Hop 255

future of net

Various net luminaries discuss (PFD Doc) what the net should be aiming to do 10 years out.  Good stuff but content lobby won't like the local device connectivity they recommend.

US census data

For those seeking authoritative data on Internet developments in respect to search engines, ISPs and so forth the US Census Bureau has released its latest figures.

Gadgets with aromas

From the I don't believe it either files come MP3 players with scents. Before they even look for illegal downloads what would customs make of the MP3 player with a Marijuana aroma.

Fixed Pricing Bypass

To continue the theme of bypass, and our examples of calls from France to Australia, today we turn to fixed network bypass. This is easier than mobile bypass especially for anyone with a computer and a broadband Internet connection. Just use Skype. In the absence of a computer, services such as Telerabais, and its sister site Telesoldes, as well as NolimiTelecom are worth a look. By dialing a number for these services, and waiting for a connection, users effectively pay the cost of a local call, in France, to call some foreign destinations. At off-peak times a call from France to Australia can cost 1.3 or 1.4 euro cents (cheaper promo rates are sometimes available) plus a 9 euro cent connection fee. For a 60 minute call, at off peak times, that price is even a bit cheaper than Skype although all the Skype fans (of which I am one) will protest that it has many additional features. On the other hand you don't need a PC and broadband connection.

Mobile Pricing Bypass

The bypass of mobile tariffs is a new but fortunately growing sub-sector of the telecoms market. Mobile companies rarely go out of their way to advertise prices for services such as international calls. Customers don't look much at the prices for services such as international calls and international roaming (unless they are business user or until they return from holidays abroad and get whacked with the bill). Mobile companies "never ever"  advertise the cost of termination.  So few users make informed choices in regards to choosing their service and without customer scrutiny there is little incentive for mobile companies to compete on international services or termination.  Fortunately a few cracks are growing which will be explored in this blog. Today, we start with international calls from mobiles and will use France by way of example. A call made from a Bouygues mobile to a fixed phone in Australia costs 1.05 euros per minute (see link to PDF file at bottom of page). To partially bypass this price a user can employ a service called LesMinutes (owned by BudgeTelecom). Here the user makes a local call which would be included in there base Bouygues' subscription (i.e. 0.30 eurocents per minute) plus a 0.054 eurocent per minute fee to LesMinutes (and a 0.10 eurocent connection fee). The end result for a 10 minute international call to Australia? With Bouygues it costs 10.50 euro.  With LesMinutes it costs 3.64 euro. From this Bouygues gets its 3 euros, Les Minutes 0.64 and the user a 65% reduction. LesMinutes' main cost is the termination at the foreign end (probably about a cent per minute). The service works with any other mobile such as Orange or SFR.

keeping the customer satisified

Latest developments at FCC in respect to naked dsl reported by cnet. My take is that telcos will eventually see it as being in their own interest to sell DSL as a standalone product. If not they risk losing the customer altogether to a combination of other platforms and services.  Not that some of the new entrants don't want all the cake for themselves, as this story about Clearwire trying to block VoIP exemplifies. One day new and old telcos will get it and just give customers the access they want with the freedom to choose other service providers as well as their own services. No provider can be all things to all customers.

Skype and Security

Thoughtful and interesting article on strengths and weaknesses of Skype and security. Numbers on users are a bit out of date but probably the sub editor created headline rather than author and no matter.

spam satire

J-Walk has two of the best spam satire sites. The spam university and the one that still makes me laugh: "The 3rd Annual Nigerian Direct Mail Conference". Answers to important questions such as the effectiveness of uppercase characters and whether 10 million emails a day are to many?

Aussie Rules and Content Sales

The Australian Football League kicks off this week. Normally this wouldn't be the subject of this blog except a major brouhaha has broken out over the broadcast rights. Oz is an interesting market because it undoubtedly has the best technical coverage of sport and, arguably, Australia is the most sports loving nation in the world. No sport loved more than Aussie Rules! Australia also has its fair share of media barons in part because they have been protected by regulation, from foreign competition, but also because some of them are very good at it (e.g. Rupert Murdoch). Anyway back to the stoush over rights.  You can read about it at the article above but in short one network (10) did at deal with another (7) and, if you believe the press, has cut out another (9) unless it brings in the state own broadcasters (ABC, SBS). The reasoning being that 9 needs another network, to share coverage, as it also holds the rights to Australia's Rugby League coverage which is important in some regional markets (i.e. you can't broadcast both at once). Nine could, of course, walk away but the right sports' rights in the right market are the only real audience driver left to broadcasters.  Too many other options, platforms, and means of replication for other types of content such as news, movies, lifestyle, reality-tv ect. Another path open to Nine is to look for other partners and platforms. They could, for example, bring digital multichannelling back onto the agenda. Commercial stations, as opposed to the ABC and SBS, are not permitted by regulation to multichannel their digital platforms. Nine could outbid the others (it has deeper pockets) and try to change the rules (something it has successfully done in the past, e.g. domestic satellite system and cricket coverage). So why not have it all and an unbeatable package to put before advertisers! Another option is to look for a different type of partner. Given the rights under consideration are for 2007-2011, Telstra's broadband network will be much more extensive and ADSL-2 will enable higher speeds and be content hungry. And with a million Australians living overseas the foreign rights for live broadband distribution could also come into play this time around. Rex Hunt's Fat Lady is not ready to sing on this one yet!

VoIP Scams

Reuters article on nascent scams growing up around VoIP. User trust is about the only thing I can see on the horizon likely to slow Skype's growth. Two issues. Trust in Skype itself, as a service provider, and the trust users have in VoIP service which they will inevitably compare to the 'certainties' of the PSTN. I think Skype learned lessons from Kazaa in respect to trust as a service provider. Be interesting to see how they would respond to some of the claimed VoIP vulnerabilities in the article by an unnamed AT&T source.