Steve Kennedy – Page 4 – Digital-Lifestyles

iPod – The Missing Manual: Review (80%)

Another in O’Reilly’s missing manual series, this covers the iPod and its companion program iTunes.

iPod - The Missing Manual: Review Although most of the information can be had elsewhere, it’s useful to have a single source where everything’s in one place. Forgotten how to reset your iPod? It’s in the Missing Manual.

Some sections are genuinely useful, especially the Power of Playlists. It describes how to set them up and even gives links to software and on-line services which may make your life easier, including things like shared playlists and what other people are listening to.

The book is US centric and the iTunes sections assume you live in the US and can purchase TV shows and such like (which us Brits can’t do yet), but it’s still a useful reference.

The sections on photos and video are reasonably complete and help users manage their photo collection on and off an iPod and convert video for iPod use. There’s also a good section on the other features available on the iPod so you can manage address books, calendars etc.

At around £14/$20 it’s not the cheapest book out there, but it should be the only iPod book you’ll ever need.

Verdict
Value – 72%
Information – 88%
Overall – 80%

Buy at US Amazon $12.59
Buy at UK Amazon £9.23

The chapters are: –
Meet the iPod
Bopping Around the iPod
In Tune with iTunes
The Power of Playlists
Shop the iTunes Store
Videos Everywhere
Picturing Your Photos on the iPod
Other Stuff the iPod Can Do for You
iPod Out Loud
What to Do When the iPod Isn’t Working Right
Advanced iPodding

Vodafone And Orange 3G RAN Share: Examined

As has been mentioned on Digital-Lifestyles, Orange and Vodafone have entered into an agreement to share their 3G Radio Access Network (or RAN). We thought you’d appreciate some more depth … and who better to give it than Steve Kennedy, our telco guru.

Currently Vodafone have a bigger network than Orange, so Orange would gain more than Vodafone from the deal, but in future it means that new cell sites will be used by both operators.

The agreement could have covered 2G (GSM) too, but as Vodafone use 900MHz systems and Orange use different systems operating in the 1800MHz band, it just not possible. That said, it’s likely future technology would allow both sets of frequencies to operate within the same radio equipment.

There will still be interesting problems to sort out for 3G sharing, as Vodafone exclusively use equipment from Ericsson, while Orange use equipment from Nortel, Siemens, Nokia and Alcatel.

Once the network is in place, each network will be responsible for enabling their own network services and ensuring quality of service, etc. As competition for customers increases this is a sensible way for operators to reduce cost, share the infrastructure and compete on service. It’s a shame the fixed networks don’t take this view, as has been pointed out before, the LLU operators could join forces and build a joint LLU network and then compete on service. This might give them a larger network, which would be of a size and scale to compete with BT’s upcoming 21CN.

Why the rush to build?
With a 3G license comes obligations and one of these was to reach 80% of the population by the 1st Dec, 2007. Though the GSM network coverage hit that a while ago, 3G expansion has been slower with few customers really wanting 3G services so the operators have built 3G networks in densely populated areas where they can make revenue from those customers. That means big cities have been covered, but elsewhere 3G coverage is patchy to say the least.

Hutchinson 3G (or 3 the new entrant into the mobile world) has been rapidly building its customer base and building a network to match. In June 2004, Ofcom tried rules that 3 had SMP (significant market power) in the 3G world, which meant it would be regulated by Ofcom much in the same way BT is for fixed networks. The other 3G operators happily supported Ofcom in this view. 3 didn’t want the increased regulatory burden and disagreed with Ofcom’s ruling, so appealed to the Competition Appeal Tribunal. They won their appeal in November 2005. This was the first time any network has successfully appealed against a SMP designation.

3 wasn’t happy about having SMP forced upon it and therefore made noises to Ofcom about coverage obligations, which the other networks weren’t meeting. They’ve got 10 months to hit that 80% figure.

