June 2005 – Page 2 – Digital-Lifestyles

Geeks Take Over The UK

Geeks Take Over The UK Long shunned as hobby-obsessed lonely losers living in messy bedrooms with a dreadful taste in music, geeks, computer spods and sci-fi nuts have revealed themselves as a lucrative target for advertisers.

The Sci Fi Geekforce Report, a new study by the Sci-Fi channel service, reveals geeks to be high-spenders with the power to make or break billion-pound brands.

With Borg-like numbers (nearly 7 million in the UK), the collective buying power of geeks is making cappuccino-supping noo meedja types sit up and reach for their mood boards, with the survey estimating the “geek pound” to be worth a staggering £8.2bn (~€12bn ~ US$15~)a year.

The research, undertaken in association with marketing specialists TGI and media agency Rocket, also revealed that the geeks are predominantly ABC1 consumers, with some 33% of their number being female.

Geeks Take Over The UK The bigwigs of Sci-Fi conducted the research to try and work out the popularity of the multi-billion dollar genre when it was supposedly the province of “solitary, unpopular individuals with niche interests and questionable personal hygiene habits.”

Dan Winter, head of press at Sci-Fi, declared himself “blown away” by the survey, which challenged many of the stereotypes.

For example, far from being long-term bedroom dwellers with only a death metal collection for company, the survey revealed geeks to be sociable animals, 52% more likely than the average person to have had four holidays in the last 12 months and 125% more likely to visit pubs, clubs and bars.

Nearly 40% of geeks believed their special interests make them attractive to the opposite sex, although we’re not convinced that, “Hi! Have you seen the latest Asus motherboard?” is a winning chat up line.

Geeks Take Over The UK The bit that will get the advertisers moist in their strap lines is the fact that geeks are 90% more likely to be the first among their chums to invest in new products.

Martin Heaton Cooper, advertising sales director for Sci Fi, commented: “It’s clear that in a time of advertising overload and scepticism, the mainstream is turning to their new geek counterparts to help them make product decisions.”

The Sci Fi Geekforce Report is due to be released in July.

Sci-Fi

BT Project Nevis Selects Microsoft IPTV For UK TV Over Broadband

BT Project Nevis Selects Microsoft IPTV For UK TV Over Broadband In a cornucopia of convergence, BT has announced their intention to use the Microsoft TV Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) Edition software platform to deliver TV over broadband in the UK. Internally within BT, the project is referred to as Project Nevis.

The Microsoft TV IPTV Edition software platform lets broadband network operators whizz high-quality video content and services down the wire to their customers using existing and next-gen broadband networks.

The platform delivers cost-effective and security-enhanced delivery of a whole gamut of pay-TV service offerings, including standard- and high-definition channels, on-demand programming, digital video recording, and interactive program guides.

There are extra consumer-pleasing gizmos in the package too, with features like instant channel-changing and picture-in-picture functionality using multiple video streams.

Unlike most consumer pay-TV delivery systems, the Microsoft TV platform allows network operators to integrate the delivery of pay-TV services with other networked broadband services in the home such as PCs, telephones, game consoles, mobile devices and other gadgets.

Gavin Patterson, Group Managing Director of BT Retail slipped on his buzzword moccasins and danced a soft shoe shuffle to his Big Vision:

“BT and Microsoft share a common vision for converged entertainment in the home. TV over broadband services will play an important role in BT’s triple-play offering for consumers. Our approach of over-the-air broadcast and broadband-delivered video-on-demand, interactivity and enhanced support is the perfect solution and complements existing TV propositions already in the UK market. The combination of Microsoft’s best-in-class technology with BT’s 21st-century network will result in an incredibly exciting set of next-generation entertainment and communication services available to consumers across the UK.”

BT Project Nevis Selects Microsoft IPTV For UK TV Over Broadband As the sound of mutual backslapping threatened to reach ASBO-generating levels, Moshe Lichtman, corporate VP of the Microsoft TV division gushed:

“BT is a great example of one of the world’s leading network operators choosing Microsoft TV as the software platform for its digital TV and converged entertainment services.”

“We are very pleased to be working with such a well-respected and innovative operator as BT. Microsoft TV IPTV Edition will enable a full suite of integrated entertainment and communication services that will set the bar for what consumers will expect,” he added.

