Next Thursday we’re in Dublin for the Irish edition of our now (in)famous Unlimited Drinks and if you want to come along there’s still time to get your name down. Just send Ewan an email (ewan@smstextnews.com) with UNLIMITED DRINKS = YES in the subject line.

You can find out all the details here, but all you really need to know is that it is being held in the Magic Glasses Bar, The O’Callaghan Stephen’s Green Hotel, Dublin (map) from 6pm onwards.

We’re expecting a really good night. It will probably be a little more intimate than the recent London events, but that’s good because it will give everyone more time to chat and network. Even if you’re based in Dublin it might be worth a trip over.

Don’t forget - send Ewan an email (ewan@smstextnews.com) with UNLIMITED DRINKS = YES in the subject line and we’ll see you there.

I’m very impressed with Orange. Very.

I was just checking out the cost of an Nokia N82 and browsing the price plans when I got a little window pop-up on my screen asking if I needed help.

My gosh! A mobile operator, trying to help folk online!

Vodafone famously has a brilliant ‘Forum Intervention Team’ — but they intervene (as per their name) rather than pop their head in the door when you’re browsing their site online.

It seems Orange have gone all modern on my ass.

Fresh from announcing a fair use bundle of 500mb of data on most of their price plans, they’re now helping customers who are browsing their site. Smart. Very smart.

It’s been a long time coming. I’ve been calling for mobile operators to add this sort of service for a long time. I’d actually like to see something even better — a kind of ‘mobile concierge’ so that if you’re thinking of joining an operator, you can pop into chat with someone and, provided you’re spending a decent amount of cash, say 100/month — someone will hold your hand through the entire process and sort it out for you.

Anyway here’s my experience with the Orange Live Chat adviser….

System@Orange: Welcome, thanks for your question, we’ll be right with you

System@Orange: Christine M has joined this session!

System@Orange: Connected with Christine M

System@Orange: Welcome, thanks for your question, we’ll be right with you

Christine M@Orange: Hello Ewan MacLeod, I’m Christine

Christine M@Orange: How can I help you today?

Ewan MacLeod: Christine, good to hear from you

Ewan MacLeod: I’m wondering about Unlimited Data

Ewan MacLeod: is that integrated into your price plans now?

Christine M@Orange: It is a bonus feature on some of our fantastic tariff’s at the moment. Is there a specific tariff you have been looking at?

Ewan MacLeod: not really — I’m thinking something at around 30 odd pounds per month, with an Nokia N82

Christine M@Orange: Let me just look into that for you.

Ewan MacLeod: excellent

Christine M@Orange: What do you use your phone for at the moment other than browsing and downloading from the internet?

Ewan MacLeod: a range of calls and texts Christine

Ewan MacLeod: I don’t have a specific bundle in mind

Christine M@Orange: We have an excellent range of tariffs designed to suit you needs. Would you say you call or text more?

Ewan MacLeod: gosh, I don’t really mind Christine

Ewan MacLeod: what do you have there? the key for me is the monthly cost and unlimited data

Ewan MacLeod: the rest, well, I really enjoy unlimited landline calls

Ewan MacLeod: and I’d like a few hundred texts at least

Christine M@Orange: For ? we have some excellent tariff’s. With the dolphin packages for ? you receive 600 anytime minutes and unlimited texts with the unlimited mobile browsing as a bonus.

Ewan MacLeod: ah now, can I ask you a slightly geeky question Christine

Christine M@Orange: Of course.

Ewan MacLeod: when you say ‘unlimited mobile browsing’ — I like to take photos, videos and the like and send them straight up to the internet

Ewan MacLeod: so the majority of my data usage would be ‘data’ and now mobile browsing

Ewan MacLeod: sorry, i mean, ‘and not mobile browsing’

Christine M@Orange: That’s absolutely fine within this tariff. You would be able to do all of that within your allowance. Is there a specific phone you are looking at just now as there are some I can recommend that would be good for using the internet.

Ewan MacLeod: The Nokia N82 has been calling my name, Christine

Christine M@Orange: I think that tariff would be the best for you and the phone is free on this tariff.

