Microsoft drops the Nokia Band name

Seems after having the Nokia phone business for round a year Microsoft has ditched the Nokia name and all that goes with it for their own band name on the smart phones the company makes. This will of course include the windows logo that it believes will help push up sales. Time will see if Microsoft are right or not, but Microsoft is not as highly prised brand as the company thinks it is.

Like most people I owned and have fond memories of the early Nokia phones. They were phones that you could rely on to get a signal and last the test of time. They almost felt indestructible compared to a phone of today. In face the Nokia 3410 was as a common as the Apple iPhones are today, that all the kids have on the school bus in the morning. The difference is that not one 3410 had a designer broken designer screens like a third of the iPhones I see today. it is just a shame that modern phones aren't so tough as those of the past. 

The Nokia name will live on on the entry level phones that Microsoft subsidiary produces, but for how long is anyone's guess at this time. My opinion is that the found memories that the Nokia name s has for many people means that Microsoft have had to let it die a slow death before finally phasing it out and killing off the name altogether. My prediction is that in fives years time the Nokia name will be no more.

What your Phone say about you

While I was doing some reading at the weekend while writing the post about possible new communications surveillance legislation I came across an interesting piece about the information the mobile phone operators keep about you. To be honest I was quite shocked that the list was so extensive and I can now understand why individuals might feel the need to ask these companies delete, at least some of the data they hold on them.

Looking on the Internet you can find information about the different companies privacy policies. As you can imagine they make for generally dull reading; A typical telecommunications provider will keep the following records for a period ranging between six month and two years:

• Phone numbers and/or email addresses of calls, texts MMS, emails and other communications made and received by you and the date, duration, time and cost of such communications. (This includes content)
• Your searching, browsing history (including web sites you visit) and together with times dates and physical location data.
• Internet PC location for broadband, address location for billing, delivery, installation or as provided by individual, fixed line phone location.

Which it is happy to provide to provide third parties where required by law, regulation or legal proceedings. This goes much further than that required under the old European Unions Data Retention Regulations of 2009. It is no wonder that the Court of Justice of the European Union said that keeping data on individuals was unlawful since was a interference with the fundamental rights of individuals to a private life. 

In addition to this it seems that the companies that make the phones are keeping information on us through our use of applications. For example both Apple and Google have been accused of storing information on our location and the time we spend at different locations. Then there are the tracking cookies they put on our phones to deliver us, what they consider, appropriate advertising targeted to our Internet usage. Together with this are other companies applications like Facebook and Twitter doing there bit to collect data on us.

All in all, owning a mobile device or even connecting to he Internet or even just walking down the street takes away your privacy in today's world. Our world is a place where the more and more we are being watched and monitored. It is a chilly thought that Big Brother is with us now, and it is in your pocket.

Surveillance Britain 2014

Today the Conservative led government introduced the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 after just seven days of discussion and debate in Parliament by rushing through the new law using it's emergency powers. Just the whole speed of the process makes you wonder what the Government are really up to that they need to rush through such an important piece of legislation. 

The Government has decided to fast-track the legislation due to concerns that communications service providers, such as fixed line and mobile telephone network operators and internet service providers, would start deleting communications data that they are obliged to retain under the Data Retention Regulations of 2009. This followed a ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union that keeping data on individuals was unlawful and invalid on the basis that it was a disproportionate interference with the fundamental rights of individuals to a private life and to protection of their personal data. Other counties have accepted Court of Justice of the European Union judgement while the UK have taken moves to oppose it.

Basically, communications data can provide a very intimate picture of a  your life – who they communicated with; by what means; the time and length of the communication; where the communication took place; and the frequency of the communications. The Court of Justice of the European Union ruling said: “those data, taken as a whole, may allow very precise conclusions to be drawn concerning the private lives of the persons whose data has been retained, such as the habits of everyday life, permanent or temporary places of residence, daily or other movements, the activities carried out, the social relationships of those persons and the social environments frequented by them”. It is this sort of data the Government wants to fixed line and mobile telephone network operators and internet service providers to keep on us.

The new act requires companies in the UK to keep and provide the authorities the following data upon request for an official body:

• data necessary to trace and identify a source of communication such as user IDs and IP addresses; 
• data necessary to identify the destination of a communication such as the user ID or telephone number of the intended recipient of a call through the internet; 
• data necessary to identify the date, time and duration of a communication, such as the date and time of log-on and log-off from the internet or an email service; 
• data necessary to identify the type of communication, such as the email service provider or internet telephony provider used; 
• data necessary to identify users’ communication equipment, such as the calling telephone number for dial-up internet.