BT plan to start trials of the TV over broadband service in early 2006, with a commercial service expected to start in the summer of 2006.

Microsoft TV
BT

France Telecom / Cable and Wireless Potential Deal Examined

Last weekend there was a report that France Telecom (FT) were rumored to be buying Cable and Wireless (C&W) for GBP 4bn. FT has of course denied it.

Though the telco market is consolidating, it does seem an odd match.

FT is the French equivalent of British Telecom (BT) the incumbent operator. The French government still owns a considerable portion of FT (though it has recently released a number of shares on to the open market).

C&W a UK monolith

C&W comes from the old school of telecoms, it’s a giant. It was half of the duoploy with BT when the telecoms market deregulated in 1994 (under the Mercury brand). It became very cash rich (to the annoyance of C&W’s shareholders), but like every other telco was hit hard by the telecoms crash after the dot com boom. They sold of their US operations (apart from the Caribean where they are still a virtual monopoly and very profitable) and have concentrated on their core UK operations.

As a telco, C&W has become very aggressive with their pricing especially in the wholesale minutes market and carry a lot of traffic for UK “switchless” providers and Carrier PreSelect (CPS) companies. They’ve become so aggressive they’ve been accused of predatory pricing (i.e. selling under cost to win business in the hope that it wins further business) but that’s not been proven.

They are trying to move into new areas and have announced new products such as VoIP, but as yet these are really marketing noises.

One area where they have invested in and have made real progress is Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) with their purchase of Bulldog (for GBP 18m). Bulldog have now unbundled about 400 exchanges and have plans to unbundle another 400 by the end of the year.

The C&W and Bulldog acquisition has had teething problems, cutting over to the vastly increased C&W infrastructure didn’t go particularly smoothly with customers losing connectivity for hours at a time. There are still on-going problems.

FT and C&W, not an ideal match

Would FT purchase C&W, well they might, but it would be an expensive buy.

France Telecom / Cable and Wireless Potential Deal Examined Wanadoo (the ISP arm of FT) has stated they are going to invest EU 300m in unbundling exchanges (in the first year) and rumour has it there’s a total of EU 1bn over 3 years for LLU. So FT could buy C&W just for the LLU aspects, but really does seem excessive. C&W bought Bulldog for GBP 18m and they’ve invested at least 10’s of million into them. So 4bn is a HUGE premium to pay for a ready made network and 10’s of thousands of customers. Wanadoo already have considerably more broadband customers than Bulldog.

C&W have a big network, with good links into most of the telecoms companies in the UK, that might be of some value but the global number of call minutes is decreasing (as people move to VoIP) and the value per minute is decreasing even more rapidly (as flat rate calls – especially in the VoIP arena – become the norm). A call to anywhere in the world is now approaching around 2c (on average) per minute.

Another minus point is that FT already have a UK network (they purchased Equant), so having an old legacy telecoms network can’t seem that attractive.

There’s also Orange to worry about (the mobile side of FT), they also have considerable UK telecoms infrastructure.

All in all it doesn’t seem a good fit, though of course there may be another completely hidden agenda.

France Telecom
Cable and Wireless
Bulldog DSL

Finland Plums for Flarion Flash-OFDM. Europe to follow?

The announcement of the Finnish 450 MHz cellular data licence isn’t today’s surprise; the surprise is that Flarion – the technology provider – is not announcing that Flash-OFDM is now an ITU standard. There should have been such an announcement: why the delay?

Politics is as important as technology to the future of wireless broadband, and the battle between next generation technology providers is being fought between Qualcomm and Flarion on one hand, and Qualcomm and IP Wireless on the other.

The claim made by Flarion is that if you use normal cellphone frequencies, but add orthogonal frequency division multiplexing technology to it, you can get an order of magnitude more users per cell, and more data per user. Finland seems to have bought the idea: the first Flash-OFDM network contract has been awarded.

It could be the first domino.

Europe has been playing with Flarion technology for a couple of years. Trials have been set up – like the T-Mobile experiment in The Hague last year. And more significantly, there have been rumours of trials in Eastern Europe – countries like Lithuania and Estonia.

Traditionally, Finland has been a pioneer of high speed data, and those countries take their cue for technology from there; and the buzz in the cellular world is that several Governments in former Eastern Bloc territories will now follow suit and buy Flash-OFDM.

