Thailand’s The Nation newspaper is carrying a story this morning about China Mobile and their privacy policies. The top man at China Mobile, Wang Jianzhou, was giving a speech to delegates at the World Economic Forum…

The head of China’s biggest mobile phone company, which has more than 300 million subscribers, stunned delegates by revealing that the company had unlimited access to the personal data of its customers and handed it over to Chinese security officials when demanded.

The admission, described as “ bone- chilling” by United States Congressman Ed Markey, sent shivers through an audience of telecom experts at the World Economic Forum who immediately saw the potential for misuse and surveillance.

Obviously in the US and the United Kingdom, along with many other countries, authorities need some sort of court order to obtain your telecom records from operators. It’s apparently the same in China as Wang explained:

He explained how the company could use the personal data of its customers to sell advertising and services to them based on knowledge of where they were and what they were doing. When pressed about the privacy and security implications of this, he said, “ We can access the information and see where someone is, but we never give this information away … only if the security authorities ask for it.”

The critical issue is whether there is any independent oversight of the Chinese authorities making disclosure demands.
One fascinating figure to comprehend though:

Wang’s company adds six million new customers to its network each month and is already the biggest mobile group in the world by users.

Not a lot for a company that’s already got a whopping 300 million customers. But, SIX million new customers, a month? Logistical nightmare…!

Sprint Nextel, the same company that recently gained a President and CEO has now lost its CFO, CMO, and President of Sales and Distribution. Paul Selah, the CFO, was previously standing in as President and CEO while the board was looking for a replacement, and is making quick to leave since Dan Hesse is in place. Tim Kelly, currently the CMO and Mark Angelino, currently the President of Sales and Distribution will also be taking off as of today.

These execs are leaving as Sprint also announces massive job cuts and retail store closures, which is not a great sign for the 3rd largest carrier in the United States.

I thought it was a bit fishy when AT&T got ahold of Om Malik to ‘clarify’ that no contract was needed for the SIM-only deal, and wanted to check to see exactly how easy it was for Joe Blow to get. However, I don’t need another SIM card, contract free or not, but my friend Matt does. I asked Matt if he would mind attempting to order the contract-free SIM card online, and he quickly obliged.

However, we’re not off to a good start, as Matt couldn’t even find the SIM-only deal on AT&T’s website anymore. As such, he decided to engage ‘Natalie’, the friendly online chat sales representative, to see if she could help him. The conversation follows:

Thank you for your patience! An AT&T, sales representative will be with you shortly.
You are now chatting with Natalie, an AT&T, sales representative.
Natalie: Welcome to AT&T online Sales support. How may I assist you with placing your order today?
matt: hello Natalie, I had a question: where on your website can I buy the sim-card only, no contract deal?
Natalie: Unfortunately the sim card only purchase is out of stock here online.
Natalie: To start service on a phone you already have you would want to visit a local store or call our sales department at 866.246.4852.
matt: Ok, thank you for the heads up… two more questions for you
matt: One, where on the site would I find that for future reference?
matt: And two, can the sim-only option be added with just an unlimited data plan, or does it require voice?
Natalie: The sim card only option is for activating new Contract or Prepaid service using your own device. The process was always available in the stores and over the phone but it was not available here online.
matt: I understand, but I was under the impression that had changed.. that it was now available as an option online. Thank you for clarification.
Natalie: You are welcome.
matt: Do you know whether I can use my own device and add the PDA Unlimited plan, using the sim-card only?
Natalie: Would you have any more questions I can help you with online?
Natalie: Yes you can use a data only option on the PDA phones . You will go to plans and choose data plans and add the PDA data plan to that line.
Natalie: The line is still automatically assigned a number but you are not required to sign up on a voice plan. However, if the phone is used to make or receive a phone call, you are just billed $.40 per minute when used.
matt: Ok, that makes sense… and I know that this isn’t your realm, since it’s not an online option… but can that same plan be used with my own device with the no-contract sim do you know?
Natalie: If you choose the Prepaid option for service you will not have the data only option for service.
matt: I’m sorry, I don’t mean the prepaid option I mean using the month-to-month option where I bring my own device, and get a no-contract sim card.
Natalie: We do not offer service month to month. The sim only if when using your own phone with our service. You still have to choose a contract option for our service.
matt: There were several news announcements a couple of days ago saying that if you were to bring your own phone to AT&T, you could get a sim card with any of their regular plans (not promotional plans) and get just a sim card, and not have to sign a contract.
matt: Natalie, here’s a link with the news: http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/22/atandt-says-sim-only-service-available-contract-free-2-year-plan/
Natalie: With the sim card offer you still have to sign a contract for your service. The offer is for customers who had their own devices that they wanted to use with our service. When the sim was only you had a 2 year agreement if you choose a regular plan or no contract if you choose the Prepaid service plans. It was never without a contract on the regular service plans.
matt: I’m sorry, but that’s directly in contradiction to what your company has said… I AM bringing my own device to the table, so should I be able to get a sim with no contract then? (Not prepaid)
Natalie: It also states it here on the page you sent to me: http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/20/atandt-offers-sim-only-service-attempts-to-maintain-most-open-s/
matt: yes, which your company later issued a correction to, stating that there was no contract required
matt: That was the link I sent you
Natalie: Unfortunately that is incorrect information. You are more than welcome to check in the local store or call sales at 1-888-333-6651 to verify the information.
matt: Ok, thank you Natalie
Natalie: You are welcome.
Natalie: Thank you for visiting AT&T. I look forward to chatting with you in the future. Have a great day!

