December 2006

Wireless data rip-off's

December 17, 2006

I just upgraded my Rogers Unlimited*** plan to the “Rogers More Than Unlimited***, But Still Not QuiteÂ UNlimited” plan.Â The plans aren’t actually called Unlimited*** anymore, either.Â They’ve now renamed Unlimited*** to Max (it’s still limited to 25Mb, though), and introduced something called Data 100, which is limited to 200Mb and costs $100/month.Â Somebody must have talked [...]

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They ARE a phone company, after all…

December 16, 2006

I skipped over to Bell Canada’s web site a few minutes ago, looking for whether or not the Ottawa/Buffalo game tonight was going to broadcast in high definition.Â Most of the time it isn’t, and tonight is no different.Â Hockey Night in Canada really oughta be renamed Hockey Night in Toronto with Don Cherry and [...]

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Calling for free on my mobile.

December 16, 2006

“Hi honey! Guess what I’m doing? I’m calling you for free on my cell phone!”. I could hardly contain my glee, Janice’s non-commital “that’s nice”, notwithstanding. You see, yesterday I got my grimy mitts on the Nokia N80i — the N-Series smartphone with WiFi and built-in internet telephony support. Plugged in, and charged overnight, it [...]

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Henry Gomez: Skype President and Niklas Z's bitch?

December 15, 2006

Sometimes spin is pretty obvious, ain’t it? There’s been a bit of a management shakeup over at Skype.Â The EBay crew is out, and Dr. Z (Niklas) is back in charge.Â Om Malik has the inside story as, in true investigative reporter fashion, he’s been reporting the juicy tidbits as they leak out.Â Jaanus has [...]

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Crunch mode: Working toward the elimination of telephone tag

December 15, 2006

My stomach is still on fire. We had Kentucky Fried Chicken at the office last night, and my 42 year old stomach can’t take the grease any more. The dev team gobbled it up, though. We’re in crunch mode — that time when tech teams pull out all the stops and crank toward a release. [...]

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Christmas from Jajah

December 15, 2006

The folks at Jajah have a nice Christmas promo going.Â Want to call a family member on Christmas day?Â For 24 hours on December 25th, all calls to any of Jajah’s zone 1, 2, or 3 countries are absolutely free.Â The caller needs to be a member, but that’s all. Details here.

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OpenID: A possible identity mechanism for VoIP?

December 14, 2006

Aswath Rao shot me an emailÂ yesterday asking for my thoughts on his proposal to use OpenID for authentication on phone calls.Â He was reacting to Martin Geddes’ Conversational Vignettes, which pointed out, yet again, the need for an identification scheme for voice networks.Â OpenID is a decentralized, and free framework for user-centric identity.Â The idea [...]

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When demonstrations go bad

December 14, 2006

Ever had a demo go south?Â In front of a really important audience?Â Â I have, many times.Â My first demo experience at Microsoft, which wasÂ on the show floor at Comdex CanadaÂ in 1992, I had a hard hang and had to power cycle the machine.Â Years later, on stage with Bill Gates showing the new power management [...]

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Skype: $30/year, all you can eat long distance

December 13, 2006

Skype will no longer be free in North America.Â The NY Times reports this morning that as of January 1, the fee will be $30/year for annual calling.Â It’s a neat move. The Times quoted Jeffrey Halpern at Sanford C. Bernstein, saying that Skype isn’t a threat to telephone companies.Â â€œSkype requires a behavioral change. [...]

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