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.

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• Microsoft and Google need to step up a Gear
• Apple iPhone: Your Australian operator is ...
• Are car makers in the mobile TV driving seat?
• Time for some bright green ideas

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.

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• CDMA? Enough of the bad language
• How smart is the iPhone?
• The home base station: Too much of a hard cell?
• Microsoft and Google need to step up a Gear

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."

A charger that only sucks energy when the phone needs it and breaks the connection when the battery is full is so blindingly obviously a great idea that I'm still wondering why, in a post An Inconvenient Truth world, we don't all have one. Hint to Nokia: when you're creating those prototypes, stick a solar panel on them for good measure.

Then there's the "wears in, not out" concept. Details on how this bad boy — unveiled at a London design event last month — actually works are sketchy. Nokia describes it like this: "as more services become available on our mobile devices this concept explores how people could potentially upgrade their devices digitally rather than physically in the future, giving people an additional choice on how they use and update their mobile phones."

I'm confused about this, given most people do update their phone digitally anyway. Over the air firmware upgrades, operating system overhauls, even installing a new widget: it's not hard right now to update your device digitally without updating it physically.

That said, while it's a nice idea that you can extend the life of a phone using digital upgrades, it's not a hugely practical one. Most people update their phones for hardware, not software, reasons: to get a better camera, for example, or a smaller form factor, or because they think a touch interface looks cool — or just because their old model is a bit knackered. A system of digital updates simply can't make those upgrades happen.

For that matter, digital rather than physical upgrades are entirely counter-intuitive for Nokia. A phone that you don't upgrade for 25 years would mean that the handset maker would need to create devices that sell for, say, around 10 times their current price to keep its bottom line healthy. I suspect bumping up the average selling price of a Nokia device to several thousand dollars would prove as popular as a bad fart in a stuck lift, both for consumers and operators — let alone Nokia's accountants.

Then there's Nokia's recycled handsets. Nokia boss Olli Pekka Kallasvuo showed off a video of the Remade handset at the Mobile World Congress trade show earlier this year. Its housing has no new materials — it's all plastic bottles, car tyres and recycled aluminium cans. As phones go, the Remade gets a big green thumbs up.

Of course, it's just a concept: a great big fat concept. The device shows what Nokia can do, but it doesn't actually work. There's no phone guts inside it. It's just a nice housing which doesn't function and there are no promises any of it will ever show up on the market.

Nokia does have a real "eco" model out on the market though. It's called the 3110 Evolve and it beats the Remade in that you can actually go out and buy one and it does actually work. In terms of ambition though, it's rather lacking.

Its housing is 50 per cent "renewable material", the box it comes in is part-recycled and its charger is more "energy efficient" than Nokia's previous models. It's not exactly going to save the planet, is it?

Given that Nokia has ably demonstrated that it's got some good ideas up its sleeve on the environmental front, why does it think that palming off lazy nonsense like the Evolve 3110 is going to impress anyone?

We know you can do better, Nokia. So do it.

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• Green tech is a goldmine, not a burden
• Microsoft hands out green cash as Sun gets thin
• Green your datacentre or it may go dark
• Sun's new MD to focus on green IT and open source

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.

Qualcomm obviously doesn't have a handset business itself, so it's relying on its device-manufacturing friends to include the relevant chipset in their devices.

Aside from the US where its market share is rock-bottom, Nokia would be the ideal partner for Qualcomm. Its market share around the world is apparently greater than its next three closest rivals put together and a nod from Nokia would see Qualcomm's MediaFLO chipset available to a potential one in three mobile users worldwide.

The likelihood of that actually happening? Zero to absolutely none.

Leaving aside Qualcomm and Nokia's long running patent spat, why would Nokia want to promote Qualcomm's mobile TV agenda? Nokia has its own broadcast mobile TV plan to push starring rival standard DVB-H and it's not even pushing that very hard: a quick look at its mobile TV portal reveals just two DVB-H phones currently available, both N series.

Nokia might have the drop on Qualcomm when it comes to sheer volumes, but Qualcomm has a back-up where Nokia does not: to try and diversify the user base by putting the tech into cars as well as phones. There's an undeniable logic to it: cars are almost as ubiquitous as phones and there's an audience who might want TV while on the road — who would also be able to spare two hours to watch one of the films on offer.

There's also the issue of average selling price: let's say for argument's sake that a mobile TV chipset costs AU$5 or AU$10. The average Nokia selling price is around AU$130: with a price that low, an increase of AU$5 or AU$10 is a bit on the steep side. The average car selling price is, well, quite a bit more, making it far easier for manufacturers to absorb that comparatively dinky chipset cost.

Assuming Qualcomm sticks to its white label guns, there's also the opportunity for operators like AT&T to cross-sell and make some money back from their (presumably loss-making) TV-for-mobiles efforts.

Assuming Nokia sticks to its white label guns, it better have some killer handsets and a shedload of mobile TV-loving operators on the way, or it might just find itself wishing it had car makers on speed dial.

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• When will operators let me IP freely?
• Is there room for an MID in your pocket?
• Apple iPhone: Your Australian operator is ...
• Microsoft and Google need to step up a Gear

Over the last couple of weeks, it seems that mobile VoIP has been slowly accumulating something of a head of steam, which could see the technology turn from clumsy cost-avoidance technique and operator-worrier to fully grown-up, everyday mobile offering.

While some operators have taken the ill thought-out route of banning VoIP over mobile altogether for fear of seeing their revenues cannibalised (a number of big name operators haven't exactly covered themselves in glory in the past in this respect), others have run screaming into its arms: Intel-funded Jajah has done a tie-up with Japanese operator Emobile, while Skype and 3 have been sitting in a tree for some time.

Skype, however, looks to be having some cross-operator ambitions, announcing last week that it's bringing out a beta client for Java mobiles, with a view to gathering some feedback and bringing out a client proper in the next few months.

While everyone can download it and take incoming Skype calls, only those in seven lucky markets — none of which is Australia — will be able to get all the traditional Skype functions like the ability to make Skype-to-Skype and SkypeOut calls.

