The PhoneBoy Blog

Jeff Pulver Is Starting Another Revolution: SocComm

PhoneBoy — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 07:01:12 +0000

Starting another conference. In a down economy. Are you crazy? Personally, I think not, mainly because we’re talking about our good buddy Jeff Pulver, who started the Voice on the Net (VON) conferences back before VoIP became a household–or at least a business–word.

This new conference called SocComm isn’t about VoIP. It’s about social communications. It’s about all the ways people communicate with each other. Things like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs, online games, and more.

Quoting from Jeff’s blog:

“Presence” is quickly becoming the trigger point for communication. I grew up in an era where the dial-tone on my home phone meant something to me. Today and in the future I believe that Presence is the new Dial-tone and that more and more communication sessions will happen because of presence. The evolution of presence has huge implications for a number of industries, including: advertising, media and telecom.

Let me repeat what he said: presence is the new dial-tone. I think that’s a powerful statement that has all kinds of implications. This conference will explore what exactly this means.

SocComm 2009 will be taking place February 10-11 in New York City. Jeff is looking for speakers for this event. He’ll take proposals until 5th December 2008, so if you’re interested, let him know!

I’d love to go to this conference myself, though I’m not sure how I am going to afford to make the trek. I can assure you, though, it will be well worth your time.

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

Boingo Taking Over WiFi on Washington State Ferries

PhoneBoy — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 08:58:53 +0000

Image of boingo

A couple years ago, I found out they were putting WiFi on the ferries in Washington State. Being as I rarely take the ferries around here, it’s not something I’ve been tracking all that closely. However, I do appreciate how useful it would be to have–particularly on that hour-long Bremerton to Seattle run

The entire fleet of ferries and ferry terminals does not have WiFi yet, but it’s certainly expanded from when I heard about it a couple of years ago. 11 Washington State Ferries terminals and 15 Ferries offer WiFi service today.

And now, those floating WiFi hotspots are owned by the folks at Boingo. Boingo has announced they’re taking over WiFi on the ferries from Parsons Transportation Group. The most immediate thing that customers will notice, aside from the new splash page, is the price will go down to $21.95/mo from the $29.95/mo it originally was. In addition, customers will be able to use WiFi at all of Boingo’s locations throughout the U.S. and Canada for that price, not just the ferries. If you have a supported mobile phone, you can use Boingo Mobile for only $7.95/mo!

Seems like a win-win for everyone involved. Passengers get a better deal, more access, and their WiFi is now managed by people that actually know how to do it. What’s not to like?

Comments

17 November 2008, VoIP Watch: WiFi on The Water In Washington via Boingo writes: [...] Last week it was airports being added by Boingo. This week they've added ferries and ferry terminals in Washington State. [...]

At Least Get The Name Right

PhoneBoy — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 09:33:04 +0000

As I’m trying to process all the email in my inbox right now, I ran across something that I thought would be cool to write about. However, the PR firm made a big mistake: they didn’t get my name right. It wasn’t spelled wrong–a problem I’ve constantly had to deal with throughout my life, thanks to whatever drugs my dad was on when he named me–but it was just flat out the wrong name.

If you can’t at least get my name right when you pitch me in email, I’m not going to write about your (client’s) products, simple as that. It’s not hard to figure out what my name is, or even how to spell it right. Getting it wrong on the first go, that’s just sloppy, sloppy PR.

Advertisement: Emergency Cell Phones

OnSIP and Fring: Smart PR

PhoneBoy — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 09:09:40 +0000

Image via CrunchBase

Perhaps I am getting a bit too cynical for my own good. To me, it just seems obvious that Junction Networks OnSIP hosted PBX solution can connect up with Fring, a mobile VoIP/IM client that supports many phones, including the Apple iPhone and my beloved Nokia S60 handsets. You might, therefore, wonder why it’s worthy of a press release since it seems so obvious.

