Jun 08 27
Lies, damned lies and telco stupidity
Posted by Jo Best @ 16:11 13 comments
Earlier this month, Telstra put out a press release trumpeting that it's come up with a new phone coaching service to help people who are "bamboozled" by their mobiles. Another excellent example of wrong-headed thinking from the mobile industry.
On the surface, it's a nice idea. You can't get your mobile working — go ask those nice people from Telstra to help you fix it.
But take a step back for a minute. What sort of company would think to sell a product that's so complex — so unworkable to the average Joe — that they need to get coaching before they can use it?
If reports are correct, Telstra is the type of telco that would chuck its toys out of the pram and lose the iPhone because Apple wouldn't put some Sensis content on the device. Why can't it then exert some pressure on Nokia, or RIM, or whoever else to make their software easier to work?
Surely the emphasis should be on the tech companies to make products that are easy to use, not on customers to work out how to puzzle their way through devices that are more like Rubik's Cubes than smartphones.
For all telcos' talk of putting the customer first, they clearly don't, as things like this show. More evidence, were it needed: Telstra call centres.
Apparently, if I have a query, I can ring up and talk to someone between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday. Guess what? I'm at work then. I've got better things to do between 9 and 5 than listen to the crappy hold music. I'm at work. My employer pays me to work during that time. If I could take a break at any time for a personal phone call, I'd chat to one of my friends, not to a call centre worker.
If I could choose how to waste 15 minutes of my work day, I think just staring into space and seeing how long I could go between blinks would be better than hanging on the telephone waiting for my "valued call" to get to the head of the Telstra queue.
Try it the other way around, Telstra. How about your call centre worker takes 15 minutes or more out of their day to ring an aunt in Canberra, rather than getting on with their work. I'd imagine that would go down like a poo sandwich, no?
The same goes for you, Internode (note: your hold music sounds like the end of the world happening in 1983), and anyone else that thinks customer service should only be available during working hours. Look around you, my telco friends, the world has moved on and you're looking rather superannuated by refusing to move with it.
And while we're on the subject of telco irrationalities, let me also question a number of hoary old chestnuts that Telstra insists on peddling — via their drill instructor cum trained one-man-manure-distributor, communications head Phil Burgess — a man who was, I believe, once introduced to the facts. The meeting clearly didn't go well and they've agreed to part ways ever since.
Burgess often accuses the ACCC of using the UK's regulator's pricing for the unbundled local loop and simply converting it to an Australia dollar figure to get its pricing models for the Australian market. This has been dispelled as manure of the highest order repeatedly, but why let facts get in the way of some pointless regulator bashing?
Does anyone genuinely think that that's how the ACCC works? If that was their methodology, then I'm surprised they'd have the necessary cognisance to work a calculator. Surely if they were that out and out stupider-than-a-piece-of-toast barely sentient, they wouldn't be able to get their pants on unassisted, let alone hold down a job at the ACCC.
My favourite recent Burgess-ism however — aside from the geographically retarded "I didn't even know Iceland had people" (my aching sides!) — was that the UK broadband regime is a "disaster" that the ACCC shouldn't be allowed to let Australia to mimic its teeth-grinding awfulness.
Oh yes. During my time in the UK, I wept at the sheer horror of the freely available broadband subscriptions without up or download caps. I fell to the floor pulling out my hair as I handed over the monstrous sum of five pounds a month for my connection. I begged friends and relatives to put me out of my misery as I saw the incumbent undergo operational separation and still remain profitable while broadband prices fell across the board.
If Dante had a seventh circle of broadband hell, then this is surely it.
I now look forward to the screeds of talkback below accusing me of Telstra bashing. Yawn. For the record, let me say this: I was a customer of Telstra for a long time and I have found its service the shining example of adequacy. That said, I am also a journalist and duty bound to point out bollocks where I see it. And right now, there's more bollocks at Telstra than there is at a nudist camp.
