While Canadians are celebrating Thanksgiving, the Wireless History Foundation is hosting a dinner in Chicago this evening, marking the 25th anniversary of the first cellular mobile phone call which was made October 13, 1983 down the road at Soldier Field.

We have come a long way since the days of phones mounted in the trunks of our cars, evolving into phones carried in a shoulder bag.

And let’s not forget that major leap forward with the development of the classic Motorola brick-phone – the DynaTAC 8000X – which was approved by the FCC just 3 weeks earlier, on September 21, 1983. That phone, weighing in at 28 ounces, seemed nearly indestructible. I recall magazine ads in the 80’s that celebrated its ability to survive fire and water damage which sure beats the heck out of today’s phones (which frequent readers of mine know just don’t float).

Andrew Seybold made an interesting observation when reflecting on the first 25 years of cellular service:

I often meet new, young companies or talk to executives at one of the larger companies who are telling me about something new that, in reality, was new in the 1980s or early 1990s and did not make it in the marketplace. Some of these ideas can be and are being dusted off and put forward again now that times are different. Network coverage is far better than it was in those days, devices cost less, service costs far less and we have two things we really didn’t have back then: wireless broadband and the Internet.

Which applications from the past are now getting ready for prime time re-release today?

Who would have or could have thought that mobile wireless service would be such a disruptive force – not only on the telecom industry, but on the way business is conducted and society itself?

What will the next 25 years bring?

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Update [October 13, 1:20 pm]
Good story by Alana Semuels in today’s LA Times called An evolution from talk to text.

One of the advantages (and disadvantages) of having multiple phone lines in the house is that I can anticipate telemarketing calls before they arrive on the second line. In this way, I am better equipped to try to find out who is behind those annoying recorded messages.

I recently received a call from a mythical Orlando phone number (407.000.9821) that told me I won a Florida or Bahamas vacation and I just had to press 9 for more information. I did just that and reached a human who must have accidentally hung up on me when I asked to be placed on their do not call list.

A few minutes later, the same caller ID showed up on another line and I reached a different agent. I decided to play along a little longer, so that I could ask the name of the group behind this promotion – Cancun Travel Unlimited. Once armed with a call-back number, I asked this agent to remove my phone number from their list. Again, a hang up.

As it turns out, the phone number I was given didn’t belong to Cancun Travel, a company that has a number of reports on a rip-off website. The folks at Hilton Timeshare were happy to add me to their own do not call list, but they were unaware of a campaign.

When we have a Florida / Mexican company making calls, with no presence in this country, it makes me wonder how enforcement of our Do Not Call legislation is going to provide the kind of relief expected by Canadians.

Is the DNCL going to be another gun registry?

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DNCL

If you Google the terms “end of Vonage”, you get back more than 1.2M entries, looking at patent issues, implementation issues, IPO issues. Vonage has survived all of them, so far.

Vonage has been trying to close on $250M of new debt and its timing couldn’t be worse, considering the turmoil in the global financial markets. A story on Telecom Web suggests that Vonage is quickly running out of runway, burning through cash and having challenges renew some of its loans. But last night, Vonage issued a press release suggesting that it has revised terms for about 90% of its original target.

December 16 is the due date on its old debt. Vonage has been on the brink of disaster a number of times. Will the largest pure-play VoIP provider survive once again?

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I will be taking time off tomorrow in observance of Yom Kippur. I expect to have my next posting on Friday.

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Vonage

With less than a week remaining until the election, the Conservative Party has finally released its platform [pdf] and surprisingly, telecom policy figures prominently in the document.

In the forefront of the consumer protection section (page 5 of 40), the Conservatives say that they will prevent charges for unsolicited incoming text messages, strengthen the powers of the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecom Services and create a compliance and deterrent power for the CRTC. Further, the Conservatives commit to address spam:

A re-elected Conservative Government led by Stephen Harper will introduce legislation to prohibit the use of spam (unsolicited commercial email) to collect personal information under false pretenses and to engage in criminal conduct. The new law will reduce dangerous, destructive and deceptive email and web site practices, and will establish new fines for those who break the law.

Broadband investment isn’t directly addressed, but may be part of the infrastructure super-fund:

A re-elected Conservative Government will continue to support rural and remote communities by investing in new infrastructure throughout rural and northern Canada.

The Conservatives make interesting cultural composition commitments for the CRTC. They say that chairs will alternate between English and French speakers and that the two vice chairs will be split: one English and one French. A quarter of the Commissioners will be French speakers and a majority of those hearing cases involving French-language or Quebec broadcasters will be from that group.

In practice, the CRTC has operated this way without rules that would seem to question whether immigrant Canadians are equal in the eyes of those responsible for filling vacancies. What does this mean for future representation in the CRTC by Canadians who are not from either official language group?

What other fall-out might there be from last week’s revelations by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab project that China was monitoring Skype instant messaging?

What is the risk of a foreign government agency requiring a company within its borders to provide access to information that is available to them?

What are the implications for outsourcing operational functions to certain off-shore jurisdictions with democratic and civil liberty principles that aren’t aligned with those we hold to be important? If a call centre has access to my phone records or banking records for customer service purposes, how do we know that their government doesn’t have access as well?

What issues arise when sourcing network equipment and services from off-shore suppliers? How secure is network and customer information? What level of diligence is sufficient for corporate boards to be confident that cost savings justify the risk of privacy loss through corporate or government espionage.

Is Skype just the tip of the iceberg?

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Skype, China, Citizen Lab