Rant of the day: companies that create new names for old stuff.

It happens a lot in Nokia's press releases. For instance the company calls its Nokia N95 a "multimedia computer", and call I it a "smartphone".

Mobile operator 3 cals itself a "mobile media company", I call it a... "mobile operator" (ok, North Americans can call it a "carrier").

This is an interesting shift. Until a few years ago telcos would sometimes have an ISP (Internet Service Provider) such as Telecom New Zealand's Xtra, but they would distance themselves from that business. They wouldn't want to mix the core voice network with their data network - if not for fear of the unknown business model, at least for FUD security reasons.

These days is the other way around. Every ISP and cowboy want to be the telco, jumping in the VoIP (Voice over IP) wagon. The problem with this is that I can't see some ISPs putting the value of voice network integrity as highly as a traditional telco model would. And therefore the quality of service can be impacted.

There are exception of course In my personal experience and after talking to some of their people, WorldxChange VFX seems to run their voice business as a traditional telco model - the company operate their voice network in a way to maintain the integrity of the service, by keeping SIP configuration locked down, only allowing certified devices to connect to their network, etc.

Back to the mobile segment, mobile operators are acting as the new ISPs. They started it a few years ago with data packet services (GPRS) offering access to their walled garden and have all the good reasons now with 3G data access speeds.

Mobile operators tend to not provide all the services an ISP would. For example e-mail addresses. But is this bad in these days of hosted e-mail accounts? No, probably not at all. But you will have a hard time trying to find a NNTP server provided by a mobile operator - even probably to find anyone within a mobile operator that knows what NNTP is - damn, even traditional ISPs are ditching NNTP servers these day, a shame.

I wonder if sometime in the future governments will try to force mobile operators to "unbundle the wireless loop" and allow third party ISPs to provide data services over the mobile operators' networks.

Probably not, if mobile operators move to a complete VoIP platform and proclaim themselves "media company" or "ISP".

What started as a rant about naming, ended up covering three of four subjects... Talk about train of thought...

This weekend I used Travelbug to find some accomodation for a last minute weekend away plan. And my first real experience was ok - although Travelbug didnt' make much revenue from my visit to their site.

The whole thing made me think about how they offer information and why Travelbug needs to provide more interaction - or I won't be stopping there to buy travel.

On Saturday morning we decided to leave the city - go for an unplanned weekend in the Wairarapa wine region. It was great, and I actually managed to stay away from my laptop the whole time.

Since we decided to get out of the city at 10am, there was not much time to find accomodation. Not enough time to send e-mails, wait, wait, wait for a reply. Actually there's no way to contact a propery owner through Travelbug - no contact information, nothing.

I visited Travelbug and searched for accomodation in the Wairarapa. We found two or three interesting places, and seeing this is not a busy weekend they all had vacancies.

But we wanted to know if the place would be toddler-friendy. Is it fully fenced? Gate on the driveway? Space for a portable cot? All those questions that need answer now, not in two hours time or Monday morning.

So I did the next logical thing: used Google to find these places' websites, and called the owners on their mobile phones.

As a result we booked a place over the phone, and went away.

Travelbug? They missed the commision because their communications is not good enough. They should really team up with a VoIP provider and offer the properties listed there an option to have a "click-to-call" feature on the site. Something that would allow propety owners to set a schedule with times they can receive calls and where the calls would terminate.

For the users, a small application on the browser would connect them to the property owners and allow them to ask questions. Travelbug could even charge a nominal fee from the calling party directly from their account.

I was the lead archictect at Unisys for a project with similar functionality, but for help desk services. Our "click-to-call" was developed back in 2002. As I discussed before, a lot of things companies are doing now have been worked on before...

No, Travelbug won't lose business with this. They might even have a better chance than letting people use Google to find contact details and take away their revenue.

New Zealand site Trade Me is the leader in the local on-line auction segment. The domain alone commands about 60% of the total Internet trafic in this country and there's no competition in sight.

They can do this because they keep the system working, by weeding out scammers and people that don't play by the rules.

But sometimes the rules seem a bit draconian. For instance it seems they tend to act first, notify later - following the guilty until proven innocent doctrine instead of the other way around.

I found an example of Trade Me closing accounts during the weekend in our Geekzone forums. Brad Stewart, one of our moderators (whom I have met a few times before and the team vouche for him) had his account terminated, apparently because he was running more than one account, which is not allowed.

Brad denies running multiple acconts.

He points out that he had some auctions running, a few past the reserve already, which are now ruined.

He actually had just recharged his account, and one poster asked what happened to Brad's money? Would have wound up on someone else's (unknown) account after this "consolidation"?