Ewan MacLeod: remind me of the cost per month of that one, Christine?

Christine M@Orange: That tariff is the Dolphin 35 for only ? per month, including VAT.

Ewan MacLeod: On my screen, the cost figure comes through as a fancy japanese character!

Christine M@Orange: That’s saving you ?each month if you bought instore rather than online. How does that sound?

Ewan MacLeod: ? — that’s what it looks like — could you tell me the number of pounds per month (sorry!)

Christine M@Orange: ? per month. Let me know if that figure doesn’t come through.

Ewan MacLeod: i’m afraid it doesn’t!

Ewan MacLeod: could you type the numbers as a word! weird!

Ewan MacLeod: (Could be my apple machine)

Christine M@Orange: Sorry.Thirty pound per month. How does that sound?

Ewan MacLeod: ah perfect

Ewan MacLeod: that’s good

Christine M@Orange: If you add the phone and tariff to your basket you will continue through the easy steps of buying your new phone.

Ewan MacLeod: ok i shall do that

System@Orange: The session has ended!

Now, I did as told. I added it to my basket, only to get another screen up asking me if I’d like to add an Orange Data Bundle:

Deary me. Not joined up at all, as yet. Hmmm.. Should I continue to Order? I think I’ll hold off.. I’m not filled with confidence as yet.

Interesting. Orange UK have implemented pop-up customer services chat.

I was browsing their site and a little window popped up to ask if I needed help… cool! More soon..

We’re doing our best to try and work out exactly how many folk are listening. It’s a bind, a total bind. There are oodles of stats and clicks and download notification engines to look at.

In the end you have you stick up your hands and say,… ‘Er, I reckon this is probably about right.’

So thank you everyone who’s been following our trials and tribulations with the podcast over the last 12 weeks. We record the 13th one tomorrow. In some cases we’ve done over a hour of nattering. I think the right length is about 30 minutes and the chaps have been working hard to keep it to that.

The next step is to introduce some guests. If you’ve got an opinion about mobile, then we’d like to hear from you.

Ideally we’d like to get you into the studio (the office in London). So if you’re available on Fridays (and sometimes Saturdays) and you can get to London, drop me a note and we’ll try and schedule things.

I’m mulling the idea of a Skype conference call too, to help connect people who can’t easily get to London. We’ll work it out.

I am still disbelieving, even after all this time, that I can actually sit and work on a USB broadband modem for 8 or 9 hours across a day, and for it to work continuously and without error.

It really is very smart.

I think I’m still expecting things to screw up. I remember when my GPRS internet connection was good for about 10 minutes or so, then you had to reconnect. Those were the days. Of pain.

Today I carry both a 3 and Vodafone one and they’re both equally excellent.

It’s just astonishing that they work. I need to get over my connection-anxiety.

Flirtomatic, the UK’s sexiest (and leading) mobile/online flirting service has taken another step forward — this time, they’re heading into Europe with the launch of an entirely localised service for Germany.

I nodded sagely when I got the news. Germany’s a good choice for Flirtomatic. An mobile-mad country with good penetration of a wide range of quality handsets. A mature market. Obviously the service has been available worldwide for a long time — indeed, 20% of Flirtomatic’s userbase are international. But Germany’s the first country outside the UK to get it’s own entirely localised service with German customer service. And, I imagine, a heck of a lot of marketing.

They’re nearing a million users in total — in fact, with the launch in Germany today, I doubt it will be very long before I get a note from CEO, Mark Curtis, confirming that.

Mark’s got together with SevenOne Intermedia (the multimedia arm of German broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1) to launch the service. Makes sense. They’re Germany’s largest family of TV channels with a heck of a lot of other mediums — not least, web and mobile. So the cross promotion will be rather exciting.

If they get it right — and I’ve no reason to doubt the Flirto team, they’ve done a tip top job in the UK — then I reckon they’re poised to go nuts in Germany too.

The other dating services out there should do well to note Flirtomatic’s strategy. They’ve already kicked the UK arms of the other major dating services into touch. Buy them quickly or they’ll eat your lunch.