So it appears as though ‘Natalie’, whom AT&T has entrusted with interacting with consumers online, is not only unaware of any statements that AT&T has publicly made regarding the SIM-only contract-free, but she also has no issues making very direct and absolute statements regarding such deals. Has anyone else tried to get their hands on a contract-free SIM-only deal?

Hope it goes well…

Link: StrategyEye :: Visual Market Intelligence

Disney has confirmed plans to launch a MVNO service in Japan on Mar 1, in cooperation with Softbank Corp, which will let it use its network. Unveiling a series of branded mobile phones, the entertainment giant claims to be “extremely confident” about the new venture, despite the fact that its previous attempt at a MVNO service, in the US, failed and shut down last month. Disney, however, points out that this flop, using Sprint Nextel’s US network, was mainly due to the fact that Disney had to handle everything on its own. In Japan, by contrast, Softbank has agreed to take care of the entire network management, including billing and customer care.

Link: Developers: Verizon Wants You! - GigaOM

Two months after saying it would open up its network to other devices, Verizon Wireless is inviting developers to a mid-March conference where they can learn more about building software and devices that will run on its network.

Gahh.

What a stupid, stupid arse of an announcement from Verizon. There is nothing worse for me than reading about mobile operators who’re falling over themselves to help developers build software and devices for their (proprietary) networks.

Next.

When will they eventually realise that what all developers crazy is ubiquity. Facebook Applications, for example. Not entirely ubiquitous as not everyone uses Facebook, but .. can you imagine the development hell if Facebook decided to change parameters for each group, network and country area? It’d be a total unmitigated arse to develop for. Have you got that image of despair in your mind? Good. Welcome to the mobile industry…

In Tomi’s piece the other day, he set out his viewpoints, all of which I agree with, relating to the rather challenging position Sprint finds itself in at the moment.

Link: Communities Dominate Brands: Nightmare continues for America’s worst company: Now Sprint Nextel laying off 4000 in desperate move

The nightmare following the world’s most damaging marketing action ever, is continuing to devastate Sprint Nextel as it now issues emergency statements and desperation moves.

Everywhere I go, people tell me just how bad Sprint is.

There have definitely been some blunders — Tomi’s right that Tim, their Chief Marketing chap either needs to go quickly (or fix the situation pronto). ‘Terminal decline,’ as Tomi puts it, isn’t good news. Especially when the mobile market in the States is growing substantially month-on-month.

However it’s not all bad. Definitely not. I’ve been using Sprint for two months, fault free. The service I’ve had has been impeccable. Absolutely impeccable. In-store service across the Bay Area was friendly, pleasant and enthusiastic. Call quality is good, the data network is lightning fast and the rate plans are astonishingly good (particularly compared to my experience in the United Kingdom). I’m paying $100 a month for everything. Unlimited minutes, texts, picture messages, data, mobile television, the whole shebang. (When will someone in the UK introduce this? Come on 3… you know you want to…) And what’s more it’s only 6 cents or 3 pence a minute to call the UK with the international option (I think it’s $4.99/month or similar). Right on.