Will Skype over mobile save you money? Possibly, possibly not. It takes a lot of mental arithmetic to work out whether a Skype call, as opposed to the bog standard cellular call, is cheaper, so it's safe to say operator's voice revenues won't be challenged any time soon.

That said, international calls is one area where you might stand to save a bob or two, assuming both of you are making a Skype call in your respective countries and you've got a flat rate data plan and an operator that's down with that sort of thing.

Others prefer to dodge the data issues and make mobile VoIP calls over Wi-Fi. It's not a bad plan, but it does mean you have to be within reach of a hotspot and willing to sacrifice your mobility. You might also find yourself on your operator's bad side: take UK VoIP mob Truphone, for example, which last year found itself blocked by Vodafone and Orange.

You might argue that a better way for operators to deal with the rise of mobile VoIP over Wi-Fi would be to bring out their own converged service which can bounce happily between mobile and Wi-Fi networks — companies like Fring already promise a client that can do just that — rather than send the toys sailing out of the pram, but there you go.

But whether we're talking VoIP over 3G or VoIP over Wi-Fi, it seems odd operators should resist the transition to IP for mobile on one hand while at the same time pushing the benefits of tethered VoIP over newly-installed IP backbones like Telstra's NextIP network or BT's 21CN, for example.

And, as communications brain Dean Bubley of Disruptive Analysis points out, IPification is only going to become even more prevalent as operators start rolling out so-called next generation mobile networks.

"If the carriers want to move to future networks (call them 3.9G or 4G) like LTE, UMB or WiMax for reasons of bandwidth, data capacity or better spectrum use, there's no choice. They're all-IP, so you have to use VoIP, or maintain parallel GSM/UMTS technology for circuit voice [...]

"Secondly, from HSPA+ or EV-DO Rev A onwards, you can get more calls/Hz/cell with VoIP than circuit switched. LTE should be able to get 100-200 percent efficiency gains. Given that voice pricing is coming down, capping the spectrum being used for voice makes sense," says Bubley in his excellent blog.

It looks like mobile operators' move to IP is unstoppable. It's less than certain when customers will be allowed to follow suit.

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• Free Wi-Fi: Where's the Fon in that?
• CDMA? Enough of the bad language
• The home base station: Too much of a hard cell?
• How smart is the iPhone?

Perhaps I'm being overly harsh: the MID is interesting. Interesting, that is, in the way I can't quite figure out if Intel has some secret insight into the minds of device buyers or if the MID is actually what I suspect it really is: a triumph of marketing over common sense.

The idea behind the MID is that there are a whole load of users out there who want always-on connectivity, the ability to mess around on the Internet whenever they need, but don't want to hoik a laptop around. Too cumbersome. Too heavy.

A good point — my laptop weighs about as much as a small dog and is roughly the same size (and, for that matter, takes as much work to look after). But the latest round of MIDs aren't exactly pocket-sized, unless we're seeing a return to the late nineties style-horrors that were combat pants.

It's a problem that even Intel seems to acknowledge. At the Intel Developer Forum, the company's mobility group GM Dadi Perlmutter was asked if he thought that the MID will be a big seller. In a sort of answering-the-question-but-not way, he said that the previous bulky form factors of the devices had stymied demand.

"This form factor has a better chance, the next generation has a way better chance," he added. It's not exactly an overwhelming vote of confidence from the horse's mouth, is it?

Presumably, this is a hint that MIDs are going to get smaller and more pocket friendly. But is this a good thing? Shrink them more and they become dangerously like a slightly overgrown mobile phone. And, like the mobile phone, the MID really needs mobile connectivity to be genuinely useful.

The MID is all about being able to get whatever crap from the Internet you want whenever you want it. In the event the device only has Wi-Fi, the dream dies: how often are you in the vicinity of a free hotspot? The only place I have free, reasonably decent Wi-Fi is my living room. Which has a laptop in it. So not much need for an MID there then.

The more seemingly obvious connectivity of choice is 3G — it's ubiquitous and, after all the HSDPA upgrades of late, able to handle the data — but who wants to buy a second mobile subscription just so they can watch YouTube vids down the pub?

If mobile operators allowed you to split your data allowance between two devices, well, that might give the MID a leg up. Only they don't. Ditto if the MIDs worked on WiMax and WiMax subscriptions were cheap and, oh yes, if we actually had a WiMax network to start with, then there might be a case for the MIDs. But we don't, and there's not.

And while I'm at it: the MID's raison d'être is Internet consumption. But who just wants consumption these days? The Internet is now all about production: data caps on broadband, for example, now include uploads as consumers want to share shot after yawn-inducing shot of their offspring/party/pet/day spent washing the car, while Facebook attests to our love of uploading the minutiae of our lives, scattergun-style, for all to see.

To tickle our content production tastebuds, a camera maybe, or a hard, slide-out keyboard wouldn't go amiss — but then we're once again into the chunky smartphone or eeePC territory, and that's already being milked for all its worth.

The MID wants to position itself in the device pantheon as somewhere between a laptop and a phone. Alas, all it's doing is falling between two stools.

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• Free Wi-Fi: Where's the Fon in that?
• CDMA? Enough of the bad language
• The home base station: Too much of a hard cell?
• How smart is the iPhone?

ZDNet.com.au. Yep, that's right: ZDNet.com.au. You're probably wondering where I got my information from, right? Well, the fact is, ZDNet.com.au is doing a bit of iPhone development. We've launched a version of our Web site specifically designed for iPhones and we're looking at developing some applications for the device now that the SDK is out in the public domain.

It couldn't really be clearer, could it? We're doing some development work around the iPhone so we must be the lucky operator that's won it. You might be thinking that we're a business and technology news site, not a mobile carrier, and therefore I'm talking cobblers but bear with me for a second.

The eagle-eyed mobile watchers out there have spotted that Sensis has posted a job advert asking for some iPhone developers to produce some applications for the Telstra search arm.

"We're looking for a BA [business analyst] with a technical front-end UI background to help us design cutting-edge search applications for the iPhone. This isn't boring old specification-heavy BA work. This is exciting and agile BA work to help us envision mobile search applications that work great and look beautiful. Let us know if you think you've got the right combination of creative flair, geekiness, and detail orientation to get the job done," says the ad.

