| September 2010 - The Insider -
Just after publication of my prediction that war was breaking out between the major players in the NFC and mobile payments world, three mobile operators and three banks in the Netherlands announced collaboration on a unified m-payments system. The announcement came after the parties had conducted research that proved it was both ‘technically and commercially feasible’ to create a shared national infrastructure. It seems amazing that something so obvious should have required research or would come... -
Five years in the making, five days to fail dismally. That’s the sad story of 3G in Thailand. Yes, I’m talking about 3G spectrum auctions. Not 4G or LTE, plain old 3G, the stuff that most other countries introduced years ago. Even India, the past leader of 3G procrastination, managed to get its act together earlier this year. So why does Thailand continue to make life difficult for its hapless private mobile operators? You would probably not be surprised to hear that the regulator had something to... -
If you are confused with all the hype around LTE then you may be in good company. AT&T’s Chairman and CEO, Randall Stephenson, whose company is rolling out LTE right now, was reported by mocoNews.net to have made some comments on LTE speeds that, if correct, have him firmly in the same ‘confusion camp’ as the rest of us. When outlining how his company would overcome issues of poor coverage areas or holes in the LTE network he stated that AT&T would upgrade its entire 3G footprint to support... -
Reminiscent of the Star Wars trilogy is the latest news regarding mobile phone operators banding together to fight off threats to their empires. Following the disastrous attempt at a common m-payments platform (Simpay) and continuing anticipation of the yet to be seen Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) is news of the possible creation of a common platform for mobile devices. Yes, you heard right, another mobile phone operating system! The story surfaced in French newspaper Le Figaro that France... -
Technical hitches with the iPhone 4 are not Apple's only headaches of late. It is facing pressures in Europe and China - both key markets as its US heartland saturates and it needs strong performance on a global basis. Pending EU legislation could force Apple to change its software policies, and EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes may also launch a probe into interoperability between various smartphone platforms, including iPhone. Kroes has already fined Microsoft $1.4Bn for lack of software openness... -
Nokia’s ‘Superman’ , Anssi Vanjoki, is flying high no more. You may remember only two months back that Mr Vanjoki took over the ailing Mobile Solutions business with much fanfare and blogging. At the time he made the bold statement, “I am committed, perhaps even obsessed, with getting Nokia back to being number one in high-end devices. Achieving this will require performance and efforts over and above the norm. This is a role I’ve personally been preparing for over the last 20 years.” It now appears... -
If you are starting to tire from all the LTE hype going around and daily news of another LTE network activation then maybe it’s time for a reality check. I have always embraced new technology with glee but I am starting to have reservations about LTE and its real purpose. Now, I know that network equipment providers need to constantly innovate to keep selling products and I realize that our networks are being bombarded by data traffic, so those should provide good enough reason to roll out LTE. However... -
For those of you wondering about the outcome of the Australian election and the fate of my bold proclamation that the national Broadband Network policy would be the decider, the story goes like this. The final three Independents, Messrs. Katter, Windsor and Oakeshott, announced that they would make their decisions known on earlier this week, more than two weeks after the election. The first decided to go with the opposition Coalition party because he wasn’t happy with the way the Labor Party dumped... -
First it was the connected customer, the connected home and now the connected car - how much more connected can we be? In fact, most of us are so used to being connected that if we are not for any amount of time and for any reason we start to get a little tetchy. Smokers who had to endure long flights without their fix were known to get so stressed that many disconnected smoke alarm systems in airplane toilets in the order to sneak a quick ‘drag’. Now it’s the ‘unconnected’ who are searching out... -
When Roman children were being taught to read and write they were given a piece of slate and some chalk as their main educational tools, a practice that still carried on well into the 19th century. Before the release of Apple’s now ubiquitous iPad the technology pundits favorite name for it was the ‘iSlate.' Sadly, they hadn’t spotted back then what could soon become the iPad’s greatest strength, as an educational tool. When I first wrote about this, and the fact that the iPad could eventually...
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