Telco Fail Special. Etisalat WINS Challenge.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I know quite a bit about telcos. Back in 1991, strangely enough as allied forces started the air and ground assault to liberate Kuwait (great timing, I know), I launched a magazine called Communications Middle East Africa, or Comms MEA as it became known. Then, in the late 90s, I was involved in the communications strategy, planning and rollout of privatised Egyptian mobile operator Mobinil. I subsequently worked with France Telecom, Jordan Telecom, Jordan's Mobilecom, Fastlink, Zain, Wataniya in Kuwait, Algeria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, Batelco, Nawras, MTN (in its Saudi license bid) and others in the Middle East and further afield. I've worked on communications strategy, marketing campaigns and capacity building programmes in telecommunications and ICT for regulators, telcos, manufacturers and governments.

I've got telco form, in short.

I knows me telcos.

So it is with considerable confidence I can assert that never in my life have I ever encountered a telco as woefully useless as the UK's EE. We're not talking just averagely bad, we're talking organisationally dysfunctional to an extraordinary degree. We're talking spectacularly bad in a sort of massive display of really bad fireworks of badness bad. I wonder they remain a viable business, so awed am I by the symphonic virtuosity of their badness.

It's truly incredible, a Harvard Business School case study in how an organisation can remain profitable whilst exhibiting a stellar disregard for its customers. If you're in the customer service business, give up. Go home. You're wasting your time. That EE is still trading demonstrates for all time that the customer really doesn't matter.

I'm not going to bore you with the whole story. But you'll get an idea of how awfully bad they are when I tell you that I finally gave up and walked into one of their stores to get help fixing my issues with their awful service, blitheringly incompetent UX and heart-attack inducing IVR-driven call centre.

"I know," said the chap in the shop. "We're really, really bad. And there's nothing I can do about it, they don't trust us to get access to anything here in the shops, you'll have to talk to the call centre. It's frustrating, I know, but there's nothing I can do for you."

"But there's no way you can ever speak to a human at the call centre. You're just stuck in the system and when you eventually find your way to the option to talk to a representative it hangs up in your face."

"Yup. I know. Everyone hates us."

It's an interesting customer service technique. My frustration and anger were instantly defused. If it's so bad their own people have given up, what chance do I have? I eventually managed to find a way around my issue, albeit an inelegant one, but then found their iPhone app crashing every time you tried to invoke it. Reboot mobile, no change. I went to another EE store.

The bloke in the store grimaced. "Yes our app does crash. It does it on my iPhone, too. Look, I'll show you. There. Crashes every time.  Bad, isn't it?"

"But a telco in the smartphone era whose app crashes on the world's most iconic smartphone platform is surely on a one way ticket? It's almost unbelievably incompetent."

"I know. But what can we do? We just work in a shop."

In fact, EE's service is so bad, it got fined £1 million by UK regulator OFCOM. Googling 'EE customer service' gets you access to a very deep bucket of ordure indeed. It's the UK's most complained about mobile operator, as it turns out. And that seems to be quite an achievement in itself given the tone of debate around the other operators.

Which is why, coming back to the UAE from leave, I found myself looking at Gerard Butler gurning at me from a green-tinged billboard and thought, almost fondly, 'You know what? It might still be running the dumbest, most ill-advised campaign in the history of telco promotion, but Etisalat isn't all that bad.'

Yup, you heard it here first. Challenge accepted. Etisalat vs EE? I'll take the home team any day...

Anyone Fancy A Change? Etisalat Doesn't!

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The UAE's 'incumbent' telco, Etisalat, has managed to neatly underline quite how fearful it is of mobile number portability by trying to block its competitor's 'change' campaign.

Mobile number portability - the ability to change operator without changing your number - should arguably have come to the UAE much sooner: it's a key element of any sensible competitive market and regulatory regime. It was first talked about back in 2009, in fact. Du has always said it wasn't the one dragging heels around here and that makes perfect sense - incumbents always face the challenge of 'churn', the process whereby harried and fed up customers migrate to competitors, so the longer they can delay MNP and preserve that barrier to entry, the better.

Worse, many, many people in the UAE already carry two devices - one Du and one Etisalat. It's one reason behind the country's remarkably high mobile penetration. But it also gives subscribers a taste of the service offered by the competitor.

So Du, on the news that MNP would finally be brought in, started a natty little campaign offering to provide information to people who text CHANGE to 3553. Etisalat responded by blocking that number. Regulator TRA promptly fined Etisalat (sum, of course, undisclosed) which then grudgingly unblocked the number. The National reports on the whole farago with glee - as does Kipp.

Great service, great value, consumer choice. These are all good things, no? Values for any company to aspire to! It's just that, well, someone doesn't really seem to be entering into the spirit of things around here, do they?