And WiMax. Why all this holy war talk? I'm surprised at the sheer amount of hot air that got spouted about WiMax during the brief time that it looked like it would emerge as a major telecoms standard in Australia before it plummeted like a concrete kestrel.
The fact is that WiMax is a niche technology. The GSM evolution path, which leads to various iterations of HSPA and on to LTE, doesn't feature WiMax. Billions of people and all of the big name carriers have put their faith in GSM, not WiMax.
Technologically, WiMax may be the complete balls-out all-round last mile winner, but mobile operators have placed their bets elsewhere. In countries where telecoms infrastructure is not so ubiquitous or where WiMax has sopped up government cash like Amy Winehouse does chemicals, the technology has a chance.
Everywhere else (née Australia), chances are its going to the wireless equivalent of the old, toothless fella smoking a pipe in the corner of the pub telling everyone how he could have been someone important, before falling asleep and dribbling down his moth-eaten shirt.
I'd like to have seen WiMax get a run out and see what it could do, but it's just not going to happen, so all those Telstra execs' who spent last year bashing WiMax just ended up wasting their time. It's a feeling Telstra must be achingly familiar with after all those fruitless court cases.
Still, at least it brings them closer to their customers: anyone who's tried to get hold of a Telstra call centre worker on the weekend is all too accustomed to wasting their time.
Jun 08 6
Photos: Star Wars iPhone running Vista, WiMax
Posted by Jo Best @ 16:00 11 comments
I can't wait for the new iPhone to come out — mainly because I'm so dog-tired of listening to the never-ending daily screeds of rumour mongering nonsense speculating on what functionality the device will have. So I've decided to join in. I'm 100 per cent convinced the new iPhone will run Vista and have WiMax connectivity. In fact I'd bet my house on it.
[Jo doesn't have a house — ZDNet.com.au will not be held responsible for anyone taking her wager seriously. Ed.]
I'm so convinced that this will be the case, I've asked the crack design team over here to mock up what a Vista-running, WiMax-connected iPhone might look like. And here it is.
And that's the just the start of it: here are my other rock-solid bets for what we can expect to see from the next-gen iPhone. (By the way, if you've got any ideas of your own, email them to edit@zdnet.com.au.)
|Videoconferencing's earliest pioneer: Princess Leia. Star Wars saw her try out an early version of video chat. It didn't really work out. The picture quality wasn't great and the platform didn't look overly stable to me.
If only Leia had got her priorities right. A little less grovelling to Obi Wan, a little more "Help me Steve Jobs, you're my only hope!" Maybe if she'd have got the Apple engineers on the case a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, we'd have videoconferencing that ran not only over 3G, but over space and time as well.
|The A-Team's ingenuity knew no bounds. Dammit, lock them in a shed for a few hours and those four guys could make a gun that fired cabbages. Imagine what the A-Team could do with 16GB of storage and access to your iTunes library.
But, let's be honest, Howling mad Murdoch was dead wood. His contribution was pretty much standing around and winding up BA Baracas. Just imagine how irate the bling loving fella's going to be when he finds out the iPhone has a non replaceable battery.
Ladies and gentleman, get ready for the iTeam.
[A bit harsh I think. Murdoch was my favourite. Ed.]
(Credit: National Broadcasting Company (NBC))
|So, according to the rumour mongers, this new iPhone's got 3G, it's got GPS, it's got videoconferencing, it makes your breakfast in the morning and compliments you on your hair if you're feeling low. Bah, old hat. If Apple wants to make an iPhone that does everything, why doesn't it just take a lesson from the master — the Swiss Army knife?
Who cares about calendar and contacts? I want a phone that can open a can when I'm camping and provide me with all the tools to uncork my wine and keep my nails looking spiffy.
|At least two Aussie operators are confirmed as iPhone carriers. Apple hasn't exactly made a massive effort to customise the device for regional operators. If only Apple would throw the people Down Under a bone — how about something that tackles our distinctly local problems?
