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The Saudi and UAE BlackBerry ban goes to the heart of how the mobile phone market has evolved.
The decision of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to ban BlackBerry email, messenger and web browsing services goes to the heart of the way in which the handheld devices operate – itself a consequence of the way that the mobile market has developed.

When the first BlackBerry appeared, over a decade ago, mobile phone networks were far more basic than they are today. The most innovative service the majority of users had seen since mobile devices first appeared in the 1980s was the introduction of text messaging.

In the US, many mobile users were still making calls on analogue networks, while in Europe the new digital operators were only just introducing data services.

But the sorts of speeds possible over networks such as Orange and Cellnet in the UK were pitiful. Speeds of 9.6Kb per second – less than 1% of the average speed available in the UK today– meant the networks had to resort to offering a pared-down version of the internet using WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) technology.

Using a mobile phone to receive email, let alone access the “real” internet was almost unheard of.

By the mid-1990s, Canada’s Research In Motion (RIM) was already working with partners on a messaging device that would work on a new wireless data network, which its owners hoped would be rolled out across Europe and the US.

As a result, RIM switched to working with the existing mobile phone companies, but to squeeze emails across their networks meant using compression technology.

RIM also needed to be able to persuade jittery corporate IT departments their emails would be safe, which required encryption technology.

To create such a lean and secure service required an end-to-end solution, with both the device, the BlackBerry, and the server hosting the user’s email being able to understand each other. However, RIM wanted to be able to offer its devices on any mobile phone network.

As a result, it created the Network Operations Centre (NOC), which seems to have created such a headache in the Gulf.

Every mobile phone operator that wants to offer BlackBerry devices has to have a connection to a Noc: – there is one based in Canada to cover the Americas and one covering Europe and Asia. A company that wants to offer BlackBerrys to its employees, meanwhile, has to install software within its own IT systems that can communicate with the Noc.

When a user’s inbox receives a new email, that software securely communicates with the Noc, which then connects securely to the BlackBerry over a mobile phone network to deliver the email. It uses compression technology to make sure the email can be squeezed over even the most congested network.

Numerous research reports over the past year have suggested that BlackBerrys are at least five times more efficient at email and attachment viewing than any other platform.

RIM has since opened its network up to consumer email services such as Gmail and Hotmail, which together with the introduction of a range of stylish devices aimed at the consumer market has created a boom in usage of BlackBerry phones among teenagers.

Opening up the RIM network to the web has also allowed internet browsing, which is also faster on a BlackBerry than other devices. They are three times more efficient than other carriers, according to a recent research.

But there is another side-effect to the way that RIM’s network architecture is configured and it has been seized upon by cash-strapped teenagers: BlackBerry Messenger.

Because RIM knows every BlackBerry device in use, regardless of which network it is on, and they are all directly connected to its Nocs, BlackBerry users who have devices with the right software can communicate with each other without incurring the network interconnection and roaming charges associated with text messages.

Text messages and telephone calls, meanwhile, are routed solely over a mobile phone network, so neither will be affected by the UAE’s decision. That also explains why when there is a problem with RIM’s network – which has happened in the past – BlackBerry users can still make calls.

When the first BlackBerry appeared in the late 1990s it was effectively a two way pager.

BlackBerrys have fallen foul of two Gulf states after Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have announced bans on some functions of the mobile phone amid national security claims.
Users of the BlackBerry in the UAE, which is owned by Research in Motion (RIM), will be barred from accessing email, web browsing and instant messaging from October this year.

The move, expected to affect half a million users, comes after the government last week said certain BlackBerry applications allowed people to “misuse” the service.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia said it would bar the use of the BlackBerry instant messaging service. Both countries are understood to be concerned that they are unable to keep tabs on instant messaging.

The UAE’s regulator complained BlackBerry users’ data, which is automatically sent to overseas servers, was “managed by a foreign, commercial organisation”.

The current set-up allows users to behave “without any legal accountability, causing judicial, social and national security concerns”, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority said.