If you haven’t checked out Flirtomatic recently, by the way, do so. Try signing up via your mobile and see how they’ve made the process as simple and as frictionless as possible.

Ever since I got my Vodafone account I’ve been missing phone calls.

I’d be on the phone to someone, I’d finish the call and then I’d get two or three Spinvoxes arrive.

The realisation that people had been trying to call me whilst I nattered away was quite unnerving. I eventually did the equivalent of a Homer Simpson ‘Duh’ — Call Waiting wasn’t enabled by default.

It took me another month or so of occasional ‘errrs’ in my mind to do a Google search and find the code to enable Call Waiting on the Vodafone UK network.

It is, in case you were wondering, *43#. Then #43# to disable. More details here.

Surely Call Waiting is a service that everyone would want activated immediately? No?

On that page on Vodafone’s site, there is, inexplicably (to me, anyway), a picture of a guy scratching his head (top right) and a portrait photo of some middle aged chap do a mild mannered smile at me — unusual branding…

a

For a long time a few years back, I used a Nokia N90, and then a Nokia N93. I loved them. Obviously I had issues with the wider concept of the Nokia/Symbian architecture, but, I must be clear, I loved the phone, it was genius.

The best bit about it was being able to flip it open, then flip the screen and within a second or two, be ready to take a picture or a video.

This was, of course, before the days of FlixWagon and Qik. You took a video and, er, … it sat on your phone. And you couldn’t actually upload it live, because every operator was charging 3 or 4 quid a meg for data transfer at that point.

The N93 was slightly slow when it came to the Gallery and other functions. But the ‘near DVD quality’ video and 3.2 megapixel camera was spot on. Here’s the Gary Oldman ad by Nokia (itself, also a piece of genius):

My N93 headed to the shelf — sadly, on reflection — when the N95 came along. Yes that handset was annoyingly flawed (well, the firmware, anyway), but it was a lot smaller, better camera, better video, lighter.

So my N93 has sat gathering dust. Until the other night when I wanted to take some video of the Private Mobile Network working. I reached for the N93 and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I remembered that it had WiFi capabilities (no sim though) so I connected it to the local network and then I remembered it still had one of my ShoZu accounts running. Perfect. So the photos of the Private Mobile Network yesterday come courtesy of the N93. Here’s one of them:

You can pick up an N93 on eBay UK (24 available right now) for about 140 pounds ‘buy now’ or slightly cheaper if you hang around for the auctions to end.

I was talking with Ricky Cadden of Symbian Guru earlier about just how little development appears to be going on across the industry as a whole (handsets included). Just looking at this N93 (launched, according to Engadget on the 24th April 2006), the model is more than 2 years old.

I can’t see much difference between it and, say, a Nokia N95 8GB or a Nokia N82. One or two improvements — more memory, obviously, slightly faster processor… but really, there’s hardly much difference beyond a few incremental upgrades so far. Whilst the N93 is a bit of a chunky phone, it’s doing a good job even today. Simultaneously great news and highly depressing.

Great news because for the installed base, Nokia’s delivered a handset with a degree of lasting appeal. But depressing in the context of boring, staid, incremental innovation.

Anyway… I’m going to find a sim and try it with some streaming video services.

Rumours abound of a T-Mobile UK router. Lots of rumours. I’ve been hunting for hard fact, but there’s not-a-lot-o-that as far as I’ve been able to see.

Speculation from some folks apparently in the know (salt, salt, pinch of course) is T-Mobile are due to hit the market with a ‘router’. Now. This could definitely be a US-style ‘T-Mobile@Home’ service. Or it could be something a little bit more exciting, particularly when various sources are mentioning it in the same breath as T-Mob’s USB stick.

We’ll see, eh?

There is something ever so exciting about getting an AdMob Payment notification email.

We’ve had AdMob advertising on SMS Text News Mobile for quite a while and it routinely generates maybe $70-$80 a month. Certainly not enough to fund an Unlimited Drinks event in London, but you know, it works, this mobile advertising thing.