Has Telstra won the iPhone? It's very possible. Is this job posting the evidence to that effect we've all been craving? Is it bollocks.

I know a lot of people are desperate to find out which operator will be Apple's partner for the iPhone's Australian launch -- I'm one of them -- but I don't think a job advert about iPhone development is in any way a clue.

Anyone with a mobile strategy is bigging up the iPhone portion of it. Not because there are a lot of iPhone users out there -- there aren't -- but because the small proportion of iPhone users are vociferous consumers of mobile data compared to those who access mobile data on any other platform. Just because Sensis is upping its iPhone development, it doesn't automatically follow that parent Telstra is bringing out the iPhone.

That said, it's more than likely we'll see the iPhone pop up on Telstra. It has the clout that Apple will be looking for and an impressive track record on customers using non-SMS mobile data.

But that track record could be a potential sticking point between the two -- the iPhone contract reportedly requires the carrier partner to hand over some of that data revenue, which I can't see Telstra boss Trujillo feeling entirely comfortable with. I've never thought of him as a man hell-bent on compromise or a particularly giving chap. Ask rural ISPs. Or Helen Coonan. Or the ACCC. Or ...

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• Microsoft and Google need to step up a Gear
• How smart is the iPhone?
• The home base station: Too much of a hard cell?
• CDMA? Enough of the bad language

Take a couple of announcements that came out last week -- Microsoft bringing Silverlight to Nokia mobiles and Google Gears coming to Windows mobiles.

Gears has been around for a long, long time -- well, in tech terms at least: it was launched last May, and Silverlight came out around the same time.

And now, not far short of a year later, we're seeing both Gears and Silverlight being polished up for two of the big names in wireless: Nokia's S60 and Windows Mobile.

About time.

I'm not sure why big names like Microsoft and Google are still treating mobile platforms like an afterthought -- and to add insult to the injury of a year long wait for mobile versions of this software, Google didn't even bring out Gears for its own Android offering, which is just plain puzzling.

Granted, it's working on an Android-specific version of Gears, but bringing it out for Internet Explorer first doesn't exactly send the right message about where Android is heading.

I can almost see Microsoft's logic with Silverlight -- rich media is well entrenched when it comes to desktop browsers, and less so with their mobile counterparts. There's still a significant base of individuals who don't use the mobile Web -- don't need to, don't want to or just don't have a phone that makes browsing the easy experience it should be. Best to put development efforts into desktops, where there's a bigger market, the company presumably thought.

But Google's Gears logic is a mystery to me. The theory behind Gears is that you can continue working on your applications when you go offline -- in Australia, for example, surely this is ideal territory for mobile workers. Lost a signal? Outside network coverage? No need to stop working (alas).

And there's the emerging markets logic: for many people, a mobile browser is the only available way to get on the Internet. Emerging markets phones may not necessarily be ideal for remote working or rich media but they're catching up fast, along with the networks.

Microsoft's Steve Ballmer was talking last week at the MIX 08 conference about how companies must acquire multiple skill sets in order to stay relevant in the industry. It should really be looking at acquiring those mobile skill sets a whole lot quicker. Silverlight for mobiles is already beginning to look like yesterday's news.

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• How smart is the iPhone?
• The home base station: Too much of a hard cell?
• CDMA? Enough of the bad language
• Free Wi-Fi: Where's the Fon in that?

A number of mobile operators are willing to bet you might consider doing just that. Of course, we're not talking about the type of base stations that transmit mobile signals across kilometres and needle NIMBYs every time they go up, but the smaller kind meant for personal use -- the femtocell.

Femtocells are, in the most simplistic terms, just a scaled down version of a mobile base station. The purpose of having one in your home or, for that matter, office is to boost mobile reception levels in-building.

Typically, until now, femtocells have been talked about in terms of simply improving signals, or network in-fill, for when mobile-dependent businesses find their coverage hamstrung by the building they work in.

Now, it seems, things are moving in a different direction with operators not only targeting so-called "home zone pricing" where customers are offered cheaper call rates when they use their mobiles at home, in an attempt to encourage fixed-mobile substitution -- but also entirely new services.

Femtocell maker ip.access and networking company Mavenir Systems, recently announced a partnership and, with it, some proposed ideas for services femtocells could enable: "parents being able to receive SMS alerts when family members enter or depart the home; presence information updating automatically on social networking sites; and subscribers having a virtual home number which rings all mobiles, traditional phones or PC clients currently in the femtozone at home".

A couple of UK operators are tinkering with the idea of femtocells and one of them, O2, has gone so far as to announce a full-on pilot with NEC and Ubiquisys with a view to a commercial launch next year.

While O2 hasn't said much about quite what type of services it intends to use its femtocells for, the hint is that it could be used to put some more grunt into existing so-called mobile broadband rather than opening the door to entirely new offerings.

"Femtocells are designed to improve indoor 3G mobile-broadband coverage by re-routing data from cellular networks and onto wired DSL connections, building cellular coverage from the inside out," says O2.

That sort of description is very much reminiscent of fellow UK operator BT's attempt at FMC, a service named Fusion, which has so far failed to take off in any significant way. So can O2 succeed where BT failed?

BT's FMC service required users to buy new handsets, femtocell services don't, which immediately opens up far greater possibilities in terms of customer base. However, if O2 is just going to pitch its femtocell service on the pricing ideal, rather than with new services, it might fight itself struggling.

Mobile operators, after all, are engaging in a race to the bottom on voice and text pricing. If consumers are just after "cheap", then there are easier ways for them to get it than sticking a base station in their home.

And O2 has still got to figure out how to market the idea of home base stations to the average punter -- and it's not going to be an easy sell for the operator. Whatever the facts of the matter, mobile base stations are still tainted with a carcinogenic whiff in the public mind. There are going to have to be some pretty compelling services to overcome that sort of perception.

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• How smart is the iPhone?
• CDMA? Enough of the bad language
• Free Wi-Fi: Where's the Fon in that?
• Can we have our roaming back, please?

Said Steve of his newest mobile baby: "We have garnered a 20 percent market share of the US smartphone market."

