When Am I Going To Get a Mobile That Does Everything

Paul Mason has done a good feature on the future of Mobile for Newsnight. In a short film he has managed to look at what the future could be for Symbian based handsets, how Nokia and Philips might use RFiD for NFC Ticketing and shopping and the challenge that WiMAx sets the Networks.

At the end of the blog you can see the film thanks to the BBC's media player. You can also read what a number of other viewers thought about the feature. I guess this is one of the benefits of the silly season in that it forces the news programs to make content.

Just not sure that I agree with teh statement that teh mobile phone industry is one of the few that gives us more than we expect ;-)

How would you like to watch your TV

Focus: The battle for Britain's airwaves The Sunday Times has another feature on the switch to digital TV. The paper asks who will get the radio spectrum released by the switching off of the analogue service. The paper sees the competition as Broadcasters against mobile phone networks with the Government making a significant windfall in licence fees.

The journalist looks as DVB-H trials by the Mobile networks as an adjunct for 3G services. The problem is that todate these services have only been in trial format by the networks, and as such have involved a highly selective group being offered "free" TV. Now what will happen when you have to pay for a handset on which to watch TV and also pay a subscription to view programs?

Well if the Vodafone/SKY link up is anything to go by it will be an even bigger flop that the launch of 3G. Friends who have tried the service all stopped within the first month because it was so poor. The other problem is that the Mobile Networls are rolling back predictions on 3G take up, instead they are talking about Camera Phones, Music Phones and Smart Phones. Just look at the highly successful Sony Ericsson K800i very little is made of the fact that it is a 3G handset.

Sunday Times looks at FRee Broadband

What a scandal: the truth about British broadband was the headline in the business section of Sunday's paper, (yes I know its Tuesday but I had a busy holiday weekend and did not get to read the papers until my tube journey this morning)

The findings are that when the internet is busy in the evenings we are not able to get the 8Mbps as advertised. After a number of angry customers report just how bad the service is they go on to say that the providers make a market trader look honest. But when was the last time you went into a pub and the barman asked if you wanted cheap broadband?

Now that over 40% of the population has broadband we cannot expect that the service is a commodity! This is still a technical service that requires some knowledge in terms of what you are buying otherwise you will be left high and dry by salesmen who get you to take the best package for them rather than what fits you. My suggestion to those who have not yet got broadband is first off go and get advice on just what you need then buy it from someone other than the guy who gave the advice. You also need to expect to have to pay for the service because nothing in life is free!

This years model

Orange did finally manage to get its act together and send me a Sony Ericsson K800i , which after a month I have managed to personalise. I am still trying to get the BestPic function to work. I have downloaded Opera Mini so that the surfing is improved. The RSS reader is greater once you work out how to add your favourite sites.

I am having a problem with the PCLink software because this machine runs Windows Vista and as such SE do not recognise the OS. Once Microsoft get their act together and officially launch the software I guess I will get the update I am looking for.

I have gone out and got a new headset for the phone which I have to say is excellent and was very easy to set up. The audio quality is good and the device does not look too geek like. The sound quality is a lot better than my last headset and so far no dropped calls ;-) The battery life has been good to date.

So what do not like, the new phone and headset have a different charger from the old SE devices and from each other. This means that I have had to head out buy a new travel charger and I am going to find space in my bag for more electricals, not a great thing at a time when we have to take less on a plane!

Can they change orange?

Mobile Today a trade magazine for the Mobile retail sector last week published an excellent feature on just how can Orange once again be bright. This is a question that has challenged a number of friends of Orange over the last few years.

What once made Orange stand out was excellent Customer Service, this lead has been lost as others have improved whilst FT has cut costs. I have to say that the last nine months have seen me contact the Executive team too often in getting issues resolved.

The next problem is one of innovation, just what does Orange now stand for? I want a mobile experience that makes my life easier, something the aspired to with the launch of Wildfire. Today I have Caller Tunes and Music Player.