And it works. Lost my phone at the weekend and I had a replacement in one business day no questions asked. I’ve called Customer Service for a few questions — they’ve all been friendly and helpful.

Tesco Mobile, like Virgin Mobile, is one of the UK’s MVNO success stories. Through their extensive in-store and online promotions, they’ve managed to net a super number of customers. I couldn’t find up to date subscriber numbers — but it’s in the millions.

Tesco just announced a new offering — Standard Plus:

Tesco Mobile has announced their latest ‘pay as you go’ tariff, Standard Plus, which offers a monthly bonus of 500 free texts or 150 free minutes when users top up by £15 or more per month.

“The new Standard Plus tariff is the perfect option for people who top-up regularly and want great value from their mobile service provider, combined with pay as you go flexibility,” said Andy Dewhurst, Chief Executive Officer of Tesco Mobile. “We want to offer our ‘pay as you go’ customers similar bonus airtime or text benefits to those of pay-monthly customers.”

I suspect that for a subset of Tesco Mobile’s subscribers, this will be an excellent deal.

Recently, AT&T made this big claim that they are the most open network. They’ve recently begun offering a SIM-only option in their online shop, so that users with unlocked handsets can sign up without having to fork out for a new handset. Sounds good, right? Wrong. The stupid part of this is that it still requires a contract. Why? For YEARS AT&T (and the other carriers) have been telling us that the contract is to subsidize the handset. So then why am I expected to sign one WITHOUT getting any equipment? You’re trying to say it’s to subsidize the SIM card? Horsefeathers.

Next up, let’s assume you *DO* go ahead and start using an unlocked/unbranded handset on AT&T’s open network. For instance, I’m using a Nokia N95 NAM, and my fiance is using a Nokia N81 8GB. AT&T doesn’t offer either, and therefore, they’re technically ‘unsupported’. No biggie, Nokia’s smart enough (on the S60 handsets at least) to pull the necessary access point information for data and MMS straight off the SIM card for me. However, AT&T is stupid enough to cripple my MMS. They call it ‘MMS Adaptation’, and basically it means that if the receiving handset isn’t listed in their ’supported handsets’ list, the network assumes it is the lowest common denominator, which is somewhere along the lines of the Nokia 2610, which doesn’t support video playback, and only has 2MB of internal memory. Thus, if I attempted to send Christina a video message between my N95 and her N81 (both of which have no issues with the content), it’s stripped out by AT&T’s ’smart’ and ‘open’ network because it assumes that her phone isn’t capable of it.

Genious, guys. This is equivalent to a walled garden that opens its doors, but lines the walkway leading out with broken glass. Sure, it’s open and you can get out of the garden, but we aren’t going to make it easy. It’s garbage, that’s what this is, not ‘openness’. I was afraid of this, when the major networks started advertising that they would open their networks. It’s all fake PR nonsense designed to make themselves look good in the headlines for a few days.

UPDATE: It appears as though AT&T has clarified that the 2-year contract requirement was a website error. You can indeed sign up for a SIM-only plan, with no contract, though you will not be eligible to receive ‘promotional elements’ on the plan. This is currently the Mobile-to-Mobile feature on AT&T’s nationwide rate plans. Personally, I would still suggest that you sign a 2-year contract, take the phone you get and flip it on eBay for ~$150-200, and just hang on to the cash in case you need an ETF in the future.

Well, I’m a chump. I don’t know WHAT I did with my handset. Perhaps I was robbed without me knowing it. Or more likely, I left is somewhere highly stupid. It’s lost, though. Searched high and low.

I phoned Sprint straight away when I realised I’d lost it at about 11pm. Alas, they were closed.

