Michael Geist had an interesting article in yesterday’s Star called Unlocking the Mysteries of Locked Cellphones.

Our family has a couple unlocked phones that we use when we travel.

I agree with Michael that the handset belongs to the user, regardless of any subsidy associated with a multi-year contract. The contract obligates me to stay with the carrier or pay specified penalties. I wrote last February about a couple relevant rulings from the US Copyright Office on cell-phone embedded software.

Where I disagree with Michael is on the question of how much demand there is for unlocked phones. First off, the concept is meaningless for number portability in Canada – only one carrier (Rogers) currently supports GSM technology. Only a hard-core geek would even think of flipping between CDMA service providers with a single handset.

Next is the issue of how frequently customers want to upgrade their handsets anyway – seeking more mega-pixels on the camera; newer smart-features; stereo bluetooth headphones; GPS mapping. My unlocked phones, at 2 and 4 years old are museum pieces as far as my kids are concerned. When carriers are offering cheap new phones for switching, are there really people strongly attached to their old handsets?

The call-out box in the Star version of his article says:

While many consumers may like the opportunity to purchase a phone for a fraction of the full retail price, others would presumably prefer the freedom of an “unlocked” cellphone that would allow them to easily switch between carriers.

I suspect the others who would prefer the freedom are a small minority, often making this debate interesting but useless for the general public. My evidence? As I have written before, unlocked phones are widely available from various retailers, yet most people choose to go to official carrier stores and agents for the standard offering.

Why? For the same reason that most VCRs flashed 12:00 for years. Most people like things simple. Especially for their high tech toys.

The call out box also claims:

The freedom provided by unlocked cellphones is particularly useful for people who travel, since they can avoid roaming fees by converting their phone into a local phone in most countries by simply inserting a local SIM card. This approach is standard in Europe and Asia, where consumers would not tolerate a market comprised solely of locked cellphones.

Yes, the freedom is precisely why I have my unlocked phones. But, don’t get the idea that North America is a market “comprised solely of locked cell phones.” It is a $25-$35 exercise at many dealers to get your phone unlocked. Or you can readily buy an unlocked phone at many locations. And don’t get the impression that overseas markets are predominantly unlocked.

In my travels last week in a market enjoying well over 100% mobile penetration, most phones were locked to one carrier unless people had paid to have the phone unlocked. Very few of the people I met had bothered to do so.

A real challenge for us in the technology industry is to keep in mind that most of the general public aren’t like the folks in our engineering departments, or the folks who read my blog.

Thankfully!

I have written in the past about my dislike of preudo-human robotic IVRs for customer service lines. I think humans work faster and understand more.

If my call is really important to a company, then they would answer the phone.

Friday, I used 4 hours of my drive to Montreal trying to set up a new cell phone line for my daughter. More than a dozen separate calls. All I wanted to do was put her on a plan that was reasonably similar to a plan I have for one of my other lines.

As an aside, let me praise the battery life and speaker-phone capability of the Blackberry 8800 series.

Calls would drop; agents transferred me to fast busy; call queues would announce expected holding times measured in geological terms.

I finally reached a wonderful agent in a special service call centre who took care of everything. Other than the fact that they were out of stock on her first choice for a phone.

It shouldn’t be that hard to sign up. Even on a holiday weekend. Again, I have to wonder if telecom company management tries doing their own purchasing like regular customers.

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If you perform an internet search and look for Cafe Hillel in Jerusalem, the chances are that the first few items that appear will be stories about a tragic suicide bombing that took place nearly 4 years ago, killing 7 and wounding 50.

As is the case with such incidents in Israel, the restaurant was rebuilt immediately and life continues as normally as one could expect. Cafe Hillel served as a calm refuge and communications centre during my recent visit to the area.

The cafe was my source of internet connectivity a few times over the past week or so, providing open WiFi together with one of the best lattes and iced coffees you can get (although others would argue for Tal Bagels). The service was part of the Unwire Jerusalem project.

I noticed that internet services in our hotels tended to be expensive – whether using a lobby kiosk or in-room connections. While hotels in Canada used to charge outrageous rates for internet connectivity, it has typically become an amenity here and in the US, like shampoo or soap, in part to help hoteliers move internet traffic off their dial-up PBX network.

Unlike North America, with flat rate calling for local phone calls, most other countries have metered local calling, which makes $15 per day internet seem cheap.

I found the Cafe Hillel alternative more pleasant for less money. A welcome evening stroll or $4 cab ride, a great coffee for $2.50 and a light breeze through palm trees while looking out the window at the historic German Colony.

Municipal WiFi networks are having financial problems across the US according to an AP story out this morning. I don’t think there is a one-size-fits-all solution to provide broadband access to the masses.

But, there are certainly lessons that can be learned by observing the way people consume communications services in other countries. You just need to sit back and enjoy the coffee.

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Attention all mothers of kids on hockey teams, scouts, ballet dancers, church groups.

If your organization makes phone calls to sell tickets, run car washes, invite people to your strawberry social, you need to be aware of Telecom Public Notice 2007-15. The CRTC wants you to register and pay fees for telemarketing, even though the federal government gave a specific exemption to these kinds of calls.

I just came back from some vacation time and I couldn’t believe paragraph 9c in the Public Notice when I read it.

The Commission therefore invites parties to comment on the following:
… the Commission’s intent to establish a rule to require all telemarketers and clients of telemarketers, including those exclusively making telecommunications that are exempt from the National DNCL Rules, to register with, and provide information to, the National DNCL operator and to pay fees that may be charged by the third party who will be responsible for the investigation of Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules complaints.

Yep. Parliament exempted certain types of calls, but the CRTC is saying it intends to have exempt callers register and pay for the right to sell you cookies. The public notice is seeking comments on delegating its responsibilities for the Do Not Call List rules to the proposed Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services.

As I wrote in July, there are a number of exempt types of telemarketing calls, provided for in Parliament’s changes to the Telecommunications Act. These include unsolicited calls made on behalf of:

• registered charities;
• political parties;
• nomination contestants, leadership contestants or candidates of a political party;
• opinion firms;
• general-circulation newspapers;
• organizations that have an existing business relationship with a consumer; and
• organizations to business consumers.

Previously, it had been considered that the ‘existing business relationship’ exemption would provide a safety net for non-registered charities, such as school clubs.

If you want to comment on the CRTC’s plans, follow the Public Notice process. See Michael Geist‘s views on this subject.

When someone goes into a hardware store and buys nails, the requirement was likely to attach two pieces of wood together. There were a lot of potential solutions available and a good supplier understands how to help customers define their requirements.

A story in today’s International Herald Tribune says that there are major IPTV expansion plans to be announced in Europe this week.

Before people start jumping up and down about whether their country should lead the race, we need to focus on customer requirements.

Is IPTV a service? Is it actually one solution for a more general problem: perhaps better defined as interactive entertainment?

We prefer to remain more technology agnostic – allowing for greater flexibility and competition among competing solutions. A real challenge is in properly defiining customer requirements.