Both Fring and OnSIP speak SIP, the lingua franca of voice over IP. OnSIP allows you to use any old SIP client as an extension to the hosted PBX. Fring can be configured to talk to any SIP-enabled service. Put the two together, and you’ve suddenly extended your PBX to the mobile phone.

Of course, given the Nokia handsets I carry, I don’t even need Fring. I can just configure my Nokia handsets to talk to OnSIP directly. Of course, it’s not something that I would expect the average Joe to try and do. Fring would certainly make it a lot easier to do.

While I am a bit ho-hum about this press release myself, in general I think it’s smart PR. It’s functionality people want. It’s free functionality for both OnSIP and Fring, simply by speaking SIP and making it easy to interoperate. Letting the world know about it is the right thing.

Advertisement: Cell Phone Batteries

Comments

17 November 2008, Michael Oeth writes: It was really my 12yo son who got me excited about the press release. I had setup fring on my iPhone and showed it to my son. I made a SIP call out fring telling him it was a free call. He was absolutely thrilled about the idea of a free call using wifi which he then used as justification for me to get him an iPhone. Sorry, that's not happening. However, it did prompt me to write my fring blog post which I shared with our PR firm first. They got excited and contacted fring for a quote and decided to make it it's own release. Sometimes the excitement just catches. fring is a SIP proxy and my preference would be that the iPhone work more like the Nokia in that it has a native SIP stack on the phone. We're working with TruPhone and CounterPath toward that end. I was interviewed for this article and the sharp reporter - Adam Stone - asked exactly what you are saying, "What's the big deal, it should just work." He and you are both right. It *should* just work. However, there are very, very few business VOIP providers where it does work. We are 100% SIP compatible AND we allow you to be registered on up to 10 separate SIP devices simultaneously. With Junction Networks you are not locked into our hardware and we don't track your IP addresses for validation. Most VOIP providers either lock you into their hardware, or since you pay 'per extension' you can only be logged into one device at a time. For us, fring (and Nokia) are a validation of our business model. For us, that's exciting. Thanks, --Mike Oeth CEO Junction Networks, Inc.
17 November 2008, PhoneBoy writes: The only real bummer about the iPhone piece of it is that you can't receive a call over WiFi. I blame Apple for not allowing background apps and/or making their device a little too carrier friendly. Business VoIP solutions, even when they employ open standards, tend to be walled gardens. You guys are showing it can be done by actually being a bit more open. Being open and "easy" for normal folks at the same time is quite a challenge. :)

CTIA Against Spectrum Caps, Against Competition

PhoneBoy — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 09:15:14 +0000

The latest post on the CTIA blog didn’t make a lot of sense. They were arguing against spectrum caps. Of course, they did nothing to directly explain what spectrum caps are and instead chose to use a bunch of flawed analogies to describe it.

In short, there is a fixed amount of spectrum available for wireless carriers to use to provide service. All carriers. In order to ensure there are enough carriers providing service to have some semblance of competition, there are caps on the amount of spectrum a single carrier can control.

The main reason this topic of spectrum caps is even coming up is because of the Verizon Wireless/Alltel merger, which was recently approved by all the government agencies. Of course, the merger is without some conditions, one being that Verizon has to give up spectrum in over 100 markets in order to comply with spectrum caps. Makes me wonder who the CTIA is really representing here.

The first analogy the CTIA tries to draw is that the spectrum caps are a bit like “setting a computer cap based on a 1992 computer’s specs - it would be like adopting a cap of 4 MB RAM and a 40 MB hard-drive and saying that no new applications can be written requiring more than that.” Some pretty innovative computing came out of those dark ages. Sure, it requires a bit more work, but it’s possible.

The second analogy: it’s like saying no highway should be more than two lanes. Unlike a road, where cars are generally a fixed size, one can always make more efficient use of spectrum. Look at the 802.11 WiFi. The original 802.11 specification–that predates b, g or n–was 2mb/s. The current draft 802.11n can go 300mb/s. The same can be said of the mobile phone networks themselves. AMPS–the old analog spectrum–required a lot of spectrum, CDMA and GSM use spectrum more efficiently.