Currently it doesn't allow for content of data to be stored, but this can be requested to be provided in real time if a warrant is issued, much in the same way that allows telephones to be tapped. As we know from past reports in the press this data has also been given to other government bodies, including local governments and not just used by the police and the security agencies.

The new act is meant to maintain the powers the Government had Data Retention Regulations and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, however it goes much further. Under the old regulations and act data could only be requested from companies within the UK. However the new act  will allow the government to request data from companies and service providers outside the boarders of the UK. Those companies that fail to compile with such requests from the UK Government will face civil sanctions or criminal prosecution under the new act, which would result in directors facing up to two years in prison for non-compliance. This change will allow the Government to monitor offshore communications and give them access to data stored on overseas servers, such as Twitter, Facebook and forms of social media and email accounts such as Googlemail etc. 

Like the previous act it would seem any public authority will be able to request data under the new act.  Given the extra powers that have been added to the new act they local authorities will now be able to request access to content on social media sites. Given some of the court cases brought by councils against individuals who disagree with council policies this could be seen as a worrying development that could affect free speech in the UK, since it could be used to bully individuals by sometimes less than trustworthy local politicians or government officials.

Clearly with something as important as this and how it affects our civil liberties and human rights it is imperative that there should be an open public debate on the issue both in the nation and within parliament. However a deal was done between the three major political parties that effectively meant that the whole bill was done and dusted even before it came to parliament to be rushed through, which made a complete shambles of the idea of democracy. Even looking at the debate on the issue on the BBC website about purposed act when it was announced the majority of people seemed against it and the process of rushing it through.

The Governments on MP's are questioning the rush though of the act with Conservative MP for David Davis saying:  “This Act of Parliament was driven through the House of Commons with ridiculous and unnecessary haste to meet a completely artificial emergency. As a result Members of Parliament had no opportunity to either research it, consider it or debate it properly and the aim of this legal action is to make the Government give the House the opportunity to do what it should have been allowed in the first place. Proper, considered and effective law making. The overall aim is to create law which both protects the security of our citizens without unnecessarily invading their privacy.”

Currently there are plans to oppose the introduction with a number of organisations objecting to the way the new act has been introduced. Personally I wish them success in their endeavours and hope that the Act has to be overturned and a proper public can take without the spin doctoring of the Prime Minister and his supporters getting in the way. 

O2 Netwrok Problems Strike Again

May be it is time that O2 considered changing the advertising slogan on the advert below to "It's our O2, See how little you can do", after at least ten percent of the customers faced hours without network coverage again today.

 

In a world where mobile communications is becoming ever more imprtant to people lives to have network problems over and over again is making the company look like the one to avoid, and because the same fault affected GiffGaff and Tesco Mobile they are in the same boat even although it wasn't their fault.

 

How long people will put up with this is anyones guess, but given the poor 3G coverage compared to the other mobile companies in the UK I would guess it won't be for long. Just like Blackberry who lost the trust of it's customers when it network failed the same thing is likely to happen to O2 if things carry on like this. People won't put up with the rubbish network which clearly has a number of short coming and suffers from lack of investment.

 

If I was in charger of the regualtors, or in government, I would be looking at pulling the companies rights to setting up 4G networks until the company got it's act together. I would insist they had 3G coverage that is of the same level as the other companies and set minimum reliablity standards for the company before letting them proceed with upgrading their network to 4G. This would force the company to put in the investment into the inferstructure that should have be put in place years ago, all lead to benefits to all of the customers rather than the select few with 4G handsets.

 

O2 need to get this right and they need to do it now. People won't stand for this for much longer and the regulator need to make sure that they sort out the network problems and network coverage issues. The regulator needs to act on this and show it's got some power to make the failing mobile companies like O2 work for the customers.

Good News from O2

Now for the next good news story, lot's of people on the O2 mobile phone network suffered a blackout when some of the core infrastructure failed leaving users unable to register their phones on the network. It also affected users of Tesco Mobile and GiffGaff which also uses the same network equipment. In total a third of all the networks customers were cut off.

In the press it has been reported that O2 says customers who pay monthly will get back 10% of their July subscription, the equivalent of three days' charges, while Pay-as-you-go customers will get back 10% on their first top-up in September. In addition to this all O2 customers, even those who were not affected, will also be given a £10 voucher to spend in one of its O2 stores. Tesco Mobile and GiffGaff are also offering customers similar compensation schemes although it is not strictly either companies fault. 