If you’re one of the mobile readers clicking now and again on little adverts that appeal, good-on-ya. I have to confess I’ve clicked once or twice. Not, I hasten to add, in a bid to drive up revenue. Not at all. More out of curiosity because the advertising is actually working on me.

I particularly like to see ads that are targeted to the browser or mobile handset that I’m using at the time, (e.g. “Get ringtones and themes for your iPhone/Nokia”). I’ve been a customer of that service a few times as a result.

I am out amongst the Great Unwashed today. Fascinating. It’s always good to get out in the provinces and check out the reality of mobile use in today’s society.

I just sat down next to an old Australian couple surrounded by luggage bearing the LHR tags. They’d obviously just arrived into the country.

They were trying to text their son to tell them what train they were on.

As i arrived in the carriage, the wife turned to her husband asking, ‘Does your phone do numbers?’

‘Nope!’ he replied, staring with some effort at his Nokia 3330, willing it to make sense.

‘Mine has never done numbers,’ she said, sticking her handset back in her handbag whilst she watched her husband struggle.

In the end, after about 15 minutes, he completed the text by writing out ‘twelve fifty five’ in long words.

‘We’ll have got there before you send that!’ exclaimed the wife.

Ah dear. I smiled.

Just when you think that the mobile industry is moving forward, you come across an experience like this. Granted, the couple were old. But until the industry gets simpler, better and quicker at adapting to users’ needs (rather than them having to bend around it), there’s going to be a constant revenue cap. This couple could well afford to spend a good amount of cash on mobile communications. Indeed, they were most probably roaming as I think their Nokia was a Vodafone Australia or NZ branded one. They clearly weren’t thinking twice about the cost of sending an international text message. Make it simple and they’d have paid more and their ARPU would have crept up even more….

Ah well…

An interesting survey has just been published thanks to ACCESS Systems Americas, Inc. It found that 73% of US consumers buying a new handset said that text messaging was an important feature.

The research was conducted by independent research firm Amplitude Research and other features that scored highly were having a camera (67%), having email capabilities (63%) and accessing the Internet (61%); while only 0.5% of respondents said that battery life was important - not like our own James Whately during Glastonbury.

For the geeks amongst us, it is interesting to read that 39% of respondents have added new applications, while 21% have added six or more new applications.

But it wasn’t all geeks they talked to. They also surveyed some people just like my mum - as 4.83% said that the only reason they have a cell phone is in case of emergency!

You can read more on FierceWireless here.

This morning it was judging time for the Esendex Two-way Text Developer Competition. ??I have been looking forward to this for some time. Two-way texting offers huge, huge potential that is poorly realised by a lot of companies and individuals. I was hoping to see some innovative ideas and concepts that would help go some way to encourage more use of two-way texting.??I wasn’t disappointed. There was a shortlist. I was thoroughly impressed. That one! Oh, ands that one! Ah, that one too! Fellow judges Mike Short (of o2 and the Mobile Data Association) and Esendex co-founder Adam Bird, had made a good stab at identifying the possibles as I arrived. We all came at the competition from different viewpoints so I think the results, when formally announced, will be brilliant to examine.??I can’t wait ’til I can talk about the results and do some cheerleading as I’ve got lots to say! We should be able to publish an announcement shortly…
- Taken at 11:06 AM on July 02, 2008 - cameraphone upload by ShoZu

This poster is advertised at Liverpool Street Station as people come out of the underground (’the subway’). I like seeing proprietors advertising free WiFi - I think it’s a boon for many. I actually filled out a survey with the McDonalds system, powered by The Cloud - I congratulated them for launching the service and pointed out that they’d earned perhaps a tenner from me in a week (a few cokes) that I wouldn’t otherwise have given to McDonalds were it not for the WiFi service.??Has anyone else tried the service out? If you’re ever in a bind and need wireless, think McDonalds… I’m luvin’ it!
- Taken at 12:52 PM on July 02, 2008 - cameraphone upload by ShoZu

This chap on the train today - incidentally with a Caravan World magazine in his bag - wore his bluetooth headset for the entire train journey. Not one person phoned him in that time. I can’t decide if this is useless or good utility.
- Taken at 9:58 AM on July 02, 2008 - cameraphone upload by ShoZu

For a number of years now there has been a feud between two of the biggest basketball stars in the US - Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. It started when they played together at the LA Lakers and escalated when Kobe accused Shaq of ‘paying women for personal services’ … whatever that may mean.

