Communication Breakdown

Word has reached ZDNet HQ that Toshiba will have some big announcements to make at 3GSM in February, with some kind of smartphones or PDAs coming out for the UK market (they already do featurephones in Europe and, of course Japan, but haven't touched the prosumer/business space as yet).

This would be very interesting as Tosh are, of course, bigtime laptop manufacturers - it would not at all surprise me if we're talking Windows Mobile here. If so, and if they market it right, they could be a contender in the space currently dominated by HTC & co. Bring it on.

We reported about a month ago that Ofcom may theoretically allow those operators with licences for 2G in the 900MHz band (i.e. O2 and Vodafone) to use that spectrum for 3G services as well.

However, the subject came up more recently in our fascinating interview with Prof William Webb, as reported here but sans the "3G over 2G" bit. Space limitations, you see.

Anyway, what he said on the subject was very interesting, so here it is. Think of this as our equivalent of the bonus features on the DVD edition:

"Certainly, the laws of physics are such that 3G would propagate further at those frequencies, and you can understand why that may bring benefits to the operators, but there is a much broader issue that we have to consider here, which is that the 2G licences were granted in a particular fashion. They don't allow 3G usage, and changing them to allow 3G usage creates a number of very complex issues, particularly around competitive dynamics in the UK marketplace, and we just need to work those issues through.

"O2 and Vodafone have the spectrum at 900MHz, [T-Mobile and Orange] use 1800MHz and then of course there's the 3G operator 3, who doesn't have any 2G spectrum at all because they came in as a new entrant at the time of the 3G auctions.

"[The issue is] one of competitive fairness and the potential, if the spectrum were just gifted, let's say, to the existing operators, then there would be some potential arguments that that might be unfair to other operators, and that may distort the competitive dynamics of the different operators. The 2G spectrum was awarded for free. There is now an annual fee called the administrative incentive price, which is charged on the 900MHz and 1800Mhz spectrum, which in some way reflects that they have a valuable commodity that they didn't pay for at an auction, but some would argue that it is not perhaps a full reflection of the market value, particularly of the market value were it to be allowed for 3G. So, given that 3G was auctioned and 2G wasn't, given that different players have got different amounts of spectrum, there is clearly potential for competitive inequalities to emerge, and that might have downstream implications for consumers.

"So that's something that just needs to be worked through – a solution may be found tomorrow or it might take many years to find a solution that satisfies all parties and seems to be fair and reasonable. We just have to work our way through that particular problem until we can come up with a solution to that. To do otherwise – although it might bring cost savings to Vodafone and O2 – could potentially have all sorts of other adverse effects. It could destabilise the competitive playing field. It could cause certain people to decide they won't invest in future in certain technologies because they feel they have been treated unfairly. All those kind of signals can be quite detrimental to the market."

According to an "independent European survey" by Toshiba, over 90 percent of entrepreneurs store "secrets" on their mobile devices.

Interestingly, the survey also shows that 22 percent of entrepreneurs have lost a smartphone or pocket PC in the past, and 1 in 5 has lost multiple devices. And the UK's top of that list (29 percent). Whoops. UK entrepreneurs were also most likely to lose their device while "out socialising" - Tosh mention that this especially relevant during office party season. Consider yourself warned.

Here's more: "executives are using devices for work matters in home environments, and are expecting colleagues to follow suite; leading to potential issues of work life balance conflicts... 60 percent of entrepreneurs find sending work-related communications while away from the office is unpopular with their own partner", although "23 percent of respondents said that sending work-related text messages rather than emails were more tolerated by their partners". Who'd have thought?

And "40 per cent of executives to having emailed or texted while in control of a car". That isn't terribly bright, is it? Come on, folks, keep your eyes on the road!

Apparently T-Mobile had a half-price line rental scheme for its employees' friends and family, but it turns out that some staff were flogging the codes on eBay! Naughty T-Mobbers.

Actually, what grabbed my attention about this Mobile Today piece was the T-Mobile ends scam headline, which reminded me of a story we did back in July - except of course that's a scam most people take in their stride...

Thank you, BBC, for alerting us to this error in judgment/publicity stunt as made by Threshers - 40 percent off your wine and champagne with this here voucher, if you stagger there before December 10.

If this wasn't intentional, it's certainly a bloody good lesson in the dangers of the interweb!