Mobile users - selfish and unrepentant - silicon.com touches a point.

Over the last few weeks driving the kids around I have had a number of near misses with fools in BMWs using the Phone whilst driving. Just why does the Goverment pass a laws if the police cannot / will not then enforce?

Perhaps what we need is more Gatzo Camera's that photograph all those driving whilst using the phone! I remember a story a few months ago about a German driver who drove through a Speed trap three times because he was no speeding and was fined for not waring his seat belt! If they can do it for seat belts then they must be able to do it phone users.

What is needed is a change in attitude similar to that of 20 years ago over drink driving. At present what we have is car drivers who are not seen as doing anything wrong when driving through the a busy high street whilst using the phone.

I have worked in the mobile industry for 19 years and all of that time I have used a car kit and limited the time I am on the phone in the car if I do use it. The reason for this is easy driving and talking on the phone is dangerous!

Peter Cochrane one time CTO of BT says that we have fallen behind on the Broadband Superhighway. This is like George Bush say that the war on terror was a mistake in Iraq.

The fact that we are behind is due to the fact BT did not invest when he was part of the executive team! I know that he was not in favour of the 3G investment made by BT but as a long time executive he should have been capable of outlining the invest needed to enable the network.

The other missed opportunity would have been for Tony Blair and Co to have taken the assets of all the bankrupted CLECs that dug up Britain to lay Fiber networks and hand it over to Ofcom to run. But as we don't have a socialist government we find ourselves now almost out of the game. With the expansion of the European Union now underway we are unlikely to get funding for rural broadband schemes as thoes countries that are joining are poorer than us. This will result in the Baltic States being given a hand up at Britains expense in terms of technology infrastruction investments. Once the infrastructure is in place expect to see the bright young things all moving into Lativa where they will have access to well educated staff and first rate technology for a fraction of the cost of a Regus serviced office.

Broadband Britain is important not just now but also later I have 3 young children all who have grown up with the Internet. Thanks to Broadband they have been able to experience it wirelessly. I had hoped that by the time they had entered secondary education they would have increased the wireless coverage to cover metropolitan zones and as students they were given access free of charge in the same way as they get Library access today. Without the investment made at the end of the 90's we find ourselves look at ever longer delays which will see us fall back faster than a British Male in the Olympic Marathon on the Superhighway!

This years Wireless LAN Event demonstrated just what a difference a day makes!

At Last year we had every wannaby in technology at the event pitching ideas for Hotspots. Over the last two days we have had people talking about the services available from Wireless Broadband. Andrew Greenhaigh from Intel kicked off the conference with a Keynot that had Guy Kewney concerned about there plans to control the WISP market by launching RoamPoint.

The new CEO of BTOpenzone, Chris Clark sees the appointment of a Sales and Marketing Guy who is looking to cut deals and build revenues rather than the land grab that was BTOpenzone since launch. The Press Briefing was interesting in that BT are looking more at Mobile Office for Enterprise customers, could the old dog have learnt a new trick?

The First Day wrapped up with an interesting demo of VoWLAN with Raju Gulabani Founder of TeleSym showing just how advanced the software is advancing in waking up a former work mate on the West Coast of the US using a SIP client on his laptop and also dialing his landline number. Then the Man from Motorola whoes team is building BTOpenzone also showed converged handsets that have GSM and WiFi for Corporate users talking about Seamless Wireless. Finally before The Cloud sponsored Drinks Party we had a panel debate with Niklas Zennström of Skype the star talking about the Enterprise benefits of VoWLAN and how it can now be done on a PocketPC.

Wednesday saw the Wireless Innovations Seminar which had excellent presentations from IPWireless follow Flarion present on what they see the future as in terms of Mobile Data. Both these presenter were realistic in that they are half way along a lvery long road and even with $160M war chests they may not make it! These guys know what data is all about, something that the Network Operators don't seam to understand BUT do they know the difference between Wireless and Mobile!

My impression is that WiFi has come out of the hype curve and the intelligent guys are talking about the services it enables rather than the market potential of HotSpots! Lets see what the next 12 months brings to the Wireless LAN community, connectivty on the Train (could be the way to make EuroTunnel profitable)?


Finally LastMile Communications is looking to launch a low power transceiver technology that is fitted inside lap posts and street furniture that allows roadside telemetrics which would deliver location based infomation into the car dependent on speed etc. The network will also be used by the emergency services to improve traffic flow and manage accidents.

The web belongs to us is an interesting feature on how technology alters networking.

I have said in other places that I am not a friend of Plaxo which I see as a very lazy tool for those who are at the edge of my network and who don't know me but have got hold of one of my email addresses. The majority of these shaddy individuals seam to be a pain in that they continually wish to spam me with request that I am just not interested in!

Now some bright guys in Cambridge have developed something that Dyson calls "personal digital identity" which will not only keep your contact details up tp date it will also aid you manage your life, in that it will assist manage your relationships with all those in your address book. This could be the breakthrough needed to remove spam by forming a network that then polices its users actions.

I for one intend to pay the £24 subscription and see if it will aid me stay in touch for work, family and friends.

Going Backwards to Go Forwards

After five years of using a PDA last Chrismas I gave away my top of the range iPAQ as it was just sitting in a draw not being used becasue I was running arround town with my laptop and smartphone. Well this weekend I have re-entered the PDA world and bought a Sony Clie TH55 having selected a standard phone over my smartphone six weeks ago.

This is my first Palm powered PDA and I have to say that I am impressed in most of the software. The only things that could be better are the email and sync, it has proved a bit of a problem to set up the mail so that it syncs with my Outlook file and my other PDA's synch as soon as they connected with my PC. Otherwise I am very happy with my new device. Thanks to my memorystick I now have access to 8 albums of music when stuck on the tube, can view details quickly when travelling and the ability to improve note taking when needed.

Perhaps the Clie will become less of a gadget and more of a valuable tool, which will deffinately get the approval of my partner!