Given the choice, keeping your number, would you change?

Let The Chaos Begin!

Hornjoserbsce: A sim card (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Gulf News today carries a Great Pronouncement Of Doom from UAE telecom provider Etisalat. If you don't register your SIM card on time, you're going to have your line cancelled, they tell us. It's all part of the UAE's Telecom Regulatory Authority slightly obtuse campaign,  'My number, my identity'.

As I predicted earlier, this one has all the usual Ealing Comedy attributes. We are all to trot off to a telephone company office with a passport copy (and original it seems) or a national ID card (copy and original we assume) and re-register our mobile lines by filling a form. The 'campaign' started on the 17th June - now Etisalat has given 1.5 million of its 8.6mn subscribers just three months to register their lines, failing which they will suspend the line. Three months after that, it's cancellation. They've sent out texts to the lucky 1.5 million hapless victims telling them to register or lose all within 90 days.

As I pointed out before, it took five years to issue everyone National ID Cards here - and that's still not a 'done deal'. The constant slew of frequently clashing announcements, pronouncements, threats and exhortations have provided endless amusement. Now we're going there all over again.

Does Etisalat really think they can get 1.5 million lines re-registered in 90 days? Even allowing for a constant and equal throughput across all their 104 offices, that means 160 applicants re-registered per office per day, or (with an eight hour day) 20 per hour. Or a constant rate of one registration every three minutes in each and every office.

Don't make me laugh. Etisalat doesn't process bill payments that fast, let alone re-registering lines (including, presumably, verifying and inputting the registration information as well as scanning documents etc). Can you imagine the long, hopeless, shuffling queues? I can and I'm in no hurry to play, thank you.

In fact, Etisalat's spokesperson told GN "It won't take more than ten minutes to fill the form... everyday we have an average of 10,000 subscribers who approach Etisalat offices to update their personal information.". At that, frankly unbelievable, number, we're still talking only 900,000 registrations in 90 days.

And then they're proposing to text another 1.5 million customers, just to add to the chaos from the preceding 90 days.

Words fail me.

Cue Another Farce?

Two cellphone SIM cards (bottom and top) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Did  you catch this one? I, for one, didn't I've missed it until I finally tumbled today.

The UAE's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) last week launched a new campaign, 'My number, my identity'. It's probably my fault and certainly not the almost impenetrably obtuse language of the announcement which is clarified by Gulf News today in a story that, try as I might, I could not find online.

We're all going to have to trot off and re-register our mobile SIMs with whichever operator we're with. From July 17th, Etisalat will have over 100 registration points around the country where you can go, eagerly clutching your national ID or passport with visa, and complete an application form to, effectively, re-apply for your mobile phone number. Du didn't confirm its re-registration arrangement intentions to GN in order to make the story, but CEO Osman Sultan, quoted in the TRA release lauding the TRA's campaign, did say customers could go to Du shops.

Many of you will recognise July 17th as the likely starting point for Ramadan, the ideal time to conduct a national campaign of this sort.

Unregistered SIM cards will be cancelled "once the registration period expires" according to the GN story. We haven't been told when that is, or what likely timescale they have in mind.

There are 12.36 million mobile lines out there. It's taken five years for the Emirates ID Authority to 'roll out' the national ID card. How long will it take this campaign I wonder? How many needless frustrations, queues, visits to physical locations and extended deadlines, empty threats, retracted announcements and 'clarifications' are we set to see?

But believe me folks, take this one seriously and get in there early. Because if there's one thing these bohos can do well, it's cut people off...

Etisalat Roaming Package Competitive Shock Horror

English: Etisalat Tower in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (UAE). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We pay about double what consumers in, say, the UK do for mobile data here in the UAE. So you can imagine my immediate scorn at seeing one of our cosy, regulated duopolists Etisalat advertising a global data roaming package of Dhs150 (about $41) for 35 MB of data per week.

They actually used the word 'only' in the ad, which carries the idiotic headline 'Instagram from India'. You'd get less than five images up to Instagram with 35MB of data...

Just for fun, I took a look at some UK operator rates for data roaming. And it's a little shop of horrors that makes Etisalat actually look quite good. I know, I know. Sit down for a while and it'll pass.

The problem of mad data roaming prices has been extensively documented, with tales of unwary travellers notching up bonkers mobile bills because they haven't turned off the data function in their mobiles. It's so bad, in fact, that the EU introduced a roaming data cap of €50 back in 2010 that cuts subscribers off at this mark unless they specifically ask their operators to increase it.