In terms of network, I am very glad that we have had a heatwave this year as without it I would not be able to get a signal in summer time because I have too many trees between me and the 3g base station. When it rains I cannot get a single at home, so I guess the solution could be that someone in customer service calls me and gets me to switch to Orange broadband. Then perhaps I can make calls over a pico cell in my house and at least have some form of conectivity.

I have to say that I for one have little confidence that Ghillebaert can effect a turnaround of the UK operation. I think one of the biggest issues is low staff morale, which has got worse thanks to yet another round of job cuts. No amount of marketing can help make that better in the short term. Perhaps he can look at what is happening in Germany and decide that what we need is some of the E plus magic rather than a bunch of Animal tarrifs!

Phone of the future steps into the past

Charles Arthur in today's Guardian has written and excellent feature on how we sometimes end up with what we are given rather than what we want.

In testing a WiFi handset he points out some of the obvious problems such a quantum leap will require, which bring back the happy days when I was just starting paid employment and cellular telecoms had just started up in Europe some 21 years ago.

Charles asks "Does this mean, I asked myself, that soon we're all going to be making phone calls over the internet, using wireless hotspots rather than these annoying "mobile network" companies?"

He then goes on to say "Analysts are talking up the possibilities of WiMax, a long-range wireless system which isn't compatible with Wi-Fi: the other day, Jupiter Research forecast that there will be 21.3m WiMax subscribers by 2012, perhaps using it as an alternative to mobile companies' 3G networks.

But the prospects of Wi-Fi getting that big, at least in the UK, seem remote. Hotspots have been around for at least five years and their price - around £5 per hour - shows little sign of falling. Are you really going to pay £5 just to tell someone you're going to be on the train, and that once you're there you won't be calling them because you've given up mobile phones?"

I guess I don't need to worry just yet to the threat that WiFi phones will replace mobile. If you want to see what others are thinking on what the Industry is calling take a look at Dean Bubley's Diruptive Analysis blog.

Pay by Mobile Phone

Mobiletrax takes a look at the Infrastructure and International Issues in Mobile Payments. The writter asks if the US is prepared to adopt an International Standard that they have not designed for EMV and contactless cards.

It is interesting to see how the US is developing. In one paragraph they talk about how the economics of card payments are changing as the number of transactions >$25 increases. Whilst here in Europe the attempt to pay for a coffee with anything other than cash can result in complaints by others waiting in line to get served.

I wonder how soon his predictions come true in the Far East and Europe compared with the US and Africa? The more work I do on Mobile Payments the more important is the social attitude to credit. Those countries that have a cash economy are the ones that I think will be the success stories rather than those that are heavy users of Credit cards.

Carnival of the Mobilists 34 is at W2F!

Jan Kuczynski edited this weeks Carnival of the Mobilists and was kind enough to put one of my posts up for Most Favourite Post.

He has done a great job pulling together all the other blogs on mobile so go have a read of what others are saying.

Manners on the move

BBC NEWS has a feature on Five ways mobiles erode etiquette. Aside from clients who feel they are aloud to be late my biggest problem is with peers in the Mobile space who hold executive posts.

A number of friends have become very good with time keeping once they have left corporate jobs to work for themselves. All of a sudden when they have lost the large numbers of co-workers who report to them they are once again able to make that meeting on time. With one friend who is a Partner in a large firm the only way to get him to turn up close to the agreed time is to make sure that you are the first person he sees that day.

I am surprised that the fact that we do not turn phones off when we meet someone is not seen as poor form more than it is.

So just where did you get my number?

I am coming to the end of my contract with Orange and am now bombarded by texts and calls from people telling me so and offering me an upgrade. These claim to be from the "Orange Upgrade Team", when challenged they admit that do not work for the company directly or terminate the call.



The next time I meet Niel Macgeorge (head of Pay Monthly @ Orange) after asking if he has kept his job in the reorganisation is going to be one of data protection. As someone who spends too much on mobile I am a Premier Customer and so can update every nine months. This means that a dealer cannot just use the number range to guess that I am coming up to the end of my contract but must have access to the Orange CRM system who are the only ones with my details as I got my phone direct from Orange.