The next morning — this morning — I phoned. I asked if I could sort it out at a Sprint store (i.e. walk away with a new handset immediately). Alas no. I was transferred through to the Sprint handset support people. Sprint doesn’t replace handsets — it’s their partner, Asurion, who takes care of that (for a $50 non-refundable fee), provided you’ve been paying the monthly insurance fee. Which, cleverly, I have. Normally I don’t ever do that. CDMA handsets though. You need insurance.

I thought the whole process might be a bit painful.

I gave my phone number and password. Explained I’d lost it. The nice lady from Asurion took my credit card details for the $50 fee and explained I’d have my new handset in four business days.

Now, that was the first surprise… (actually, the first surprise was how nice and simple the process was)… FOUR business days? In the UK, it’s next business day by 10am. We can’t operate without our handsets. FOUR days. If you lost your phone on Friday, you wouldn’t get a replacement until… next THURSDAY.

The lady offered me an express option for $15 — I’d get the handset in two days. Done. I accepted.

All told, 3 minutes. Nice.

Discuss.

As told by commedian Lenny Bruce…

Link: Lenny Bruce Quotes

Communism is like one big phone company

Phoneboy’s done a wicked study comparing the services costs between the USA and Indonesia… worth a read

Link: Reality Check: Wireless Service In Indonesia

The CTIA says that other operators worldwide want to become more like the U.S. carriers. No wonder: they’d love to get away with charging for service they don’t provide, and overcharging for the services they do provide, just like U.S. mobile operators! Pity most people in this country haven’t seen how it works elsewhere to know there’s a better way, let alone demanded it.

Consumer Direct — from the UK Government’s Office of Fair Trading, received almost 50,000 complaints last year (up 49% from last year) relating to mobile service agreements. It’s number two in the list of top 10 UK complaints released today. Dear me.

(Thanks Chris)

Alltel, that smallish 5th carrier in the U.S. (albeit with the most coverage by square feet, regardless of how many users are in those feet) has been offering its My Circle plans for a while, with T-Mobile copying them with MyFaves. Alltel’s My Circle feature previously offered subscribers the ability to select 10 different phone numbers - landlines included - that they could call for free, and was available on all plans over $59.99. Since that was so successful, they’ve added in 2 more levels, offering subscribers the ability to select as low as 5 and up to 20 different My Circle numbers.

Here’s the break down: on rate plans of $49.99, you get to pick 5 freebie numbers. For plans $59.99-79.99, you’re still stuck at 10 in your My Circle. Plans of $99.99 and up, you’ve been gifted with a total of 20 available slots for your My Circle calling plan. Of course, these price points are before any data or messaging packages. I would imagine with a pool of 20 numbers that you can call for free, unlimited every month, that equates to near unlimited minutes for most people. Do you call more than 20 different people each month?

If you’re an Alltel customer interested in getting in on this, a quick call to customer service will get you ready, and remember, Alltel lets you change your plan anytime without renewing your contract. Plus one for the “little guy.”

Also from The Toronto Star, I came across this one about a very unhappy Bishop…
Link: TheStar.com | News | Porn on Telus phones upsets archbishop

The Roman Catholic archbishop of Vancouver is considering cancelling contracts with Telus after the phone company began making pornography available through its cellphones.

Canada’s second largest phone company now offers pornographic photos and videos to its customers and confirms it has been receiving complaints from upset customers.

Telus introduced the service in January. In doing so, it became the first wireless provider in the country to offer pornographic photos and videos at $3-4 each.

They presumably don’t sell any kind of pornography at the local newsagents in Canada. I wonder if the Bishop will actually cancel his Telus contracts? Surely almost every mobile operator is offering some kind of adult services from their portals?

Link: TheStar.com | Business | Telus considers dumping its `Betamax’ of wireless networks

With more wireless competition looming, executives at Telus Corp. are believed to be mulling a pricey swap of the firm’s network technology in a bid to offer subscribers a bigger selection of mobile devices and grab a larger slice of lucrative international roaming fees.

In the wireless equivalent of moving from Betamax to VHS, Telus executives are considering adopting new technology “as early as this year,” industry sources say. The change would effectively make all or part of Telus’s CDMA network compatible with the GSM-based systems operated by most carriers outside of North America. The two acronyms stand for code division multiple access system, and global system for mobile communications, respectively.

