WirelessMoves

A very early morning post today but this one is close to my heart. While sitting in the metro on the way to the airport I read an interview on my Nokia N70 with Viviane Reding, Commissioner for Information Society and Media on her quest to lower wireless carrier roaming charges in the EU. In the interview, the reporter of "Der Spiegel" asked her if the EU is also looking on roaming charges for data as the current tariffs are in no relation to the prices asked for mobile Internet access in the national markets. To my delight, Mrs. Reding said that she is quite aware of this and said that also more and more voices are heard from members of the European parliament who demand that this is looked into as well. At the moment, she said, the matter is with the EU council of ministers and the EU parliament who have to decide if the current investigation on voice roaming is extended to mobile Internet access while roaming as well. A good step in the right direction for international travelers like me who see their prices for wireless Internet access skyrocket as soon as they leave their home country.

Phil over at S60 has written a post on recent software updates of some S60 3rd edition mobiles which reduces the volume of the device and how this affects the listening experience in noisy environments. I don’t have one of those devices but have had the same problems, especially in the metro or the airplane, where even a volume level that splits my ears when I am at home is not enough to overcome the noise level. However, there’s a solution:

Frustrated with the situation, I bought a set of noise cancellation headsets from Philips. Here’s a link to a similar pair. Mine cost about 40 euros. I was skeptical at first but after trying them out in the airplane and out on the street I am absolutely fascinated. When the noise cancellation is switched on, I can listen to podcasts on the airplane and on the street with the same volume level as at home. Incredible! In addition, the overall volume level required now is much lower which means it’s better for my ears anyway.

The headset has a standard 3.5" jack so I had to buy an adapter to make it compatible with my Nokia N70 phone. The adapter was 2 euros on eBay so it’s not really an investment.

When returning to Paris on Sunday I immediately noticed the new Nokia advertisements plastered all over the city for the Nokia 6280 (3G, Series 40 phone). At the bottom of the ads, a 2D barcode is shown (see picture) and instructions on what to do with it.

What to do with it:

The order of the instructions on the ad are a somewhat confusing but I figured out that the first step is to download the 2D bar code reader application by sending the word "tag" via SMS to a French number. A couple of seconds later, an SMS is returned which contains a link to a WAP page.When the link is selected my N70 automatically opens up the browser and accesses the page. There, the phone manufacturer and phone model can be selected from a list. This step is somewhat unnecessary as it is possible to automatically detect the phone model detection via the HTTP user agent string. Anyway, the list is impressive and quite a number of manufacturers and models are supported. The 2D bar code reader application is a Java applet called "MobileTag" by Abaxia. Not sure if it’s a coincidence, but the company seems to be headquartered in Paris as well. After downloading the bar code reader application while walking in the streets I stopped at the next add and scanned the 2D bar code with the phone’s camera. Scanning the bar code is very quick, just one or two seconds and the bar code is recognized. The bar code on the add then leads to a web page which automatically pushes a video file to the phone which triggered my N70 to automatically launch the built in video application. The application also allows to save the received file in the gallery so you can watch it again later and push it to other people’s phones via Bluetooth.

No Operators Involved

I wonder how many people are going to download the application (120kb) and the video file (about 500k) as this campaign is done by Nokia on its own and is not supported by French network operators. This means that most people have no idea how much their curiosity will cost them, especially if they don’t have a reasonable GPRS subscription. After all, what the user gets in the end is a 20 second video file which continues the advertisement story of the ad banner. Why should anyone want to pay for this?

Mobile 2D Bar Code Advertising needs the Operator

In the end I think this campaign is nice as a technology demonstration but will not reach a mass audience this way. For such a form of advertising to be interesting for the end user, it must be free to them. The advertiser needs to agree with the local wireless operators on a fee they pay for each download of the content behind a bar code. The operator in turn then allows the content (music file, video, java game, etc.) to be downloaded for free. After all, the advertiser also pays money for the banners to be distributed all over the city so it should be normal for them to do this step as well.

2D bar codes could as well be used to sell music, games and other things to users. Again, this requires operators in the boat as the price must be per download and not depend on the data volume. So for this application, there is no way around them.