Though city centres might have a demand for 3G (for data services, no one cares about 3G voice – a voice call sounds the same whether it’s 3G or GSM), as you leave dense urban areas the appeal of 3G is less. Well maybe not less, but there are less people to use it and less of a reason for the networks to install 3G infrastructure and sites.

The cost of a 3G cell is probably not much different in terms of equipment from that of a 2G cell, one major difference is the amount of bandwidth needed for the cell, as data volumes are significantly higher (maybe 40Kb/s using GPRS data compared to maybe 2Mb/s for 3G, multiply that by 10 users and it’s 400Kb/s compared to 200Mb/s).

UK backhaul (i.e. the pipes used to connect cells) are expensive. The more rural the cell site is. the less chance there is that anyone (except maybe BT) has got any kind of high bandwidth connectivity. Therefore, the costs of the backhaul may well exceed that of the cell site itself.

Sharing makes economic sense
Orange and Vodafone have to hit that 80% figure or Ofcom can impose fines which could be significant. Therefore the build out of a shared new network makes economic sense. It’s half of what they’d each have to pay.

In this climate of everyone’s customers wanting everything for nothing, being able to reduce your build costs may well be the straw that doesn’t break the camel’s back.

Ofcom Proposed Spectrum Auction: Analysis

Ofcom Consulting On The Auction Of Spectrum In The 2GHz Band There’s a fair chunk of spectrum that’s sitting there not being used in the 2GHz band. The various bits are 2500-2690 MHz, 2010-2025 MHz and 2290-2300 MHz.

Ofcom has a duty to ensure spectrum isn’t wasted and as a consequence of the auction will end up driving revenue for the Government. Previously, and famously they did very well when they auctioned the 3G licenses, raising £21bn for the Treasury.

They recently auctioned some GSM spectrum and that only raised £3.8m, but it was much less than the 3G lot with many more restrictions.

Under its new face, and following EU directives, Ofcom likes to offer technology neutral licenses, which means the licensee can use the spectrum for whatever they want – as long as they meet the radio restrictions on that band (power, spectral masks, etc). They hope this will stimulate innovative services which is good for the economy.

There’s a lot of interest in the spectrum, as it could be used for lots of services including 3G and WiMAX, but that’s where the problems start.

Possible European Interference
There are various blocks of spectrum which are coordinated at a European level and each EU country uses the spectrum for the same things. That’s pretty much what happens for GSM and 3G, as well as some TV and radio bands.

It’s all organised by CEPT (European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications) and the Radio Spectrum Committee (RSC), CEPT is represented by 47 countries and the RSC by 25 EU states. They ensure that radio usage is coordinated. Unfortunately radio waves don’t abide by national borders, so it would be no good if one country was using spectrum for say TV and another for radio as they’d interfere with each other.

Ofcom Consulting On The Auction Of Spectrum In The 2GHz Band

Though the UK is an island, interference issues are quite common, especially in the south east with France and the north east with the Dutch and even the Nordic countries. The west has to worry about Ireland (and of course Northern Ireland abides by UK policy).

These particular bands are already allocated for 3G, 10MHz in 2010 – 2020 MHz, is already designed for license-exempt self-provided, self-coordinated IMT-2000 use. In the UK none of the 3G networks have actually utilised it, though in other parts of Europe it has been used for this purpose.

2500 – 2690 MHz is currently mainly used for video broadcast systems, all licensees have been given notice to vacate by 31st December 2006. This is a significant amount of spectrum (190MHz) which is greater than is currently allocated to the whole of 3G use (140MHz). It was reserved for a “new” entrant if the current 5th 3G operator failed or for existing 3G expansion.

Ofcom’s suggestions summarised

Ofcom are currently holding UK consultations to see what stakeholders think should happen. They are proposing the following: –

2500-2690 MHz Packaged on the basis of blocks of 5 MHz as lots of paired spectrum (2×5 MHz, 120 MHz duplex spacing) and unpaired spectrum (5 MHz), with the eventual amount of lots in each category to be determined in the auction. The reference point is as per the CEPT band plan: 14 lots of paired channels (14x2x5 MHz with uplink in 2500-2570 MHz and downlink in 2620-2690 MHz) and 9 lots of unpaired channels (9×5 MHz in 2570-2615 MHz).