That’d be quite useful for Telus subscribers traveling abroad… but will Telus end up waiting ’til an upgrade to 4G is on the cards?

Gamma Telecom has announced that they’ll be working with 3 UK on a deal to get wholesale access to start up its own MVNO, targeted towards small- and medium-sized businesses. Gamma Telecom will use 3’s HSDPA network for voice and data calls with more business-minded handsets. Gamma Telecom is one of the UK’s biggest voice services and applications providers, offering service to over 100,000 businesses and 400,000 residential customers.

The deal marks the first time 3 has entered into a wholesale agreement and shows the power of their network.

The MVNO kajeet (we mentioned their launch back in May) has gotten a nice little $10 million injection of debt financing recently, and seem to be doing ok, considering they’re a smaller niche MVNO. Kajeet focuses on the tween market and is one of few MVNOs to be offered in nationwide retail chains such as Best Buy.

Offering tons of kid- and parent-friendly options, kajeet seems to be carving out a nice little niche where others such as Disney’s failed MVNO have dropped off. Congrats to kajeet on another round of funding.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin seems to be on the warpath, and has announced recently that he will be investigating Comcast’s idea last year to throttle its users’ usage of popular file-sharing protocols like torrents. It turns out that a bunch of consumer groups filed a complaint, asking the FCC to fine Comcast $195,000 per subscriber. Mashable’s Mark Hopkins checked things out and discovered that Comcast has 9.1 million subscribers. Multiply it out and you’ve got $1.77 TRILLION.

It’s important to see how this goes down, as mobile phones networks are getting faster and faster, and phones are getting more and more capable, operators are going to be interested in ways to offer tiered data packages. Hopefully the FCC will make sure it’s well known that operators are not allowed to throttle specific types of usage.

Verizon Wireless wants your old useless handset this holiday season. They’re calling out to anyone who found a new mobile in their stocking this year to bring their old stuff up to any Verizon Wireless location to donate it. Verizon will use the phones in their HopeLine Phone Recycling Program, which uses handsets and funds to help survivors of domestic violence.

If the phone is still usable, it can be used as an emergency handset for victims. A federal requirement is that all cellphones be able to make a 9-1-1 emergency call, regardless of whether they are active or not. You can also take your handset to any battered woman’s shelter in your area for them to use for the same purpose.

Please remember, if you’re going to donate your handset, to delete all of your personal information from the memory, such as contacts, pictures, and anything else.

Some interesting statistics on the HopeLine program, it has kept more than 200 tons of handsets out of landfills. They’ve collected nearly 4.2 million wireless phones and properly disposed of 1 million of them (it doesn’t say what happened to the other 3.2 million handsets. Hmmmm.) Verizon’s HopeLine has also, since 1999, given more than $4 million in cash grants and over 45,000 phones with airtime to domestic violence prevention organizations.

Google and NTT DoCoMo, Inc. will be sharing handsets soon. The search giant has landed a deal to provide internet search and email services on NTT DoCoMo’s i-Mode handsets. Google lags behind Yahoo! in Japan, so this is a really big move for them. NTT DoCoMo is Japan’s leading carrier and will give Google a quick way to really increase market share.

Personally, I don’t much care for Yahoo!’s services, I find them too cartoonish and, well, I just don’t care for them. There’s a large concern growing, however, with Google’s massive store of personal information on consumers. As Google makes it deeper into the mobile arena, I can imagine those concerns become quite a bit bigger.

The Palm Treo 750 was gifted with an update earlier this year, offering Windows Mobile 6 and a few other enhancements to AT&T customers. A few of the features of the updated include general speed enhancements, along with better sync support for Vista desktops and support for Microsoft’s direct push technology.

Oh yeah, and AT&T went ahead and removed the Windows Live service, as well. They’d much rather you use their Xpress Mail and instant messaging application, which uses SMS rather than data. Don’t you love when carriers make choices for you, in their favor?

What’s really frustrating for AT&T customers is that the unbranded version of the Treo 750 is fully rocking with Windows Live support, verifying that it was AT&T’s greedy decision. Odd for a company so proud of being so ‘open’ methinks.

Anyone know if you can easily unbrand a Treo 750?

