This past weekend, my wife had an opportunity to corner the co-CEO of a telephone manufacturer at a brunch and she challenged him to design a female-friendly mobile handset for her.

Susie’s complaint? The design of most current phones is biased to favour men. Phones are designed to be kept on belt holsters or pockets. What is she supposed to do with her phone when she is wearing a dress?

Put it in her purse, you say? Can’t hear it, can’t feel it vibrate and can’t get to it in time. Bluetooth interferes with her glasses and necklace and let’s face it, looks too geeky to wear all the time.

Jennifer Finney Boylan, a transgender author, was interviewed by Larry King a couple years ago. He asked if she missed anything about being a man.

Her reply, “Pockets.”

I have been following the deliberations at Parliament’s Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology (INDU), examining competition in telecommunications. The transcripts of the proceedings are slowly getting added to the committee’s website and they can make for interesting reading.

Michael Geist sat in on the committee’s meeting with Minister Bernier last week and observed:

… much of the discussion fails to distinguish between communications services as the discussion frequently veers between local telephony, long distance, wireless, and Internet access without anyone bothering to distinguish between them.

The sessions also drift in and out of broadcast issues, beyond the telecommunications focus of this committee.

There are lots of opportunities for the committee to examine real policy issues:

• What are the directions for rural broadband?
• The role of government in adoption of advanced technologies?
• Going green through telecom?
• Strategic purchasing of advanced services by the public sector?

Do any others come to mind?

Will any aspects of communications policy be a part of an election platform?

Technorati Tags:
INDU, Michael Geist, Maxime Bernier

My nephew made an intersting observation last night in the course of his speech at his Bar Mitzvah.

When his parents got married, out-of-towners who couldn’t attend sent telegrams. At his eldest sister’s Bat Mitzvah, people sent faxes. For his other sister’s Bat Mitzvah: email messages.

Today, people are sending SMS and instant messaging.

What will be the next generation of messaging?

Technorati Tags:
IM, SMS, telegram

SaskTel is preparing for the eventual termination of its ISDN basic rate service, Microlink.

Last November, it applied to the CRTC for authorization to withdraw multi-year contracts for Microlink, given the age and viability of ISDN-BRI technology.

As part of the process, SaskTel sent a letter, dated November 24, to current subscribers and included

If you choose to end your contract early, you can do so without a termination charge. In addition, if you terminate a Microlink service contract and migrate to a similar service, SaskTel will waive the associated service connection charge.

But the proposed tariff pages didn’t match that offer. The tariff said:

… or customers may transition to a similar service prior to the expiry date of their contract term without incurring termination charges or any Service Connection charges associated with the similar service.

A subtle, but important difference. The letter implies an unconditional right to end the contract. The tariff language ties the waiver of termination charges to transferring to a new service. It is unclear which version was Sasktel’s original intent, but the CRTC has made the decision for them.

Looking carefully at the language in both documents and without the help of consumer intervention, earlier this week the CRTC ordered Sasktel to change the language in the tariff in order to honour the offer from the letter, without any ambiguity. Score 1 for consumers.

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CRTC, Sasktel, ISDN, Microlink

According to a study released by Accenture and the Economist Intelligence Unit, more than half of respondents believe IPTV can generate significant revenue within the first three years of service.

Dan Elron, managing director for Accenture’s Communications practice said:

The business case for IPTV, its value-added benefits and its potential remain strong. In the long-term, the key to achieving high performance through IPTV is to be visionary, ambitious and open to innovation from many sources. For the shorter term, the key is to quickly adapt to consumer feedback and jump over technology hurdles.

There will be a panel session looking in-depth at IPTV implementations at The 2007 Canadian Telecom Summit in June. In addition, Dan Elron will be a speaker at the event.

Technorati Tags:
Canadian Telecom Summit, Accenture, IPTV