One guard channel will be necessary at adjacencies between paired and unpaired spectrum, at 2615-2620 MHz, and possibly another in the top part of the band.

There is a possibility to allow paired lots to be converted into the equivalent of two unpaired lots in the event that demand for unpaired lots exceeds that for paired lots at a given lot price.

Each bidder should receive contiguous lots in each category, except potentially one assignment of unpaired spectrum which could need to be split into two blocks of contiguous lots.

2010-2025 MHz Package for award as a single 15 MHz lot.

2290-2302 MHz Package for award as a single 10 MHz lot and retain 2300-2302 MHz for possible inclusion as part of a future award together with 2302-2310 MHz.

What might the response be?
The consultation will close in March 2007 and it’s likely the 3G operators will be extremely vocal in their claim to this spectrum, as they paid so much for their original licenses.

Once Ofcom digest the responses, they’ll then have to argue the case at the European level to ensure it can be licensed off in a technology neutral manner without upsetting our neighbours, however getting agreement from at least 47 countries tends to be a time consuming process.

Luckily CEPT are already discussing the issues and are expecting to make a statement in July next year. RSC will follow shortly after.

Although there’s no guarantee that discussions will go in Ofcom’s favour, they are hoping an award process can start in the Autumn of 2007, though it may well be delayed until 2008.

Potential Cash
With 16 national licenses available, there’s a fair amount of cash the government can expect to raise. Even if Ofcom set the minimum price at £50,000 then that’s £800,000 – they are likely to reach much higher values, although not the silly pricing that the original 3G licenses fetched.

Ofcom
CEPT (European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications)
Radio Spectrum Committee (RSC)

Belkin Skype Phone Review (71%)

Belkin Skype Phone (71%) It’s coming up to Xmas and everyone’s making Skype accessories. Belkin are no exception and have joined the crowd to release a Skype phone, in BLACK.

It’s reminiscent of a SonyEricsson T610, but bigger – measuring about 4.5″ by 2″ by 5/8″ (11.5cm by 5cm by 2cm). The screen looks bigger than it is, as there’s about 3/4″ between it and the keypad. It’s actually only 1.5″ by 1.12″, which is big enough to show 7 contacts at a time.

It’s not really a phone in the normal sense, just an embedded Skype client on dedicated hardware.

It’s Skype, but not as you know it
Skype on a PC environment is more functional, for a start this phone version doesn’t allow text instant messages (IM), it only supports the voice functionality of Skype (even though the keyboard does allow text input, much like a mobile phone except no predictive text).

Once the device is configured, the screen will display the current time and your Skype balance with two softkeys at the bottom of the screen showing “menu” and “Contacts”.

Belkin Skype Phone If you’ve got credit you can make normal calls to the PSTN (i.e.ordinary phones), but you have to type the telephone number in international format (i.e. putting +44 infront of the number and dropping the leading zero). Unless you’ve got a SkypeIn number, the called phone will show “Number Unavailable” when you call.

Dialing contacts is easy, just hit the right soft key and they’ll be listed, go to the one you want and hit the green “dial” button (or you can use the left soft key which will show “options” and then select “call”). You can also leave them a voicemail (if they have thatservice) or view their profile.

WiFi isn’t HiFi
Call quality is pretty good, though it’s reliant on both the WiFi and Internet connection which can both vary depending on the environment.

As a WiFi phone, it’s permanently connected to the Internet whether it’s being used or not and though it can blank the screen, the Skype client is running all the time the phone is on, which means it’s eating into the battery life.

Though using the phone will increase the rate the battery discharges, WiFi isn’t particularly battery friendly. Saying that, after a full charge the phone lasted at least 20 hours before turning itself off.