After having been on Djerba for a couple of days, I couldn’t help myself but notice how locals use the countries two GSM networks. Yesterday evening, I strolled down a busy road and noted once more the influence France had and has on the country. One sign of this is not only the use of French as academic language but also the fact that about eight out of ten cars are French made. Many people working in one of the many hotels here seem to have their own cars to come and go to work. Others are taking the bus and one can observe that writing SMS messages is just about as common place here as in any European country. Many locals also use their phone to make and receive phone calls. So it seems that the price per minute for a phone call and the price for an SMS is in a reasonable balance with their income. Working in the tourist industry, however, probably means making more money than with a traditional job. Therefore its likely that these observations can not be applied to the country as a whole.

Mobile phones strangely enough are mostly from Nokia and not from French companies. In general, people use simple and somewhat older models without built in camera.

For once I didn’t have my camera phone ready when I saw a man riding on a camel and using his mobile phone. It would have made a good picture for this blog entry. 

I am on a short trip to Tunisia and have found a couple of interesting wireless roaming stories to tell. There are two GSM networks in the country, Tuntel and Tunisiana. Both support GPRS but no EDGE for the moment, at least in Djerba. But it’s o.k. to browse the web on my phone and to write some blog entries.  EMail works fine as well with Tunisiana. I haven’t tried with Tuntel as I can’t roam into this network for data. While I am using a prepaid card for my data connectivity which works just fine I was a little bit astonished that my German SIM cards from major global operators are not working as flawlessly as expected:

T-Mobile: I’ve tested a prepaid Xtra SIM which works fine for voice calls with USSD callback. They seem to have some issues with billing, though. I’ve called an Italian mobile yesterday for 15 minutes which should have cost at least 20 euros but my prepaid account has not been charged, not even by the morning of the next day. Not that I mind… Voice quality was excellent, so no cheap lines to Europe. There’s no GPRS service for this SIM card though, so no MMS service in Tunisia for T-Mobile Germany prepaid customers. Very strange as Tunisia is a very popular tourist destination.

Vodafone: I’ve also got a Vodafone postpaid contract and voice calls work just fine with that SIM. No USSD callback necessary. To my big surprise I get no GPRS service from any network. Hello!?

Simply: And finally, I have a prepaid SIM from an MVNO which uses the T-Mobile network in Germany. Strangely enough no USSD callback is necessary and I get GPRS service. What’s going on T-Mobile, I get better service with a no frills postpaid SIM card than with your own high priced prepaid offer!?

Summary: While voice calls worked just fine with all SIM cards I’ve tested, there were some nasty surprises with GPRS. But then, I’ve found a combination that works for me.

Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO’s) have sprung up in a number of different countries recently with more or less success. In Germany for example the recent surge of MVNO activity has triggered a landslide in prices for voice calls.

The German mobile landscape 18 months ago: Four mobile network operators, two big and two small, fight for customers mainly by subsidizing new mobile phones and less by offering competitive voice minutes. Most people were on postpaid contracts with a basic charge of at least 10 euros a month. 50 included minutes to fixed line and the own network was available for around an additional 10 euros. Prices for voice voice minutes not included in the package were ranging from anywhere between 30 and 70 cents depending on the destination of the call. Prepaid was seen mainly as a good choice for kids and voice minutes were ranging from 60-80 cents a minute.

The German mobile landscape today: And then suddenly everything started to change rapidly. One of the smaller network operators (ePlus, KPN is the mother company) decided to get very aggressive to gain market share and started its own low price voice minute "no frills" MVNO. A couple of months later, several independent MVNOs joined the game. Again, only a few months later, all but one of the other network operators (Vodafone) reacted and also made contracts with new MVNOs. The result: Today, if you want to make cheap phone calls, a Prepaid SIM is the choice and it has become difficult to count the number of MVNO’s. There are certainly more then a dozen by now.

Prices are at 14 cents a minute to ALL networks (including other mobile networks) and around 4-5 cents a minute to mobiles with the same MVNO. There is no basic charge and some MVNO’s have no expiry date for the balance. Compare that to 20 Euros a month postpaid for 50 minutes and 70 cents per minute afterwards. The choice is easy. The only thing you don’t get from an MVNO is a subsidized handset. Not that I could care less which all the software modifications operators demand these days for the mobiles they bundle with postpaid contracts.

So why has this been working so well? I think it is mainly because one of the incumbent operators has decided to offer very competitive wholesales prices. Another factor which as worked quite well in the market is the fact that a lot of MVNOs are competing with each other by now so they are much more willing to reduce their margins. So MVNOs are not a guarantee for cheap prices just because they are there as can be seen in other countries where it hasn’t worked so well up to now.