Tariffs in the UK vary pretty widely, but the worst of them is BT, which wants £7.70 ($12) per MB of roaming data. At that rate, your 35MB of data would cost Dhs 1,617. (Oh, and you'd hit that EU data cap downloading a couple of songs)

Etisalat beats out BT? It's pretty amazing, isn't it?

Orange will sell you a 200MB plan for a cool £120 (Dhs 188), while Virgin comes in with a neat £10 ($15.72) for 50MB data within the EU only.

So Etisalat's mad-looking plan is actually pretty competitive to UK operators. That doesn't mean for one second that they're off the hook for their insanely expensive broadband and call costs. And it doesn't make international roaming 'affordable' for UAE subscribers - it's actually because it's insanely expensive that our insanely expensive operator's package looks reasonable.

Compared to competitor Du (I couldn't find a package offer, so if there is one please correct me), which charges Dhs1 for 50 kilobytes of roaming data, Etisalat does have the local edge however. For those of you who have grown up since they were relevant, kilobytes are 1024 bytes or 1024th of a Meg. We used to use them back when I were a nipper and Bill Gates said 640 kilobytes should be enough memory for anybody's PC.

Lebanon: Will The World's Worst Web Get Better?

Gulf News filed a Reuters report today on moves to improve Lebanon's internet access. The headline alone made me laugh, "Lebanon unveils faster, cheaper internet amid political bickering'. That's one of those 'Man found dead in cemetry' headlines. Nothing happens in Lebanon without political bickering.

Lebanon, as those who know it will attest, is a beautiful country of rich soil, glorious countryside and home to a fascinatingly diverse people capable of great cleverness. Beirut can be sophisticated, sexy as hell and enormous fun. It is also home to crushing poverty. And it's all strung together with public infrastructure that sometimes defies belief. From the rocky power grid (power cuts are still commonplace) through to the state of the roads, you're often left wondering quite how so much physical, intellectual and financial wealth sits alongside such tottering examples of failed governance.

Listening to the Ministerial addresses to ArabNet is helpful to reaching an understanding of this, I find.

Lebanon's internet is cited in today's story as being the 'world's worst... the country is always much lower down the rankings than many less developed nations such as Afghanistan or Burkina Faso.' The story goes on to recount, in shocked tones, how a 1 Mbps connection in Lebanon costs Dhs 279!!!

Errr. Hello, GN? That's about what we're paying here in the UAE. A one meg DSL line is Dhs249 a month, 2 Mbps costs a whopping Dhs349 a month and you'll pay Dhs549 for a 16 meg line. If you want the highest available speed from Etisalat, you can get a 30 Mbps 'Al Shamil' line for a mere Dhs699 a month. That's $191.5 to you.

I'm not even going to mention that the Japanese home gets an average 60 Mbps line at a cost of $0.27 per megabit month. Not even thinking about going there. Oh no.

Now the promises being made (because the story is, tragically, predicated on a promise not an actual physical delivery of service) are that Lebanon will get a minimum access speed of 1 Mbps for $16 per month. That would bring it in line with markets like the UK. I genuinely hope the promise (made to Reuters by Lebanese telecoms minister Nicola Sehnawi) comes through - although Ogero might have something to say about that - for two reasons. First and foremost so my friends in Lebanon can stop gnashing their teeth and throwing laptops against the wall in frustration. The selfish second reason is that it would add pressure on the TRA to finally act and bring down the ridulous broadband prices here in the UAE - prices that are undoubtedly a key factor contributing to hindering the adoption, use and the growth of the economic opportunity derived from technology in the UAE today.


(The image at the top of the post is one of my favourite things, BTW. It's the first sketch of 'the Internet')


by

Etisalat Plans - Mickey Mouse?

Image via WikipediaThe HTC Desire is a cool device, I have to tell you. It does many things brilliantly, some very well and even manages to be a mildly functional telephone. Based on Google's Android operating system, it's almost scarily integrated into Google services, but it does a lot of cool stuff and is pretty intuitive.

I've spent a week or so now getting used to it - after over 20 years of loyalty to Nokia, I finally snapped and followed Symbian Guru by throwing my N86 against the wall. There have been inevitable frustrations in the transition process, but they're mostly harmless. Google's habit of defaulting everything to Arabic for anyone located in the Arab World can be a bit of a shock - and I really do not need an uninstallable azan reminder. But all in all, I'm glad I made the change. Well, I was until Etisalat sent me a message telling me they have blocked my mobile Internet access as I had exceeded the upper limit on my plan.

My plan? What plan? I just have mobile Internet. It was called 'Mubashir' because nobody knew what 3G was ("I don't understand what 3G is!" "No problem, take this! It's called Mubashir!" "What is it?" "3G"). Nobody ever told me they'd introduced things called plans.