The Nokia 5500

I don't know Steve, I'm just not sure you have. I'm not doubting the black polo-necked one's ability to see how many iPhones have left the shelves, more querying how he determined what counts as a smartphone.

It's worth noting that Steve Jobs is only using Gartner's numbers on the whole smartphone issue; more specifically, Gartner's US smartphone market share numbers for the third calendar quarter of last year. According to the numbers Jobs cited, RIM picked up 39 percent market share, the iPhone came second with 19 percent, leaving Palm, Motorola, and Nokia to take third, fourth and fifth place with 9.8, 7.4 and 1.4 percent respectively.

Does anything about that seem wrong to you? It does to me. While Nokia is not as popular in the US as it is in other territories, such as Europe, there's no denying it can still flog a few handsets -- handsets which are for the most part running on the Symbian OS. In the same quarter as the Gartner stats Jobs referenced, Symbian shifted 20 million phones but apparently undersold the iPhone by some quite considerable margin.

For Nokia to undersell RIM, Moto, Palm and Apple in Gartner's statistics, there's clearly a divergence of opinion on what constitutes a smartphone.

The Nokia E61

For Gartner, a smartphone is a large-screen, data-centric, handheld device designed to offer complete phone as well as PDA-type functionality. Presumably, it judges devices like the E61 in that category, while excluding the more familiar candy-bar stylings of the Nokia 5500 Sport.

For most people, however, any device running the Symbian OS would be considered a smartphone, as would anything running Windows Mobile or Linux, for that matter.

The iPhone, however, would not. Not yet anyway.

One of the key defining characteristics of a smartphone is openness -- the ability to add and remove programs freely, and a programmable OS. And Apple has yet to sanction this completely -- an SDK is yet to arrive, although it's scheduled for February. Until then, it looks like users are forced to take the jailbreak option, turning the iPhone into a smartphone against its will.

Disclosure: Jo Best did not visit San Francisco as a guest of Apple. She watched the keynote at her desk like everyone else. Sorry.

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• CDMA? Enough of the bad language
• Free Wi-Fi: Where's the Fon in that?
• Can we have our roaming back, please?
• Keep watching the skies -- for RIM and Google?

There's been lots of interesting language being bandied about in the last couple of days over CDMA and its antecedent.

Take this for example, from Broadband Minister and Adrian Mole lookalike Stephen Conroy: "I want to finish today by thanking Telstra on their co-operation in this matter. Telstra should be congratulated for investing extensively in its Next G network, which has received world recognition. I appreciate the resources and commitment Telstra has brought to implementing its new national network."

And from Telstra's head of public policy and Raymond Burr lookalike Phil Burgess: "We welcome the government's decisive action on this important transition in the nation's telecommunications future. We are also pleased that the Minister has provided clear direction to Telstra and to consumers about how to proceed to make sure this transition is completed:

Something in this sound odd to you? All the hearts and flowers, sticky-mouthed kisses and clammy handholding from Telstra and the government? It's all a bit Lady and the Tramp, the two parties at either end of that strand of spaghetti.

This isn't the rough and tumble we're used to from Telstra when a decision doesn't go its way. Could the grumpy telco be mellowing out? Unlikely, but Conroy can dream.

The other titbit that produced much linguistic frothing at the mouth, not least on ZDNet.com.au's talkback, was this Conroy classic:

"Telstra can only switch off the CDMA network when I consider that its replacement provides equivalent coverage and equivalent retail services... I have reached a decision that I am not in a position to declare equivalence between the Next G network and the CDMA networks, and therefore the closure of the CDMA network will be postponed."

Depending on what side of the fence you're on, that translates as "Next G has the same or better coverage as CDMA, there's just a few retail issues to be ironed out," or "The coverage may be the same, but there's enough else wrong to warrant a delay to the CDMA closure".

I presume where you stand on that issue is a question of how you find your Next G coverage and so I'll leave it to bush users to pick the winning statement.

My favourite use of language so far on the CDMA debate was in a press release from the telco itself, reminding its customers to double check they're on Next G.

How exactly should they do that? We'll quote directly from Telstra on this one:

When the phone is on, check the front screen and see if it says 'CDMA'. If it does, then you are using the old CDMA network.

No laughing at the back.

It would be churlish of me to suggest this is stating the sodding obvious (even though it is) but think about it for a second. There are, I'm guessing, three main groups of CDMA users out there, each with distinctly different reactions to the impending network closure.

• The people who have heard Telstra's messages about the closure, know that time is running out -- acts of Conroy excepted -- and have already made the switch. Maybe they've grumbled a bit about having to shell out for a new mobile but they're now confirmed Next G customers. These guys are probably the type that find the 'does your phone say CDMA? Then you're using CDMA' message risible.
• Those who have heard Telstra's messages about the closure, know that time is running out -- acts of Conroy excepted -- and have attempted to make the switch but found without Next G coverage or with their equipment not quite up to scratch. They'll be grumbling a lot. These guys are probably the type that are slightly irate about the whole thing.
• The people that haven't heard anything about the CDMA switchoff. They live in a black hole, and not a coverage one either. They may well find the 'does your phone say CDMA?' message handy. Of course, they're so cut off, they're never going to see it anyway.

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• Can we have our roaming back, please?
• Network sharing is caring
• Keep watching the skies -- for RIM and Google?
• O, for a PSP phone and some cheap data

A Google-backed start-up by the name of Meraki is out to prove there is. The US company has this week got the thumbs up from the mayor of San Francisco to create a free Wi-Fi network across the city, using mesh networking -- the take-a-bit-and-pass-it-on model -- and in so doing reinvigorated the spectre of free municipal Wi-Fi.

The Meraki system is reminiscent of Fon, the global Wi-Fi sharing network. Not technologically reminiscent, more ideologically reminiscent: Meraki encourages users to share their Wi-Fi by creating a mesh network -- passing the signal from one node to another to create a network -- using its Meraki Mini mesh router.

Fon has a slightly different take. Like Meraki, it sells routers to encourage users to pass on their Wi-Fi, but there's no mesh involved. Fon users -- so-called Foneros -- offer to make their Wi-Fi available to others. Passers-by in need of a hotspot can buy some time on Foneros' connections much like they would in a Starbucks or an airport, albeit a bit cheaper. The Fonero and Fon itself then get to split the revenue between them.

