South Korea. In what has to be a contender for this year’s ‘Who’d A Thunk It Award’, a man has been killed by cellphone. Condolences to the family. But this is one I never would have believed. What’s even scarier I sometimes put my cellphone in my breast pocket too. Might have to revise that habit.

An exploding cell phone battery is suspected by police in the death of a South Korean worker Wednesday, though the phone’s manufacturer said it was highly unlikely.

The man, identified only by his family name Suh, was found dead at his workplace in a quarry Wednesday morning and his mobile phone battery was melted in his shirt pocket, a police official in Cheongwon told The Associated Press.

“We presume that the cell phone battery exploded,” the police official said on condition of anonymity because the investigation was still under way.

Kim Hoon, a doctor who examined the body, agreed.

Linky.

Down here at the ThirdPipe offices we figured that Commissioner Martin at least had some backing for his 70/70 cable enforcement plans. Guess not by what the New York Times is reporting –

In the face of a lobbying blitzkrieg by the cable television industry, the Federal Communications Commission drastically scaled back Tuesday evening a proposal by the agency’s chairman to more tightly regulate the industry.

The compromise was a significant, though not total, victory for the cable industry, whose executives and lobbyists had worked to erode support on the commission for the agenda of the chairman, Kevin J. Martin. Among other things, the commission agreed to postpone for months the decision Mr. Martin had hoped would be made on Tuesday, over whether the cable television industry had grown so dominant that the agency’s regulatory authority over it should be expanded.

ThirdPipe supports regulation that opens up markets and levels playing fields. In this particular case applying the 70/70 rules would have leveled the playing field between the Telcos and the cable guys. Which when you think about it, is surprising that the Telcos ‘lost’.

Full article here.

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts did an interview with Fortune mostly focused on shareholder concerns over the company’s poor performance on all fronts. No mention was made about traffic shaping or spoofing. I have to assume that the interview was conditional on not posing any questions on this subject.
Robert’s remarks regarding poor customer service:

We do 250 million phone calls a year between orders and services, and, inevitably, with that many calls, you are going to have failures. We have added 11,000 technical and customer-care employees just in the past 18 months. And we are beginning to call customers before and after service appointments to make sure we did the work properly. It is a major goal to continue to improve.

As for network performance:

At the national cable convention this year I demonstrated a technology called DOCSIS 3.0. We’ll start rolling this out in 2008. It provides up to 160 megabits or more of speed per second — that should give more than enough bandwidth to do multiplayer online gaming.

We’ve heard repeated references to improving customer service capabilities and network performance from Comcast often with little action thereafter. We’ll keep tabs on these quotes. Comcast has been very good a talking the talk, but will they walk the walk? We’ll let you know.

An interesting series of interviews with Tom Mitoraj Director of WiMax development at Motorola. The rest of the world seems to be going gangbusters for WiMax. Here in the US its stillborn.

Part 1.
Part 2.
Part 3.

Content compliments of MidWestBusiness.com.

Germany. At the 2007 WIMAX conference in Munich, Siemens announced an new suite of WiMax enabled gateway devices for the residential, SOHO, small business market. A most intriguing model is the SX686. Particulars –

Highlights

• Based on IEEE 802.16-2005 and fully compliant to Wave 2 certification, including MIMO A and B and beamforming
• Fully self installing over the air or Web interface
• Supports TR-069 and OMA-DM
• Two internal antennas for receive, one for transmit (7-9 dBi)

Features

• Integrated WLAN for wireless network connectivity, supporting WLAN handsets
• Convenient button to easily switch WLAN on or off
• 4 Ethernet ports
• 1 USB host to connect a printer or external hard drive
• Supports up to 6 SIP accounts for VoIP
• 2 FXS ports to connect analog phones or a fax machine
• PBX functionality (e.g., CLIP, call forwarding, conferencing) for up to 6 extensions
• Multiple connections enabled
• VLAN tagging based on TOS bits, MAC, IP, LAN/FXS ports, connections, management traffic
• Up to 20 Mbits
• Stateful inspection firewall
• Parental control and content filtering
• WEP, WPA/WPA2, MAC-filtering, WPS

Of particular interest is the integration of data and PBX functionality in a single unit. Have not seen that before and it certainly makes sense. The 2 POTS, 4 SIP VoIP ports is certainly right on as well. Fact the only thing I can find fault with is the fact that I have no provider here in the US to utilize it with.

The SX686 is but a line of new products that Siemens has announced.

SX686 page.
Siemens Home Page.

Readers, treat this as rumor as the article itself has no solid ‘he said’ associated with it. But if it comes to pass it telegraphs some possibilities. The first of course being that the wireless components of both firms don’t care about the upcoming 700mhz auction? Of if they do, they view it as fixed based service, not mobile.

Read the article then try in figure it out for yourself. A state of confusion being one of them of course.

