Friday, 29 August 2008
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| 3G operators: nobody owes them a living |
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| Thursday, 28 June 2007 | |
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How do we miscalculate the value of 3G licences? Let us count the ways… with this casual glance at the sector’s ‘bill of wrongs’. Can we get to ten flagrant abuses? Sure enough.
I think the word is affrontery. I won’t pretend to know what it means but, goodness me, the wireless industry wearing its 3G cloak seems to spend a great deal of time being affronted wile affronting the rest of us.. The side-effect of pulling technological rabbits out of wireless hats is simply that the magicians involved end up covered in rabbit-shit when they return their chapeaux to their tętes. The mobile industry is making a habit of this action to the extent that it could be dubbed a ‘one trick pony’. The latest calumny is a clumsy attempt to wrest VAT from governments in the UK and Austria relating to 3G licence auctions dating back to 2000. That failed in the top European Court this week (click here). Trying to saw €4b.5bn off the 3G licence overspend is mucky. And the industry involved has ‘previous’. It has insulted the intelligence of its customers by overcharging for roaming usage, up to and including paying for the privilege of receiving calls while overseas. Big-footprint operators have claimed to support these EU-led initiatives to cut roaming costs while maintain excessive premiums in non-EU countries, even where these same operators have part-owned or fully-owned operating arms. These same mobile operators, publicly gnashing their teeth or wringing their hands at the economic injustice of such regulation, are content to milk users on transformer SMS, MMS and data charges. Here we are grateful to Vyke Communications, a wireless VoIP provider that recently pointed out that ‘NASA pays Less To Receive Data From The Hubble Space Telescope Than UK Mobile Users Pay To Send Text Messages’. Vyke argues that text messagers pay UKŁ750 per megabit; NASA pays Ł61.5 for the same quantity of data from deep space. So that’s three borderline commercial obscenities auctioned by today’s wireless business. We need to get to five or ten to make this work. Laugh? I nearly died If you want to heap opprobrium on the mobile sector you don’t need to look much further than the nearest mast. We wobble and wobble from one cell site to the next. The wireless industry scoffs at the notion of ‘electro-sensitivity’: Google that term and you may begin to learn why. Wibbling and wobbling is a key element of the marketing effort designed to sell mobiles to infants in the more mature markets. Some bits of research, although not all, suggest the pliable crania of young people and the penetrative radiation of 3G do not mix. There is also a sense in some parts of the world that these same masts are a form of environmental blight. Some new masts are designed to look like trees; so long as you have never seen a real tree. Countries like the UK have now introduced laws that say it is an offence to use a mobile whilst driving. This is largely ignored. Likewise, individuals are so wedded to their mobiles that they forestall conversation in order to reply and, with a Blackberry in hand, are even worse. Best of all, the wireless industry now facilitates spam to its users. So to round up all this we have: • the 3G VAT-scam; • the roaming scam; • SMS/MMS over-charging; • electro-sensitivity in adults; • child brain damage; • environmental blight; • shut up and drive; • rudeness; • Blackberry; • spam. As ethical footprints go, this is a size 14. Jim Chalmers |
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