Now all O2 need to do is get there 3G coverage network sorted out before they introduce the 4G and make a mess of that. After all nearly everyone has a 3G capable phone while very few have 4G phones. It raises the question of why should the masses suffer while just a few benefit in that investment that should be put into the core 3G network services, before expansion into the new 4G technology.

O2 Network Fails

There I was with a working telephone and then I didn't have a network at all that my phone could connect to. Normally the village indoors is served by just one cell so I went outside to check if I could get any service at all from the other masks in the nearby town. I could see two O2 cells outside the house but none of them wanted anything to do with my phone at all. They did care they were meant to be delivering me a service. 

Then I realised the scale of the problem. There are 23 million people using the O2 network in the UK and despite O2 saying the number or people that are affect ran into thousands it seems that the number is much higher than that. Everyone I know on the network doesn't seem to have a connection to the network despite the fact that the cells themselves are clearly active and working.

It clearly looks like they have a data centre fault, maybe a server or a cluster of servers that hold the details that allow phones to connect to the network are down. Until it is fixed all of us that are suffering from the problem will continue to experience a lack of service. It all reminds me of the Blackberry problem that has resulted in the company losing customers. I just hope that O2 can sort it out quicker than they did.

UPDATE - Network Issues Resolved - 09:00 12th July 2012

It would seem that O2 now have the old 2G network up and running and they are reporting that the 3G network is slowly coming back online. This means that both texts and calls should now be working. It would seem that people might need to reset their phone and any users whose calls haven't returned after that should switching off their 3G until it comes back on line.

UPDATE - 23:00 12th July 2012

It turns out around 7 million people lost their connection to the O2 network probably due to some kind of major software fault that affect the entire network. Overall it took nearly 25 hours to restore the network fully to the customers affected. In reports in the press it has speculated that O2 are concentrating resources on the new G4 networks rather than the existing network and this might be part of the reason for the failure. My opinion is they haven't got the 3G network right so why the hell were they given an licence to run a 4G network.

O2 Network Coverage Shambles

Let me first state that I have had phones on the O2 network in the United Kingdom and found the coverage fine as far as making a simple call goes. Their Tariff's on Pay as you Go are as good as many of the other main players in the market such as Orange, T-Mobile, Vodafone and Three. In fact in fact they better in someways than some, especially when it comes to data.

However it doesn't matter how generous you are with your data allowance if a lot of people can't use it because your G3 network is substandard. That is the problem with O2. Their data network is rubbish in a large part of the UK. Once you get out of the major cities, towns and off the major road and rail network your phone is no faster than a snail. It is no wonder they can give such great data usage deals when a lot of their customers can't use it.

This hasn't gone unnoticed by the regulators that issue the licenses in the UK. They have already complained to O2 because of their poor G3 coverage, The problem is O2 are not making the required progress in correcting the problem in my opinion and because of this they will be losing customers that are dissatisfied with the service they provide in terms of data coverage.

We live in a new world of smart phones that can do so much more than the phones of the past. It is no longer a world where users expect to be able to make a call and receive a text. The word has moved on and O2 is being left behind in the stone age of mobile phones. People all over the country need and deserve a better service than is being provided by this company. As we enter a age of 4G communications it sad to think this company still has so much to achieve in the 3G world.

Hopefully they will manage to sort out this mess. It really is unacceptable that the G3 coverage is so poor in some area's of the country. You can check yours on the O2 coverage checker. I know one thing if I was the regulator I wouldn't allow the O2 to have any G4 licenses without them proving they are going to get their G3 coverage to levels of the other providers first.

Missing Texts

Over the past eighteen months I have been using the Orange Mobile phone network and I must say up unto they merged with T-Mobile I have been really happy with the service they have provided. The pay as you go packages are excellent and I have got some wonderful discounts on a new handset. Now I have all the Children on Orange as well for the same reason.

However or late I have noticed that the network is dropping text messages every so often. Now this could be a phone issue or a network issue. I am not certain but it is starting to become a bit of a concern, especially when important texts are going missing and you can't get the person respond or in any other way, as in the case of some of the recent text messages I have had to send.  It is not just affecting one person but quiet a few of my contacts I have tried to contact by text. The messages seem to get stuck "pending" delivery. I just hope Orange get there finger out and get it sorted soon. They must know about it by now it all over some of the mobile phone discussion forums.