My wish for the next step: Today, MVNOs in Germany concentrate on voice minutes only. GPRS/UMTS is not on their radar screen yet. You can get it from them, too, but prices are not very attractive. So here’s a way to differentiate yourself from operators: Offer a prepaid data bundle that allows GPRS/UMTS roaming to other countries for a reasonable price. I know this not easy to do in todays environment as MVNO’s are still dependent on the wholesale prices operators grant them. But then on the other hand nobody would have guessed the landslide success of mobile voice MVNOs in Germany just two years ago. Let’s see, maybe one day I might see my dream fulfilled and I can use a single mobile again for voice calls and for accessing the mobile Internet anywhere I go, even in other countries.

Reading a book on Wireless LANs is good thing to get you started on how data is transmitted over a Wireless LAN network. At some point, however, it’s time to get some first hand experience and use a network tracer to see what’s going on. For fixed Ethernet networks, a program such as Wireshark is an easy and free tool to get you started. Under Linux, it can also be used to trace Wireless LAN layer 2 packets with the help of some tricks as described on the Wireshark Wiki. On Windows XP, however, things are somewhat more tricky. This is due to the proprietary nature of most WLAN network drivers which can simply not be tweaked to forward layer two packets to Wireshark. It seems that for Windows users, there are nevertheless three possibilities to get the packets to a network analyzer program.

Option 1: Cace technologies offers a WLAN USB stick and network driver (AirPcap) for Wireshark for Windows. The bundle costs $198. Downside: Only WEP decryption is supported. This is quite unfortunate as many networks use WPA or WPA2 today. This very much reduces its usefulness in today’s wireless environments.

Option 2: Second option is a cool software called AiroPeek by Wildpackets. It far exceeds the functionality and user interface of Wireshark and supports a wide range of different wireless LAN adapters. According to the FAQ, AiroPeek also supports WPA decryption. No WPA2 decryption as of yet. The downside in this case is the price. Plan to spend around $2000 for the entry version. Hardly a price for the home user.

Option 3:  With a bit of work it is possible to use a number of Linksys access point models (e.g. the WRT54) for Wireless LAN tracing. For details, take a look here. The big advantage: The access point is around $50, the tracing software (OpenWRT and Kismet) is free.

Wow, I am impressed, the Carnival of the Mobilists is now in its 50th edition. Incredible! So for a summary of the best posts of the mobile blogsphere of the last week, head over to Mobhappy for this weeks edition. Have fun!

I think I am renowned for being open to try out new things, especially if they’ve got anything to do with wireless. This time I have even had a practical application in mind. The scenario: Multi tenant flat in Paris, only one phone line, constant search for the phone because somebody has put it where it doesn’t belong, always ending up with the wrong person first when I call in, nightmare each time the phone bill comes in to figure out who made which call, exorbitant prices of the local incumbent, etc. I guess you get the idea. The solution is simple, or so I thought: Wifi VoIP phones have been around for a year or so now. So I figured they would be stable enough by now to be usable over the local DSL line and Wifi Access point as well as fool proof so even a non technical person can just use it like an ordinary phone. Well, so I thought and happily set out to get a Wifi SIP VoIP phone. Reality was somewhat disillusioning.

The Phone and my "Out of the Box" Experience

The market for VoIP phones is still fairly small and there are only a couple of options. As a wireless enthusiast I opted for the UTStarcom F1000G, as its predecessor has been around for quite a while now so it should be fairly stable. The F1000G is a true Wifi phone with an 802.11g chip inside and an embedded web server so the phone is easy to configure once it’s connected to a Wireless LAN access point. I ordered the phone from Sipgate which offers a local number and a prepaid account for free together with the phone. The phone itself is not subsidized and available at Sipgate and other companies for around 130 euros. The phone came pre-configured with only the Wireless LAN encryption key to be configured by the user. Sounds simple, no? Well, it would be if the online description or the printed manual would have given a hint on the password to be typed in to be able to enter the menu via the phone’s screen. Nothing, nada, zip… O.k., well, after trying a dozen standard passwords like 0000, 1234, 12345, etc., I decided to deactivate encryption on my Wireless LAN for a minute to be able to get to the built in Web Server from my PC. Access to the configuration pages, however, is also password protected. Again, the online description and the manual mention nothing about it… But, there’s Google and a quick search revealed the standard password for the administrator account: "psw". This trick worked and I was finally able to set the WPA encryption password and the phone’s password so I can access the security features directly from the phone. Not bad for 45 minutes, except that the whole process should have taken 2 minutes…