The Finnish contract is for re-using the old analogue phone frequencies. The same 450 MHz band is coming up for re-assignment in many European countries, and the front runners there, as in Finland, will be Qualcomm’s CDMA technology.

Qualcomm isn’t going to take that lying down. It’s been trying to lobby European and Eastern European and Middle Eastern comms authorities for a while – unsuccessfully, so far.

A couple of contracts will go to Qualcomm – because it owns majority shares in the network providers there. But this is a major setback for its plan to win back the geography it lost when GSM was invented.

Finland Plums for Flarion Flash-OFDM. Europe to follow? Official details of the announcement include optimistic pronouncements from Flarion, but nothing about what really matters: the need for the Flarion Flash-OFDM technology to be a standard.

The reason for that, say sources in the IEEE, is simple: the standard was supposed to be announced by both the ITU and the IEEE. But the 802.20 process is stalled, and nobody who knows what is going on inside the IEEE doubts that this is because Qualcomm is lobbying fiercely, using “patriotic” arguments.

The result is that in a sense, Qualcomm will win: the ITU will adopt the Flarion technology, and the IEEE will delay its announcement – possibly for months, even years.

That will make the matter look as if it is Europe against America. That in turn could hold up the standardisation process even longer; American technology companies don’t all worship at the CDMA altar, and many of them are making fortunes out of GSM. But Congress is full of people who do not understand this. And Qualcomm lobbyists will not fail to exploit this.

The losers, of course, will be the mobile networks. They need this sort of technology if they are to survive the avalanche of ideas like BT Fusion. Fusion has gone off half-cocked, perhaps; but the idea will be refined, and not only by BT and Vodafone.

What the operators of the world need is a technology that gives them data speeds and capacities, sufficient to match what can be done with technology like WiFi and WiMAX. So Qualcomm may not, in fact, make itself too many friends by forcing people to choose between CDMA and WiFi, when their tests seem to show that there is a viable alternative.

Guy Kewney has been writing on technology for longer than most. He runs NewsWireless.net as well as writing for many including VNU.

Ofcom: A New Regulatory Approach For Fixed Telecoms

UK Super-regulator Ofcom have today published details of a new regulatory approach for the UK’s fixed line telecommunications market.

We think this information is significant enough to be reproduced without editing.

A new regulatory approach for fixed telecommunications

Ofcom today published details of a new regulatory approach for the UK’s fixed line telecommunications market.

Ofcom has concluded that a new approach is necessary for the longer term, based on real equality of access to those parts of the fixed telecoms network which BT’s competitors cannot fairly replicate.

This new approach to regulation has six objectives:

to drive down the price of calls, connections and services for consumers and businesses;
to support more innovation through the growth of competitive products and services, such as faster broadband, television and voice over the internet and video-on-demand, from a range of credible companies;
to provide regulatory certainty for providers and investors so that they commit to developing, marketing and extending these products and services for UK consumers and businesses;
to re-focus regulation where it is truly needed, with swifter remedies to tackle anti-competitive behaviour and a structure which delivers equivalence to a timetable with real penalties and incentives;
to remove regulation wherever competition is effective and the effect of open markets – rather than regulatory intervention – ensures the delivery of choice, value and quality for consumers; and
ensure the necessary level of consumer protection through a combination of codes, sanctions and effective consumer information.

Ofcom Chairman David Currie said: “We believe these proposals have the potential to encourage more sustainable competition, more services, lower prices and greater consumer choice.”

Ofcom Chief Executive Stephen Carter said: “Effective regulation for the telecommunications industry needs to be forward looking, needs to encourage competition in the right places and needs to deliver tangible benefits for customers.”

He added: “These proposals are substantially different to traditional telecommunications regulation. They demand significant changes in key areas, and recognise that in other areas regulation can be rolled back.”

Proposed Undertakings

On Tuesday 21 June the Board of BT Group plc agreed in principle to offer to the Ofcom Board legally binding undertakings in lieu of a reference under the Enterprise Act. On Wednesday 22 June 2005 the Ofcom Board accepted this offer.

The proposed undertakings commit the company to substantive changes in organisation and behaviour; full detail of the proposed undertakings will be published on 30 June 2005.