The final analogy they use: spectrum caps are a bit like “restricting the number of coffee shops a company could have in a given city.” This is somewhat true, but keep in mind that there is a limited, fixed amount of spectrum available for all carriers to use. What the spectrum caps do is ensure that no one carrier controls too much of the spectrum to allow multiple carriers to exist, i.e. not all coffee shops are Starbucks.

Let’s take the CTIA’s position on spectrum caps to its foregone conclusion: without any spectrum caps, a single carrier could conceivably control all of the spectrum in a given market. Given there is only a fixed amount of spectrum available for mobile telephony, spectrum caps ensure it is possible for multiple providers to provide service in any given area. So how is lifting the spectrum caps helping competition exactly?

I will agree this is not the most optimal solution, but while I tend to think universal service is important, I think that mandate can be filled without lifting the spectrum caps,thus preserving competition. What do you think?

Comments

11 November 2008, spg writes: i agree. lifting the caps will only stifle competition. mergers could be approved with the condition the new monster company could not bid on any future spectrum in the given areas. that would make the next batch of spectrum available to a new competitor with the incumbent driving up the price.
11 November 2008, spg writes: correction: i meant to say: 'without the incumbent driving up the price'
12 November 2008, Aaron Huslage writes: I think that the CTIA is right in one respect. Due to technological advances, the caps make no sense anymore. But I would take it a bit farther in saying that selling licenses to airwaves makes no sense anymore. The FCC should become an agency that regulates open airwaves, not closed ones. There is no reason that "interference" should exist anymore given our current technologies. Having said this. They can't lift the caps and they can't open the airwaves until companies decide to cooperate on their own.

They’re Doing WHAT To The Electric Company?

PhoneBoy — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 07:43:46 +0000

Growing up, The Electric Company was one of my favorite shows. I didn’t realize necessarily that it was trying to teach me how to read, or that it had big-name stars acting in it. It was just a fun show to watch after Sesame Street.

While I don’t make a habit of watching kids TV, it is an occupational hazard of having kids and working at home. One day, after one of the kids shows on PBS, there was a preview for something called The Electric Company. No, it’s not what I grew up with, but the segment or two they showed had elements of what I remember.

Then I go find the site PBS has set up for The Electric Company, which is set to premiere in January 2009. While it certainly has a lot of the same educational elements, and includes lots of animated vignettes like the original, they’ve turned what used to be a daily variety show for kids into a weekly show with an actual plot.

This show is coming out in a very different time from the 1970, when the original aired. Educational TV was still a relatively new concept in America, and there wasn’t a whole lot of other choices. There certainly wasn’t computers, the Internet, mobile phones, and who-knows what else. In the early part of the 21st Century, we’ve got 500 channels on TV, a bazillion web pages on the Internet, mobile phones, and more. Much like finding this blog post amongs the infinite bits of the Internet might be a challenge, getting the word out about The Electric Company and breaking through to kids is going to be a challenge.

Why am I writing about this program here, on a technology blog? Very simple: reading is important to technology. It’s important to just about anything else you do in life as well. It’s one of those fundamental building blocks.

And maybe, if you have kids around the 7-9 age range and you happen to stumble across this post, you’ll take a look at this program on your local PBS station when it comes out in January. Maybe the kids will like it, maybe they won’t. Hard to say. Given Sesame Workshop’s past history of excellent educational shows, it’s certainly worth a try.

Nokia Friend View: I Think We’ve Got A Winner

PhoneBoy — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 06:57:22 +0000

Here I was grousing about not finding something to be passionate about and today, my fellow Nokians in Nokia Research Center have come up with a service called Nokia Friend View that combines social networking and location in a compelling way.