Synaptic Inc a developer of touch screen interfaces has developed a handset driver for the Android SDK. That has the portent of iPhone like interfaces being available for Android enabled hardware. From the press release –

Android, announced on Monday, November 5 by members of the Open Handset Alliance™, is the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. The Open Handset Alliance comprises 34 leading technology and wireless companies with a common goal of fostering innovation on mobile devices and giving consumers a better mobile user experience. By providing developers a new level of openness to work more collaboratively, the Android SDK will accelerate the pace at which new and compelling mobile applications are made available to consumers.

As the only touch interface company in the Alliance, Synaptics is providing mobile handset designers with a powerful yet easy to use tool to develop advanced, multi-touch gestures for the Android platform. The Synaptics driver is available through the Android Software Developer Kit and can be used with a variety of Synaptics products, including ClearPad™ and MobileTouch™.

“Synaptics is proud to be a founding member of the Open Handset Alliance,” said, Joseph Virginia, Vice President, Corporate Marketing and Handheld Business of Synaptics. “Our contribution to the Android platform will help bring dynamic touch user interfaces to everyone in the mobile market. By creating an open environment conducive to collaboration and partnering, the Alliance will allow key influencers to deliver innovative devices and services to meet the needs of the fast-changing mobile industry.”

This is a reasonably good development. Flat film touch interfaces permit a thinner device that discrete buttons.

Linky.

Germany. In a legal tussle with Vodaphone, T-Mobile will offer an unlocked iPhone for sale with no transport plan as part of the initial purchase. Particulars –

Appleinsider reports that Vodafone on Monday ‘obtained a court order that requires rival T-Mobile Germany to sell Apple Inc’s iPhone handset to Germans without a service plan.’ Specifically, according to DowJones, Vodafone according to their spokesman is ‘questioning the iPhone’s exclusive use in T-Mobile’s network and the use of the device being limited to certain fees within T- Mobile’s subscription offerings. Vodafone isn’t generally opposed to T-Mobile’s exclusivity contract with Apple, but wants to have these new sales practices examined. The restraining order doesn’t aim at a total sales stop.’

In a response to the court order, T-Mobile today said they would continue to offer the iPhone on a 24 month contract for €399 but would also now offer an unlocked version of the iPhone for €999. Additionally, Reuters reports that T-Mobile ‘will also allow those customers who bought an iPhone since Nov. 19 to unlock the device free of charge so it can be used with other SIM cards. However, that will not enable customers to make use of all the functions that the music-playing and Web-browsing device offers.’ It’s not clear from this statement whether the ‘unlocked’ iPhone will be crippled, however network specific features like visual voicemail likely won’t work.

Now here is the eye popping piece — the cost. So in Germany you can get an IPhone two ways, with or without a transport plan. With a plan — 399EUR. Without a plan — 999EUR. 600EUR difference. Folks, you of course realize that the disparity is going to be made up somewhere, right? But of course in the transport plan. Just run the numbers. On a 24 month contract the spread is going to be made up at roughly 25EUR per, not including any NPV discounting associated with it. So the buyer has agreed to a 25EUR base cost + the transport costs. And when the contract is completed? Well I don’t know about Germany but here in the US the cost of my cellphone bill does not go down. So that base cost is going into the carriers pocket as gravy.

ThirdPipe has suggested repeatedly that it would serve the consumer over the long term that they pay the full cost of the handset up front. Get out of the CPE rat race. Doing so would force the transport costs downward as it would reflect the true costs and not associated subsidization as we have now in the industry for the CPE. But for this to be effective it has to be applied to the entire industry across the board.

Full Article.

The biggest problem with glass fiber is that it breaks in sharp bends, making installation tedious and costly in the last mile route to the end user. Korean researchers think have the problem licked with a new flexible plastic fiber. Worth noting: there is a huge bandwidth penalty in using the new fiber instead of glass.Still, I’ll gladly trade my connection for the 2.5GBPS the plastic fiber can deliver.(article on ARS Technica)

Well you don’t have access to either cable or FIOS/UVerse. But you don’t want to pay a bunch of bucks right? Would 1.5mbps down do ok? Is AT&T in your area? Then listen up –

Over the past month, AT&T has quietly started to offer reasonably priced unbundled “naked” DSL Internet service to customers around the country. The company’s website makes no mention of the service, nor do its Internet phone sales representatives offer or even discuss the service. Customers wishing to sign up will need to call a specific department at AT&T to request the secret plan. Two tiers are offered, a 3Mbit down/1.5 Mbit up plan for $28.99 per month, and a 1.5Mbit down/768k up for $23.99. Those who opt for the stand-alone DSL service will be able to avoid paying the myriad of mandatory fees associated with a phone line.

Here’s how you get it –

* Call the AT&T Dry Loop department directly at 888-800-4095.
* Ask to switch to “DSL direct”.
* If they give you a hassle, say it’s a retention offer.

AT&T isn’t doing this totally out of the warmth of their corporate hearts. This was an indirect outcome of the agreement reached for AT&T to acquire SouthBell. The offer is good in the following States — AL, AR, CA, FL, GA, IN, IL, KY, LA, MI, MO, OH, NC NV, SC, TN, TX. At $24/mo for 1.5mbps is not bad deal and you don’t have to have and pay for the phone line service.

Linky.