A more detailed Ofcom Statement can be found online at www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/telecoms_p2/statement/

This news release should be read in conjunction with that statement. The full undertakings – which will be subject to final consultation – will be published on 30 June, together with a number of other proposals relevant to securing greater competition in the fixed line market, the details of which follow later in this news release.

Enforceability. The final undertakings to be offered by the Board of BT Group plc will be in lieu of a reference to the Competition Commission under Section 155(1) of the Enterprise Act 2002. They will be legally binding and enforceable, and will mean that:
- in the event of a breach, Ofcom could take the matter to the High Court. The Board of BT Group plc would then be responsible for ensuring compliance with the order of the Court;
- third-parties affected by a breach could also seek damages via the Court to recover losses incurred; and
- these undertakings will sit alongside Ofcom’s existing competition and regulatory power.

Ofcom will publish the final undertakings for a six week consultation on 30 June 2005.

Branding and identity. The proposed undertakings offered by BT will stipulate the setting up of a new – and operationally separate – business unit, provisionally entitled Access Services, but with a distinct new brand and identity to be devised in the coming weeks. The new business unit will be staffed by around 30,000 employees presently responsible for the operation and development of BT’s local access networks. It will have:
- separate physical locations for management teams;
- separate bonus schemes; whilst the new business unit’s staff will remain BT Group plc employees, their long-term incentive plans will be changed to a new scheme which reflects the objectives of the new business unit, not those of the BT Group plc; and
- over time, new branding on uniforms and vehicles which emphasises its operational separation from BT Group plc.
- given the limited size of the market in Northern Ireland (and, as a consequence, BT’s current operational structure in Northern Ireland), BT has proposed – and Ofcom has accepted – that the three operational changes above will not apply to Northern Ireland. However, all other aspects of the proposed undertakings will apply equally across the whole of the UK; and
- separate operating and trading systems.
Product equivalence. The new business unit will be required, through a set of formal rules on governance and separation, to support all providers’ retail activities (including those of BT Retail) on a precisely equivalent basis, which Ofcom terms “Equivalence of Input”. Equivalence of Input will mean that all providers will benefit from:
- the same products, with equal opportunity to contribute to the development of new products;
- the same prices, offered to all providers equally; and
- the same processes, to ensure all providers are able to order, install, maintain and migrate connections for their customers on equal terms.
Products and services. The new business unit will offer a universally available product and service set:
- Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) products, including fully unbundled loops (where a provider takes full responsibility for all of the customer’s voice and broadband services) and shared loops (where BT Retail continues to provide voice services and another provider is responsible for broadband).
- All forms of Wholesale Line Rental (WLR), where a provider takes responsibility for all voice services and provides a single bill for both line rental and calls.
- Backhaul products, which are used to connect the local access network to the core network. Some providers have built out their own backhaul networks; however many others are dependent on BT for wholesale backhaul services.

Equivalence of Input will also apply to IPStream – BT’s wholesale internet products used by many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to provide broadband connections for their customers.

Detail of the timescales under which Equivalence of Input will apply to these services are set out in the accompanying Statement, which can be found online at;

www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/telecoms_p2/statement/

Next Generation Networks. The proposed undertakings will also set out a number of clear principles which BT Group plc should follow in the design, procurement and build of its next generation 21st Century Network. These principles will help ensure that other providers who will depend upon interconnection with BT’s 21CN do not suffer competitive disadvantage.
Board and governance. BT Group plc and the new business unit’s compliance with the proposed undertakings will be monitored by a new Equality of Access Board (EAB), which will also oversee the delivery of other legacy regulated products not directly delivered by the new business unit. The proposed undertakings from the Board of BT Group plc require BT Group plc to act swiftly upon the recommendations of the EAB.
- The EAB will be a compliance Board, not an operating management Board;
- The EAB will be chaired by Carl Symon, a Non-Executive Director on the Board of BT Group plc, with four other members, three of whom will be independent of BT Group plc and will be appointed in consultation with Ofcom;
- The EAB will meet between six and ten times during the first year of operation;
- The EAB will produce a regular summary report of its activities, which will be published; and
- The EAB will have extensive powers to seek access to information from wherever in BT Group plc it deems necessary to do its work.

Ofcom Chief Executive Stephen Carter said: “The Ofcom Board proposes to accept BT Group plc’s proposed undertakings on the critical assumption that BT Group plc does not merely deliver the letter of the undertakings, but also the spirit.”