Nokia Friend View requires a client that runs on your S60 3rd Edition device. Status can be updated easily from the mobile phone. Your location can be updated automatically either with GPS, using cell phone tower location, or manually. If you’re not comfortable sharing your location, or you want to save some battery life, you can always turn this feature off as you desire.

The interface where all your friends show up on a map reminds me quite a bit of Twittervision, though unlike Twittervision, it doesn’t jump around the map. You can, however, see all of your friends on the map and scroll around to them as you see fit.

The other important thing is that you can comment on other people’s status updates. Comments are kept with the original status update so they are easy to find. Also, as people comment on a particular status, it is moved to the top of the most recent status updates list, making it easy to follow active conversations!

I had been comparing this application to Jaiku all day, which Google bought out a while ago. This seems to me like this is next logical step to what Jaiku could have become, though it seems that Google or the Jaiku guys aren’t really saying much about future plans, and certainly haven’t released a new client in quite some time!

One thing that I appreciate that the Nokia Friend View client does is allows you to add friends from the client itself. You get notified of friend requests in real time and can easily accept or reject them. It’d be nice if one could see more profile information before accepting, but it’s a step up from Jaiku!

If you are not blessed enough to have an S60 3rd Edition device, then you can also use the web interface, which offers much the same functionality as the mobile client. However, browser support for the website seems to be limited to Firefox 2.x., Internet Explorer 6.x, and Safari. Various attempts to use Firefox 3.x, Google Chrome, or nightlies of Webkit met with not having the maps load. If you try and use Internet Explorer 7, you get a message saying the browser is not supported.

The service is not perfect, of course, as the service is experimental and the client was launched through Nokia Beta Labs. The only major issue I ran into on the client was that it would crash when I received multiple friend invites and I accepted one of them. A minor issue is that it doesn’t remember the zoom level I chose between sessions.

Things I’d like the service to have include: a proper mobile-friendly version of the website and service, some kind of SMS support, and an open API that would allow integration with third party services (e.g. Twitter) or even third party clients. However, for a first release, I am very impressed!

If you have a Nokia Account (i.e. for Ovi services), you can use it with Nokia Friend View. Otherwise, signing up takes just a minute or two. Once you’ve done that, download it to your Nokia S60 device and give it a try. If you want to add me as a friend, I am phoneboy (and it is case sensitive when you add friends, as I’ve found out).

I hope that my colleagues at Nokia continue to support and develop this service, as it really shows a lot of promise!

Is The Thrill Gone?

PhoneBoy — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 07:42:33 +0000

As you’ve probably noticed, I haven’t really been blogging that much. Quite frankly, it’s because there hasn’t been much that’s inspired me to write, at least that I can write about in any sort of public forum. Or when I have taken the time to write, I often fall asleep while doing it.

That isn’t to say there hasn’t been a lot going on. Plenty of stuff crossing the blogosphere and my inbox. Much of it doesn’t seem to break through my current signal-to-noise threshold. I can intellectually see why some of these things are important, but I just don’t feel it enough to write.

Maybe my “ooh, new shiny thing” modus operandi is changing. Maybe all that is “new” isn’t quite so shiny anymore. I see a lot of “me too” out there. I just don’t see anything that makes me stand up and say now that’s cool. The speed to cool has increased from seconds to hours, and even then the “cool” is lukewarm.

Or maybe between the confluence of current events, both global and those that have a more direct impact on me. As they say, It’s complicated. It’s not something I can–or should–get into here.

What’s interesting is that I’ve been spending more time in Facebook: something I’ve only begrudingly adopted. I can see why Facebook is popular. Sure, you have to do some work to weed out the noise, and it has walled garden issues, but the fact is, people I know are there, including some I would not expect. My boss and his boss both use Facebook.

I’m trying to find my thrill, reawaken my passion as it were. Maybe I should take a cue from my body and just sleep more, leaving this blogging thing alone until the malaise passes? Anything the peanut gallery can suggest to shake this off?