Fon, to me, is the more interesting of the two propositions. However, while the system may be appealing financially and ideologically, there does seem to be one big question in the business model: most Foneros will be sharing their home network and as such will operate in residential areas. As a result, I'd expect few itinerant users. If Foneros primary motivation for signing up to Fon is making cash, they may find themselves disappointed.

However, it's not just individual users spreading the word (and the connection), SMBs too are apparently getting in on the action, a Fon user tells me. If the balance swings from residences to offices, the cash potential ups as the geographical profile becomes more favourable attracting passing trade.

However, it's not just the lazy lure of cash that gets users on board. By becoming a Fonero, users get free access to the Wi-Fi of any other Fonero around the world -- essentially a worldwide free roaming agreement. And who would such an arrangement appeal to? Most likely the businesspeople and SMBs that Fon needs to make the cash side of its business worthwhile.

But Fon is not sticking to grassroots do-gooders and word of mouth marketing to get subscriber numbers up: it's also thrown in its lot with BT, the UK's incumbent broadband provider, allowing the telco's users to become Foneros via BT's Home Hub, or broadband gateway.

The union potentially gives Fon a boost in subscriber numbers -- BT has around four million broadband customers -- making the free roaming possibility extra tasty: the more hotspots there are available, the greater chance of finding a bit of free Wi-Fi on your travels. But in gaining those four million, Fon will of course have to bow a little to its new master.

Martin Varsavsky, Fon's founder, said of Meraki in his blog: "Meraki is imitating the Fon model with a twist and that is adding a repeater or meshing function that came out of MIT for its Wi-Fi stations. At Fon we also have had a meshing function for a while but we see difficulty in extending meshing in developed countries (meshing is good where availability of connections is low). Meshing is opposed by our partners, the telcos, because one person buys a connection and many use it for free."

So the promise of free Wi-Fi still exists chez Fon, but only on the telcos' terms. What a surprise.

What's your take on Fon's model? Would you be willing to share your Wi-Fi with others? Would you be worried about the security implications? And how do you expect the ISPs would react? Let us know by posting a comment below

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• Can we have our roaming back, please?
• Network sharing is caring
• Keep watching the skies -- for RIM and Google?
• O, for a PSP phone and some cheap data

ZDNet Australia has had heard from several readers complaining of unreliable roaming service and, in some cases, no roaming service at all -- problems which rather unfortunately coincided with the holiday period. Apparently, the trouble was caused by a large number of Vodafone users who took a holiday at Christmas.

It's not just all those lucky enough to be abroad who experienced ups and downs with their service -- those locally enjoyed the festive fun with all manner of text problems. Vodafone customers -- a couple on the ZDNet Australia staff -- reported dropped calls, coverage problems and issues with sending SMSes abroad. I say issues -- I mean complete inability to contact friends and relatives outside Australia.

Vodafone's problems weren't just confined to this side of the Tasman either -- reports have also come in of text messages going into several hours of hibernation over New Year's Eve before being delivered, in some parts of New Zealand.

The root cause for both the New Zealand text problems and for the roaming stuff-ups seems to have been the catch-all "network congestion", according to Vodafone -- shorthand for too many people on the network trying to do too much at the same time.

Over the roaming issues, Vodafone pointed the finger at friend, rival and supplier Optus, saying requests for more capacity had gone unheeded. Not our fault, said Vodafone.

Not because you inadequately forecast the demand during the period? queried ZDNet Australia. Not a chance, said Vodafone. Not us, guv.

I'll leave it with you to figure out whether or not Vodafone should have predicted people would go on holiday during the holiday period. But the repeated network problems that see New Year's Eve text messages delivered late, calls unable to connect and all-round network shoddiness as the clock strikes midnight, every year, regardless of operator? I would be tempted to call that inadequate forecasting.

If mobile networks' best men and women can't figure out they need to boost capacity for New Year's Eve, they should be hung by their heels and have some sense beaten into them by irate mobile users. Of course you're going to need a dirty great wedge of increased capacity every New Year's Eve. It's a fact even more predictable than Home and Away plotlines.

So, it's unlikely operators are surprised by demand, and yet networks take a dive with all the regularity of Italian soccer players. Is that inadequate forecasting? If it's not, then it certainly smacks of old fashioned stupidity or crappy customer service, which I would venture, is somewhat worse.

If it's just a question of economics -- shoring up the networks to a sufficient degree for a period of a few hours is simply too costly -- then I suggest it should be weighed against the negative feeling generated by poor service. Either that, or send each and every Vodafone customer a few bucks to make up for the annoyance.

Only don't send it by text eh?

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• Network sharing is caring
• Keep watching the skies -- for RIM and Google?
• O, for a PSP phone and some cheap data
• The merry second lives of Telstra

Sharing assets, particularly network infrastructure is not exactly a new concept in mobile -- operators sharing their networks in order to give consumers the best coverage makes a lot of sense. Optus and Vodafone do it and so do Telstra and 3.

But taking a quick look around at the headlines over the last couple of weeks suggests that sharing is fast becoming the flavour of the Christmas month.

Three Indian mobile operators -- Vodafone Essar, Bharti Infratel and Idea Cellular -- have announced they're going in together, creating a single company to manage their infrastructure, known as Indus Towers, all independently run with ownership split between the three. According to industry watchers Ovum, there may even be more companies joining in the future.

In the UK, T-Mobile and 3 have also announced a network sharing deal, giving both of them increased 3G coverage outside of big cities. Two other UK operators, Vodafone and Orange, announced a similar deal at the start of this year.

When two German operators, T-Mobile and O2, mooted a similar move in 2003, the regulators got involved and the European Commission was called in to examine whether such a move would be in the best interests of consumers. The Commission thankfully decided it would.

Meanwhile, some operators are going so far as to sell their infrastructure. Eircom, Ireland's incumbent, sold off its tower business to Threefold Project Management for some 155 million euros.

