June 2005

People Prefer Real Live Customer Service
It’s hardly revelatory stuff, but a study by J.D. Power and Associates has revealed that customer service issues dealt with by living, breathing human beings create significantly higher customer care ratings than those with computer-generated interaction.
The 2005 Wireless Customer Care Performance Study, now in its third year, examines customer experiences in three point-of-contact methods: on the blower with a service representative and/or automated response system (ARS); walk-in at a retail store; and online Internet connection.
The men in the white lab coats examined processing issues such as problem resolution efficiency and the time customers were left listening to cheesy on-hold music and drew up a customer satisfaction index.
Customers dealing with service representatives over the phone registered an average index score of 109, well above the industry average score of 100.
At the retail store, things weren’t quite so positive, but still returned an above-average score of 102.
However, when it came to customers contacting their carrier with a problem and being left to deal with a gibbering box of wires in an ARS system, the index score plummeted down to 85.
Trying to get an answer online proved to be even more frustrating, with the index score plunging down to just 75.
The study reveals that customers didn’t like the inflexibility of automated systems, noting that a service representative-either over the phone or in person-can answer customer questions and clarify answers given.
Not surprisingly, this compares favourably to spending an eternity on the phone being told to endlessly bash different numbers on a keypad.
“As more companies encourage customers to contact Internet and computer-based customer service programs to save operating costs, they run the risk of increasing churn [techie word for a customer switching carriers] as the number of contacts needed to resolve a customer complaint or issue rises,” said Kirk Parsons, senior director of wireless services at J.D. Power and Associates.
“Since future churn levels are four times as high among those who rate their wireless carrier below average in customer care, the challenge for wireless providers is to offer an easy and efficient customer care transaction experience.”
Contrary to my personal experience, T-Mobile US ranked highest among the six big-boy wireless service providers in “creating a positive experience among customers who contact their providers for service or assistance.”
Victorious for the second consecutive year, T-Mobile notched up an index score of 108, and was seen as performing particularly well across all factors, especially hold-time duration and problem resolution efficiency.
Additionally, T-Mobile customers’ average hold times before waiting to speak with a service representative were an impressive 34 percent less than the industry average (2.27 minutes versus 3.44 minutes).
Verizon Wireless, Nextel and ALLTEL were also noted as performing at or above the industry average.
The study also found that more 54% of wireless users have contacted the customer service department for assistance within the past year – up slightly from last year’s 52%.
Most customers prefer to contact their carriers via the telephone (71%), with 26% using email and only 3% using e-mail/Internet contacts.
The 2005 Wireless Customer Care Performance Study was based on responses from more than 8,600 wireless users who had contacted customer care over the past year.
JD Power
9 June, 2005
SGH-Z130: Samsung ‘Web friendly’ 3G Handset Imminent
Scheduled for release at the beginning of July is Samsung’s “Web friendly” SGH-Z130 3G handset.
The all-swivelling beastie features a rotating, high-resolution LCD screen (176×220 pixels), with full Web browsing support offered by the well regarded NetFront Browser by Access (as previously seen on Sony Clie PDAs).
As is the norm these days, a 1.3-Megapixel (1152 x 864 pixels) digital camera has been poured inside the SGH-Z130’s slim-ish dimensions (112x46x20mm, 120g), with all the multimedia tick boxes neatly crossed off:
Video recorder? Oh yes!
Music player with MP3/AAC/AAC+ support? Of course!
All jingling, jangling and beeping 64 polyphonic & MP3 ring tones installed? Absolutely!
Embedded wallpapers and Macromedia Flash? C’est naturellement!
There’s a fair bit of memory on board to handle all the multimedia fluff, with a total of 88.5 MB storage offering 80 MB for Image/Sound/Video, 4 MB for Java, 3 MB for Email and 1.5 MB for MMS with just enough room left over for 200 SMS messages.
The handset comes with built-in Bluetooth support (v1.1) and works with 2100MHz UMTS 3G as well as the 900/1800MHz GSM bands.
Sadly, despite the phone’s strong Web-focus, there’s no Wi-Fi on board and USB connectivity is stuck at Ye Olde v1.0.
The built in NetFront browser supports OMA Browsing 2.2, WML, HTML 4.01 and cHTML, and its “Rapid-Render” incremental rendering technology is claimed to accelerate the presentation of Web pages.
As with earlier versions of Netfront, there is a handy option to render Web pages to fit smaller screen widths, saving a ton of pesky horizontal scrolling.