Whilst I am frustrated at the lack of choice when it comes to upgrading. I have had two 3G handsets from Orange so why would I go backwards and select a non 3G handset? That being the case why is the product range so limited compared to what the rivals offer? What I find more of a concern is that my contract details are available to Orange distributors. These individuals have had there commission structures changed by Orange and Vodafone and so want me to leave and join T-Mobile because thay are paying over £200 for new customers. Do not believe me, just walk into a Phone Shop and see if you can get a contract from Orange or Vodafone.


The economics of the Mobile market are flawed and at present not likely to change. One of the biggest problems is the why in which the customers are signed up. When I first started in Mobile the industry was highly regulated, and Networks were not allowed to own the customer, thus we had a group of Service Providers who sold contracts. This regulation fell away when Four Networks became established and Pay as You Go was launched.


A number of Service Providers were bought up by the Networks and others became retail outlets. Now we have a situation where we have too many retailers and competition has become fierce as the market reaches saturation. The Networks are starting to remove some of the distributors whoes actions are too aggressive, but these people still have there own customer lists who they are prepared to Churn to another Network. The need to keep customer numbers up rather than grow Margins means that the offer of a few thousand new ones is too much to reject.


I just hope that a few of these dealers go bust veru soon so that I can get some time to work rather than deal with unwanted calls offering me a phone I do not want.

Nokia, Siemens Plan to Join and Conquer

Businessweek has done a great review on the merge of Nokia and Siemens equipment-making units. The reasoning is that such a merger is needed to build business in the emerging markets of China and India.

I would say that another key driver is that with customers looking to cut costs the removal of one level of complexity would protect the new business. I remember talking to a network CTO about the prospects of the Chinese new entrants , he dismissed them saying that his CEO was looking for the removal of one of the network players rather than buying an additional company. Since that time we have seem Ericsson and Nokia buy market share via outsourcing deals.

I think we can expect the M&A bankers to make more money over the coming months as consolidation sees Nortel, NEC, Motorola and Huawei seeking to grow, it might just force Cisco to do a big deal.

Making mobile payments work 101

Little Springs Design an American based mobile design and usability firm have written a good starter on how the phone could replace the wallet. This is something that this week has become more important to my work with a number of developments.

The first was a mail shot from PayPal asking me to activate my mobile phone. Now I am not a big user of PayPal, as I do not have a big eBay habbit. Thus I have to think that the marketing people are expanding the offer to the casual user having seen a good take up by the regular users.

The other little gem that popped up on my radar was the developments of BT in launching Click&Buy for the wholesale market. With the service WAP site owners will be able to identify the users browsing their sites, this allows them to bill without using reverse SMS. The interesting element is that 60% of users of click&buy do not have a credit card.

The reason that these slow developments in mobile payments are becoming more interesting is that the Networks are opening up their portals to advertising, something that is already common in the States. Orange will allow agencies to place brand adverts as banners and text links, later they will allow content firms to advertise. When the content firms are able to enter the market then we could see more requirements for mobile payments.

The summer is coming and I am feeling blue

Over the last few weeks I have been like a little child again waiting for Chrismas.


For the last month I have been able to upgrade my handset with Orange here in the UK. Ever since the GSM bash in Spain I have been waiting for the first sight of the M600 from Sony Ericsson. I have been watching the Central London stores that are business centres who have new handsets before they hit the web.


Well guess what the date has slipped ever back. The latest story is that it will be over three months before we can see the QWERTY based UMTS handset in London with an Orange logo. The guys in the stores are saying that we will get the upgraded P990 before we have the M600. Indeed ask someone in an Orange store for an M600 and they at first think that you are talking about the SPV and not the Sony Ericsson handset. If I were a different type I would say it is the fact that Orange are selling such a device faster then they can get them in a store, and these Orange handsets are lower in price to buy than a Sony Ericsson handset.