Link: 3 Italia, Fenacom to launch MVNO for senior citizens - Telecompaper

That’s an interesting move, eh? One one end of the scale you’ve got Blyk addressing the youth… now in Italy, an MVNO for the oldies in the country? Cool! I don’t think Saga, the UK company specialising in services for the over 50s, has yet launched Saga Mobile… I wonder, if pitched just right, a mobile service aimed at oldies could be successful.

Link: Blog: A spectrum of wireless players - 19 Dec 2007 - NZ Herald: Technology News and reviews from New Zealand and the World

Woosh Wireless, which needs to migrate its technology platform to WiMax also picked up spectrum suitable for these types of services, as did state-owned broadcasting and broadband player Kordia, which likewise has aspirations in the WiMax camp.

I have never, ever heard of Woosh Wireless before. I just had to post on this. That’s the best mobile operator brand name, EVER. I love it!

Word on the street is that AT&T Wireless will launch their MediaFLO-powered mobile TV service in the States ‘as early as possible’ in 2008. Launching with 8 channels - ESPN, MTV, NBC, CBS, and Fox among them, the service has apparently been testing really well. A slight delay is necessary to optimize the user experience, according to Mark Siegel, AT&T Executive Director of Media Relations.

Verizon Wireless currently offers a MediaFLO-powered mobile TV service in the U.S. for $13-25/month on top of regular mobile charges. MediaFLO is owned by Qualcomm, which presents an interesting challenge for Nokia. Nokia already has significant issues getting a handset launched on AT&T’s shelves. They also pioneered the DVB-H standard in Europe, and obviously hoped that the US market would also adopt DVB-H, instead of Qualcomm’s MediaFLO. If Nokia wants to launch a mobile-TV-compatible handset on AT&T now, they will have to license the necessary chip from Qualcomm, something which Nokia is also not particularly fond of.

Once the two largest carriers in the United States offer a mobile TV product, will we finally see any significant uptake with consumers, or will the pricing drive them away?

Have a read of this one…

Link: Calls for Tax Exemption for Charity Sms Donations

Vir2, a provider of SMS marketing and fundraising solutions for charities, has welcomed the decision by UK politican, Mark Oaten MP to file an Early Day Motion calling upon the Government to stop charging VAT (sales tax) on UK charity donations made by SMS. All other methods of giving to charity are VAT exempt. Premium SMS texts are a particularly useful way of collecting money quickly, but the Government are not treating it the same as other methods.

On the face of it, this sounds like a brilliant idea. I support it.

Vir2 favours a solution of creating “VAT free” short codes that can only be used by registered charities for the purpose of fundraising. The awarding of short codes is already regulated by Ofcom and Phone Pay Plus.

The problem? Well, you’ve got four (or five, depending on your viewpoint) huge, huge multinational companies who are earning massive percentages of their revenue from text messaging. Premium text messaging, in particular, contributes a tidy sum.

The last thing your common-or-garden mobile operator needs is the bright light of a consumer movement demanding tax exemption on donations made by text. Whilst one would have thought the key issue resides with Inland Revenue, I reckon that’s just a sideshow. At 17.5%, it’s a bit part in the huge game of premium text.

The tax is nothing, NOTHING when it comes to looking at the revenue share from premium rate text messaging. Operators are routinely taking 40-50% of premium text revenues citing all sorts of bollocks about ‘keeping the lights on’ and having to manage the billing relationship with the end-user.

The net effect is that when you donate to a charity, let’s say, via a £1.50 text message, a good whack — 30-60 pence of that (depending on exact relationships) goes direct to the operator. This is something that winds up the charity no-end, the aggregator and the service provider. I’ve no doubt that it’s also intensely annoying for the person donating the money when they read the small print (”At least 80p of your 1.50 goes to the charity… the rest goes to the thieving bastards…”)

There’s lots of conversations to be had on the topic. Pluses and minuses all round. I strongly favour operators taking a significantly reduced percentage of all premium rate text message traffic, not just charity donations.

But, as the chaps at Vir2 put forward above, I’d settle for charity shortcodes that are both VAT free — although I’d also like to see much higher payouts nearer the 90% mark, at least for charities.

Read more about Vir2 at www.vir2.co.uk.