Comments

4 November 2008, luca writes: I find myself in the same position. I'm kinda bored of reading the same announcements, the same news in many different blogs, with articles that look pretty much alike. Need to find different sources of inspiration.
4 November 2008, Sheryl Breuker writes: I can't speak so much about my own writing, largely because unlike you I haven't been blogging with any regularity for any length of time. I spent far more time blogging about life, and even that has not been interesting enough to write about! :) I think that it's all a cycle. It seems almost redundant when all the new companies send out a press release and it's all really the same information. All you do is exchange the names. Look at our new company and what we offer. A few things may be different, or specific, but in general they want you to write about something and it's still the same as everyone else. I don't know what the answer is but I know Ken has certainly struggled with what works for his writing and has moved away from ipadventures for the most part. We take turns writing at Stardust and that eases things some. You may have noticed Facebook has become an arena a lot more interesting to me. And you can still write notes, post items etc. Plus you get all these nice new friends that think you're 'hot' or want stuff from you. :-) You might consider importing some of your blog stuff and see how it works. There is less control and certainly you don't have the statistics the same there as a blog, but you may get renewed vigor. See ya on facebook. :)
4 November 2008, spg writes: How about a gutsy review/challenge of DEFImobile? I have some serious issues with how this company has handled my questions about there 'unlimited roaming/long distance' offer. On a few separate posts to the users forum(which requires registration to read posts - something i find a strange requirement)they have emailed me directly very canned responses(all countries/phone types supported) but not answered the forum post or i most cases even posted my forum entry when the questions were specific(such as is a mobile phone in Germany included). i would try the service myself except that i do not currently own a compatible phone. anyways if they really offer unlimited calls to all phones anyplace in the world for $40.00 per month the rest of there package(the WiFi roaming) is peanuts in comparison. i certainly could see a lot of people interested in the service solely to reduce there phone bill to high cost termination countries. of course i can not see how they could possibly offer this service without losses a ton of money. anyways i would love to see a public third party review of there unlimited calling(to any phone) claim; and even better some comments from the company itself since they no longer answer any of my inquires. cheers. spg
4 November 2008, Michael Graves writes: I find that the only way to sustain the writing is to write about what I'm doing. Then dive into personal projects that catch my interest. The writing is a secondary phase of the project. I also find that I write less opinion and more about personal experience that way. Experience rocks. Opinion less so. I pretty much ignore press releases and the like as not being relevant, yet. My current project (ok, one of many) is to integrate a new home automation system (Vera & Z-Wave) with our in-house PBX. Of course I'm always interested in new hardware (Jazinga!)if it's something that I might really use in my home/office. Michael
18 November 2008, PhoneBoy writes: I've always tried to write about experience. I suppose part of why I can't write is that I don't feel comfortable writing about a lot of my "experiences," not to mention they are somewhat off-topic to the blog anyway :)

The Thrill is Gone

Can We Stop Daylight Saving Time Already?

PhoneBoy — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 07:42:03 +0000

I have never understood why one needs to change the clock twice a year to “save daylight.” You have the same amount of daylight, you’re just timeshifting it. You’re not saving it.

I was lucky enough to live in Hawaii for a few years. One of the benefits of living there, besides the fact my allergies were a non-issue, was that there was no Daylight Saving Time. I didn’t have to change the clocks twice a year. Time just was.

And that’s the way it should be. Especially since we can’t agree on when to do it. Since I’ve been alive, the Daylight Saving rules have changed twice, and yes I was old enough to be conscious of both changes

Different countries have different rules, of course. Some sensible countries like Japan and China don’t bother with this Daylight Saving rubbish. Let’s just enact permanent Daylight Saving Time and get on with it!

Advertisement: Emergency Cell Phones

Comments

3 November 2008, cribbagegeek writes: I disagree - the LAST thing I want to see is permanent DST. I want them to leave well enough alone and do away with DST and leave us on NORMAL TIME!!! DST is just wrong.