Mine apparently gives me 10 Meg of downloads for a fixed monthly fee. And then it charges me. A wicked amount. Enough for me to have racked up Dhs1,200 worth of phone bill in 2-3 days of using an Android phone. Because if you're using your wireless network to download apps and you walk out of the wireless zone, it defaults to Etisalat and their Mickey Mouse packages. And, unlike my creaky old Symbian handset,  this mobile is always online, checking, updating and RSSing like a little Googledemon.

You'd have thought Etisalat would send you a text when you got to the 10Mb mark, wouldn't you? But that would be far too sensible. They'd rather bill their unsuspecting, arguably duped, customers for the lesson.

So don't do what I did, people. When you throw that Symbian mobile against the wall and storm off to get a funky Android phone, change your mobile data plan. You can get a 1Gb package for Dhs145 per month or 5GB for 295 per month. They also offer "unlimited" data for a whopping Dhs395 per month. Unlimited is sort of like freehold, by the way: by unlimited, Etisalat actually means a 'fair usage' 10Gb maximum. Out of plan extras cost 50 fils per meg, which is a bit less than the Dhs15 per meg they charge on the default 10Mb package. Yes, you heard right. Dhs15 (a tad over $4) per megabit.

Plans from 10Mb - 1Gb are categorised as 'mobile Internet' by Etisalat, while 1GB-10GB are 'mobile broadband' and come with a USB modem. Because nobody would want to use a mobile for downloading lots of data, would they? Positively archaic thinking from the telco that likes to say 'ugh'...

Hmm. I wonder what the view from Du is like these days?


PS: Happy New Year, folks!

The UAE BlackBerry Ban: Barmy

Image via Wikipedia

Why does all the fun happen when I'm away? Woke up today to the news that the UAE is to block BlackBerry Messenger, BlackBerry E-mail and BlackBerry web-browsing following a ruling by telecom regulator the TRA.

Gulf News online reports the story, which WAM broke today as far as I can see from over here. The National's story is here. Etisalat has made a statement which includes the immortal words, "BlackBerry data is immediately exported off-shore, where it is managed by a foreign, commercial organisation."

Oh, the LOLs, from a country where all requests to browse the web are immediately referenced to, errr, foreign, commercial organisations. Unless something's changed since the McAfee acquisition, US security company Secure Computing used to parse all searches to make sure that we weren't being exposed to all the naughtiness and stuff that's out there. We weren't so shy about 'foreign commercial organisations' then, were we folks?

BlackBerry customers were, infamously, not subject to the arbitrary restrictions of the block list. Many will remember the furore that erupted, extensively discussed on this very blog, which appeared to be a muckle-headed attempt on the part of the Telco That Likes To Say Ugh, Etisalat, to cludge security software intended for other purposes into an attempt to introduce surveillance and monitoring capabilities to the otherwise hard to intercept BB.


It's interesting for telecom regulation watchers that the customer is to be harmed extensively as a result of this move by a regulator, a class of organisation that is everywhere in the world tasked with holding the customers interests as one of its primary goals. The Telcos are being forced to breach their compact with their users (The vast majority of people bought BlackBerrys precisely with this very functionality as their primary reason for buying in) and tens of thousands of devices have been rendered basically unfit for purpose overnight.

I look forward to this move being 'clarified'. As it stands, it's yet another attempt to bomb ourselves back into the digital stone age. The madness of it all is that nothing has changed about the BlackBerry or the way in which the device works - and nothing has changed (correct me, please, if I'm wrong) in the 'moral and cultural' environment, or indeed the regulatory environment, since the BB was first introduced to the UAE - it has always worked using the company's own servers which underpinned the very services that CrackBerry users find so very appealing. If you can't live with it now - you shouldn't have sold it to us back then.

Will customers be offered refunds for the now barely functional hunks of black and chrome plastic they hold in their hands? Or will Etisalat and Du be offering free plastic covers that say 'I am browsing happily. Carry on as normal.'???

PS: In a move that appears to highlight that this move is being prompted by security concerns more than anything else, WAM has published an odd document that purports to 'compare the existing telecom regulations of the US, UK and UAE' but which is actually something of a 'dossier' that appears intended to justify the idea that a regulator can just turn around and delete a service being accessed by tens of thousands of consumers. It's a long read, but it's here.

Right. I'm going back on holiday...

Blockheads Reprised

It would appear that the UAE's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (Or TRA to you an' me) has blocked YouTube's age verification screen.

The problem was highlighted on Twitter yesterday when a link to the now infamous 'Sheikh Zayed Road Madness' video was shared - the link came back with the blocked splash screen on both Etisalat and Du networks. A good link is, BTW, here.