Interoperability

A Wifi phone without a WLAN access point and a high speed Internet connection is like a plain old phone without a phone socket to plug it in. The difference between a phone socket and a WLAN access point is the small little fact that one of them has been around for decades and pretty much every phone (country specific…) fits into pretty much every phone socket. I had to find out that the same is not true with Wifi phones. For some reason beyond my understanding, my F1000G phone and Netgear Wireles LAN Access point with built in DSL modem (DG844GB) do not really like each other very much. Voice quality was lousy and every now and then I even lost the speech path completely, especially when going into another room. Not even a software update of the phone and access point resolved the problem. I just don’t get it. Two components, mass produced, millions of them sold and they just don’t want to work together!? I really don’t get it. In the meantime, I’ve tried the Netgear AP with another VoIP product with pretty much the same result. So the phone is not to blame for this one. Anyway, help was near as for occasions like this I have a second WLAN access point with built in DSL modem, a Siemens Gigaset SE515 DSL. So I switched off the Netgear AP and put this on in place. Incredible, the voice quality suddenly became much better and no speech path losses in the next room. Eureka! … and shame on Netgear!!!

Over the Long Run

Telephony over IP is a tough business. Not only do packets have to be sent and received at precise intervals, the equipment and software must be rock solid and not stop working over night. After all, that’s just how ordinary phones act. Unfortunately, not the F1000G with the Siemens Access point. Once a day (or night) or so, the phone suddenly looses contact with the network and refuses to do anything about it. There’s no problem with the Access Point in most cases as the notebook just works fine over the wireless connection. Sometimes the access point dies, too and the whole setup has to be rebooted. Totally unacceptable!

Voice Quality

Voice quality even during long phone calls of 20 minutes was consistently o.k. but far away from the voice quality of a standard phone. Also, other activities on the DSL line while on a call have a negative impact on voice quality. Uploads of eMails with large attachments have a very negative impact on the voice quality in the uplink, while downloading of large files pretty much destroys the experience in downlink direction. Traffic shaping is the magic word, but both of my AP’s do not support this. Simple Web surfing over my 1 MBit/s DSL line on the other hand while being on the call had no audible effects as far as I could tell.

Summary

Well, that phone goes back into it’s box and to the shop. It’s good to see SIP working in a true Wifi phone, it’s good as a proof of concept. For everyday use, however, it is much too instable and until UTStarcom has figured out a way to keep the phone communicating with the network permanently and how to improve the voice quality, it’s a no go for me.

So in the end, I am still stuck with my phone problem in Paris. But I am adventurous, so I gave the Siemens Gigaset C450 IP a try, a DECT phone with a SIP adapter box. SIP terminates in the box instead of the phone which from a technical point of view is inferior to a true Wifi SIP phone. But maybe it’s more stable. But that’s for another blog entry. To be continued…

Walking through the countryside today I reflected on current EDGE and UMTS deployments and what to expect in the future if you are living outside of towns or cities. While UMTS just made a big jump from 384 kbit/s to 1.8 or 3.6 MBit/s with HSDPA, EDGE is pretty much the last push GSM/GPRS networks will see in terms bandwidth. Sure, standardization work is ongoing for multicarrier EDGE which might once again one day increase througput in old GPRS/EDGE/EDGE+(?) networks. But the increase will be quite modest compared to HSDPA and future 4G technology. It will come to late.

On the other hand it’s quite clear that bandwidth requirements even of "ordinary" users is increasing quickly. EDGE’s 200 kbit/s is still quite o.k. today for many things but I wonder if this will still be the case in, say, 3 or 4 years from now. Probably not with websites increasing their graphics and video content from month to month. It would be nice to see UMTS/HSDPA deployed even in remote areas by then but I wouldn’t count on it. WiMAX might be deployed in such regions but the big question is of whether travellers will be able to use such networks which will be potentially local in nature for a fair price?

But then, maybe I shouldn’t give up on nationwide 3G coverage as GSM licenses will run out in 2012 in many countires. That’s only 6 years away from now. By then, most mobiles will be 2G/3G dual mode. So maybe we’ll see some GSM network replacement with UMTS for the simple reason that there is no price difference for replacing and aging GSM BTS with a new GSM BTS or a new UMTS BTS. UMTS in the 900 MHz band would surely help in rural areas. Let’s hope regulators and operators in Europe and elsewhere get the idea.