Other regulatory policy initiatives

Ofcom has also been developing a series of regulatory policy initiatives under its sectoral powers which, in their impact on the competitive market, will complement the proposed Enterprise Act undertakings offered by BT Group plc.
Cost of capital Separately, Ofcom has today also published a further consultation document on the Weighted Average Cost of Capital it will apply in assessing the rate of return on BT’s regulated products.

The consultation document can be found online at www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/cost_capital2/

Establishing the relationship between risk and return is an important aspect of Ofcom’s work. The more high-risk a company’s investment, particularly in terms of the volatility of returns compared to the volatility of returns on equity investments generally, the more expensive it becomes to raise capital in the markets, as investors expect a higher rate of return to acknowledge the degree of risk involved.

Where Ofcom is required to set a limit on the price a company can charge for its regulated products and services, it is important that those limits allow the company to make enough of a return on its investments to reflect the costs it incurs in raising capital.

In line with its preliminary consultation, Ofcom will propose separate levels for the traditional copper access network which differ from the overall cost of capital for BT Group as a whole. Ofcom believes that this approach will provide a fairer pricing regime for competitors using BT’s access network whilst allowing BT an appropriately higher return on higher-risk investments.

In the coming weeks Ofcom will also publish four further documents. These are:
Undue Discrimination Guidelines Ofcom has imposed regulation on some companies requiring them not to discriminate unduly to prevent then from using their dominance to the detriment of competition and consumers.

Ofcom is reviewing the guidelines that describe how it will investigate potential cases of undue discrimination. The present approach was designed by Ofcom’s predecessor Oftel before the Communications Act 2003 came into effect. The new approach proposed in the consultation, to be published on 30 June, will tighten the requirements and in Ofcom’s view will help increase effective competition.

The consultation will also include, by way of illustration, a number of examples of the kind of behaviour which may lead to undue discrimination. Those examples are included to help foster understanding of the new approach.
Wholesale Broadband BT Group plc has today announced that it will cut the price for full LLU by 24% per cent from £105 to £80 per year, with effect from August. BT Group plc has also committed to deliver stability on IPStream pricing until there are 1.5 million unbundled lines in the UK to encourage competition.

Ofcom believes that these voluntary measures from BT Group plc will help to stimulate greater competition in broadband markets by providing reassurance for LLU operators investing in deep level infrastructure.

Ofcom welcomes these initiatives from BT. It will publish a short statement on 30 June outlining its future plans for regulation of Wholesale Broadband. Ofcom is intent on fostering competition in the LLU market and will be quick to use its regulatory powers if required.
Next Generation Networks Ofcom will consult on the detailed practical steps to ensure that the development and deployment of BT Group plc’s Next Generation Network – 21CN – offers all providers the same products, prices and processes on equal terms and does not inhibit reasonable developments by alternative network operators.

The consultation, also to be published on 30 June 2005, will propose that BT Group plc should not simply inform its competitors what it is doing, but instead share details of deployment and interconnection with its competitors via a genuinely cooperative new NGN forum.
Universal Service Obligation Ofcom will consult on the outcome of its analysis of the Universal Service Obligation – the statutory safeguards which provide important citizen and consumer protection measures, including tariffs for people on low incomes, obligations to install new lines upon request and commitments to provide and maintain the public payphone service. The consultation will be published on 30 June 2005.
Deregulatory measures Ofcom is seeking to withdraw from the regulation of competitive markets wherever feasible and appropriate. Ofcom has previously consulted on deregulating in two narrowband wholesale markets. In July 2005 Ofcom intends to consult on possible deregulation in the leased lines and large business markets.

Ends.

Ofcom Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) Midyear Figures

A number of people have raised concerns as to how open an organisation Ofcom is. It’s a public corporation, set up in many ways like the BBC, but it was setup with the knowledge that the UK Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) would take effect in January 2005. This has led it to define the accessibility of the information that it produces, as it generates it.

We’ve heard many people have applied for information and have been turned down, with the frequently cited reasons being; Not in the public interest (how broad a brush would you like sir); or Commercially sensitive (also pretty broad). Others, who have had their request granted, are nearly always pointed to Ofcom’s extensive Web site, which isn’t always the known as the quickest to locate what you want.