NetFront is being touted as the only mobile browser to provide integrated support for Adobe Reader LE and the popular portable document format, PDF.
‘The SGH-Z130 is one of the most innovative 3G handsets on the market today, and ACCESS’ advanced NetFront browser technology extends this innovation by providing a comprehensive mobile Internet browsing experience,’ insisted Chulhwan Lee, of Samsung. ‘ACCESS and Samsung will continue to collaborate to bring advanced mobile Internet browsing solutions to mobile end-users throughout the world.’
SGH-Z130 specs
9 June, 2005
GNER Publishes Passwords In Customer Magazine
Hot on the heels of yesterday’s story about the ‘world’s greatest military hacker’ comes this tale of advanced doltery from train operator Great North Eastern Railway (GNER), who managed to publish their system passwords in a magazine available to thousands of passengers.
The April/May edition of their freebie passenger magazine, Livewire, positively invited hackers to come and do their devilish work, with an article on their operator’s control centre in York being illustrated with photographs showing mainframe and computer passwords written on a whiteboard.
Red faced and flapping like Fred McFlapster wearing flares in a gale force wind, William Higgins, editor of Livewire, surprised us all by declaring that including the picture was a mistake, insisting that the highly competent GNER technology team had already rectified any problems.
Martin Grey, technical services manager in GNER’s information systems department, claimed that passwords were changed before the magazine was published, ‘We quickly changed the passwords and user accounts so no one outside could get into our corporate data.’
‘The procedure in terms of our internal security was not being followed and we took quick steps to remedy that,’ he added.
A GNER spokesman later confirmed passwords were no longer being written bold and large on whiteboards and – presumably – their photographers will no longer be invited to go around snapping confidential information for free magazines.
GNER, owned by the Sea Containers Group, provide high-speed intercity train services along Britain’s East Coast main line, linking England and Scotland along a route of almost 1,000 miles.
Of their annual 15 million passengers every year, eight million are calculated to be business travellers, with the free magazine enjoying a circulation of more than 100,000.
A deeply unimpressed Phil Robinson, chief technology officer at security specialist Information Risk Management, commented that it was unusual to see passwords emblazoned on whiteboards, although it’s commonplace to see office monitors flapping with Post-it notes containing security information.
‘Mainframes are a sensitive part of any organisation and contain the crown jewels of data a business might want to protect,’ he warned.
Robinson suggested that companies need to work out a coherent security password policy and insist that employees use secure – but memorable – passwords, with a lock-out policy stopping repeated wrong password entries.
Microsoft’s ‘At Work’ site offers a series of tips for creating passwords, advising against using combinations of consecutive numbers or letters or adjacent letters on a keyboard such as “qwerty.”
The site also recommends avoiding any word that can be found in the dictionary, in any language, or replacing letters with numbers or symbols that look like the letters such as M1cr0$0ft or P@ssw0rd as hackers are wise to these tricks.
Instead, Microsoft advises coming up with a passphrase – a sentence you can remember, like “My son Aiden is three years older than my daughter Anna” – and then using the first letter of each word of the sentence to create ‘msaityotmda.’
It then advises mixing and matching a combination of upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters that look like letters to come up with a hacker-challenging password like M$8ni3y0tmd@.
(Your writer now hastily goes off to change his own passwords…)
GNER
Creating stronger passwords
9 June, 2005
Europe’s Broadband Access Overtakes America’s
A new survey published today reveals that more Europeans than Americans possessed a broadband Internet connection in the first quarter of 2005, with hi-tech South Korea in danger of losing its global pole position.
The Asia Pacific region – home to most of the world’s population – continues to be the world’s biggest broadband market, notching up 61 million subscribers and a 39 percent share of the global broadband market.
The research by the Anglo-Dutch research group TelecomPaper placed Europe in second place with 47.95 million broadband subscribers, edging past America with 47.53 million.
“Europe has outrun the Americas for the first time in history and became the second largest broadband market in the world,” TelecomPaper noted.
The addition of broadband to European homes was also greater than Asia and America, growing around twice as fast.
Leading the European charge were countries such as the Netherlands and Denmark whose broadband connectivity now only trails South Korea by a smidgen.
South Korea currently boasts 23.92 broadband connections per 100 inhabitants, which is calculated to give over 50 percent of the population fast internet access when connection-sharing is taken into account.
Growth in South Korea has almost come to standstill, with new connections only up 1.45 percent from the same period last year.