Talking to someone in the handset market he tells me that the M600 is in production ahead of the P990. Thus I should be able to get my new handset faster than I can get a HDTV receiver from Sky but both now look like I will wait until after the Summer holidays before I get my gadget fix.


I am upset with Sony Ericsson that it has created a market that it cannot serve. I am more upset with Orange that it has lost sight of the fact that I am the customer and as such I should be able to buy what I want rather than what they sell. What Orange was know for was excellent customer service and since it changed hands it has lost this edge. The only saving grace is that all of Orange's competitors are as bad as it is when it comes to customer service.


I guess that I will have to use LinkedIn to see how many degrees of seperation I have from a senior Product Manager at Sony Ericsson so that I may once again have access to the test handsets so that I can get my fix.

WeeWorld gets $15.5M funding

Red HERRING reports that one of my favourite companies WeeWorld has managed to secure the money needed to take it on to the next level. Celia Francis tells me that she has another big deal in Legal at the moment and that she hopes to beef up the staff.

Cannot wait to see what new functions are coming, looking forward to the animation services that will mean that I can use WeeMe for MMS rather than just send others photos of what I am upto.

Well done Celia on an excellent first year and I know that the next year will see yet more success.

28th Carnival of the Mobilists

Rod McLaren kicks us off this week with a question on what happens when Operator's replace devices because it is cheaper than repairing them. This is something that happened with me when my 3G handset started to disconnect from the network. The problem I had was that all they replaced was the handset and ever since I have a problem with battery life!

Mike over at mymobilephoneguide takes a look at the Motorola PVOT which could solve my battery problem in that its hand cranked to charge the battery. At the moment it is just in design phase so might not make it to market, but the good news is that it does not look like a RAZR.

Regular Troy Norcross looks at how Mobile Culture affects Mobile Marketing which looks at the if we are to get mobile marketing to work we could remember that its phone and the return path it best if we call rather than go to a wap site. Justin Oberman over at mopocket looks at how the US is using text messaging for Mobile Politics, which is another look at how they do things differently in the States from over hear in the UK. Continuing the theme David at Mobile Marketing Magazine points us at Kathryn Stevenson's post on how together, we're beautiful which chimes with a lot of what Troy is saying.

Russell wrote Mobhappy's post on Adding Value to MMS which is a great follow on on Troy's post. Russell looks at a new start-up from Israel that allows you to annotate your picture before you send it. This is the Mesh Up solution that a number were talking of at the last MoMonday event I went to in London.

Mike Evans asks will Dell be the next competitor for Nokia as it starts lists N-Series terminals as "multimedia computers". Xen Mendelsohn has a reply that says that if Nokia want us to think of the N-Series as a computer she wants a keyboard and mouse!

Jordy is the newbie this week, of his two submissions I went for his analysis of Facebook's entry into mobile. In his email Jordy says that he was motivated to launch his blog after reading MobHappy for a couple of months. Not sure if it was a complement or he just thought he could do better than Russell and Carlo, but good luck hope that he manages to post frequently.

Daniel Taylor over at mobile enterprise gives RIM a cheer for finally getting a version of the software out that works for the field force professionals who don't use e-mail on a day-to-day basis. Having read the post I felt like emailing some of those I know who work in messaging to get them to comment, but hopefully they will see it here and comment on Daniel's post.

Martin's excellent blog has a look at how the deployment of GSM and UMTS networks are doing. All I would want to add is although the map says that I have 3G coverage at home it only works if the trees behind my house don't have wet leaves on!

Dave Beers has a look at how Motorola has gone open source of its Java ME. He has done an excellent job of looking as just what can be done with the software which has given me some interesting insights for my chat with Symbian.

Moonsider looks at banning phones in school, in which he gives a good analysis of the pros and cons before saying that like fire we cannot take it away so learn how to use it responsibly. Judy Breck's blog tells us how the Metropolitam Museum of Art lets visitors get Queen Hatshepsut on the phone.