So what's the rule here? Fire first, ask questions later? Disrupt the users?

I am not in a position to say which side is correct, but it would be a bit easier to understand if a more user friendly process was followed. Something like asking questions first?

When you read a blog, make sure you bring your brains. Not everything you read on the Internet is true, not everything about Microsoft is bad, not everything about [other brands] is good.

Techcrunch is really good at exposing new ventures and services, but the post "Windows Live Skydrive doubles storage to 1 GB, still can't keep up with GMail" is absurd:

Microsoft doubled the online storage consumers can get for free in Windows Live SkyDrive. It’s hard to get excited about that when Gmail is already giving me 2.9 GB of storage, with more on the way—4GB by the end of the month, and 6GB by early January, according to one estimate.

Then the "echo chamber" start posting the same things around...

What's wrong with that? Google Gmail is an e-mail service, Live Skydrive is a storage service. They are different things. You can copy files to Skydrive, make them public or private. It's not the same with GMail.

Techcrunch should compare Gmail with Live Mail, which by the way already offer 5GB for your e-mails...

Sheesh...

Today I found an interesting article on Tech Crunch, talking about some big moves within Yahoo7, the Australian parternship between Yahoo and the 7 Network.

Yahoo7 is also the Telecom New Zealan partner on its Yahoo!Xtra portal:

According to a report at Australian IT, Yahoo7’s traffic has declined from 5.5 million in January to 4.9 million in August, and advertising has remained flat despite massive growth in the sector.

Yahoo appointee and previous Chief Sales Officer Markus Barnikel has been moved to a “less hands on role” and Yahoo Search Marketing’s Craig Wax will be returning to the United States. Willie Pang, who previously workedon Yahoo’s Panama project will head Yahoo Search Marketing Australia & New Zealand.

Australia is a surprisingly strong market for Microsoft, with its local joint venture NineMSN holding a 26% share of main ad buying marketplace (corporate buys), followed closely by News Corp and local media group Fairfax Digital, who operate well known sites including SMH.com.au and a variety of ecommerce ventures.

I guess one might never know the full story on why Telecom New Zealand decided to terminate the partnership between its Xtra ISP and Microsoft's MSN content provider here in New Zealand, instead running into the open arms of Yahoo7.

I found out other day that you can get one hour (or 60 MB) of free Wi-Fi when you purchase anything at some Esquires Coffee Houses around New Zealand.

The wireless Internet access is being provided by Tomizone. You just have to buy something at Esquires and ask for your One Hour Pass card with an access code. Connect to the Tomizone hotspot, enter the code and off you go...

Not all stores have this deal but to find out which ones you will be able to get your daily coffee with Wi-Fi, check the Esquires Store Locator and look for the Free Wi-Fi:



No, I don't know what are the penguins on those maps...

One morning (or any time of the day really), your junk e-mail folder (if you are lucky like me) or inbox (if you get all the spam there) shows a message that is clearly unsolicited, promoting a pyramid scheme, with a New Zealand address and phone number.

THE NZ MILLIONAIRES CLUB
HOW MUCH MONEY WOULD YOU LIKE TO RECEIVE EVERY DAY?
$100 DAILY  $500 DAILY?  $1000 DAILY?  LOTS MORE?

Well, NOW you can. The uniqueness of our daily and monthly Cash Flow System allows anyone to generate HUGE SUMS OF MONEY on a routine basis.

Not only that, as soon as you start receiving a specified amount of money ( by using our remarkable CASH FLOW SYSTEM ), the Club will introduce you to eye-popping investment practices that can make you very wealthy in a hurry!  Right this minute there are average folks with average intelligence gaining upwards of 100-200 PERCENT PROFITS within 5 to 45 days using these unique, but safe and formulated, investment methods.  Annualized profits of over 1000 PERCENT are commonplace.  And, very soon, you can be making these kinds of profits!
 
ACT NOW AND PICK UP YOUR PHONE . . . . . . TOMORROW MIGHT BE TOO LATE !!

To get a great deal and a preferred status on the NZ Millionaires Club Membership, Call the authorized promoter of the club for New Zealand NOW on 021 [number removed]

Suren
[Address removed]
Mount Wellington
Auckland
New Zealand

What a load of rubish. The first thing is that you are tempted to call the number and tell the person to go sell bananas. But this will not go anywhere, and you might even get problems later, if they get your phone number from the caller id, and so on.

But you can do better than this. The New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs is the entity enforcing the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007.

What you have to do is to visit the New Zealand DIA Anti-Spam website and report the e-mail received.

Now this is only effective if the spam is originated in New Zealand or offering a New Zealand-base service or product.