In the Netherlands and Denmark growth was explosive, with penetration reaching 21.1 percent, up from 13.9 and 15.8 percent respectively.
“Given the slow growth of South Korea, we expect that the top position, now held by South Korea, will change hands this year,” observed TelecomPaper director Ed Achterberg.
With virtual telecoms operators gaining access to the incumbent operator’s networks via European unbundling regulations, consumers have been able to take advantage from the fierce competition among telecoms’ operators and cable TV companies.
European telecommunications commissioner Viviane Reding stated that she wanted more than half of all Europeans to have high-speed Internet access by 2010, bringing it up from an average 8.5 percent in 2004.
Five out the world’s top 10 broadband nations are European, with Hong Kong at number four and Canada at five. Switzerland, Israel, Taiwan, Norway and Sweden are all up in the top ten, boasting at least 16.9 percent fast Internet connections per 100 citizens.
TelecomPaper
9 June, 2005
Islington’s Free Wi-Fi ‘Technology Mile’ Goes Live
Wi-fi enabled North Londoners can now gorge their connectivity needs with the announcement by Islington Council that its ‘Technology Mile’ has gone live.
Located in Upper Street, Islington, the ‘Technology Mile’ runs from The Angel to Highbury Corner, providing one mile of unbroken free wireless broadband access to residents, businesses and any passing freeloader.
The service will be available to anyone with a suitably enabled Wi-Fi device, with surfers being directed to a customised council page featuring a comprehensive menu of council services, information and communication options including jobs, travel, e-Govt options, child care and advice services
Happily, there’s also direct access to the World Wide Web – all for nowt.
The second part of the project is to dish out computers to businesses in the area, so that customers can use these for free access.
The council are anticipating that locals may use the free access to pay off council bills and are hopeful that the service may stimulate commercial activity in the area.
“As London’s largest ‘hotzone’ Islington’s Technology Mile is a landmark in providing wide reaching community services directly on the street,” says Cllr Bridget Fox. “By offering free access to important council services and to the internet, the project addresses social inclusion head on and supports our ambition to turn Islington into an A1 Borough for all.
“The technology mile builds on other schemes the council has in place to help everyone to gain the benefits of internet access. I’m especially pleased with the second phase of the project, when we hope to begin work with selected local businesses, supplying PCs along Upper St business so they can offer free access to their customers.”
We like this scheme. There’s not much point in having free community Wi-Fi if only well-heeled laptop-toters can use it, but by ensuring public access to computers in the area, the walls of the digital divide could come crashing down.
The scheme comes with a few commercial risks – if the service proves to be fast and reliable, locals may cancel their commercial subscriptions and this may result in ISPs fighting back – in America, several commercial providers have already managed to get legislation passed to prevent free or low-cost municipal broadband services arguing that they’re uncompetitive.
Marc Meyohas, Chief Executive of Cityspace, the company who built the network gave out his love for the borough: “Islington is a progressive council with great vision; the Technology Mile proves what can be achieved for the community by taking the internet out of the restrictive arenas of homes and offices and truly integrating it into people’s lives.”
Islington Council
Cityspace
8 June, 2005
Gary McKinnon, Wood Green’s Biggest Hacker Faces Extradition
An unemployed Scottish man alleged to have carried out “the biggest military computer hack of all time” will appear in a London court today.
Clearly not one to merely dabble, Gary McKinnon, 39, faces extradition after being accused of gaining illegal access and fiddling about with files on no less than 53 US military and NASA computers over a 12-month period from 2001 to 2002.
Using software downloaded off the Internet, McKinnon allegedly hacked his way into almost 100 networks operated by NASA, the US Army, US Navy, Department of Defence and the US Air Force, with the US government estimating that his antics have cost around one million dollars (£570,000, €790,000) to track down and fix.
Originally from Milton, Glasgow, the north London resident was indicted in 2002 by a Federal Grand Jury on eight counts of computer-related crimes in 14 different States.
The indictment claims he successfully hacked into an Army computer at Fort Myer, Virginia and then indulged in a veritable orgy of hacking merriment after obtaining administrator privileges.
McKinnon is alleged to have transmitted codes, information and commands, deleted critical system files, copied username and password files and installed tools to gain unauthorised access to other machines before finishing off with a flurry and deleting around 1,300 user accounts.
In New Jersey, it’s claimed he hacked into the Earle Naval Weapons Station network and plundered 950 passwords a few days after 9/11, which resulted in the entire base being effectively shut down for a week.