Although the first assumption is that the block was because of the nature of the content, which is a group of nutters endangering the lives of motorists on Dubai's busiest road by pulling doughnuts and the like, this was not in fact the case

(Dubai's police website still allows you, rather charmingly, to key in number plates and get a record of fines and the like without requiring any corroborating evidence that it is, in fact, your own plate you're looking up. So you can look up these chaps' driving history if you want.)

What had happened was the video had been flagged for age restriction (you can't actually tag a video with an age limit on YouTube when you post it, it has to be 'flagged' and a YouTube staffer will review and age restrict the video) and therefore viewers were sent to the YouTube Age Verification Page.

And THAT is the bit that had been blocked. One can only assume that 'if you need to be asked, the answer's no' is the policy in place here.

Helpfully, Etisalat's Twitter Twit suggested to me that YouTube itself was responsible for the block, which is patently not the case, and then referred me to YouTube's Terms of Service which, of course, are totally irrelevant to the point in question.

Have you read YouTube's TOS? Here. Fill yer boots. Bet you can't finish it without going mad.

In the meantime, we await the results of the investigation that is being conducted, I am sincerely advised, into whether it is morally or culturally reprehensible to answer the question: "Are you over 21?"

Pissy

 

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Technology/Pix/pictures/2008/02/01/SeaCableHi.jpg

It’s been like spending a week trying to pogo in molasses – the Internet is just not terribly well. And I have to confess, after a week of pages not loading, Twitter not updating and email taking an age, I’m feeling somewhat frustrated and generally pissy.

The statement from Etisalat (back on the 20th) that its services were unaffected as it had rushed to route bandwidth through other means was piffle, as usual. Du made the same statement, but I don’t use their services so can’t comment. Etisalat’s network quality most certainly has been significantly affected by the outage, but why let the facts stop you lying to you customers and treating them like morons? It never stopped ‘em before, anyway. I’ve also had a few dodgy voice circuits, which might be a result of the telco that likes to say ‘ugh’ cutting some of its voice traffic over to IP from its beloved yoghurt pots.

To be fair, it’s not their fault that some Captain Pugwash type decided to drag SEAMEWE4 on the end of his anchor ‘till it snapped (or whatever mad series of events led to the break). But I do wish they’d just tell the truth.

SEAMEWE (anoraks will know it stands for South East Asia Middle East Western Europe) and FLAG (Fibre-optic Link Around the Globe) are the two main cable systems upon which the bulk (if not all) of the UAE’s Internet traffic depends. There are four SEAMEWEs – the last time we had problems, it was a cut in SEAMEWE4, the latest most sparkly terabit capacity cable. SEAMEWE3 is also operational, but SEAMEWE1 and 2 have been phased out.

Although it is feasible to use satellite, and there are satellite circuits available, this is an expensive and limited option that most telcos will only use as a last resort – the great undersea cables are where it’s at.
There are other circuits apart from SEAMEWE 3 and 4 and FLAG, for instance (as you’ll see from the map above) there’s a circuit that goes around Africa. But the Red Sea and Suez are the most vulnerable points in the network of sub-sea cables that underpins our ability to do important stuff like play Chatroulette and listen to the Moon Song.

Until there is better diversity, we’ll continue to be highly vulnerable to breaks – and will continue to see limited bandwidth sold to us at premium prices compared to other world markets. It constantly rankles when I think that the Japanese are paying $0.27 per megabit month, with the average subscriber taking a 60 Gig line. Yes, 60Gig. In fact, much of the world gets plenty more bandwidth (with less latency) for less money than we do. A hell of a lot less money.

Hey, ho. It’s not as if Internet connectivity were critical to the development of the Middle East region and the largest single factor in its ability to be competitive moving forward, is it?

Etisalat's Emails - Phish off!

You can only imagine the joy deep in my  black heart this morning when I received an email from the telco that everyone who's not a Du subscriber loves to hate, Etisalat, snappily titled "Security Alert - Beware of Email Fraud Disguised as Official Emails".

We've all got these stupid mails from Weisatwit before. I've blogged about 'em before too. Surely they must have learned by now from the online howls of derision that accompany these well-intended but knuckle-headed emails. Apparently not.

The email, immortally, once again contains the words: "Etisalat will never email links, or call you, asking for such information." as well as, of course, a number of links to online forms asking for your name, email address and telephone number ('personal information'). The site itself also requests a user name and password as a log-on.

Of course, we could all rest assured that the user base has already been educated about computer security by the pathetic radio ads being run by UAENic, which purport to be raising 'public awareness', in which a voiceover artist doing a bad fake of an Emirati with a cold trying to English tells us 'I am Salim. Don't download undrusded zoftwares widge good arm your gombuter.' I initially thought this would at least be one of a series ('Don't run wiz zizszors in ze ovice'; 'Don't drawl born sites wizout bobub bloggers') but sadly, no. It's just the one repeated piece of useless advice that is of no utility whatsoever to anyone with enough intelligence to successfully switch a computer on. And who the hell is Salim anyway and why do we want to know?