Belkin Skype Phone Phone Set-up
Setting the phone up is easy, but not trivial. It works through a WiFi connection so that the first thing that needs to be configured. The network should be configured with one of the WiFi security protocols (and if it’s not, do it NOW), the Belkin phone supports WEP and the newer more secure WPA protocols. The IP configuration will be automatic if the network is configured to dish out the settings (most are) though they can be entered manually.

Once the networking is configured, just enter the Skype log-in details and the client connects to the network, and just works.

All in all it took less than 2 minutes to make the first call – even with the pretty slow text input.

The phone software can also update itself over the network, but no software updates have so far been made available.

Internals
Though Belkin don’t say what’s in the phone there’s some clues from the copyright notices. Of course there’s Skype in there, but the P2P stuff is licensed from Joltid (who seem to be the company behind the technology in Kazaa etc and Skype too).

There’s also Qt licensed from Trolltech. Qt is a cross platform user interface available on Windows, MacOS and Linux. As the phone is unlikely to run either of the first two, it’s probably running embedded Linux, and Trolltech make a version of that too called Qtopia. So as a bet it’s running some variant of embedded Linux, Qtopia, Qt and a Linux variant of Skype.

Belkin Skype Phone It’s not perfect
The current phone isn’t perfect, the phone settings are static and are designed to work in a fixed home or office environment and are tied to a specified WiFi network.

As the phone doesn’t have a browser it’s not possible to utilise a public hotspot as there’s no way to enter your credentials to get on-line.

Belkin have said this will be possible with the next version which will have a Java micro-browser which will allow configuring hotspot settings and saving them too so it will be possible to configure the phone in a Starbucks then move to an Openzone network and the phone will continue working.

The phone costs around £99 which isn’t cheap, but having a Skype phone that isn’t tethered to a PC makes it usable whenever it’s needed.

Verdict
It’s a nicely built phone, though the screen’s a bit small. The most annoying thing is not being able to “chat” to people and other Skype users just get a message that the software’s to old or incompatible if they try to chat with you.

Suprisingly, battery life is pretty good.

Score: 71%

Dis-Connexion By Boeing: Now Free WiFi

Disconnexion By Boeing Recently while travelling on an SAS flight, I had the pleasure of trying out the Connexion by Boeing service, which is an Internet service offered on long haul services.

Trials for the service started back in two carriers in June 2005.

The system provides a WiFi connection on the plane and connects back to Boeing using some kind of magic (a satellite service, somewhere on the plane a dish or dishes always stay in site of the satellite signal).

It’s all transparent to the user, just connect to the WiFi signal (and there really aren’t any others to connect to at 30,000 ft) and then go to the Boeing portal and sign-up.

It’s free
Although the sign-up page requires you to enter your credit card details the only price plan currently available is priced at $0.0, which means you aren’t charged (I’d imagine for security purposes, so any naughty activity can be traced back to someone). You then get a username and password and can sign-in to using the actual service – which then lets you out in to the wild world of the Internet.

It all worked rather well. Email was speedy and even logging into a remote system worked well, though there was a lag between what you typed and what appeared on the screem – it was usable though (much better than GPRS or some 3G connections have been). Updating MacOS X was doable with download rates of around 70KB/s. Lag was a good 600ms, but that’s what you get from sending data 30,000 miles up to a geostationary satellite and down again and back.

A business user could gainfully use the 10 hours or so in the air and be productive.

The end is nigh
Unfortunately the reason that it’s free is that Boeing are discontinuing the service and as they can’t guarantee any service levels – they’re giving it away until the service ends (Jan 2007). They argue that not enough airlines have signed-up and are cutting their losses.

It’s a real shame as the service worked well and the pricing was sensible for passengers even when they had to pay.

It’s not as though the airlines can keep it going either, as Boeing are physically removing all the equipment they installed in the planes.

Panasonic have said they will introduce a service to replace Boeing’s, but it could be a while, so in the meantime, passengers will have to make do with working off-line or catching up on movies they wouldn’t dream of watching normally.