With network sharing or even selling, not only will consumers get better coverage in non-metropolitan areas, mobile operators are hopefully pushed even further to differentiating their offerings on the grounds of pricing or services. And with more money in the kitty, they could even think about giving their long-suffering users and shareholders a little more back.

All this sharing and regulatory interest sort of puts me in mind of the broadband world -- you know, a couple of big wholesale providers with retail providers selling their wares to their consumers.

What's more if you look at the Eircom model, it's almost a willing embrace of structural separation. If the mobile industry is happy to wander down this controversial route without any strong arming from the government or its communications watchdogs, perhaps broadband players should think about taking a leaf out of their book. Apart from reducing costs, it's one way to make sure the regulators leave you alone.

A New Year's resolution for Telstra, perhaps?

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• Keep watching the skies -- for RIM and Google?
• O, for a PSP phone and some cheap data
• The merry second lives of Telstra
• Has Nokia's Symbian romance cursed UIQ?

In-flight connectivity is expensive -- prohibitively so. Businesspeople who can write off AU$2.50 for a minute on their expenses will doubtless be happy to hand over their corporate credit cards and carry on hammering away on their BlackBerrys during a flight.

For much of the rest of the public -- making short hops on budget airlines -- I'm not sure how great their willingness to grossly inflate their mobile bills will be. Holidays and flights are expensive enough without racking up a per-minute cost that would make Donald Trump blush or paying for an hour or two of broadband that could equal many people's monthly bill.

However, the cost concerns around in-flight connectivity could soon be resolved.

BlackBerry-maker RIM, US airline JetBlue and Yahoo, recently announced plans for a free in-flight service due to start this week. The service will give passengers access to Yahoo Mail and IM, as well as BlackBerry e-mails, over a Wi-Fi connection for gratis.

Not a bad idea. Would I pay to read my Yahoo Webmail in the air? Unlikely. Would I do it if were free? Probably. There's only so many in-flight movies and odd airline food (parsnip curry anyone?) any single traveller can waste time on and sending an e-mail or two to the folks on the ground is as good a distraction as any.

But while this new service will strike a chord with Yahoo and BlackBerry users, the remainder of creation that doesn't use either service is still staring down the barrel of a big fat bill if they fancy getting online.

So the in-flight connectivity industry, as I see it, has a choice: keep appealing to the relative niche of businesspeople with corporate credit cards, or find some content partners to sponsor the cost of connectivity.

Should the airline industry favour the latter path, it would seem a rather obvious opportunity for Skynet-in-waiting, Google. Give those in cattle-class a chance to access e-mail on a mobile or laptop in return for the promise of accepting yet more ad-slinging from the search giant.

Google has, after all, recently exposed its interest in acquiring mobile spectrum -- what better way to start off with mobility than in the nascent field of in-flight mobile broadband?

At the thought of the looming behemoth that is Google entering mobile, even the world's biggest cellular operators probably gave a little shudder. Google wouldn't necessarily want to get them offside -- mobile search and content provision, especially in emerging markets, will soon outstrip that from PCs -- so why not pull a feint and get into in-flight first?

But for all this daydreaming, the one question that looms large in sky-high connectivity is that of etiquette. Strapped in a small seat, leg room at premium, six hours of cattle class flying behind you, imagine the traveller next to you starts yapping on his mobile. Loudly. Repeatedly. Is it permissible to demand he shut up? Jab him with a plastic fork? Beg the stewardess for extra powerful earplugs?

Perhaps this is part of the airlines' master plan: allow in-flight mobility, then charge passengers for tickets in a mobile-free zone.

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• Lazy and impatient? Telstra has the answer
• What can the UK iPhone show Australia?
• Is mobile GPS going in the wrong direction?
• Is the world losing faith in WiMax?

Alas, the device is about as real as an honest government or a rich journalist, according to Sony, but if you assume for a minute that it was going to happen, then you're knee deep in interesting possibilities.

Sony recently upgraded the firmware in the PSP to allow it to act as a remote control over the PS3: when the handheld is connected to the Internet, a user can stream MP3s and suchlike from the PS3 onto the PSP.

Sony is also talking about turning the PS3 into a PVR in the future -- which would open up the possibility of using the PSP to control it. If you're out on the razzle and you want to record The Chaser, use the PSP to instruct the PS3 to record it, then later on, stream it back to your PS3 when you fancy some square-eyed entertainment.

However, such a scenario would only work when the PSP is hooked up to the Internet, which would involve finding a hotspot when you're out on the razzle -- not so likely, right?

But if Sony were to make a PSP phone, or for that matter, were to put a 3G SIM into the PSP and the PS3, users could access and control both devices ubiquitously, turning the PSP into a slightly more diversified version of the Slingbox.

After all, the 3G SIMs can now be found in other wireless devices, most notably laptop cards, embedded in laptops themselves and in 3G modems. But 3G connectivity is now creeping further -- Samsung released an HSDPA-enabled camera this year -- so a 3G-enabled PSP is not exactly a stretch in consumer electronics terms.

With a 3G enabled PSP, as with Slingbox's mobile set-up, you could easily entertain yourself by accessing your home TV on the device, or stream some games, or any manner of content, from your PlayStation. What need then for the likes of BigPond mobile TV, or any similar mobile content offering?

Why pay a monthly subscription for your telly or any other mobile content when you can just dial in to your PlayStation or your Slingbox?

As mobile networks' bandwidth grows -- Telstra is talking 40Mbps and more before too long -- using them for the kind of heavy content traffic a 3G enabled PSP needs becomes a real possibility.

But there's one dirty great barrier in the way: data charges. Even at the cheaper end of the market, mobile data is prohibitively expensive and watching an hour or two of telly programming will plunge a user into gross data bill hell.

With a souped up network, operators are faced with a hard decision: keep taxing a small proportion of users for the mobility premium or drop prices (and equally ARPU) and get a greater proportion using mobile networks where once they may have used fixed.

The right answer seems obvious to me but whether the mobile networks will be so willing to gamble on their 3G data profits remains to be seen.

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• The merry second lives of Telstra
• Has Nokia's Symbian romance cursed UIQ?
• Is the world losing faith in WiMax?
• Is mobile GPS going in the wrong direction?

Let it not be that way with Telstra.