Activists said the reality was that the BlackBerry system made it more difficult for conservative countries, which actively censors websites, to monitor what users were saying. Reporters Without Borders has accused the UAE government as viewing BlackBerry services, “especially its instant messaging, as an obstacle to its goal of reinforcing censorship”.

Abdulrahman Mazi, a board member of state-controlled Saudi Telecom, said the ban was intended to encouraged RIM to release data from users’ communications “when needed”.

UK mobile phone buyers are not being given sufficient information about how to cancel contracts if they encounter coverage problems.
In secret shopper tests, the Communications Consumer Panel found that over half of shoppers were given inaccurate information.

It also found that some firms allow cancellations due to coverage issues while others do not. The panel called on mobile firms to offer consistent guidelines.

Panel chair Anna Bradley said that consumers must be given simple and accurate information before locking themselves into contracts that they might not be able to leave for up to two years.

The time limit allowed by mobile firms for cancelling contracts currently varies dramatically, the study found.

Most, with the exception of Orange, allowed customers some period of grace.

Virgin Mobile gives customers 28 days to cancel, compared to 14 days for 02 and Tesco Mobile, and 7 days for Vodafone and T-Mobile.

3 came out best in the survey. It has no time limit on cancellations due to coverage issues and only 4% of shoppers were given inaccurate information.

“Whilst we are significantly expanding our network, we accept the fact that no mobile operator can have total blanket coverage, which is why we have this policy in place,” said a 3 spokesman.

Orange, on the other hand, does not allow users to cancel contracts because of poor coverage.

“When a customer purchases a handset and then returns it to us, the handset becomes second hand. As such we are not able to offer a formal money back guarantee.

However we are aware that sometimes issues do arise, which is why a reasonable and flexible approach is applied. If a customer is deeply unhappy with their purchase from a store we will will always consider their issue on a case by case basis,” said a spokesperson for Orange.

The study found that stores themselves seemed unsure of the policies of individual mobile firms.

Carphone Warehouse wrongly told people that T-Mobile had no cancellation policy for coverage issues, while Phones 4U said that Orange did allow cancellations when it does not.

There are now more than five billion connections worldwide which means there are more than three times as many phones as personal computers.
More than a billion mobile phone connections have been added to the global tally in just 18 months, according to Wireless Intelligence.

In many regions, penetration exceeds 100%, where there is more than one connection per person in the country.

The four billion connections mark was surpassed at the end of 2008, and analysts at Wireless Intelligence predict six billion connections worldwide by the middle of 2012.

The Asia-Pacific region including India and China is the main source of growth, accounting for 47% of of global mobile connections at the end of June 2010, according to the firm.

“This device has become part of the fabric of society, whether a teenage girl taking a Blackberry to bed with her, or a farmer in an African village trying to find out the latest crop prices.”

He added that more than 10 billion phones have been sold worldwide since 1994, with market giant Nokia selling 3.4 billion alone.

“This means that there are 5 billion phones sitting in people’s bottom drawers somewhere,” he said.

In western Europe, mobile phone penetration has reached 130%, which Mr Wood attributed in part to mobile phone operators including in their statistics connections that have been dormant for many months.

“But often people have more than one phone, a home phone and a work phone,” he said.

“The growth of connected devices will also drive this phenomenon, a laptop with a USB dongle, the Apple iPad, and so on.

In rapidly developing eastern Europe, overall penetration is not far behind western Europe, at 123%, according to Wireless Intelligence.

Apple says a fault on its new iPhone 4 is causing it to incorrectly display the phone’s signal- which itself is meeting criticism.
Users who gripped the phone – which went on sale on 24 June – on the lower left-hand side noticed the signal strength and reception fell away.

Apple says the problem relates to an error on how the signal bars are displayed, rather than the signal.

However, some industry experts say that there may be a deeper signal problem than a cosmetic design flaw.

Apple is promising a patch fix “within a few weeks”. Users may also choose to get a full refund within 30 days of purchase, the firm has said.

The theory now is that, once the patch update has been applied, iPhone’s bars will report signal strength “far more accurately” providing users a better indication of the reception in a given area.

“HTC makes metal phones, but they seem to work just fine. Changing the display may make some people feel better, but it doesn’t really fix the problem,” he added.

