Category: Uncategorized

Recently, there's been an article in "Der Spiegel" (in German) on the, what I would call, "electronic revolution" in the German parliament. Since tablet computers have been allowed for use during parliamentary sessions, the article says that at least half of of the parliamentarians have gotten themselves an iPad.

And who could blame them as the devices are undoubtedly useful and they get them for free anyway as they get reimbursed (see the article). The other reasons for the sudden popularity of tables could also be the fact that other forms of electronic computing, i.e. anything with a physical keyboard is still banned. In other words, no notebooks and netbooks (see another article here). At first I wondered why such a discrimination was imposed but I assume it has been done to keep the noise level to a minimum that might increase if people en masse started to type on their netbooks. Ah well, you can't have it all I guess.

In my opinion, the good thing coming from this is that parliamentarians are now integrating computing, wireless Internet access and the Internet in general more in their daily life than before. And that's very positive as the laws they make having to do with the Internet, data privacy, etc. will impact them more than before as well. So they just might think a bit more before giving their vote.

Recently I was quite positively surprised when I noticed that the apps I bought in the Ovi store are not locked to a certain device but are part of my account in the Ovi store. In other words, when I changed my device I could install the apps again free of charge on my new device. That's good to know since I tend to change devices quite often so I'm quite happy that my apps will follow me to a new device. Makes a lot of sense from a user point of view!

How about the behavior of other app stores, do they allow to do the same?

These days I have to rub my eyes when reading just about any wireless news tidbits from the US. In almost every report the acronym "4G" is used for just about everything that is faster than a crawling few kbit/s. 4G is HSPA, 4G is LTE, 4G is this, 4G is that. Well, 4G isn't any of it. And quite frankly I am a bit tired and nerved because just like "open" and "free" it has lost any meaning in the mobile world. Another word or acronym misused to death. And actually I am just waiting for a marketing department pushing the line that a 4G phone that has to have 2 radios active simultaneously for voice and Internet is better than a HSPA device that can do the same over the same radio.

So hey, since everyone uses the "G" for whatever he likes, how about calling well built networks (not particularly in the country in which networks are called 4G…) that have the capacity to serve their subscribers with true broadband speeds in the 10 MBit/s range or more 5G? Hm, doesn't sound sophisticated enough for me, so I'll call them 6G networks. Yes, my frustration shows 🙂

In other words, I'm really tired of the "G" debate… Theoretical maximum speeds and "G's" are perhaps good for catchy marketing slogans but it's meaningless in practice. Instead, access ubiquity and capacity are what counts in a world where connected devices are becoming the norm rather than the exception.

When I recently roamed through a big department store I noticed two things: As in many big and concrete buildings, 2G and 3G network coverage is rather weak, especially on the lower floors. And secondly, many of the employees are running around with very fashionable DECT phones, designed in the 1980's. At some point I guess the DECT system has to be replaced, something that is likely to cost a significant amount of money. So once that comes around, why not partnering with a mobile network operator to put in a dedicated 2G/3G coverage for customers and employees and rather spend the money on this than a new DECT system?

I've seen network operators who even support short codes among users of the same "virtual company" and I could even imagine that such a service could be added to an already existing private subscription of department store employees. And, with dedicated network coverage in the department store, it's easy to guess which network operator employees would go to over time, perhaps including some of their family if you offer good family calling plans. To me, that looks like a win-win-win situation. And on top, management could even boost about outsourcing the telephone system, because, really, that's not the core business of a department store, is it…

A bit of a reflectional note today. It's currently winter season in the Northern hemisphere and while I do see daylight every now and then it's mostly indoors while I work. When I have time for taking pictures and posting some of them on Flickr, the sun has usually long gone down. So when I recently looked at my Flickr stream (see on the right) I noticed that there are many pictures taken at night and I couldn't really remember that I've done that much in the past. But perhaps there's an easy answer for that. My N8-00's camera takes great shots even at night so it's finally worth taking pictures in such conditions. Yes, camera-only devices could do that, too but I stopped years ago taking an additional camera on my travels unless there's a specific reason to do so. I am glad that when I had to choose between the N8 and the C7 with a less capable camera, I went for the N8. Kind of opens a new picture universe for me [ – end of advertisement section 🙂 – ] And now over to Southern California for higher temperatures and hopefully a bit more sunlight for a couple of days.