Yesterday at Telstra's Investor Day, the company was showing off the virtual Sydney CBD it had created in Second Life. It was very nicely done -- like the real thing, only without the homeless, graffiti and litter, like a CBD co-opted by the Singaporean government.

Did you know Telstra is officially leading the world in Second Life? No, me neither. I assumed that them jumping on the bandwagon four years after the virtual world opened its doors along with every other Tom, Dick and me-too merchant wasn't exactly cutting edge, but what do I know? The man on the advert said Telstra is at the "global forefront of innovation in Second Life", so congrats there to Sol and team.

Justin Milne, BigPond's MD, added a nice footnote on Second Life -- he said that the company doesn't know what type of applications will become popular in virtual worlds but BigPond will definitely be on top of them.

I got very excited when I heard that, because I knew I could help out the global innovator that is Telstra. So, here's the skinny fellas: I hear sex is quite the thing in virtual worlds. Bearing in mind BigPond is all over popular applications, I guess we can presume Justin's avatar is dusting down those nipple tassels as I type. Good on you, sir.

For Telstra says it will be ahead of global innovation, and so it must be, for Telstra is an honourable telco.

Another great service showcased by Telstra was QR codes. Honestly, they're cracking. No, really, I've never got why they're not more popular. Get to know them, you'll like them. I'm rather fond of them myself.

Happily, Telstra has decided to get involved, launching its own QR code reading software with some cobblers brand name that's slipped my mind for the moment. "Only from Telstra!" trumpeted one exec.

That's funny, I thought, I could have sworn QR code reading and making software is everywhere over the net. Anyone, anywhere, can use QR codes; use them to encode text or URLs, like Telstra plans to. In fact, I thought, I'm sure QR codes are heavily used in Japan. I guess the Japanese didn't know that QR codes are only from Telstra. Go figure.

But Telstra says they're only from Telstra and so it must be, for Telstra is an honourable telco.

Telstra does get a hard deal from the government, doesn't it? Take that AU$1 billion the government had saved for a bush network. The cheeky devils had the temerity to give the contract to another company!

But as said Sol Trujillo yesterday, like the brave little soldier he is, "We're not whinging, we're not crying." Not whinging, not crying -- launching a legal action (or two) against a government minister and losing, granted -- but not whinging or crying.

I got the impression that Senator Coonan keeps Telstra's top brass awake at night as they gently shake with rage, but Trujillo says that he spends just "two percent" of his time thinking about regulators and, so he must do, for Telstra is an honourable telco.

And yesterday those self-same top brass told us they had turned in yet another project two months ahead of schedule. They did that with their CDMA equivalence program too -- getting it done several months before it was due. Bless you, Telstra, and your work ethic. No wonder you haven't had time to turn on more ADSL2+ exchanges with all that's going on.

On a completely unrelated note, did anyone ever watch that Star Trek episode where Scotty was questioned about how he always managed to complete engineering projects ahead of schedule? He revealed his tactic was to multiply the time needed for a job by four and publicise that deadline so he could cover himself in glory when he turned in his work in a quarter of the time it should take. Good episode that. And back to Telstra.

And lastly, when questioned about how many users are still on the soon-to-be-extinct CDMA network, honourable Telstra wouldn't cough up a figure. They can't be too sure anyway, they said, and there are lots of factors affecting the number that could distort it.

One such variable that could send that all-important number off kilter, according to one of the Telstra types on stage, is people who have bought a CDMA phone and keep it in the car and don't use it much.

Good point. I know quite a few people that pay a regular subscription to not use their phone. Good, honest people, who like to keep their SIM active and keep their mobile in the glovebox. Actually, hold on a minute, I don't know anyone like that. Not one.

Still, I guess me and Telstra execs move in different circles. If Telstra says there are gloveboxes in rural Australia bulging with unused phones, so it must be, for Telstra is an honourable telco.

Well, thanks for reading this blog. I've had a word with Telstra's marketing boys and they said apparently I should tell you:

• Upwardly Mobile is spearheading innovative cleverness.
• Is "Only from ZDNet Australia!"
• Was delivered three days ahead of schedule.
• Has cut its cup of tea requirements by 20 percent in line with a caffeine reduction plan that has buy-in across all management.
• Is planning to keep beating the living hell out of all blogs, everywhere, on any subject, until the end of fiscal year 2010 and beyond.

It also invented the Internet and can fly, by the way.

Thanks guys.

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• Has Nokia's Symbian romance cursed UIQ?
• Is the world losing faith in WiMax?
• Is mobile GPS going in the wrong direction?
• What can the UK iPhone show Australia?

Smartphone software is a bit, well, unloved. It's not sexy iPhone Web apps, or big budget BigPond TV. It just sits there, on your smartphone, doing its stuff, giving you the ability to do mobile e-mail and such like, remaining relatively virus free, and no-one notices what goes on with it.

But this week has been a real hotbed of news in the smartphone software world.

The main players in today's drama are Nokia (which makes smartphones), Symbian (which makes the operating system that sits on smartphones) and UIQ (which makes a user interface platform that sits on the operating system that sits on the smartphones). Ready? Here we go.

One of the stories that caught my eye was Motorola's decision to take a half-share in UIQ, the mobile user interface company spun out from smartphone OS people Symbian, from Sony Ericsson. Apparently, a twosome is not enough either -- Motorola and Sony Ericsson are looking for a third company to join in.

An interesting move if ever there was one. UIQ has previously been largely associated with touchscreen devices and has a relatively tiny market share among its peers. Despite the fact UIQ has always been open for licensing to any mobile maker -- Motorola was a licensee before the acquisition -- it has struggled to ship in great numbers.

A quick glance at UIQ's Web site shows the range of devices the software can be found on and, aside from Sony Ericsson and Motorola, there are only two other licensees -- the now defunct BenQ Mobile and Arima (who?).

UIQ has a blessing and a curse in the shape of its former owner, Symbian, whose operating system it runs on. Symbian is found on millions of handsets worldwide: according to the company, there have been 145 million shipments of phones packing Symbian software. Good news for UIQ, you might think -- millions of operating systems just looking for its platform.

