Communication Breakdown

As a musician myself, I would almost be tempted to buy one of these, but questions remain. Which chord plays when you flush? Where do you attach the other end of the strings? What's the reverb like?

Heavens, could there be some unironed issues with biometric technology? Good job there isn't some enormous, costly scheme on the horizon which'll stand or fall on biometrics, eh?

I spent yesterday afternoon at the MultiService Forum press day at BT Central. Subjected to a mind-boggling array of acronyms, I'm afraid I bordered on nodding off at several points, but it did get me thinking about IMS in general.

IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) is a reference architecture based on 3GPP standards that various bodies are trying to push forward (usually independently of one another), and will hopefully get next generation networks, desktops, handsets and so on all merrily chatting to each other in real-time sessions. It's the future, don't you know.

However, the big problem is that operators don't particularly see the need to go beyond the systems that are already there, particularly when the real usefulness of IMS doesn't really lie in good old voice and SMS - still the main reason that people use a phone - but rather in the sort of rich real-time-centric multimedia applications that, well, people aren't clamouring for yet (sorry, 2.0-heads). I spoke to one vendor this morning who was very keen to say the technology was ready, but admitted that it would take "some unique application" to come around for the operators to cease resisting.

Still keen on reading about IMS, business bods? Well, let us know if you really want to, but judging from the pervading mood it'll be a good while before it hits the consumer market, let alone enterprise.

Oh dear, the government does not seem to be getting on well with that pesky team from the London School of Economics, who insist on putting the ID card scheme under continuous scrutiny.

Apart from claiming that the scheme doesn't need to undergo full and rigorous testing before being implemented (!), the recent governmental response to a parliamentary committee that, well, pretty much wanted to know the same things as the LSE Identity Project team did, includes a string of attacks on the academics.

"Senior team members behind the Identity Project have maintained prominent positions in organisations that oppose ID cards in principle both before and during the development and publication of the Identity Project Report, yet this was not disclosed in the team’s publications or in mainstream media activity by the authors," yelled the report. "Instead, such publications were presented as being objective and independent research."

It gets worse. "At an initial meeting, they were unable to provide a
representative with sufficient technical expertise to discuss their report in adequate detail," the government claims, no doubt thinking of their own leading IT boffins behind the scheme, like Baroness "key sections of the industry are telling us that the technology can work" Scotland.

In any case, a source in the LSE tells us, the team had not been unable to provide a techie representative at all, they just couldn't do so on the day proposed by the Home Office, as he had been away.

Anyway, there's more: "Meeting formats later suggested to the Home Office by the LSE Identity Project Team risked breaching procurement rules for engagement with suppliers".

The LSE team have no idea what that means, and neither do we. Suggestions would be most welcome...

This issue, as you will know, is a constant bugbear for business travellers and, well, anyone wanting to take advantage of the shiny new services'n' surfing that mobile content providers (and corporate IT departments) are so keen to promote. ZDNet UK has covered it extensively in the past and will, I can assure you, continue to do so.

So, at the Westminster eForum on telecoms regulation today, I had the opportunity to ask Nigel Hickson, the DTI's deputy director on EU ICT policy and regulation, what the government and European Commission were intending to do about the situation. There's a major review of such things (mercifully including voice roaming) going on at the EC, y'know, although data roaming is conspicuously absent from the draft.

"The Commission have said they will monitor this very carefully and report back," was his reply. Splendid then! So when senior carrier execs admit they're "screwing" their customers on data roaming, as happened not too long ago, I'm sure Commissioner Reding et al are taking notes.