Apple said the new software to fix this would be released in a few weeks, claiming that as the problem also existed in the original iPhone, it would also be available for the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G.

However, there have been few – if any – complaints about older iPhones losing signal strength when held in a certain way.

Apple’s previous advice for iPhone 4 owners to overcome the problem of the device losing signal was to not place your hand on the lower left corner.

This latest approach is an unusual admission from the company, which has apologised for “any anxiety we may have caused”.

Many new owners reported that signal strength dropped when the phone was held. The casing of Apple’s latest phone is made of stainless steel, and also serves as its antenna.

The problem is thought to be particularly acute for left-handed owners who naturally touch the phone in the sensitive area.

The spate of suicides at the factory making iPhones and iPads moved closer towards epidemic levels yesterday as a 23 year old man became the tenth worker to leap to his death at the same Foxconn plant.
Psychologists and experts in suicide have begun to talk openly of “mass hysteria” among the 350,000 mostly migrant workers at the vast factory in Shenzhen, which makes digital equipment such as iPods, mobile phones and laptop PCs.

The fatalities come amid mounting condemnation of working conditions at the Taiwanese-owned plant in southern China and the decision of several of the company’s biggest clients — Apple, Dell and Hewlett Packard — to investigate how their products are being manufactured.

The latest victim, like the nine other young employees who have committed suicide at the plant since January, leapt from the seventh floor of his dormitory.

The company has made hastily contrived efforts to improve conditions for its workers, the majority of whom stand in the same position for 12-hour shifts and receive the equivalent of about £90 each month in salary. Those measures include the use of “soothing” music on the factory floor, the recruitment of hundreds of dance instructors and the establishment of a suicide hotline.

The plant’s astonishing productivity levels have attracted global clients such as Samsung, IBM and Sony, but labour activists have long alleged that the famous efficiency comes at too high a cost.

The attention given to Foxconn suicides relates less to the actual numbers and more to the apparent pace at which they have risen and that the victims have taken their lives in the same “copycat” way. If the suicide rate at the Foxconn factory matched the Chinese national average (which they do not because most Chinese suicides happen in the country), the sheer size of the 300,000 workforce there would imply around 45 deaths per year.

The steep rate of increase in Foxconn suicides over recent weeks, though, has challenged the business model on which China’s manufacturing industry has grown. The company’s plant in Shenzhen is a city-sized complex set up with the sole purpose of feeding the global appetite for cheap technology.

Speculation that big brands might take their business away from Foxconn to protect their image are unrealistic, said one Tokyo-based electronics analyst. He said that consumers were no longer prepared to pay the sort of money it would cost to build computers, digital cameras and iPods without the productivity of companies such as Foxconn.

The BBC is to link with Facebook and Twitter when it launches a new version of its television service iPlayer.The corporation is trying to strike a more conciliatory tone over its digital expansion plans after coming under fire from commercial rivals, which accuse it of attempting to colonise the web.

The BBC is proposing to close or merge half of its sites by 2012 and cut its £135m online budget by 25%. But the launch of a range of iPhone applications has been held up by the BBC Trust after the complaints.

The iPlayer remains central to the BBC’s digital push, however. There were 118m viewer and listener requests to the service in March, including 84m to watch television programmes.

The new version will let users share what they are watching with Facebook friends or comment via Twitter.

Last week Project Canvas, a BBC-led plan to bring internet television to the masses, avoided an Office of Fair Trading investigation despite being attacked by BSkyB and Virgin Media.

By combining Freeview with a broadband connection, catch-up services such as iPlayer and ITV Player will be more widely available on television sets.

Adobe has launched another salvo at Apple over mobile video standards.

The co-founders of Adobe have published an open letter in which they say that Apple threatens to “undermine the next chapter of the web”.

The software firm has also started an adverting blitz in newspapers and on popular technology news sites. Some of the online adverts contain the tongue-in-cheek slogan “We heart Apple”. It follows a letter from Apple boss Steve Jobs in which he defended his firm’s decision not to allow Adobe’s Flash technology on many of its popular products.