You have to wonder about the security standards being applied to public networks and resources here when the standard of communication regarding security is so utterly woeful.

BlockBerries

Image via Wikipedia

So Etisalat and Du have put their heads together and decided to block the evil BlackBerries. From this day on, no longer will the UAE's population be able to access gambling, pornography,drugs and *gasp* Voice over IP sites.

It's interesting that the telcos rank VOIP alongside gambling and porn - an insight into telco morality, if you like. What are the worst things the UAE's telcos can think of - the most mind-corrupting, society-challenging, youth-destabilising things possible? And Skype is right up there with the worst things that the Lord of Mordor could possibly imagine.

You do have to wonder, don't you? The telcos, according to the report carried in The Paper That Tells It Like It Is, Gulf News, are acting unilaterally and not waiting for 'Nanny' regulator the TRA. Damn right they are - because while three of the four categories are culturally arguable, the fourth, VOIP, is a purely commercial decision that is contrary to the interests of the people that these telcos are supposed to be serving.

At least they're not forcing people to accept spyware...

Corbis Blocked

Image via CrunchBase

Etisalat has blocked Corbis, the photo library owned by one William Gates III Jnr.

A major site used by millions of creatives around the world, the Corbis picture library is an important resource. Blocking it sets a worrying precedent - does this now mean that other picture libraries are going to be subject to blocking? And what does that mean for the UAE's creative industries?

Creativity comes with freedom of expression, they're old (ahem) bedfellows. Where there is creativity you find people pushing the envelope.

I think you need to take a position - make an evaluation of the cultural value of a site vs a couple of things you don't like. Not just smash in a block the second your software catches sight of a naughty bit.

This random blocking is helping nobody - I've posted about it before. Flikr is bad enough, social networks are bad enough.

But a major internationally renowned image library?

They've got to be kidding...

BTW, Du has not blocked Corbis. So we may yet see this potty decision reversed.

Magic? Not really, no...

Image by netzkobold via Flickr

UAE telco Etisalat yesterday unveiled the new 'HTC Magic' smartphone, a device based on Google's Android operating system. There's no sign from today's newspapers that anyone at yesterday's press conference chose to press the telco that likes to say 'ugh' on the massive network outages that have taken place over the last few days. We're all 'on message' today.

This is the third device that the telco has announced it will support and sell in a reversal of the decision, taken back in the early '90s, to liberalise the UAE's terminal equipment market. Etisalat also sells RIM's BlackBerry (the source of the great spyware scandal) and Apple's iPhone. That decision, formalised in comments to media yesterday, is a tectonic shift in the market and deserved more coverage than it got. But perhaps its importance wasn't blindingly obvious enough for it to be picked up.

Gulf News' slightly breathless coverage is eclipsed by Emirates Business 24|7 (which is now, of course, only published five days a week, making it Emirates Business 24|5, but we'll let that go), which trumpets 'Etisalat to launch own branded mobile phone'!

The Emirates Business story on the HTC Magic mixes it up confusingly with the news that Etisalat is going to go back into the 'own brand' terminal market, with a new 'phone being brought to market under the 'Etisalat' brand.

Gulf News' story provides a great deal more clarity, information and depth on the HTC touch, which is a nice surprise. It also points out that the phone will ship with 'Goggle' applications such as mail, search, maps and Google Talk.

Goggle. Nice one, GN subs.

The telephone's 'connectivity technologies' include HSDPA 7Mpbs and HSUPA 2Mbps, reports Gulf News with a charming and complete lack of context.

HSPA is the 'next generation' of telecom protocols, at times referred to as 'beyond 3G', High Speed Packet Access. it comes in two flavours Downlink (HSDPA) and Uplink (HSUPA) and supports hyper-fast mobile data rates - today's HSPA networks can pump over 20Mbps down to a mobile, while HSPA evolution is going to more than double that. So we're talking about hyper-fast network access, streaming video, rich content downloads and all that good stuff. Except, of course, at Etisalat's rates, the whole proposition is utterly ruinous.

At 7 Mbps, you would eat through 1Gig of data in a little over two and a half minutes, taking 25 minutes to munch through the 10Gigabyte package that will be bundled with the HTC Magic contract (reports, uniquely, The National).

Worse, you'll be paying a smidgen under Dhs75 per second for data access when you're roaming.

Yup - at Etisalat's ridiculous roaming fees of Dhs2.5 per 30 Kbytes of data, you'll certainly be loving that old high speed download Magic!