Responsible Participation in Social Media

PhoneBoy — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 09:14:20 +0000

Charlie Schick over on the Nokia Conversations blog discusses a topic that comes up often as companies try to wrestle with the new world order created by blogs, wikis, Twitter, Facebook, and the lot: how to promote your brand in these mediums without harming the brand in the process. There’s a fine line there for sure. Too much and you’re a spammer. Too little and it’s ineffective.

To be perfectly clear, I also work at Nokia, and I am proud to work there. It’s certainly not in my job description to promote Nokia–after all, I’m a techie, not a marketing/PR guy–but I feel it’s every employee’s responsibility to promote their employer in an appropriate manner.

I certainly promote Nokia’s products and services I use and believe in. I will raise points about our products and services that might have been missed in the discussions. I’m usually clear about where I work, though it’s not like I hide who I am, either. Five minutes on Google will clear things up if there’s any doubt.

While I may be helping to build the Nokia brand in some small way, I am also building my own brand as well. If all I do is say how wondeful Nokia’s products are, then my own brand is tarnished and my words will carry less weight in the social networks, ultimately damaging Nokia’s brand as well. This means I’m not going to go out of my way to post good comments about Nokia everywhere, nor am I going to post as anyone but myself. I’m also not going to ignore the fact the Nokia N96 has some software quality issues and that Nokia Maps is a FAIL experience for me.

At the end of the day, the conversation about Nokia–and just about every other company out there–is going on right now. If you’re going to participate in the conversation, you can’t attempt to dominate it. Each participant–vendor or otherwise–must be on equal footing. Put the facts out there, but be honest about who you are and what your stake is in it all. It’s the responsile thing to do.

Advertisement: Cell Phone Batteries

Comments

30 October 2008, Ray Schiel writes: This article reminds me of what Andy Sernovitz (The Blog Council) was discussing at Blogwell /San Jose this past Tuesday regarding "disclosure" and "transparency and openness". The council's best practices toolkit can be found here. http://blogcouncil.org/disclosure/

Former VON Stars Team Up With TMC On 4G Conference

PhoneBoy — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 08:49:54 +0000

One of the things that was a shame about the implosion of Pulvermedia earlier in the year was many, many talented folks were suddenly out of a job. Of course, with the down economy, a lot of people are either in that boat or soon will be.

However, it’s nice to hear, according to Andy Abramson, that Carl Ford and Scott Kargman, two of the biggest names involved in the old VON conferences outside of Jeff Pulver himself, are teaming up with TMC’s Rich Tehrani to produce the 4G Wireless Evolution Website and a conference in Miami next February.

I probably won’t be able to go to this event, but I bet it will be a smashing success!

Comments

31 October 2008, Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com writes: [...] he manage to weave Star Trek into everything?) Alec SaundersGreg GalitzinePaul KapustkaVoIP BuzzPhoneBoyIMHO Conferences & ConsultingB2bVoIP Thank you to all the bloggers who took the time to [...]

Codeweavers: Give It Away Today

PhoneBoy — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 08:49:36 +0000

If you’re a Mac or Linux person and you want to run Windows apps without a Windows license, then the folks at Codeweavers have a deal for you. Today–and today only–until midnight GMT-5, you can get your own, fully functional copy of Codeweavers Crossover Linux or Mac for free.

Why are they doing this? It was a publicity stunt. The folks at Codeweavers challenged George Bush to do something to improve our lot in his last months of his presidency. Whether he was ultimately responsible for gas prices plummeting a buck over the past month or not is irrelevant, but the folks at Codeweavers saw that one of their goals was meant and they are keeping to their word.

The Codeweavers Crossover product is a commercial version of Wine, which is an open-source project that allows Windows executables to run on non-Windows systems. It’s not perfect, since it is a cleanroom implementation of the Windows API and they haven’t got bug-for-bug compatibility yet. However, it does run some specific applications like Microsoft Office reasonably well. It also runs Internet Explorer, which is useful in and of itself.