We’ve heard that many applications take the statutory maximum number of days (20) to respond with a reply – even when it’s a refusal. This causes us some confusion – does it really take that long for Ofcom to deduce that it is going to be refused, especially as all information is graded on creation? Ofcom’s response is that if it comes back as a refusal, they will pass it through “internal procedures” to re-examine if they can release it.

Ofcomwatch have been keeping an eye on this for some time. We spoke to Luke Gibbs from Ofcomwatch about their FOIA findings, “This is something we’ve been looking at over the last year. It appears to us that Ofcom is following the letter of the FIOA, rather than the spirit. We’ll be doing further research into this later in the year.”

Russ Taylor, Ofcomwatch co-founder reveals their finding …

Ofcom was kind enough to provide OfcomWatch with some brief midyear statistics on how it is progressing with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), implemented in the U.K. on January 1, 2005. For previous Ofcomwatch posts on this issue, check Ofcomwatch’s Brief Guide to The Freedom of Information Act and its continuation.

* Ofcom is averaging about 130 FOIA requests per month ~ about 800 so far.

* About 70% of FOIA requests are granted. Common reasons for denying a FOIA request: (i) the data is commercially confidential and (ii) the request is overly-broad and could not be completed within the 18 hour / 450 GBP limit.

* 98.5% of FOIA requests are processed within the statutory time limit. Interesting point: Grants are reportedly swifter than denials, because Ofcom internally review proposed denials to determine whether they can be partially granted.

* Ofcom do not categorise FOIA requests because that would lead to prioritisation, which would be ‘wrong and unfair’.

* Overall, Ofcom commented that the FOIA — in ‘philosophical terms’ — is ‘both welcome and in line with our view of the public’s right to expect transparency and accessibility from public bodies’. However, Ofcom noted that FOIA is something of an operational burden because of the volume of requests received.

* * *

So, that’s Ofcom’s take (and progress) on FOIA so far. FOIA is of course a new area of U.K. law and we expect all public bodies–not just Ofcom–to struggle with implementation. OfcomWatch will take a closer look at FOIA in January 2006, as the first-year of the FOIA’s applicability to Ofcom draws to a close.

But, overall (and interim) statistics only tell part of the story:

* We’ve heard some interesting stories about FOIA from some of you, and we’ve filed less than a handful ourselves. Keep sharing your FOIA stories (mail to: [email protected]).

* I suppose we’ll also receive legal clarifications on just how powerful a tool FOIA is as some denials (whether by Ofcom or by others) are tested on appeal.

* Finally, FOIA is only one element of ‘better regulation’ that is being implemented across the U.K. Better regulation means that FOIA requests should be minimised because public bodies otherwise maintain useful websites and publication schemes, always with an eye toward satisfying their ultimate boss: the citizen-consumer. So, we always want your comments on how Ofcom can function better in this regard.

Stay tuned…

Ofcomwatch
Ofcom UK Home Office, FOIA

BB Mobile Demo Seamless 3G/Wi-Fi Roaming With Nortel

Nortel And BB Mobile Offer Seamless 3G Wi-Fi Calls Nortel NT and BB Mobile are chuffed to bits to have achieved what they claim is the world’s “first seamless handoff of voice and data services between a third generation (3G) cellular network operating on the 1.7 GHz radio frequency band and a wireless local area network (LAN)”.

What this means in English is that in the future users will be able roam securely between 3G wireless networks and Wi-Fi networks or wireless LANs while checking out websites, blasting out emails, downloading files and doing all the other things that connected cats get up to on a high-speed wireless broadband voice and data service.

The triumphant test calls were made on a live Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) 3G cellular network and an 802.11 wireless LAN, with Nortel’s smarty pants software making it all happen.

This latest test follows on from successful wireless data transmission trials by Nortel and BB Mobile earlier this month.

Nortel And BB Mobile Offer Seamless 3G Wi-Fi Calls In those trials, boffins were able to notch up Japan’s first 14.4 million bits per second (Mbps) wireless data transmission via the 1.7 GHz radio frequency band for mobile communications and Nortel’s high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) technology.

This managed to ratchet up speeds 30 times faster than commercially deployed networks using UMTS.

Peter MacKinnon, president GSM/UMTS, Nortel, throbbed: “This second demonstration with BB Mobile is an important step in meeting the demand for ubiquitous wireless broadband voice and data services regardless of network or device”.