(If this post seems unusually grumpy, it's probably because my lowly 384kbit 3G Nokia has been cut off by said telco because my bill is over Dhs1,000. Or two seconds' worth of Magic!)

Basterds

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Thanks to my decision to start using some of the more advanced features of the *ahem* Nokia Platform, I'd sort of made up my mind that NufNuf would be my SatNav of choice in the UK. She actually works quite well, too. Even in solving questions like the best way to get to Pelcombe from Wolfscastle via Camrose.

But there's a fly in every ointment. I kept wondering about the cost of Internet access whilst roaming. When your mobile keeps telling you that this might be expensive, you start to wonder whether or not there's something to be truly concerned about here.

Five days into our UK sojourn, I get a text from everyone's favourite telco, Etisalat (ah, you use your own version of their name - Itisalot, Itsashite, whatever) that gleefully tells me I can call +9718002300 and ask all those questions not answered by their damn website - like what cost Internet roaming?

The answer, in the UK, is Dhs2.5 per 30kb.

Yup. 30 kilobytes. 30,000 bytes. An average screen of mobile data costs Dhs 2.5 or about £0.50.

When NufNuf gets heavy with the terrain maps, we're looking at chunks of 750Kb and more. When we manage data going into GIGS, let alone megs, 30kb is sort of anachronistic at best. If you want to be less than charitable, 30kb is totally useless.

Yet more circuit-switched thinking from stupid telcos that is helping to strangle advanced technology adoption at birth. Out with the (haha) 'Mubashir' SIM, in with Virgin UK's. Roaming in the Internet age?

Stuff it! Telcos are, yet again, thinking the 'two yoghurt-pot and a piece of string' business model. And it's going to kill 'em.

At least, I fervently hope so...

(BTW, when you DO call the damn number, expect to be stuck holding for 20 mins in a foreign country listening to how important your call is but we're busy helping other customers and then get connected to a total moron. Just in case you thought something had changed around here...)

Shortest

This might be my shortest blog post ever.

Here. Read this. It's Etisalat giving its side of the BlackBerry story.

See if it makes you angry...

RIM Enables Etisalat Update Removal

Image via CrunchBase

"Recently an update may have been provided to you by Etisalat for your BlackBerry Handheld via a WAP push. The Etisalat update is not a RIM-authorized update and was not developed by RIM. Independent sources have concluded that the Etisalat update is not designed to improve performance of your BlackBerry Handheld, but rather to send received messages back to a central server. RIM has developed this software (“Software”) that will enable you to remove the Etisalat update."

Not my words, but the official words of the company that makes and enables BlackBerry handheld devices , RIM, on its own forum.

Particularly chilling are these words: "Independent sources have concluded that the Etisalat update is not designed to improve performance of your BlackBerry Handheld, but rather to send received messages back to a central server."

This directly contradicts the words of telco Etisalat, which made a formal statement to media last week, "These upgrades were required for service enhancements particularly for issues identified related to the handover between 2G to 3G network coverage areas."

But RIM goes a lot, lot further in its formal statement on the whole affair. In fact, the company says:

"RIM confirms that this software is not a patch and it is not a RIM authorized upgrade. RIM did not develop this software application and RIM was not involved in any way in the testing, promotion or distribution of this software application.

RIM further confirms, in general terms, that a third party patch cannot provide any enhancements to network services as there is no capability for third parties to develop or modify the low level radio communications protocols that would be involved in making such improvements to the communications between a BlackBerry smartphone and a carrier’s network.

In addition, RIM is not aware of any technical network concerns with the performance of BlackBerry smartphones on Etisalat’s network in the UAE."

So someone's been telling porkie pies, haven't they?

The link to BlackBerry's site is HERE and if you have a BlackBerry and implemented the update, you'll be relieved to know it contains a removal tool provided by RIM for its customers to use in getting rid of the performance-sapping software.

RIM has done the right thing - in contrast to security company SS8, the organisation presumed to have actually coded the software behind this awful little mess and which has maintained a total silence in the face of media requests. Similarly, etisalat's reaction (ignore it all and hope it goes away) has hardly been customer focused - people are still helping each other with 'broken' BlackBerries and Twitter is still ringing with plaintive Tweets for help from grounded BB users.

Do get the word out to friends and family that an 'official' fix is now available to roll back the update and, belatedly, ameliorate the impact on users of this muckle-headed catastrophe.

Etisalat still has 145,000 people to answer to, BTW... And, one rather suspects, a media that will be baying for its blood...

Link to the RIM statement, hosted on the Chirashi Security blog, HERE. Enjoy!

Incompetence or arrogance?