Shaq took the feud to new levels by recently getting up in a New York nightclub and rapping about Kobe missing out on the NBA Championship Finals, asking “Kobe, tell me how my ass tastes.” The YouTube clip of the rap has had nearly 600,000 views already.

Well, now you can have the rap as your mobile ringtone thanks to FunMobility. If you want to download it, you can get from FunMobility.

I suppose that in the UK it would be the equivalent of JohnTerry and Wayne Rooney squaring up to each other … then again that will happen almost every week once the Premiership starts again!

As you know SMS Text News is coming to Dublin … and we’re really looking forward to meeting Ireland’s mobile community. I have some more details about the evening, so here goes.

Critical Info
The date: July 10th (Thursday)
The venue: Magic Glasses Bar, The O’Callaghan Stephen’s Green Hotel, Dublin (map)
The time: 6pm onwards
Get on the guestlist: Email Ewan at ewan@smstextnews.com with the subject UNLIMITED DRINKS = YES as soon as you can.

The background
The Dublin Unlimited Drinks is a chance to meet Ireland’s mobile community. Some of you we know already, many of you we don’t. So we’re really looking forward to meeting you; finding out more about you, your company, your products; then watching you grow. Also, it’s a chance for you to meet other likeminded individuals. We think it will be valuable and interesting for us all.

Who’s supporting it?
This is where thanks are due to Anam, Arantech and ChangingWorlds who are supporting the night. More will be posted about each one of them shortly, but if you see anyone from these three companies on the night don’t forget to say ‘thanks’ and also maybe have a listen to what they do.

What’s happening on the night?
We’ve got an area of the Magic Glasses Bar set aside especially for us. Once you arrive you’ll be met by Ewan - and he’ll insist on taking a card from you and that’s the formalities over. The rest is up to you, it’s all about networking and drinking. No presentations, no announcements, no speeches, no hassle. Just remember to bring your business cards.

The Venue
They say it “is a very trendy spot decorated in warm terra cotta tiles and soft copper lighting. The contrast of the Georgian architecture of the bar with a contemporary setting, brings a unique ambience to the Magic Glasses Bar.” We say it’s all about providing a welcoming and relaxing atmosphere that will allow you to chat, mingle and enjoy yourself.

Here are some photos:

The Drinks
I named the evening ‘Unlimited Drinks’ because, genuinely, We’d like to offer unlimited drinks to everyone. It’s posssssssible that could overload Ewan’s capacity to fund it. All things being equal though, you will not pay for beer, wine or soft drinks. Spirits, however, will be chargeable at the bar. Therefore, like many of our big mobile networks with their data plans, there is a fair use policy at Unlimited Drinks.

There will also be a little bit of finger food provided to help the drinks go down.

The other attendees
Expect to meet people with opinions! Expect to meet mobile entrepreneurs, industry executives, analysts, public relations supremeos and those who work in and around the mobile, wireless and web 2.0 industries.

Come on along!
By default, you’re invited. But please email Ewan so we can control the numbers. If you want to come please email right-away with your name (and other guest names and job titles). Mail Ewan, ewan@smstextnews.com with the subject ‘UNLIMITED DRINKS = YES’ and he will reply to confirm.

After the event
You must be sure to give Ewan your business card on the evening as, soon after the event, he will write up a one-liner on every attendee and link to their respective websites. This is one of the highest trafficked elements of the site so do remember this.

We hope to meet you on the night!

Michael of Openmind Networks feels very strongly about the issue of bullying by text. Now while the medium of text does, one would imagine, give the option for you to simply ignore or delete offending text messages, it’s just not that simple. The psychological effect can, I imagine, be quite terrifying. Michael would like to understand the industry’s viewpoint of the issue so, if time permits, please do take his quick survey below.