ViaMichelin X-980T Mini-Review: The Michelin Man Guides You Around Town (69%)

ViaMichelin is the part of the Michelin group that designs, develops and markets digital travel assistance products. They already have a successful Website that uses information from the Michelin Guide allowing visitors to plan their travel and routes utilising the Guide info.

They have also moved into providing the information into other areas such as mobile and SatNav products, the latest being the X-980T Europe.

The X-980T has a bright 4.3 inch display surrounded by about a 1 inch plastic border, making the unit about 6 inches long and 4 inches deep. It’s just under an inch thick. It’s quite big, however it will fit into a pocket unlike TomTom, their main competitors.

The unit is due for release mid October and will have an RRP of £449.

Why get a X-980T?
It’s not the prettiest unit out there, but it comes packed with lots of features. There’s a complete set of European maps on the provided SD card, as well as the complete Michelin Guide which lists 51,000 European hotels and restaurants and the Green Guide which has 19,000 tourist and cultural sites. There’s quite a bit of information about the entries including the guide’s rating.

It uses the latest Sirf Star III GPS receiver, which acquires satellites quickly and maintains a lock on them. While testing the unit (inside a bus, in central London) it managed to lock on to 6 GPS satellites which is pretty good.

The system also comes with an RDS/TMC traffic decoder built-in (it needs an external aerial for it to work though) allowing it to update traffic in real-time without paying for any subscription services. The navigation software can be set to prompt the user if a traffic alert comes in that will effect the route, or it can automatically re-navigate to avoid the problem.

There’s also a speed camera database for the UK (which isn’t actually available yet, but will be in late October) and other countries. Again it’s included in the price (as are updates).

Bluetooth is also included and the system will act as a hands-free kit for a Bluetooth enabled phone. This also ties in well with the Michelin Guide information, by choosing a restaurant the system can navigate there, and as the phone number is also included – dial through the phone and you can reserve a table.

The voice directions are pretty normal, but there’s also a text to speech engine which can be used instead which will read out the names of roads and points of interest (in the language the device it set to).

An “infinite” number of stop-offs may also be included in a route for visiting all those tourist attractions.

Overall Verdict
Even as a straight SatNav it boasts a lot of extras, like the included subscription free traffic and camera databases, but it’s the Michelin Guide that makes it something different. However that won’t appeal to a lot of people just working out how to get from A to B. If it’s going to be used for business or fleet use, or planning a holiday, then the Guide may prove invaluable.

The screen doesn’t seem as crisp as on some SatNavs, but it’s definitely pocketable so could be used when leaving the car and navigating somewhere on foot.

Though it’s a good unit, it’s just not quite ergonomically right.

Overall score: 69%

THUS Preferred Supplier For HSBC

THUS preferred supplier for HSBC THUS, the communications provider that owns the Demon brand has announced it has become the preferred supplier for HSBC in the UK. The contract is expected to be around £50m plus over 5 years.

The contract covers connectivity for all their branches, ATMs etc (2,200 UK sites).

THUS recently sold off Demon Internet in the Netherlands to KPN, which means they have paid off most, if not all, of their debt and puts them in a very positive position compared to many UK telecoms providers.

THUS preferred supplier for HSBC THUS also recently acquired Your Comms (a business telco based in the North of England) and Legend, a smallish ISP with a portfolio of VoIP products. Other acquisitions must be on their mind.

Consumer Broadband is free, concentrate on business services
The consumer broadband market is rapidly becoming commoditised, which is good for the customer, though margins are extremely low, so providers need to find other revenue streams to make services pay for themselves.

Though Demon in the past have had lots of consumer customers, they have wisely concentrated on the business markets. Business broadband can still command premiums, as it allows customers to utilise services such as VoIP. Customers who want quality of service can even use broadband to connect to THUS’ backbone MPLS network so allowing teleworking and VPN’s to be securely provisioned.