With a sense of the dramatic, Paul McNulty, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, announced that “Mr McKinnon is charged with the biggest military computer hack of all time” at the time of his indictment in 2002.
Investigators found that many of the computers he allegedly hacked were ‘protected’ by easily guessed passwords, and although sensitive information was downloaded, no classified material was released.
Investigators found no evidence of data being offered to foreign governments or evil terrorist organisations, prompting his solicitor, Karen Todner, to suggest that the motivation for the extradition is political with the intent to make an example of McKinnon.
“The Crown Prosecution Service has the power and opportunity to charge Mr McKinnon, a British citizen, with offences for which he could stand trial in this country,” she said.
“However, they have chosen not to pursue this course of action and are allowing the American authorities to apply for the extradition of a British citizen,” Todner added.
If extradited and found guilty, McKinnon could face a maximum penalty of five years in the slammer and a £157,000 (~US $288,249.48 ~ €233,953.42) fine.
8 June, 2005
V600i 3G UMTS Phone From Sony Ericsson and Vodafone
Rather immodestly self-declared as ‘beautifully designed’, Sony Ericsson and Vodafone have announced their new V600i 3G phone.
Designed to take advantage of Vodafone’s live content streaming, the none-more-black phone ships with a veritable bucketload of multimedia features to keep even the most attention-deficient consumers entertained.
The phone sports a ‘direct video telephony button’ for quick access to the movie/video calling applications, with the 1.8 inch – 262.000 colour TFD screen acting as a viewfinder.
Naturally, there’s a camera on board, with Sony Ericsson bolting on a 1.3 MegaPixel jobbie with an active lens cover for quick snapping and protection
The V600i offers full 3G functionality, with Vodafone hoping that users will form a crack-like addiction to downloading the audio, video, gaming and other lucrative mobile wares for sale on the Vodafone live! portal.
Subscribers can also take advantage of the content streamed from the Vodafone live! site, including live sports and music videos.
As is de rigeur these days, the phone can be customised with downloadable wallpapers, with the 32MB internal memory capable of storing a whole symphony of irritating ‘individual’ ring tones.
There’s also a built in FM radio with a 3D Java gaming engine offering multiplayer gaming via Bluetooth.
But – hey! – life’s not all about fun and games for time-poor, cash rich execs, so there’s a suite of business applications onboard which can be synchronised with PCs via USB.
Cutting edge office hipsters keen to perfect that Nathan Barely look can also take advantage of the V600i’s Bluetooth support and strap one – or, what the heck, maybe even two – daft Bluetooth hands-free units to their ears.
The V600i will be available in Vodafone stores from early Q3 2005 onwards.
Sony Ericsson
Vodafone
8 June, 2005
ASA Rules NTL Broadband Not “5x faster”
NTL’s claim that 300K broadband offer was “more than 5 times faster than standard 56K dial-up internet” has been happy-slapped down by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), who condemned it as being in breach of TV Advertising Standards Code.
The offending broadcast appeared on Broadband UK (NTL’s own, self-promotional channel) and extolled the virtues of NTL’s “3 for £30” package, which lumps in a telephone service, a digital television service and a broadband internet service.
The advert claimed that NTL’s broadband service was “more than 5 times faster than standard 56K dial-up internet” with the presenter adding that subscribers could “e-mail your friends and family all around the world a lot faster, in fact five times faster”.
A viewer was having none of it, convinced that the advertisement was misleading, because he believed that NTL’s service was only five times faster than standard dial-up internet for downloading, with upload speeds creaking along at a stately 150K.
In other words, it definitely wasn’t five times quicker a standard dial-up internet connection. No way, Jose.
Issue was also taken with the curious suggestion that emails would somehow be received “five times faster.”
NTL put up a valiant but ultimately doomed attempt to back up their claims when they were hauled in front of the ASA.
The telecoms giant insisted that it was standard industry practice to refer to the speed of broadband only in terms of download speed and, to back up their case, readily snitched on a host of competitors making similar claims.
The ASA were having none of it, pointing out that with consumers increasingly using the internet to upload digital content (e.g. photo files) they were “more likely to interpret the claim as meaning that all internet use (downloading and uploading) would be five times faster unless told otherwise.”
The ASA ruled that the advertising was misleading and that NTL should have made clear that its claim “5 times faster than standard 56K dial-up” was limited to download speed.