The main thing you get with Crossover is a much nicer installation process for Windows applications. It knows about the most common applications and is able to configure itself for an optimal installation. It makes the application installation process a bit easier.

The other amazing part about about this is that you also get a year of support with this freebie. This entitles you to technical support as well as a year of updates on the product. Quite righteous!

Bloggers: Apply Critical Thinking Skills

PhoneBoy — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 07:01:27 +0000

Back in May, I wanted to write about Hop-On and their $10 mobile phone. However, one of my blogmates on the blog I was writing on at the time beat me to the punch. Good thing, as it appears this handset may not really exist.

Pat Phelan has been trying to connect with Hop-On for over a year to, presumably, get signed up to distribute the thing. Pat Phelan claims that both phone numbers were disconnected and emails to them go unanswered. While I did get a PBX that answered the phone (sorry, Pat), I have no reason to test their email system out.

Pat Phelan called out a number of bloggers that wrote about Hop-On basically regurgitating their press release without doing any investigation. While I can’t claim I’ve never done that before, in this case, all one has to do is apply a bit of critical thinking skills.

While I currently work for the largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world, I don’t do a whole lot with phones. However, I’ve done some research on what it costs to make mobile phones–just in terms of raw materials. Based on the confidential information I’ve come cross, I would call into question the ability for Hop-On–or any company–to make a phone that sells for $10 and makes a profit without some kind of subsidy.

Most bloggers don’t have access to that kind of information. Instead, let’s just look at a comparable product, say an extra handset for your wireless phone system in your house. For all intents and purposes, they use similar materials: plastic casing, a speaker, a microphone, a battery, some kind of PC board and electronics to drive it, and some kind of radio. Some kind of LCD screen is optional. Retail price: while it varies based on a number of factors, these handsets can be had for as little as $25, though it is generally more.

The two functional differences between a handset for your home phone and a mobile phone handset are: the size–mobile phones are usually smaller–and the radio used. My horse sense tells me that the cost differential of the radio is probably negligable, but making a phone smaller does increase the cost.

And then, of course, there is the small issue of manufacturing enough of them that the cost of production is low. Nokia has cranked out 200 million of the Nokia 1100 series phones, and the price has not come anywhere near $10–except when it is subsidized by Tracfone and similar carriers.

No matter how I look at this, something just doesn’t add up. While I’m not exactly calling Hop-On a bunch of shysters trying to sell me a bridge, I am highly skeptical of their claims that they are able to make a $10 phone. All we’ve seen from this company are press releases. I don’t think any actual product has shipped.

But of course, Hop-On isn’t the point of this story. The point is: far too many bloggers don’t do their homework. They simply take statements–or press releases–at face value without thinking it through. And no matter how I approach this Hop-On thing, I just can’t help but think something doesn’t add up.

Now, if the Hop-On folks want to prove me (or Pat Phelan) wrong, by all means, do it. We’ll be the first to admit we were wrong. What about the rest of you bloggers out there?

Comments

27 October 2008, Hop-On Claims To Have $10 Mobile Phone at Joy of Gadgets writes: [...] The phone is available in both European (GSM 900/1800) and Americas (GSM 850/1900) dual-band configurations. As the graphic says, the price is $10. To whom, though? And is this price even realistic? I don’t think so. [...]
27 October 2008, Pat Phelan writes: Nice post Dameon Seriously I would absolutely love to be proved wrong, I think this is pure vaporware designed to jump the stock price and bloggers not doing their homework is plain wrong, I have learned a lesson here myself as well, I will never again post a candy press release without testing. If you look at link above me, the last word is the post is the part where the blogger calls the bluff, its just pure sloppiness. A basic candy phone has a minimum cost including packaging of somewhere around $30, I have my sources also, this would be for a minimum 100k order, this is definitely only workable at carrier level with subsidies as you point out.

