A guest posting

As the son (read “associate”) of an independent telecommunications consultant, it is my privilege and pleasure to test out new gadgets from time to time. Recently, I got a hold of the brand new Nokia N86 smart phone.

As a disclaimer, this was one of the first smart-phones that I have used, with the limited experience of accessing wikipedia-ing obscure 90’s alternative rock bands on friends’ iPhones or checking Facebook on a parent’s Blackberry.

Accordingly, the initial wow-factor for me was “amazing, I can easily check my e-mail on this thing”.

After I got over the general excitement of setting up and using a smartphone, I focused on a few specific features I liked/disliked.

Likes:

• Fast response time – when I press a button, the phone does something. This might sound trivial; I currently use a Motorola SLVR L6 and there is a noticeable delay between the time I press a button and when it responds. All around frustrating. So I appreciate the blazing speed with which the N86 responds to my button-pushing. [Side note: The L6 is a 4 year old model, and my father/boss is a telecommunications consultant. Hmmm.]
• In general, it doesn’t take too long to load up applications on the N86 either. It switches between applications instantly.
• Five stars on multimedia: Two cameras. 8 megapixel primary camera. Secondary camera on the front face is handy for the self-shots with pals. The sound quality is quite good for a phone speaker, and comes with great noise cancelling earbud headphones.
• Did I mention that you can check your email with this thing? Goodbye telegraph.
• Battery Power – Lasts quite some time – a nice break from recharging my battery every night.

Dislikes:

• For all the features it has, it might as well have a full QWERTY keyboard. The biggest limiting factor of the phone, in my opinion.
• Stiff camera shutter button. Maybe it was just this unit, but you really have to jam your finger down on the button to take a picture.
• Clumsy auto-rotate – takes too long to respond to turning the unit on its side. (nitpicky?)

The Nokia N86 is one of the many Nokia devices available from their Christmas gift guide. Wind Mobile will be officially launching its service tomorrow morning. What kind of impact will it have on the busiest time of the year for most wireless service providers?

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Editor’s note: Before you write to ask why my son is using an “antique” phone, remember that he is living in Southern California and he seems to enjoy subjecting electronic equipment to salt-water immersion tests and exposure to his chemistry lab experiments.

With eyes in Canada focussed on the Globalive story, it seems the OECD’s new broadband numbers slid under the radar screen.

On Friday, the OECD released figures for June 2009 penetration rates. Canada held onto its number 10 position in subscriptions per capita; Canada was precisely 360 subscriptions short of pulling ahead of Finland to move into the number 9 position.

Finland, the country that made headlines for its statement that broadband access is a right for all its citizens, lost two years worth of subscribers in six months to fall from number 6 to the number 9 position. It is no wonder their government had to make some kind of political statement like a universal broadband obligation, although it is possible that there has been some mobile substitution.

Despite the challenges of the economy, in the six months ended June 2009, the OECD says that more than half a million Canadians were added to wireline broadband services, while tens of thousands were knocked off Finland’s numbers. Canada’s broadband growth rate was the highest of all top 10 countries.

If you look at the OECD’s spreadsheets [such as here], you’ll see that most of the OECD broadband figures come from official government sources. Canada and the US are the only two countries that the OECD estimates broadband penetration from company quarterly financial reports.

How should the OECD source information from companies that do not report? These would include companies like SaskTel (that only reports annually) and privately held fixed wireless companies, cable companies and independent telcos.

There are also thousands of business accesses provided by multinationals carriers (such as AT&T;, Verizon, etc.) operating in Canada.

How would you produce reasonable estimates?

There was considerable press and editorial coverage of Industry Minister Clement’s decision to intervene in the Globalive ownership issue. No need to rehash that ground here. I spoke to a couple reporters from Canadian Press talking about consumer and policy issues.

There was a common thread in the decisions; the government continues to support a model of facilities-based service providers being the means to deliver sustainable competition in world of converged communications.

The three decisions from Friday support a theme of fostering an environment favouring private sector investment in advanced telecommunications infrastructure.

In its decision to send speed-matching back to the CRTC, the Government said that it wants the Commission to consider the impact of its Decision on incentives for investment.

Will Industry Canada keep this in mind when it is developing its auction policy for the next major swath of mobile wireless bandwidth?

IC Schedule – Globalive http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=23985717&access_key=key-11xt7pmkzsdnfisrdx5g&page=1&version=1&viewMode=list

MTS Allstream Order in Council
http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=24015524&access_key=key-1tmo7fmofjsb2dddk1fq&page=1&version=1&viewMode=list

Bell / TELUS Order in Council http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=24015688&access_key=key-bbo0ezlgp1h11zd8gap&page=1&version=1&viewMode=list

Industry Minister Clement has overruled the CRTC and said that Globalive meets the requirements of the Telecom Act to begin operations.

This is not changing foreign ownership restrictions:

Mr. Clement said Friday he is satisfied the debt financing does not constitute foreign ownership and no changes would be required to the company’s organization.

As we suggested earlier, the Order in Council plays to the key difference in foreign ownership definitions in the Broadcast Act versus the Telecom Act. The Telecom Act – which is operative in this instance – is phrased in the double negative: A carrier cannot be controlled by non-Canadians.

That calls for a different standard – a different burden of proof than the positive Canadian control requirements of the Broadcast Act.

Significantly, the Industry Canada Backgrounder makes clear:

In varying the CRTC decision, the Government is not removing, reducing, bending or creating an exception to COC requirements in the telecommunication and broadcasting industries.

About 25 years ago, we lived in North Carolina and dealt with NCNB as our bank. At the time, they had a policy of providing customers with a $5 credit anytime something went wrong. Error on your statement? Five bucks. More than 5 minute wait in line or on the phone? Five bucks.

Now, banks aren’t in business to give away money, so why did NCNB do this?

First off, they wanted to back their service guarantee up with something real. Five dollars bought a whole lot more in 1986 than it does today, so it was a nice goodwill gesture. But more importantly, the bank’s accounting made sure that the department responsible for the error got charged for the error. Financial accountability for the payment helped align priorities for the people responsible for fixing things.

I received a call looking to renew my subscription to a service that I thought I renewed in mid-November. The agent said that they had no record of my November order and told me I would need to call customer care – she had no way to transfer the call.

I hate being told what I “need” to do. I need better service. I don’t need to call; I don’t want to call.

But I called customer care anyway and was told not to worry; everything is set for the next two years.

So now, I wasted my time on two calls: a call that shouldn’t have been made to me; and, a call that I shouldn’t have had to make. Following the NCNB model, I suggested that they add a year to my service and charge the subscription extension to the appropriate department.

Clearly, someone decided that it wasn’t worth it for IT to update the lists for the call centre. If the business case only looks at a few minutes of call centre time, maybe that is true; the customer impact wasn’t being included.

How do you value your customers’ time?