Also make sure you know it is really "unsolicited". If you subscribe to an e-mail newsletter and after a few months don't want to receive it anymore this is not unsolicited. You can simply unsubscribe from the newsletter. By law all newsletters will have to present a way to remove your e-mail address from the mailing list.

If you are a business, the Department hosted a series of practical seminars nationwide in August and September 2007 (PowerPoint link), to ensure businesses know what the new requirements are under the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act. Check the PowerPoint presentation or consult with your law firm.

Do you remember TelstraClear sending out a release entitled "TelstraClear's DSL service stars as New Zealand's top broadband performer"?

There was a good discussion on Geekzone forums about the methodology used, and the location of these tests - all in the Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch CBD - impacting on results, making those not the "average kiwi broadband experience".

However, as explained by Antonios, Epitiro, the company performing the tests, requested a broadband connection like any other business would do, and got what they asked for. So no harm done, right?

But this survey was showing the business experience, not the average household broadband. Just today I received an e-mail from Epitiro, explaining some changes in the way they collect information, including a small client users can download to monitor their broadband connections, providing the company with real life information about the state of broadband in this country.

An excerpt from this e-mail:

• As from last week, we have added email round-trip time to our suite of tests. This adds an important extra dimension to the results we publish;

• We will shortly be adding P2P traffic measurement too. This will allow us to see which ISPs are shaping P2P traffic. Those results will be fascinating;

• By the end of 2007, we will have added eight more sites in the major cities, including sites in Hamilton and Dunedin for the first time;

• By the end of 2007, we will have launched a major campaign to encourage consumers to download our new measurement agent onto their PCs. This will provide us with a complete national coverage, with potentially thousands of measurement points nationwide. We'll be the first country in the world to have such a comprehensive system.

• This means that we will be able to measure the smaller ISPs, and provide regional performance breakdowns;

• With that service in place, we will also be able to track the performance of LLU v non-LLU exchanges.

Now this is going to be interesting! Measuring the P2P traffic and even e-mail?

Last week a friend sent me an e-mail from his Xtra account to my own hosted Exchange Server. He sent the e-mail at 4pm, and we met at 5:30pm. Even though he was just across the city, I only received the e-mail after our meeting - about 90 minutes to get the e-mail across!

Let's see these results...

You have to watch to the end of the ad (in Spanish) to find out which mobile operator is promoting Windows Live Messenger:




Note that they are all using Symbian devices, not Windows Mobile...

Is it possible that New Zealand ISP Orcon is working to bring the Apple iPhone to the country? There are rumours going around about this possibility.

Back in May 2007 Orcon signed a wholesale agreement with Vodafone New Zealand to launch a GSM mobile service. Originally promised for October, this launch has been delayed.

The original agreement established Orcon as a wholesale operator, meaning they would be offering an Orcon branded set of products delivered over the existing Vodafone network infrastructure.

Then the Apple iPhone rumours started. I first heard on the streets. Then now I am reading in one of the Geekzone discussions:

So someone suggested something to me yesterday re an official iPhone release in NZ, and putting the various pieces of info together... it almost seems obvious who's going to officially bring the iPhone to NZ. Anyone care to speculate?

And in a subsequent reply:

It may explain TradeMe's hostile position towards iPhone listings (Orcon have "close" ties with them)

Maybe Vodafone's EDGE slip up wasn't really a slip up, but a sign of things to come?

Could explain Kordia's interest in mesh wifi.

Could explain Oron's (sic) delay in launching their cell operation.

Would be an excellent product to launch a cell operation with. Plenty of priceless free media exposure and hype.

If it's true, it'd be a cunning move I think.

The "Vodafone EDGE slip up" is a reference to a page on Vodafone New Zealand's website that incorrectly listed "EDGE" as part of their service sets. After the page was posted on Fossie's blog Vodafone quickly fixed it (almost too quickly, something like withing 30 minutes) and posted in our forums an explanation.

Officially Vodafone New Zealand only runs a GPRS/WCDMA/HSDPA network here, but I have seen occasions that my Palm Treo 750v showed an "E" signal (although it could be a bug in the software?).

The Kordia reference is to its new Kordia Metropolitan Wi-Fi service launched this month, with plans to cover the central locations in New Zealand's main cities.

And don't forget, Kordia bought Orcon a few months ago.

Why wouldn't Vodafone New Zealand launch the iPhone themselves? Perhaps because the Vodafone Group has passed this, leaving the iPhone for T-Mobile Germany, O2 UK, Orange? And because the Vodafone Music Store is the top on-line music store in the country, and wouldn't want to hurt its offering with Apple iTunes Music Store?

Does it make sense at all?