2 site and I thought I’d better document it for my own sanity. Whenever I think that we’re getting somewhere with mobile data in this country, I have to remeber to come back and browse the posts I’ve made under the Mobile Data category here.

International Data pricing
Tier Price per MB
Tier A £6.00
Tier B £4.50

Notes:
Charging is in 1KB increments
Charges apply at all times of day
1MB is 1,024KB

From 1 October 2007 we’re removing Tier B pricing. All usage will be charged at the Tier A rate.

So Tier B — 4.50 a meg, will shortly be defunct. You will now be hosed at a more attractive six pounds per meg.

Ridiculous.

Still, if you’re an o2 customer, I say this to you, in a slightly Glasweign accent:

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a foking big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed- interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Just, please, don’t choose o2 any more. (Rest of the Trainspotting quote here).