Mr Jobs described Adobe’s software – used on many websites for video and animations – as a “closed system” and “100% proprietary”.

Whilst Mr Jobs admitted that Apple also had “many proprietary products”, he said that Apple believed “all standards pertaining to the web should be open”.

Amongst other criticisms, he also said Flash performed poorly when used on touchscreen smartphones and handheld devices.

Adobe co-founders Chuck Geschke and John Warnock have now hit back.

“We believe that consumers should be able to freely access their favorite content and applications, regardless of what computer they have, what browser they like, or what device suits their needs,” the letter reads.

“No company – no matter how big or how creative – should dictate what you can create, how you create it, or what you can experience on the web.”
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Adobe’s campaign is the latest move in a high-profile war of words between the two companies, which began with Apple’s decision not to allow Flash technology to run on some of its popular gadgets such as the iPhone and iPad.
Adobe advert The adverts contain tongue-in-cheek messages

But Flash is commonly used to build smartphone apps. As a result, developers commonly used automatic translation tools – some built by Adobe – to convert Flash code to run on Apple gadgets.

These allowed developers to make applications once and then distribute them for use on various phones and operating systems, including Apple’s iPhone.

But in April, Apple changed the terms and conditions of the licence that software developers must sign, banning them from using these tools.

Mr Jobs justified the decision in his letter by saying that experience had shown that the tools resulted in “sub-standard apps”.

The change effectively forced developers to build two separate applications – one for Apple products and one for everything else.

“As the founders of Adobe, we believe open markets are in the best interest of developers, content owners, and consumers.”

“If the web fragments into closed systems, if companies put content and applications behind walls, some indeed may thrive – but their success will come at the expense of the very creativity and innovation that has made the internet a revolutionary force.

The company claims that its software- and particularly Flash – is open.

“We publish the specifications for Flash — meaning anyone can make their own Flash player,” it reads.

“We believe that Apple, by taking the opposite approach, has taken a step that could undermine this next chapter of the web – the chapter in which mobile devices outnumber computers, any individual can be a publisher, and content is accessed anywhere and at any time.

“In the end, we believe the question is really this: Who controls the world wide web? And we believe the answer is: nobody — and everybody, but certainly not a single company.”

In response to the letter, an Apple spokesperson said that the firm also believes in “open web standards” such as HTML5, the latest version of a programming language used to build web pages.

“Flash is not an open web standard like HTML. It is a proprietary Adobe product. Just ask the W3 consortium that controls web standards – they have chosen HTML5 as the open web standard to move forward with.”

Adobe’s letter has been published on its website as part of a global advertising campaign.

The adverts list a series of technologies that Adobe says it “loves”.

It ends: “What we don’t love is anybody taking away your freedom to choose what you create, how you create it, and what you experience on the web.”

The adverts have been bought in the New York Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle as well as the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal. Online, they appear on Wired, Techcrunch and Engadget.

It is a mistake to only focus on the location awareness aspect of mobile as its potential goes much deeper.

Mobile is a very personal device, the PC will often be shared but the mobile phone tends to enjoy a personal and monogamous relationship. It tends to be kept in close proximity at all times. A PC is turned on when needed a mobile phone is typically permanently on.

Whilst the web was about users surfing between brands, mobile offers the opportunity for a tighter, more valuable, relationship.

Search is replaced by one-off selection in an App Store. Organisations can now reach users at their point of need, pushing information outwards, and delivering services that are valuable at that precise time.

But the digital industry appears divided. Some argue that providing a web application tuned for mobile, accessible across many different handsets, is the most efficient and manageable solution. That is correct, it is, for the organisation.

Others understand that the future of mobile web is likely to lie in custom applications that the user chooses to download (thus removing future attention going to your competitors) and, crucially, fits in with the user experience of the handset.

A prerequisite to engaging the mobile consumer, is to provide an experience that is useful to them in their given context and fully meets their expectations in terms of usability.

The key to mobile engagement is to satisfy their needs immediately- by focusing on delivering utility and making life a little easier, better or more enjoyable.