OK that's me done, I don't have a post of my own put while your here why no look at the other posts? I have enjoyed reading the submissions and sorry if you did not make the cut. Its been interesting to see behind the curtain, and it would be great if some of my favorites started submitting posts. Next week the Carnival moves onto Open Gardens and I hope that Ajit will have as much fun as I have pulling together the weeks news from the Mobile Bloggers.

The photo comes from the RBKC website on the Notting Hill Carnival sorry cannot credit the photographer.

IMobile phones as a tool of social change in Africa

In todays Independent I read a feature on how mobile phones are giving hope to a new generation of African people. Diane Coyle writes about how the rise of mobile telephony has helped those in the most poverty to pull themselves out of the gutter. After hitting us with the stats about how the continent has been the fastest growing in numbers since the late 1990s she goes on to repeat the good news stories from the GSMA's outreach programmes of fishmen in Tanzania able to find the best price before landing there catch.

The article then goes on to talk of the resent resaerch project undertaken by the LBS paid for by Vodafone on the economic and social effects of the rapid spread of mobiles. Indeed in some areas communities are lobbying for their own mast and celebrate its arrival, how Vodafone wish that the same were true in the UK.

The only thing missing is a fact that I picked up on last year at the time of Make Poverty History when one of the speakers said that Mobiles were a tool of regime change. The speaker said that in countries were penetration was greater than 20% it was no longer possible for a dictator to control the media and so they were kicked out by the people. I guess that a large number of African states still have very low penetration rates!

The 27th Carnival of the Mobolists is at 3G portal

Steve Jones, has pulled together the 28th Carnival with the usual collection of new and regular posters covering all things mobile.
Next week it is my turn to host the Carnival, hopefully this honour will also stop me being lazy and write more about what I think it happening.

My phone's internet experience just got a lot better

I have spent the last two days doing a lot more surfing on my phone. The reason for this is that I have upgraded my browser from Opera Mini 1.2 to Opera Mini 2.0 and the difference is that I am now even happier with the experience. The new browser is even more pared back than the first with very little clutter on the screen. So not only do I have a fast browser I have a simple reading experience thanks to Opera.

Carlo over at Mobhappy is also a fan.

15th Edition of Vodafone's receiver ezine

Vodafone has a little know ezine called receiver, which is published four times a year. The ezine this time is about that yearning factor that comes with using the mobile phone, about the meta-message which is always present: 'wish you were here'.

Off the articles that I have read the one that strikes me the most is "The duality of effects - the mobile phone and relationships" by Joachim R Höflich. Part of his piece looks at the why that the telephone is a radical tool as demonstrated by its use in East Germany. I remembner being told by someone that the mobile phone has been shown as a key tool for revolution in that once the population has a mobile penetration rate above 20% it becomes very difficult for governemnets to control the media.

He goes one to write, Not all communication experts were initially convinced that the mobile phone would be a great success. The private nature of telephoning was seen as a barrier. People would not want to let others gain too much insight into their private lives. At times I just wish that the sociologists were right, but it is amasing just how fast mobile's have become eccepted.

Microsoft gets mobile search

'Huge opportunities' in mobile search, says Microsoft exec - Computerworld a number of others sites have picked this up and run with it. But I would also like my two penny worth.

Over the past six months I have been asked by a number of senior executives for a view on Mobile Search. I have said that mobile is not the same as the internet, for a start most users are still not big users of data services thanks to the high cost of the service. So this being the case they mobile user is not going to be happy with the current Google service which is more guess than answer.

What Windows Live seams to be is a local service which gives better results, however I am still not sure about the semantics involved. My favorite example at the moment is searching for a coffee shop, how does Orange now that if I am asking about a coffee shop at the weekend in Amsterdam its not java I am after, as opposed to the same question on a wet Monday in Bristol? And with both cases I would be unhappy to be sent to Starbucks.

Just wonder how much of this is based on the recently bought MotionBridge technology and how much has been developed in house. I guess the important thing is that it demonstrates that Microsoft is happy to take the battle to Google when it comes to Mobile which is more than can be said for some of the others.