Over to Michael:

- - - - -

Bullying for many victims is a terrifying ordeal and many children who are being bullied are afraid to speak out. They are scared of reprisals if they tell someone and reports have shown that as young people grow older, they are less likely to tell someone. They become more and more isolated, experience depression and, in extreme cases, can harm themselves or attempt suicide. Bullying by SMS is a virulent form of bullying and is now an ever present reality.

Many of you reading this will be parents or guardians of teens or soon to be teens and the threat of bullying by SMS is very real. What can we do as individual subscribers or as mobile operators to counteract the threat of bullying by SMS? The following short SMS survey conducted by Openmind Networks will provide some valuable feedback as to the demand for a solution to bullying by SMS.

Instructions:

Please SMS results to +27 79 685 9486

SMS charged at standard rates.

Please send your SMS message in the following format:
Survey Code(space)Answers

‘Sur’ is the code, insert it before the answers.

For example:
Sur aceg

1. Would you agree that bullying by SMS is a reality?
a: Yes
b: no

2. Are you aware that there is a product (Protect from Openmind Networks) that will safeguard mobile subscribers from bullying by SMS?
c: Yes
d: No

3. Should mobile operators assist in protecting their subscribers from bullying by SMS?
(Select one or more answers)
e: Yes
f: No

4. Would you pay for a service that protects your children (even if you do not have any) from bullying by SMS?
g: Yes
h: No

The results of the survey will be posted on both Openmind Networks’ website and the SMS Text News website.

Please note: Your mobile number will never be used for any further communication and will not be divulged to any third parties. This is a one-off survey.

- - - - -

Thanks for that, Michael!

My expectations in dealing with mobile operators and retailers are not high. I have come to terms with the fact that they are geared up to deal with high volumes of users who just want minutes, texts and the latest shiny phone. Move off that brief, and they’re just not equipped to help you.

A particular highlight came a few years ago in an O2 shop. I went in with a very specific requirement: mobile email. My question was essentially whether a Blackberry or an XDA was the better solution - QWERTY keyboard was a must. What did the assistant suggest? An i-mode handset. I eventually got a Blackberry… from T-Mobile.

But I digress. My requirements are pretty simple, at least I think so. I travel between 6 and 10 days a month in Europe, and I call internationally a lot from the UK. I’m also a frequent data user. After more to-ing and fro-ing than I would have liked, I settled on what I thought was the best provider for me - Three.

There are some nice things about Three. Data is 5 pounds a month. I get a lot of minutes for 20 quid a month. Go to a country where they have a network (Italy, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland - all countries I am likely to go to) and your inclusive minutes are valid, as well as the data bundle. But the kicker was their roaming rates: 10p a minute to receive, 25p a minute to call the EU from the EU. The European Commission has set limits of 19p and 38p for receiving and sending; guess what T-Mobile’s rates are? EVEN WHEN I’M ROAMING ON ANOTHER T-MOBILE NETWORK!!! That’s just silly. And while Vodafone passport sounds good - most calls are actually quite short, so the 75p per call charge can look quite expensive. The less said about O2 and Orange the better.

It’s not all sweetness and light; coverage isn’t perfect, though not as bad as I had feared. And I knew that the retail shops and internet sales weren’t integrated, but I wasn’t expecting to need much contact with them. I was wrong.

It started when I hit my credit limit. No worries, I thought, I’ll give them a call and get it increased. Not that simple. The conversation went along the lines of:

M: “Hi - I was just on a call and I got cut off - you sent me a text saying I had reached my credit limit”
3: “Yes. We have a credit limit in place to protect you.”
M: “Wonderful. I don’t need protecting, so can you increase my limit?”
3: “No.”
M: “Eh?”
3: “You haven’t been with us long enough, so we can’t increase your credit limit.”

So it turns out that the credit limit is actually in place to protect them, not me. The only way to resolve things is to make a credit card payment. I’m not happy - if I wanted to mess about making card payments I’d have got a pre-pay phone. Still, nothing like making it hard for a customer to spend more money with you. It seems appropriate to mention at this point that my monthly bill is usually a couple of hundred quid, with the occasional 500 quid+ bill shock moment.