Today we do see some blunt, early attempts at using geo-awareness. Websites and applications that try to combine the popularity of social media with the rudimentary functionality of recording where a user is, through the user checking in. Some, offer the potential for issuing reward vouchers based on location and other criteria.

Perhaps an interesting starting point, but hard to see how such applications really add value to the end user beyond a passing novelty. From an organisation’s perspective there is an intermediate brand now involved in the communication. This is undesirable and largely unnecessary.

So what could be done and what kind of applications really would drive deeper consumer engagement?

A typical application for a restaurant, today, will probably offer the ability to reserve a table combined with a location map and some generic content about the brand. But this does not really drive significant user interaction or show any thought for the end to end process.

Before arriving I would of course want to be able to book a table. But I also want turn by turn navigation to help me find the venue, or better somewhere to park. If I am delayed I would like the restaurant to know, automatically, so they can hold my table.

Once I have arrived at the restaurant I want the same application to become my menu, complete with specials for the specific restaurant that I am in, recommendations from my friends and actually, why not just let me order through it when I am ready?

Perhaps I would like to see what other dinners thought to the different menu choices in real time.

I want all of this through just one application.

That application now goes with me everywhere, and can receive notifications. This opens up a range of new ways for the relationship to develop, which may easily extend to beyond a place I just go to eat at occasionally.

Boarding the train of the future I anticipate my complimentary newspapers to be available online whilst I am on the train (yes they can pay for the subscription as part of my season ticket benefit). Before I board the train I would like to pay for my parking with a single press of one button. Payment can be taken via my pre-registered credit card.

The phone already knows where I am and when I return, so I can just pay for the time I use. Of course the same ‘train’ application is my season ticket, ad-hoc travel ticket, travel information and electronic concierge. One application extends and redefines my relationship with what was once just the train carrier.

Before I even arrive at the train station there are other new relationship opportunities. I may need fuel, a fact that surrounding service stations may find interesting.

The day of a real time reverse auction at individual consumer level is not far away. I would like my travel application to inform me of the best price that it has agreed for me.

Who provides the application? The manufacturer of my car, the petrol company, my mobile phone provider? The answer is who ever wants to own an ongoing relationship with me around supporting my travel. A very different, but viable, model that requires us to think differently about what engaging the consumer through mobile really means.

There are countless other examples; when the consumer is at home, at work, in a shopping centre, playing golf even! It is also important to remember that consumers maintain relationships with local authorities and other public services.

Mobile engagement provides opportunity for the public sector to improve efficiency.

The technology and the consumer are ready and waiting, how will your organisation engage them?

From: http://www.mycustomer.com/topic/customer-experience/engaging-mobile-consumer/107563?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mycustomer%2Fall+%28MyCustomer.com%29

Communicating with mobile consumers needs fresh thinking and new strategies- thus businesses need to appreciate why the mobile platform is different.

The mobile internet, and associated m-commerce, has been around for over 10 years.

Technologists have been trying to persuade consumers that internet on the move is real for many years. Do you remember WAP?

But despite the best efforts of marketers the consumer remained unconvinced. They spotted that using the internet (let alone websites) on their mobile phones was an even more painful experience than the internet that seldom answered their needs.

But things are different now. The mobile “phone” has become the convergent box of technology and the computing choice of the masses.

The internet is established in people’s lives. They have become dependent on it and expectant of the services it provides. It is a trusted source of news and a conduit for communicating personally and professionally in increasingly novel ways. Consumers use the internet without giving it, or the technology, a second thought.

Technology has moved on. A device that was once just used for making telephone calls is now perceived as something quite different. Bigger, colourful touch screens, keyboards, and faster connections has resulted in a plethora of new applications that feed the consumers craving for simpler ways to enhance their lives.

In return, consumers share ever increasing amounts of information with organisations and enter into new types of relationships with them.

Whilst consumers are keen for innovation and creative ideas, many brands and organisations seem slow to respond. Trying to repurpose websites and using outdated marketing techniques is insufficient. Organisations need to realise that mobile is different, the user is in a different context and web-like experiences simply won’t do.

For why- and what to do- please see Dr Search’s next post.