Morts Musings

Given how fundamental an aspect of life internet access apparently is these days, and that we’re approaching a general election, I guess it’s not too surprising that politicians have been talking a lot about it, and in particular their plans for updating the UK’s broadband infrastructure, lately.

There certainly doesn’t seem to be any doubt as to the need to role out 4G mobile access as soon as possible; there are plenty of articles around which are talking about how the popularity of both smart phones and dongles are putting strains on the country’s current mobile broadband capacity! And although deals like being able to get hold of free sims, which themselves allow unlimited free Skype conversations, are absolutely great for consumers looking to save on call charges, it would appear that the popularity of the new technology has wrong footed some providers.

Although it does definitely have its uses, both business and pleasure, mobile broadband is only part of the country’s broadband dilemma, some would say that the establishment of decent high speed internet infrastructure is a bigger and more important challenge for the future, and that’s possibly why we’ve recently seen all the main parties come out with their ideas for how this can be achieved.
This article gives a pretty good overview of the positions of the main parties, and in my opinion is well worth a look if you want to get a quick, at a glance, summary of what each is proposing.
Of course, promises are easily made, and all the more so in the run up to an election, but are not always so easy to deliver on. There’s also the chance that they may suddenly become less urgent in the minds of our political masters once the next Govt is securely in power, and doesn’t have to bother with annoying little details like serving the electorate, or keeping election pledges, but we’ll see.
They certainly all seem to have plenty of ideas of how to skim more money out of us to fund these changes. The Tories would like to take BBC funding to bank roll their super fast broadband plans, while Labour and the Lib Dems are behind the idea of a land line tax, although it seems that the Lib Dems have thought a little more about the equitability of such a levy.
There are also differing approaches as to how to get the more remote areas of the country hooked up with super fast broadband; here the problem is that everyone’s agreed that it’s a good idea but no one really wants to pay for laying the cables.
Personally I’m not sure why the whole country should be clubbing together to pay for people who live in the arse end of nowhere to get a fast internet connection; If it was likely to make a significant impact on the country’s economy I’d understand, but if that were the case it would also likely follow that it would be a viable business move for some comms company to lay the pipes.
As it is, it seems to me that the whole country is going to be left subsidising a few, for no real good reason. Living anywhere has its plusses and negatives, that’s the nature of life; in the countryside you get clean air, beautiful views, less idiots and what would generally be considered a better, and more peaceful, quality of life compared to city dwellers. If people want to live there that’s great, good luck to them (I’m kind of jealous) but they should also accept that their choice to live in such a locale is also going to have downsides, like they might not have such a great internet connection, or may have to pay more to obtain one; I don’t see why that’s such a big deal, & I certainly don’t buy into this ridiculous idea that highspeed internet is now an essential utility, Christ! how soft is this country becoming?

In any case, although all the parties seem dead set on wasting an absolute fortune laying cables to the boondocks, it may be that decent 4G mobile broadband is actually a far more sensible option for the more remote regions of the country; sure it still requires its own infrastructure, and the speed aren’t likely to match the super fast connections which the politicians currently aspire to provide, but it’s surely going to be a hell of a lot cheaper for everyone, and perfectly sufficient for most home use. Ok, so maybe high tech businesses might not be able to operate out of remote areas, but maybe that should just be one of those facts of life, like inner cities not being the best site for a farm, or the Pennines not being such a great place to base a fishing fleet.

My mobile’s dying, it’s not just old, it’s venerable, I’ve been out of contract for maybe 3 years now, but you know how it is; the tariffs not that bad, the phone keeps plodding along, mostly reliably, (which, given that these days some phones seem to be designed to start dying while one is still in contract, is a bit of a technological miracle!) and so there’s no pressing incentive to do all the reasearch which, as a “savvy” consumer, I feel obliged to do before signing up to something as rigid as an 18 month contract.

Still, the phone’s days are surely numbered now, and maybe after Xmas, and after the January tax bill’s paid, I should probably get around to looking for a handset which has buttons that work reliably & which doesn’t have an annoying habit of trying to use a non-existant 3G signal, rather than switch over to good old reliable 2G. That latter is a real annoyance and actually something the phone’s been doing since I got it, why they couldn’t have built in a user option to force the mobile to switch to 2G I don’t know.

Anyway, I digress, I’ve been doing some looking around for what deals are on the market at the moment and one of the ones which I spotted looks almost too good to be true, to the extent that it’s set my cynical “what’s the catch” alarm bells well and truly ringing!
Essentially it seems that a lot of the latest generation of phones are able to use Skype mobile, which allows one to make free calls to other Skype Mobile users. Now from a consumer point of view this looks great; I’ve been using Skype as an IM service for years now, and have always found it to be a reliable, easy to use, app, and from what I’ve heard from friends, who have used it as a cheap alternative for chatting with relatives abroad, Skype’s calls service is just as stable as their IM.
The only catch I can see at the moment is the need for both parties to have Skype enabled phones, which is surely going to become less and less of a restriction as people with older phones upgrade. So, in theory one day we’ll all be making free mobile calls to all our friends, right?
It’s a lovely idea, but it leaves me wondering where the mobile service providers are going to fit into this utopia of free and easy communication? How are they going to make their money? for example there are deals at the moment where pay-as-you-go phones are being offered with free Skype, which, assuming all your friends have done similar, means that once you’ve paid out for the handset you could get away without paying anything for your calls. It’s even possible to buy credits “at very low rates” directly from Skype, for calls to non-Skype phones, so it’s not even as if the mobile service providers would be making their cash there.
Maybe I’m missing something obvious, surely someone at the mobile companies must have thought this business plan through, but I have to be honest, as things are at the moment I’m having trouble seeing how they’re going to make up the revenue they’re surely going to loose as less and less people use their networks for calls.

I saw this piece in the Telegraph and thought it was such an innovative idea that it deserved a mention. It’s clear as the internet, and general tech, revolution continues that mobile phones are set to play an increasingly important part in peoples lives. The net is alive with talk about increased mobile access, and it seems these days that most big companies & organisations either have a mobile site or are furiously trying to get one up and running, lest they loose out to more forward thinking competitors.

''Press 2 if the dog ate your homework...'' Yes, now mobile phones can even provide pay-as-you-go English lessons!

However the move to offer English lessons, via mobile phone, to a whole nation has to get cudos for its originality & ambition, and it’s just what the Bangladeshi organisation BBC Janala aims to do. By getting the Bangladeshi Govt on board, as well as the country’s six major mobile networks, BBC Janala has been able to offer hundreds of 3 minute English lessons for only 4p each; Very cheap you might think, and probably not too expensive even by Bangladeshi standards, although one must bear in mind that the average Bangladeshi has to live on less than £2 a day.

The initiative is particularly significant because, while English remains a major international language of business, over the last few decades the quality of English teaching in the country has dropped noticably, which, along with the school systems high drop out rate, has lead to lower English fluency overall.
It would certainly appear that the service is being well received so far; it’s about two weeks since it launched and already it’s had over half a million calls, as well as ~1000 people signing up to the web site each day! So far things seem to be running smoothly, the only potential problem with the scheme that I can think of is people with pay as you go phones running out of credit half way through a lesson!