if connected

Public WiFi is tricky to find and hotspots always seems to require some different arcane sign-on process. Logging on via a scratch card token or entering credit card details is slow. Every sign-on web UI is different and requires concentration to make sure things work first time. The comprehensive roaming agreements between “networks” that would make this easier have never happened. Even if they had, they wouldn’t cover the numerous one-off free hotspots that still require a web log-in for t&c compliance.

Worse, once connected, WiFi hotspots often block some applications/uses but not others, or deliver poor speeds. But it’s only possible to test this after paying the WiFi connection charge or the indirect charge for the coffee needed to be able to sit in the particular cafe with WiFi. In Europe, that WiFi charge is often greater than an entire month of mobile broadband use.

Mobile broadband is quick to connect to and predictable.

Yesterday, I wanted to check something online fast on my laptop while I joined a conference call. I booted the laptop. I could see a faint BT Openzone WiFi signal but ignored it as I only had one hand free to type my credit card number and I wasn’t sure the signal was strong enough to be reliable. Instead, I hit the connect button on screen and my laptop created a bluetooth connection to the Nokia phone I had and went online. Time to connect was about 20 seconds, no more, and as soon as I was online I knew for sure that email, IM and everything else I needed would work as I’d used this mobile network for Internet access many times before.

WiFi is faster and less battery draining, but for genuinely mobile out-and-about use the convenience of mobile broadband wins.

BT are advertising their new home gateway, the Home Hub, on TV. The key benefit of the new hub model that BT pick out is the longer range and better coverage of its WiFi, as it uses the ‘n’ standard.
To what kind of potential customers will this appeal the most? Those with big homes, who will tend to have higher than average incomes and/or wealth. Nice.

Some products defy analysis. I could, but it’s just not worth the effort here.

BT has just announced it has reached 100,000 WiFi hotspots through its use of FON public WiFi sharing on its broadband customers’ home gateways.

This is a vast number. Hotspot directory Jiwire currently lists just 28,697 total hotspots in the UK. Clearly, they aren’t including the BT FON ones.

How it works is simple: Any BT Home Hub user can choose to opt-in to FON. In so doing, their home broadband connection becomes available to others for secure guest access, and they can make use of other FON hotspots. The BT Home Hub is provided for free to new BT Retail broadband customers.

FON has similar relationships with ISPs in other countries, such as Jazztel in Spain, and Neuf in France.
Clearly, many of those BT FON hotspots are going to be in poor locations, such as sleepy residential streets. But by sheer mass of numbers a large number will still be in good locations.

Also, as this is a software change to existing home gateways supplied by an ISP, unlike the pure FON-branded WiFi access points available direct from FON, the majority of these BT FON access points will be switched on and available 24/7. Even more significantly, they should be located at a fixed and predictable location as they are tied to a consumer’s broadband subscription.

In the past, FON has had trouble with both FON access points being switched off and being located at a different location to the address the customer first registered. FON has overcome the first issue by showing on their website which FON hotspots have been ‘live’ within the last hour. The location problem remains for non-ISP provided FON hotspots.

If BT decides to switch from opt-in now, to opt-out, then this 100k number could be dwarfed by a sizeable share of BT’s 4.5 million (or so) retail broadband customers. There’s a precedent, just recently, BT Retail chose to roll out FON to its small business users using just such as opt-out basis.

Skype Tests Software for Mass-Market Mobile Phones. It’s interesting but not anything like as earth shattering as their press release headline suggests.
The applet offers text chat, buddy list, and incoming and outgoing calling. But the telephony part uses Skypeout credits for a user to receive incoming calls so is little different to simply using the call forwarding option in the desktop Skype application.
Chat and presence requires the use of a data connection — unlimited mobile internet tariff highly recommended — so the applet both costs cash for calls, and needs a mobile data package! This isn’t the innovative VoIP world that Skype users have been expecting with Skype’s long-planned mobile initiative.
The other downside is the handset support. The application is a java applet that works on a selection of mainstream and smartphones, but there are some odd omissions, presumably due to the problems of mobile application development: Nokia’s N95 and N80 are supported, but the similar N82, N77, N96 and N81 are not, for now. Hopefully, Skype will expand the range of handsets before taking this out of beta.
For now, independent start-up Fring, is closer in spirit than this to a true Skype mobile application, and works on many handsets.
There’s a few other official Skype mobile options: for Nokia Internet tablet users; for Windows mobile users; or for those in the market for a new phone (3′s Skypephone) but none of these are ideal mobile applications for various reasons.

Skype is continuing to become a more ubiquitous communications service. Now, it arrives on the PSP. Skype is being offered for free to new PSP owners and to older ones that choose to upgrade their firmware. This distribution method will push Skype in front of a large number of users that have bought PSP’s for other reasons (and despite the positive press noise around Nintendo’s DS, the PSP continues to sell steadily and has a large installed base in Europe).
Free availability of Skype makes the PSP version ideal for occasional usage where a consumer would be put off by any up-front charge for the Skype software.
Ubiquitous Skype delivers location free — “in the cloud” — communications. What do I mean? When a user logs on to Skype, they always have instant access to their up to date contact list without having to re-enter any details or set up some awkward sync process; they use their normal outgoing and incoming Skype telephone numbers; or listen to their voicemails; etc.
However, the PSP version’s drawbacks will limit its usage to certain scenarios, mainly when other versions of Skype are not immediately available to the user in that location:

• No speakerphone. The user has to remember to carry a headset with them.
• The PSP headset is bulky. A user has to own/buy both the remote control cable and the special Skype headset. The combined cable length is several times longer than needed.
• Incoming calls issue. Skype on PSP cannot run in the background while the user is playing games, so its utility for incoming calls is pretty limited as the user has to leave Skype running and be connected to a WiFi hotspot and not be playing a game. I’m unsure whether this version supports Skype voicemail (some non-PC versions of Skype do but some don’t).
• No keyboard. A tremendous amount of Skype usage is text instant messaging before, after, or instead of making a voice call. The PSP has no physical keyboard and no touch screen to enable handwritten text messages.

Regardless of the above. Skype on PSP will prove useful to PSP owners that don’t own a mobile phone that can run Skype (either directly or via Fring), or that don’t routinely carry a laptop, or that don’t routinely leave a PC switched on all the time at home, or that don’t own a Nokia N810 Internet tablet (more Skype features supported, speakerphone, keyboard).
Related reports for more insights:
Instant Messaging Growth, Quantifying the Link Between Skype, IM, and Social Networks.
Competing with Free Communications,
Delivering Revenues from Rising Consumer Adoption of Digital Communications

I’m at the Telefonica analysts briefing at the O2 today. This is a really well organised event.
The most impressive part, compared with the numerous events I attend throughout the year… is that next to every seat in the hall is a power socket to complement the free WiFi.
Other event organisers please take note: paid WiFi at conferences/events is crazy and even modern laptops benefit from mains power to run smoothly at full speed. Plus, having been plugged in, laptops of attendees leave the event fully charged and ready to work for the maximum time on batteries on the train/airport/airplane/whatever where there isn’t a power socket available.