In my mind then, I’m quite an attractive customer - I know what I want, I’m prepared to pay for it, and I don’t plan on calling for help that often.

Turns out I’m wrong.

A couple of weeks ago I return to the UK on an early flight. I have a long day on the phone ahead of me. During the flight the MP3 player on the phone is playing up, so I do various resets, battery removal and so on. Nothing works. When I get back on terra firma, I find I can’t make calls either. Damn!

OK, so plan is to swing by a Three store on my way home, get this sorted. Very helpful chappie cheerfully tells me he can’t help, I have to call 333 from my phone. But my phone doesn’t work, so he lets me call from their phone. My request is simple - the phone is three months old, it’s gone wrong, send me a new one. “We don’t do that sir, we will collect it, repair it and send it back to you.” This will take five days. How do I make calls in the meantime? “You still have your SIM” Yes but I don’t have a phone - can you lend me one? “No”. How do I make calls in the meantime? “That’s not our problem”

The store manager was willing to lend me a phone if the call centre approved it. But they wouldn’t. By “they” I mean the four different people, including the disconnections department and a manager. I actually had to check they were taping the call at one point, when the guy at the other end of the phone suggested I buy a pay-as-you-go phone from them and then sell it on eBay! I tried to appeal to them on the grounds of how much I spend with them, with no joy.

This note goes out to all service providers, not just Three. What makes you think the Sale of Goods Act doesn’t apply to you? Under what circumstance is a three month old phone refusing to make calls fit for purpose? And if your customer is willing to accept a repair, what makes you think that depriving him of service for five days is a good move? How hard is it to provide a loan handset? What other piece of consumer electronics would I not get a replacement for if it failed after three months?

So, no joy at all. I leave the Three shop a very unhappy camper. At this point, I’m seething, and prepared to cancel my contract and go with someone else. I walk past CPW and into the Vodafone store. Astonishingly, they don’t seem to want my business. Some free advice for Vodafone retail employee trainers: smugness is not an attractive quality in in-store staff.

I get home and my blood pressure is still through the roof. First job, line up a replacement handset. That done, I think about how to respond to the quality of service I’ve just experienced.

Plan A - cancel contract and go with someone else didn’t work so well. I thought about trying a different Voda shop, but couldn’t work up the enthusiasm for another retail experience. Plus, when I thought about it some more, I didn’t like the idea of cancelling the contract and paying for something I wasn’t going to use. Plus, the Three deal is still good - 1100 minutes for 20 quid a month. So – more free advice for Voda: your time to capture my four grand spend over the next 18 months was that one time I walked into the shop. You screwed it up.

So, plan B. Find ways to reduce the other 180 quid a month I’m spending with them and/or spend it with someone else.

In the next article, I’ll let you know whether I was able to succeed with Plan B, or had to go back to Plan A.

—

Catch the second half of Malcolm’s article next week, stay tuned!

If you’re planning on going over to Beijing for the Olympics then you might need to buy a new handset when you get there. It has been reported in the Wall Street Journal (here) that although China is planning to have 3G available to users, it will be based on the TD-SCDMA technology standard - which is not used by handsets sold outside of China.

To be honest if you are going to Beijing for the Olympics then I’ve got very little sympathy for you. I’m sure you’ll have an amazing experience and a lack of 3G will hardly register.

On a non-technology note, I wonder if Dwain Chambers will need to buy a new Chinese handset. Dwain is the UK’s highest profile drugs ‘cheat’ and he is trying to get his lifetime ban from the Olympics overturned. You can read more about it here.

In the past few days we have heard about the Blyk model spreading around the world but now it seems that a variant on the Blyk model has been setup to rival this not only in the UK and all over the world as well! Pumbby works on the basis of paying users a small amount for watching ad’s! It is all opt-in and you can leave whenever you wish! In the UK they seem to be offering 44p per ad, and you can choose to receive upto 10 ad’s a day! The website then says you can either transfer the money you have accumulated to your GSM operator directly or to your bank account! Fantastic!

Now I have tried to sign up, and it does not recognize my postcode! I tried to use the test service function and it will not recognize my two UK numbers! I forgot to mention that Pumbby is not a mobile network they simply send the ad’s to your existing number and you will have to pay the data charges (free if on WIFI) to view the ad’s!