Still Digging Out The Inbox

PhoneBoy — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 07:23:08 +0000

Here we go again:

Global IP Solutions Launches VideoEngine™ Mobile: This will, in theory, make it easier to provide high-quality video calling from mobile phones. This launched for Windows Mobile on 13 October and is coming soon for other platforms. Me, I’d just like the ability to do any video calling on a mobile phone. That’s what I get for living in North America.

SnapYap Offers Flash-Based Video Calling: Seems like another competitor for SightSpeed that doesn’t require you to install software. Unfortnately, the video quality is NOT SightSpeed, but if you want to give it a try anyway, you can “call” me or leave a message on: http://www.snapyap.com/call/phoneboy

TringMe Now Offering VoiceXML: In addition to offering a Flash widget to make click-to-call possible from our website, they also now offer developers the ability to script an application with VoiceXML. So where’s the business model?

The Academy Relaunches Website: Several current and former Nokia colleagues are involved in a project called The Academy where a number of videos are posted related to configuring security appliactions. The website has been relaunched and it’s shaping up to be a great resource for the security geeks out there. Now, where’s some videos on Sourcefire, Peter?

Fring Working With moblikom Austria: The PR speak: Fring and moblikom Austria announced on October 21st the launch of a bespoke version of fring’s mobile internet communication (MVoIP) and community service, that in addition to the full the fring feature-set is also enabling mobilkom Austria to provide their users a mobile internet community, packed with Intenret experiences with mVoIP, Chat, presence and more. Good for them, hope Fring gets some revenue out of it, because I don’t see their business model otherwise.

Relaunch of S60 Blogs

PhoneBoy — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 01:33:45 +0000

The folks behind the S60 blogs have done a couple of sensible things: moved off of Movable Type and collapsed the various blogs into two: a developer blog called S60 Developer and a consumer blog called S60 Living. While this means my old blog The Convergence Zone is no more, I am an author on S60 Living and will, when time permits and while I am still a Nokia employee, write about Nokia/S60 things there.

Advertisement: Emergency Cell Phones

The PhoneBoy Blog

Jeff Pulver Is Starting Another Revolution: SocComm

Related Posts

Boingo Taking Over WiFi on Washington State Ferries

Comments

Related Posts

At Least Get The Name Right

OnSIP and Fring: Smart PR

Comments

Related Posts

CTIA Against Spectrum Caps, Against Competition

Comments

Related Posts

They’re Doing WHAT To The Electric Company?

Related Posts

Nokia Friend View: I Think We’ve Got A Winner

Related Posts

Is The Thrill Gone?

Comments

Related Posts

Can We Stop Daylight Saving Time Already?

Comments

Related Posts

Responsible Participation in Social Media

Comments

Related Posts

Former VON Stars Team Up With TMC On 4G Conference

Comments

Related Posts

Codeweavers: Give It Away Today

Related Posts

Bloggers: Apply Critical Thinking Skills

Comments

Related Posts

Still Digging Out The Inbox

Related Posts

Relaunch of S60 Blogs

Related Posts

The PhoneBoy Blog

Jeff Pulver Is Starting Another Revolution: SocComm

Related Posts

Boingo Taking Over WiFi on Washington State Ferries

Comments

Related Posts

At Least Get The Name Right

OnSIP and Fring: Smart PR

Comments

Related Posts

CTIA Against Spectrum Caps, Against Competition

Comments

Related Posts

They’re Doing WHAT To The Electric Company?

Related articles by Zemanta

Related Posts

Nokia Friend View: I Think We’ve Got A Winner

Related Posts

Is The Thrill Gone?

Comments

Related Posts

Can We Stop Daylight Saving Time Already?

Comments

Related Posts

Responsible Participation in Social Media

Comments

Related Posts

Former VON Stars Team Up With TMC On 4G Conference

Comments

Related Posts

Codeweavers: Give It Away Today

Related Posts

Bloggers: Apply Critical Thinking Skills

Comments

Related Posts

Still Digging Out The Inbox

Related Posts

Relaunch of S60 Blogs

Related Posts