THUS isn’t as big as several other telcos (in terms of customers or revenue), and in the recent past, they may have looked like a buy-out opportunity, however as they’ve concentrated on services that make them real revenue the tables may have turned with them becoming a threat to other bigger players who could be acquisition targets themselves.

ChanSkype: Skype And Asterisk Talk To Each Other

Asterisk And Skype Talk To Each Other A Brazilian company has forged a software bridge between Asterisk and Skype.

Asterisk is an open source VoIP PBX that runs on Linux and other platforms which handles VoIP to VoIP calling as well as calls to landlines. Developed by Mark Spencer it has taken the community by storm, sprouting many tens of thousands of installations world-wide, with a thriving development community.

It can work with traditional telephony systems or POTS (plain old telephone system), with digital systems (ISDN etc) and modern VoIP protocols such as H.323, SIP, MGCP and more.

Digium (set-up by Spencer) now manufactures hardware and offers a commercially supported version of Asterisk known as ABE (Asterisk Binary Edition).

One feature that has been missing is Skype integration (the next version of Asterisk v1.4 supports GoogleTalk using Google’s libjingle library). A Brazilian company has now changed that, with their ChanSkype site.

ChanSkype
Currently the service is in test and you have to utilise ChanSkype’s own Asterisk servers. They offer a “free” trial whereby they allow a SIP connection and then by passing in a Skype address it sets-up a connection to the Skype user.

In the future they will be offering an actual chan_skype that plugs directly into any Asterisk server and can connect to the Skype network.

Of course it’s not quite so simple. The initial release only runs on RedHat’s Fedora Core or CentOS (which means it will probably also run on RedHat Enterprise Server too as CentOS is a clone of that). There must also be an X server running as well as the Skype for Linux client. So ChanSkype just bridges the two systems together.

A dual Xeon 3Ghz with 2 gigs of memory should run 30 simultaneous Skype calls without any noticable degradation of performance.

Pricing has not yet been set, but it will be licensed on a per-channel basis.

There may be licensing problems too as Asterisk modules should normally be available under a GPL license and with source code, but as Skype is proprietry they may get away with it.

Someone really needs to reverse engineer the Skype protocol and then a native chan_skype could be developed, but this is unlikely to happen in the western world as that could be illegal.

It’s a good idea, but really just a straight link into the Skype software which unfortunately is the only way it can be done.

ChanSkype

CSR Does Voice over WiFi Chipset: £11

CSR does Voice over WiFi CSR, a chipset design lab in Cambridge that specialises in radio, has released a voice over WiFi design (UniVox) which a bill of materials of around £11.00.

The reference design utilises CSR’s UniFi-1 Portable chip which supports 802.11b and g, while also supporting various security protocols such as 802.11i, WEP, WPA and WPA2. The design also incorporates CSR’s MAP (Multimedia Applications Processor) which is a RISC CPU which has DSP (digital signal processing) capability that allows it to support QoS (quality of service), various codecs, echo suppressions and intelligent power management.

A system built using the platform and a standard 1500mAh battery should support talk times of 8 hours and 250 hours standby time. Using WMM-PS (which requires an access point that also supports WMM-PS) talk time is extended to 40 hours and standby to 400 hours.

CSR does Voice over WiFi Both SIP (version 2) and IAX2 (Inter Asterisk Protocol v2) are supported. IAX is useful in NAT environments as it can traverse NAT without any special software, while SIP can be a complete headache.

If the chip is adopted, a multitude of new, very affordable handsets could soon hit the market further increasing the penetration of VoIP.

CSR

Apple iTV Device Pre-Anounced

Apple iTV Device Pre-Anounced Apple has for once pre-announced a new product, codenamed iTV (which is unlikely to be the final name as they’d get sued in the UK for a start).

This is a media playback unit (about the same dimensions of a Mac Mini but half the height). It has a multitude of connectors on the back (audio and various video including HDMI). It connects to the network over wireless and can stream movies, music, video, photos, podcastsfrom iTunes or from Apple.com/iTunes store.

It will be available in Q1 2007 for $199.