You know, the lethal spiders, the killer sharks, the fatal jellyfish. Why not build some predator-repelling tech into the phone? As in, some sort of sonic weapon stuff? If Apple can make 2G sexy, why can't it use technology to piss off a bunch of crocs?
|The soubriquet of the Jesus Phone has been applied to the iPhone and, like Jesus, I reckon the iPhone will be able to heal the sick using miraculous powers. And not just any old common-or-garden healing, brain surgery type healing.
"Get me 10 CCs of morphine and a widget, stat!"
|How bored must Apple's designers be? "Hey, we've got a great idea for a new Apple product. Let's make it purple! And with a felt coating! Maybe with fluoro stripes! It'll rock! Oh, you want it white plastic again? OK, sure, we can do that. White plastic. Great. Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiite plastic. Sigh."
In a fit of rebellion, I predict the designers will come up with an iPhone made of cheese. Here's my vision of what that would look like: it's made of iDam.
Cheese is delicious. There's no better way to sell more iPhones than make them out of yummy yummy edible cheese.
|Geeks like iPhones and geeks like light sabres. Why not bring them together?
| NASA's already working to put a mobile network on the moon. Next step: Apple puts an iPhone on the Mars Lander.With its brand spanking new 3G functionality, the iPhone will be able to transmit the results of the expedition back to earth quicker than you can read War and Peace. Roaming bill doesn't bear thinking about.
(Credit: NASA/JPL)
|So, you've signed your two-year contract, you've put your name down for a whopping great monthly data bill and you've put one of your kidneys in hock to pay for the whole thing. It's not likely you'll be going out any time soon, so thank heavens the iPhone has a fake friend functionality.
Yes, with the press of a touchscreen button, you can talk to and interact with your device like a real person. You can even give your new-found friend the voice of your choosing: options include Arnold Schwarzenegger, David Koch and the Loch Ness monster. Your iPhone friend will console you when your girlfriend dumps you and act as your wingman when you're out on the hunt for her replacement — and quite honestly, you know the iPhone is better looking than you are.
|There's nothing worse than when your mobile runs out of juice at a critical moment. So what about an iPhone you can juice up with beer? Someone needs to do some biofuels jiggery pokery but hey, what better excuse do you need for sinking another cold one?
...Read moreMay 08 26
Time for some bright green ideas
Posted by Jo Best @ 14:25 0 comments
Mobile phone companies have seen the green bandwagon go by and are flinging themselves on it faster than you can say "lazy, greenwash-spewing me-too merchants" but in the pantheon of would-be eco-friendly mobile makers, Nokia is coming up with some of the best and worst ideas on the market.
Here's a few for your consideration. First, a "zero waste" charger to stop electricity being squandered by people who are too lazy to unplug their phones when the batteries are full.
According to Nokia, researchers are working on three prototype zero waste chargers at the moment, designed to stop all this energy hogging: "The first uses a button to charge, so leaving it plugged in means it doesn't draw power and the user needs to hit the (green) button to set the charge in motion. The second simply charges the device for one hour before switching itself off whilst the third concept actually has a conversation with the device, where the device lets the charger know when it needs power, and when it's all done." ...Read more
May 08 5
Are car makers in the mobile TV driving seat?
Posted by Jo Best @ 16:48 4 comments
Qualcomm has poured money into its broadcast mobile television system, MediaFLO. Now US carrier AT&T is hoping that consumers will do the same, following the launch of a consumer mobile TV offering based on the Qualcomm tech. Good luck with that.
Leaving aside the question of whether consumers actually want this stuff (I'm not convinced myself, but AT&T presumably is) and how the tech performs (fine, in the demos I've seen) there seems to be one massive great question mark hanging over broadcast mobile TV: the handsets or more specifically, the lack thereof.
For the AT&T service, launched last week, there are just two compatible devices: one LG and one Samsung. Even assuming that every user who buys either device watches AT&T TV, with just two handsets out there, the potential market is desperately limited: not what an operator wants when it's trying to claw back infrastructure investment. ...Read more