The Authority also found that the claim about the “five times faster” email was equally likely to mislead viewers.
Suitably chastised and ‘umbled, NTL have agreed to change the wording of future advertisements. They now have a “grace period” of three months from 8 June to ensure that their wording stays within the ASA guidelines.
NTL Broadband
ASA
8 June, 2005
BenQ Confirms Siemens Mobile Purchase
After an eternity of “will they? won’t they?” rumours Siemens has announced that it is to flog its loss-making mobile-phones unit to the Taiwan-based BenQ Group.
The German conglomerate has stated that company will be shunted in the direction of the big boy BenQ business, who will acquire Siemens’ entire mobile phone business in a deal costing €350 million (~US$429m~£234.7m).
BenQ Group, which also produces mobile phones as well as a host of other consumer electronic gizmos like digital cameras, scanners and LCD screens, has confirmed that it is to acquire Siemens’ entire mobile phone business with more than 6,000 employees worldwide.
Through the haze of a soft focus lens, Klaus Kleinfeld, the CEO of Siemens AG whispered sweet nothings about his new bedfellow:
“With this partnership, we have found a sustainable perspective for our mobile phones business. BenQ and Siemens complement one another ideally. We will be uniting our strengths with BenQ’s highly successful consumer business. In addition, we also complement one another perfectly in terms of geography. This will give BenQ, which up until now has been very strong in Asia, access to the European and Latin American markets where we hold leading positions.”
Once they’ve got the company in their hot sweaty palms, BenQ will have the rights to use the Siemens brand and name for five years, with the business being headquartered in Munich, Germany.
Perhaps a little tipsy from wielding his fearsome buying power, BenQ Chairman & CEO K.Y. Lee roared “With the acquisition of Siemens’s mobile phones business, we are rapidly approaching our goal to become one of the world’s leading players in the mobile phone industry. Our expansion strategy will be strongly supported by this deal, as we can rely on a global organization with excellent employees, a well-established blue-chip customer base in the mobile business and a strong brand with high impact.”
BenQ are already one of the fastest-growing vendors in the mobile phones segment in their home Asian market and see the partnership with Siemens as a key part of their ambitious international expansion plans.
As part of the deal Siemens will acquire €50 million worth of new BenQ shares and will be budsying up with BenQ as a preferred partner for end-to-end mobile communication solutions.
“Siemens will continue to offer its customers in the telecommunications industry one-stop shopping for all their needs. With BenQ, we have found a partner who will supply us with the corresponding products. In addition, we will be collaborating closely in research and development. Moreover, we also intend to utilize synergies in jointly addressing customers and in our selling operations,” commented Lothar Pauly, the CEO of the Siemens Communications Group.
The agreement is subject to approval from BenQ’s shareholders and anti-trust authorities, with the company hoping to close the deal by the end of September.
BenQ
Siemens
7 June, 2005
AIM Mail: AOL Free 2GB Webmail Service Launches
America Online is taking on the likes of Yahoo, Hotmail and Google’s Gmail with its new free 2GB email service in the US, launched yesterday after trials earlier this year.
In a hope to lure storage-space spoilt customers in this highly competitive sector, AIM Mail is bundling in spam and virus protection and tight integration with AOL’s AIM Instant Messenger Service.
In a turnaround from previous policy, the freebie Webmail account will be available to all and sundry rather than just AOL members, a move AOL hopes will reverse faltering revenues and crashing subscriber figures.
Users will be able to log in with their existing AOL IM screen name as their e-mail address, with an updated version of the AIM 5.9 software offering one-click access to AIM Mail.
A system-wide auto-upgrade will begin rolling out over the AIM network this week, with AOL trying to tempt the 22 million AIM users subscribers with an online advertising campaign and a gift-tastic US-wide sweepstakes promotion.
AIM users activating their AIM Mail account can register for the opportunity to get a piece of the prize draw action, with daily giveaways including Starbucks gift cards, T-Mobile Sidekicks, Apple iPod Shuffles and Sony PlayStation Portables.
One lucky AIM Mail user will get to rev off in a 2005 MINI Copper S.
The new free service represents a hefty shift in AOL’s business strategy which has traditional involved charging users subscription fees for its services. Instead, the company is expecting to generate revenue from AIM Mail through banner ads – hence the punter-tempting monster giveaway promotion.
In a separate announcement, AOL has also announced that it will be dishing out unlimited email storage to its US ISP customers .
AOL
AOL AIM
7 June, 2005