“The results of these tests with BB Mobile also highlight the level of technological innovation we will continue to bring to Japan’s wireless industry to help drive network convergence and bridge the gap between wireline and wireless 3G networks,” added Nick Vreugdenhil, country manager, Japan, Nortel.

As an aside, we have to commend Nortel on producing the longest disclaimer message we’ve ever seen.

Nortel And BB Mobile Offer Seamless 3G Wi-Fi Calls A note at the end of the press announcement: “Certain information included in this press release is forward-looking and is subject to important risks and uncertainties. The results or events predicted in these statements may differ materially from actual results or events….”

Nortel then went on to cover every possible eventuality including – probably – an invasion of bug eye monsters, in a 700 word yawn-a-thon guaranteed to be ignored by anyone who sees it.

Oy! Company spokesperson! Shut it!

Nortel
Softbank

Skype for Pocket PC Review

Skype for Pocket PC Review As you probably know, we’re big fans of the Internet-based telephony application Skype, and when we got our grubby hands on an imate JAM PocketPC phone (with SanDisk Wi-Fi card), we couldn’t wait to start reaping those free VoIP calls with Skype for Pocket PC, v1.1.0.6.

A quick visit to Skype’s website bagged the free 2.5 meg download, and told us that our machine was up to the job.

Skype recommends a rather beefy 400 MHz processor or above, so our JAM phone (also known as the T-Mobile MDA Compact) should be fine for the job with its sprightly 416 Mhz CPU.

Seeing as most PDA/smartphone users typically operate their devices in power saving modes running the processor significantly slower than top speed, there is a danger that Skype’s demanding CPU footprint may turn into something of a battery hog, so be warned

Making Calls

The interface will be very familiar to Skype PC users, offering a near-identical feature list, including chat messaging. Once logged in, your phone contacts appear as usual although we found the online notification a bit flaky, often failing to correctly indicate that friends were online.

Skype for Pocket PC Review Using Skype to place voice calls to Skype users or via SkypeOut was simplicity itself, with almost all attempts to connect calls successful first time. Sadly, once connected, things weren’t quite so rosy.

My first call was encouraging; with the other person’s voice coming over reasonably clear with no problems their end either.

The second call, however, was a catastrophe, with a distorted, intermittent signal making me sound like Norman Collier doing an impression of the Daleks. It was unusable.

Other calls have resulted in recipients being subjected to buzzes, clicks, pops, complete silences or weird dub remixes of my voice, while I’ve been treated to random snippets of audio, whirring clicks and, in once case, words spoken some time previously coming back in a spooky loop.

At times, it was a bit like trying to communicate over a children’s walkie-talkie at the limits of its range or hearing disconnected voices through the fug of mind bending drugs.

Skype for Pocket PC Review But I battled on, and found subsequent Skype calls to be a veritable potpourri of good, bad and indifferent, with more terrible calls than good ones.

In didn’t help that Skype defaulted to using the JAM’s speakerphone, making a headset essential for any kind of clarity (and privacy).

Although you can buy natty headsets with boom microphones that make you look like an Air Traffic Controller, I’ve yet to see a Pocket PC with a dedicated mic input, so you’ll still have to bark your words into the device’s integrated microphone.

For the greater part, the IM element of Skype worked fine, and if you’ve got a wide circle of chums using Skype, is worth the download alone.

Conclusion

With the fast growth of VoiP and Wi-Fi access, there’s no denying that the software has huge potential.

Skype for Pocket PC Review As we reported in March 2005, there’s free Skype access provided at hundreds of airports, railways stations etc through The Cloud’s network, which – in theory – means you could be ringing up associates worldwide for nowt.

But no business client is going to be impressed with a phone call full of buzzing noises, weird clicks with the caller sounding like Sparky the Magic Piano on a bad day.

Seeing as almost all of the problems encountered were specific to the PocketPC version, it’s hard to work out whether it’s the limitations of the platform holding back Skype, or that the software hasn’t matured yet.

The good news is that Skype for Pocket PC is a free download, so it’s definitely checking it out to see how it works on your device.

The company are aggressively developing the product, and with luck many of the issues we encountered may be resolved in the near future.