In theory if this works then it could be serious competition for Blyk in the UK! The other great thing about Pumbby is that does not seem to be any age restrictions! I have sent their customer services an email to see if they can help my get an account set up! However it would be great to hear from our readers if you set one up successfully or have one! You can either send them directly to Ewan or post them below!

So go ahead and Pumb your GSM (and let us know how you get on!!

I picked up this news release from AT&T earlier:

Phone home. For most U.S. troops stationed overseas, it’s at the top of their to-do list. To help keep them connected with loved ones and celebrate Independence Day, AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) is donating 10,000 prepaid phone cards. This is the second installment of more than 30,000 prepaid phone cards that AT&T will give to U.S. service men and women in 2008. With a retail value of more than $200,000, the 2008 donation builds on more than 85 years of AT&T support for U.S. military families and a 20-year partnership with the USO, which will distribute the cards.

I suppose if you’re stationed in Germany with next to no immediate danger of getting blown up, this is perfectly fine.

I have a real problem with offering serving men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan ‘free’ calls to celebrate Independence Day when, really, this sort of thing should be free, right? I mean entirely free. You want to phone home? You’re defending the US? No problem at all. AT&T is your pal. It’s free. Surely this is the sort of thing that patriotic businesses in the States do?

Or at least, I’d hope it is. I doubt it though.

From our Blyk Watcher Ricky…

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Patrick broke the news yesterday that Blyk was expanding into Europe and it seems that the model looks to be taken up round the work! Last month Ewan reported that U-Mobile in the Philippians to Blyk had just started up and it seems that over in United Arab Emirates a company called Gulf Integrated. A spokesman for the company has said that;

“We are looking at the option of either tying up with Blyk or a totally independent network after seeking permission from local authorities,” said Hussein.

It seems like Blyk has found a partner into the Middle East. Not only are Gulf Integrated looked at starting up in the UAE but also later cover the rest of the Gulf countries and eventually the entire Mena region.

Full details of the article can be found here. It seems that currently Gulf Integrated are currently in the just planning stage and it seems like if they do start up it will be another MVNO, not an actual operator.

I think it’s great that the Blyk model is spreading! Good Luck to them!

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So who had 7 days before Blyk screwed up for me again?! The dreaded communication’s error is back again! This time everything I have tried (Sim reset, Phone reset and even putting the sim in another phone) and I still get this stupid error! If you want to know more about it read about in my blog posts.

I am really stuck as to what the problem is, I am about 99% sure its not my phone because firstly it has been working fine receiving brand messages and then all of a sudden it just stops! The phone works fine on T-Mobile UK. I know on my previous posts someone suggested is reflash the handset! Firstly I looked into doing that last time and had no success, but I don’t see why I should have to! This problem is relatively common on the forums, so I am sure it is an issue with Blyk!

I am going to now email customer care and see what there response is!

Ahh the joy’s of Blyk sometime I just want to throw my phone at a brick wall it’s that annoying!!

Just logged onto the forums and there are about 10 posts about this issue! Seems to be Blyk specific!

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Response from Blyk Member Care

Hi Ricky,

The Blyk Technical Team is currently working on the GPRS issue and testing is taking place to find a resolution.

A time scale has not been given for this to be resolved, however Blyk are striving to rectify this as quickly as possible.

Sorry for the inconvenience caused.

Regards,

Greg
Blyk Member Care

Following up on my earlier piece, here then is the gallery of images I took from the Dell M1330’s internal webcam this afternoon. They’re pretty good and lightweight in size for easy transmission.

And the AVI video? The webcam application supplied on the laptop also takes video. Here’s a silent (i.e. I’m not saying anything) video to show the footage quality. Again it’s lightweight and reasonable quality so you can get stuff through to your friends and family quickly.

View the webcam video of Ewan.

NB: I stayed silent because I was surrounded by lots of normobs (”normal mobile users”) who would have seriously doubted my sanity (and parentage, I’m sure) if I’d started doing a piece to camera there and then.