Alas for UIQ, most of those have been on phones made by Nokia, Symbian's chief cheerleader and shareholder. Despite the fact Symbian is owned by a consortium of companies -- Ericsson, Nokia, Panasonic, Siemens, Samsung and Sony Ericsson -- it has always been regarded as a Nokia shop.

And those millions of Symbian shipments have largely been thanks to Nokia placing the OS on its high-end handsets, rather than a concerted adoption effort by a range of manufacturers.

If UIQ software had been clasped to the bosom of Nokia in the same way the Symbian OS has, we'd been talking about its 145 million shipments too. But it hasn't. Nokia has its own user interface platform, S60, which has -- surprise, surprise -- achieved shipments topping 100 million and left no space for UIQ.

So, for UIQ to fly without a Nokia love-in, it would need cross-industry support, but it's hard to imagine Symbian getting out from under the Nokia shadow and, consequently, taking UIQ with it.

But, you might say, Motorola's getting involved -- that's cross-industry support right there? And yes, to a certain extent, it is. However, Motorola has really nailed its colours to the mast on smartphone OSes.

It announced last year it intends to have half of its devices running on Linux within the next couple of years. Add to that it already has a couple of Windows Mobile smartphones in the market and you begin to wonder where UIQ and Symbian can fit in.

So, its best hope for mass-market adoption is presumably under the wing of Sony Ericsson. And, as the Symbian and Nokia partnership has shown, being associated primarily with a single manufacturer can help and harm in equal measure.

Where's a third shareholder when you need one?

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• Is the world losing faith in WiMax?
• Is mobile GPS going in the wrong direction?
• What can the UK iPhone show Australia?
• Lazy and impatient? Telstra has the answer

According to the telecoms whisperers, Sprint's investors were less than impressed at the company's performance, and the thought of spanking another couple of billion on rolling out WiMax coverage while the WiMax Forum still haven't put out the formal certification of the 802.16e standard got them sufficiently unhappy to request Forsee's departure.

While Sprint's people have said they are planning to press ahead with the deployment of WiMax regardless, questions remain over whether WiMax will receive the same backing now its chief proponent has left.

In the event that WiMax doesn't see the light of day with Sprint, it could be a major blow to confidence in the technology around the world.

Many of Australia's WiMax backers, Unwired among them, have countered detractors of the technology with the line "If WiMax is so bad, why is Sprint investing so much in rolling it out?".

It's a fair point, and one that will be open to criticism if Sprint decides to u-turn on its deployment. Unwired also seems to have been working on hobbling confidence in the standard, telling shareholders that there are significant risks involved in the technology in an effort to encourage them to sell their holding to Seven, which is seeking to take over the company.

Like any new standard, there are risks involved in deploying WiMax -- of course there are. But still these leaps of innovation are made in the face of rampant criticism, and sometimes they work, sometimes they do not.

If Sprint pulls out, we'll all be left wondering what might have been -- and so will the company's shareholders, who could well force the mobile operator to ditch one of the most fascinating technology schemes of the century.

In the event that Sprint does turn its back on WiMax, Australia will become one of the technology's leading test beds, thanks to the OPEL bush network. And that would be a shame.

Due to the fixed nature of the WiMax standard chosen by OPEL, capacity for innovation is limited -- it remains glorified backhaul.

If mobile WiMax gets going, the possibilities it presents are far more interesting. So for the sake of telecoms nerds around the world -- not to mention the users -- please, Sprint, stick to your guns.

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• Is mobile GPS going in the wrong direction?
• What can the UK iPhone show Australia?
• Lazy and impatient? Telstra has the answer
• Odd patents and the patently odd

Take WiMax, for example. If I had a dollar for every time I've heard, over the last three or four years, that "This year will be WiMax's year", I'd have enough for dinner at Café Sydney. And I'd still be surprised if WiMax actually starts making its mark before 2008 or 2009, when Nokia starts making handsets for US operator Sprint's nascent network.

GPS is starting to look much the same. Operators are very keen to get it into mobile handsets -- Nokia Australia execs recently told ZDNet Australia that they expect GPS to one day become as ubiquitous as cameras on mobiles -- yet they appear to have stumbled when it comes to giving users a reason to care.

Mapping and navigation are still the primary services based on GPS, and most GPS units remain firmly attached to dashboards -- there's no compelling reason for users to switch from their car-mounted units to squinting at the same map on a mobile phone.

So it falls on the operators to build another layer of services on top of the raw satellite mapping capabilities in order to convince consumers that mobile GPS is more than a white elephant.

Vodafone is having a decent pop at just such a move with its recently launched Compass GPS service. While the service currently works on just one handset, the BlackBerry 8310, the operator is working on spreading the platform across a range of its devices before too long. It is even giving away a Compass subscription for free to anyone signing up before 1 December.

Vodafone is also planning to update the software every few months as new location-aware services come online. One potential being considered is a service that not only alerts a user to their nearest car park, but also tells them how many spaces are available.

Compass also makes a fair stab at catering to both drivers and pedestrians with its mapping. The former with features such as the ability to choose between taking the route that saves the most time or the route that saves the most petrol; the latter with maps that come with street names to help the navigationally challenged.

One addition to the service will be the ability for Compass users to share their location with other customers of the service. While such functionality sounds great at first -- find a friend for coffee during your lunch hour -- it's typical of the not-quite-there nature of location-based services.

After all, on any given day, most people will spend a large part of their day at home, in the office, perhaps in the pub or gym -- and GPS does not work indoors or where there is no line of sight to the satellite, thus rendering the service useless.

However, I can't help but wonder if perhaps Vodafone et all are missing a trick with location-based services. Perhaps people could exploit information being sent from, rather than being requested by, users.

Instead of sharing a location with a friend, I could see far more mileage in sharing that information with a taxi company. Instead of getting arm ache, sticking your hand out in the middle of the road and being ignored as you wait in the rain, how much easier it would be to simply press a button in Compass and let the taxi come to you.

I'm sure there are thousands more great uses for mobile GPS bubbling away in the minds of users. What would you like to see the operators working on? Or do you think mobile GPS will remain something of a third wheel? Let us know by posting a reader comment below or e-mail us at edit@zdnet.com.au.

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