Many many years ago, Bluetooh version 2.1 updated its security scheme to something referred to as "Secure Simple Pairing". Not only was the process made more secure but also a bit more user friendly. Recently, I have started seeing devices using the Numeric Comparison protocol for pairing (e.g. the Nokia N8 and also a recent Samsung phone) where it's no longer necessary to enter a PIN but just to verify that the same number is displayed on both devices. Very neat!

Lately I had some issues with the Internet connectivity being a bit slow and while working the issue I discovered an unrelated but also interesting thing: When using Firefox and other applications on Ubuntu (10.04 in my case) the DNS resolver always queries for an IPv6 address for a domain name first (AAAA record). Only once a (negative) answer gets back to the system does the resolver ask for the IPv4 address (A record). This is strange for two reasons: First, I don't have any network interface on which IPv6 is enabled so even if the resolver returns an IPv6 address, the application couldn't do anything with it. And second, the vast majority of the servers I contact don't have an IPv6 address yet. So why slow me down that much by asking for an IPv6 address in the first place? Why not only ask for it if no IPv4 address is found? A bit of a mystery to me. But here's a simple fix for it in Firefox: Type in about:config in the address bar, search for network.dns.disableIPv6 and set it to true. That at least fixes things for Firefox and saves you a needless DNS query for each domain. Same kludge works for Thunderbird as well.

Back in 2009 I wrote a post on SMS Forwarding and that I'd really like to have this feature to reduce the number of devices I carry with me. I did find an application then that I still use but it runs on the phone that forwards the SMS and not in the network, so not an ideal solution for me.

The issue with SMS forwarding by the network is the way SMS works in cross network and roaming scenarios. Let's say you are subscriber of network A roaming abroad in network B. Now a person who subscribes to network C wants to send you an SMS. The SMS architecture as initially designed would forward the SMS directly from network C to network B, so you're home network operator (A) never sees the SMS and hence can't forward it.

But lately I've become aware of a solution called SMS Home Routing, described in 3GPP TR 23.840 and some further background is given on Wikipedia. Not specifically built for this very purpose it could nevertheless be used by network operators as a basis for offering enhanced SMS services such as SMS forwarding. Very interesting! The TR was written in 2007 so there has been some time now for developments and deployments. From the outside, it's pretty difficult to tell, however, if the solution has found traction in the market.

A cryptic title today but here’s the thought: When looking at the UMTS landscape today, most networks are still 3GPP Release 6, i.e. HSDPA somewhere around 7.2 MBit/s and HSUPA 2 MBit/s. Agreed, there are some early deployments of Release 7 HSPA+ 21 MBit/s HSDPA to be found but these are not yet the norm. In contrast, 3GPP currently works on 3GPP Release 10 and some are already thinking ahead to Release 11. In other words, there’s a gap of 4 release cycles between theory and practice. In number of years, current networks trail the specification by around 5 years as according to the 3GPP website, work on Release 6 was complete in March 2005. So think about that when you hear or read something about features that have been specified lately.

SMS is a pretty resilient service as messages are first stored on a server and then delivery is attempted. When the mobile is switched-off when an SMS is to be delivered, the network is aware of the fact and the message is stored right away. But what about mobiles leaving the coverage area for a while? If they later-on “re-surface” again in the same location area and the periodic location update timer has not yet expired, no communication takes place with the network. So how long does it take in this case before a stored SMS is delivered?

The only way the SMS can be delivered in a timely fashion in such scenarios is that the network periodically retries to deliver the SMS. The periodicity is not standardized so it depends on the network operator how quickly another delivery attempt is made. In the network I used for testing, the retry period must be in the order of around 2-3 minutes when the mobile only leaves the coverage area for a few of minutes. Specifically, I tested “out of coverage times” from 5-12 minutes.

At some point the periodicity is increased. When I put the mobile out of coverage for around 50 minutes, it took about 10 minutes after regaining coverage before the SMS was delivered. Still, a pretty good value in my opinion.