For now, we can only give it a mixed review. We love the technology and we – naturally – love the idea of free VoiP calls on a smartphone, but until calls become more reliable – and usable – we’ll be sticking to conventional networks for important calls.

Rating: 3/5

Skype

iRiver Knocks Out Four MP3 Players

iRiver Knocks Out Four MP3 Players In a deluge of announcements, iRiver has paraded four new flash-memory based music players before the SEK exhibition in Seoul this week.

Most interesting is the U10, a strikingly designed multimedia player, operated through a 2.2in, QVGA (320 pixel by 240 pixel), landscape-oriented touch screen.

Looking like something that’s escaped the set of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the curvy white player device packs in a ton of features, with MP3, WMA, ASF and Ogg music playback supplement by Mpeg4 video support (but no DivX). Apple’s FairPlay protected AAC music files can’t be played on iRiver devices.

Also lurking within its compact 69mm x 47mm x 16 mm form is a FM radio, a voice recorder and a photo viewer.

The U10 comes in 512MB and 1GB capacities and will be priced at $283 (~£155, ~€232) and $335 (~£275, ~€232) respectively in the US. No UK launch date or prices have been announced.

iRiver Knocks Out Four MP3 Players The second player is the H10 Junior, a flash-based Mini Me version of the popular H10 player, which some patronising marketing genius has declared as “One For The Ladies”.

Served up in 512MB and 1GB capacities, the player complements iRiver’s existing hard disk-based H10 range – currently available in 5GB, 6GB and 20GB capacities – and offers a FM tuner/recorder, voice recorder and line-in encoder.

The Junior offers a 1.2″ (260k) colour LCD panel on the top part of the fascia with and an up-down scroll bar beneath it.

Replacing a (comparatively speaking) chunky hard drive with flash memory means that the dimensions can be slimmed down to a teensy weensy 42mm x 72mm x 16mm, with the unit weighing a feather-threatening 50 grams.

Availability in South Korea is scheduled for late June, but we haven’t heard a peep about pricing or international distribution.

iRiver Knocks Out Four MP3 Players Wrapping up iRiver’s latest product shifting marathon is the T20 and T30 flash music players.

Both the diminutive players can churn out MP3, WMA, ASF and Ogg Vorbis audio formats and come 256MB, 512MB and 1GB varieties. Battery life is quoted as up to 20 hrs, powered by a single AAA battery.

The T20 features a built in sliding USB plug that lets users hook it up directly to a computer’s USB port, while the T30 sports a natty Toblerone-esque triangular styling.

Pricing and international launch details for the T20 and T30 were – you guessed – not announced either. They just want to tease us, I guess.

(Writer congratulates himself on writing an article on no less than four MP3 players and not mentioning the phrase “iPod Killer”)…

iRiver

Hello? I’M ON THE PLANE!!!!

Hello? I'M ON THE PLANE!!!! A survey by technology researchers IDC revealed that passengers aren’t too keen on the prospect of spending long flights listening to fellow passengers bellowing into their mobile phones.

The comprehensive survey was set up in response to reports that the US Federal Communications Commission was considering lifting its in-flight cellphone ban.

IDC discovered that a mere 11 percent of its 50,000 survey respondents wanted the ban lifted, but a hefty 64 percent approved of the use of mobile phones for purposes besides voice calls.

“While the passage of this proposal appears to offer solutions to the wireless industry, it has spawned disapproval among some consumer groups as the potential for in-flight usage would create disturbances to passengers,” IDC commented.

Hello? I'M ON THE PLANE!!!! The growth of clever-clogs smartphones phones like the i-mate JAM and PalmOne Treo would allow connected passengers to check their email and surf the web during flights.

IDC’s survey aimed to identify which wireless services were most appealing and, not surprisingly, of the eleven activities offered, text messaging was the most popular activity.

As you might imagine, the market would love to see the in-flight ban lifted as it would provide a party pack of opportunities for wireless carriers and airlines to brand and market mobile commerce, provide new channels to squeeze more cash out of consumers and send smart phone manufacturers into mobile heaven.

“Whether a mobile-device vendor is interested in the in-flight market or not, the key finding from this survey remains the same: By comprehending the needs and criteria specific to the user segment and location, mobility companies can enhance their products to better serve and target the desired customers and market segments,” said Dana Thorat, IDA research manager/mobile users, in a suitably analytical manner.

IDC