Image by Loutron Glouton via Flickr

Respected security analysts and consultancies have now confirmed what many industry watchers, pundits and commentators suspected last week - that the 'upgrade' pushed to tens of thousands of BlackBerry mobile devices in the UAE by telco Etisalat was, in fact, not what it seemed to be, an 'upgrade for Blackberry service. Please download to ensure continous service quality.'

Interestingly, this rather flies in the face of the somewhat belated statement made by the telco itself, which I reproduced in full here at the end of last week. That statement rather annoyed a number of BlackBerry users who found it facile and lacking the one element that tens of thousands of frustrated customers whose mobile devices were affected wanted to see - an apology. Many of those users say their BlackBerrys were rendered inoperable or suffered significantly downgraded performance. A number reportedly bought new batteries for their BlackBerrys, believing the battery was at fault when, in fact, it was the software update they had accepted from the operator.

A press release was issued on the 15th July by security company SMobile Systems. The company, which positions itself as 'the leading provider of security solutions for mobile phones and maker of the only antivirus and antispyware applications in the world for BlackBerry devices, has released a solution for the (in their words) 'recent spyware-laden update sent out to BlackBerry users on the Etisalat network'. That press release in full can be found here.

The company's release claims, 'The BlackBerry Spyware, which intercepts email and drains battery life quickly, was pushed as an update to BlackBerry's on the Etisalat network. Sent to users as a wide-area protocol (WAP) message, the Java file intercepts data and sends a copy to a server without the user's knowledge.'

That is an extraordinary claim to make regarding a piece of software that Etisalat's official statement says was software 'required for service enhancements particularly for issues identified related to the handover between 2G to 3G network coverage areas.'

It is perhaps worth noting that the Chairman of SMobile Systems, quoted in the release, is a former White House Deputy Chief of Staff and so, we must reluctantly admit, carries some weight.

SMobile is not the only expert testimony that claims the notorious update is other than it seems. Besides the many people who believe that the Etisalat network is 100% 3G now and therefore does not present 2G to 3G cell handover problems, there are also a number who point out the fact that BlackBerrys haven't experienced cell handover issues for some time now - in fact, the only online references I can find to the handover issue date back to 2006.

Added to this, you have those who have examined the code - Qatar based programmer Nigel Gourlay was quoted widely in the initial coverage of the issue, but his assertions that the network update was in fact an attempt to install monitoring software have been backed up by respected security blog Chirashi Security - a white paper analysing the code in some detail, written by Sheran Gunarsekera, is linked here.

That white paper asserts that the code is a monitoring application. It also points out that the application was not properly implemented, pointing out that the application developers had not used any form of source code obfuscation - in other words, it shouldn't have been as simple to trace, upload and analyse the code as it in fact was. The code, according to the White Paper, is set up to hide itself from the user, attach itself to network events and report these to the service-provider's server and look out for control messages that enable interception of user messages. If enabled, the application will forward a copy of emails sent by the subscriber to the service provider's servers.

Damningly, the White Paper asserts that the code 'was not mature enough to be deployed. This is especially relevant if Etisalat planned to conduct full-scale legal interception on BlackBerry users.'

The Chirashi White Paper is scrupulous to point out that the application only forwards outgoing emails and not other message types and then only when the application has been enabled to do so - it does not report on emails by default. But it does make the point that the version of the interceptor software it analysed should not have been deployed - particularly not as part of a legal interception.

The White Paper also strays out of geekland into my domain when it asserts, in the context of requiring legal interception software to meet two criteria, to do no harm and to be thoroughly tested: 'A service provider should always be prepared for the worst. In case things do not work out as planned, there needs to be a dedicated PR team who is ready to step up and deal with the public. Users should not be lied to or ignored, they will accept it better if they know the provider is well within legal rights to perform such interception.' (The italics are mine, BTW)

Security company Veracode also analysed the upgrade last week, asking whether the fact that the implemented update contained both .jar and .cod versions was down to 'arrogance or incompetence?'. That's an area explored by a journalist from the region's leading telecommunications magazine, Comms MEA, here. Again, Veracode's Chris Eng reports that the clear purpose of the update, in his expert view, is to install a piece of software that, when activated, will forward user data to a third party server, presumably owned by the service provider.

All of this leaves me wondering quite what on earth Etisalat thought it was doing. And quite how our media is standing by and allowing Etisalat to simply claim that the great big elephant in the cupboard is in fact a pair of shoes.

Nobody I know has a problem with legal interception. I think most of us would recognise that it is highly desirable that the security agencies employed by our governments have access to the information they need in order to protect society in general. Those agencies are constantly monitoring network traffic, legally and within the charters and frameworks that govern their activity. We need them to be competent and we desperately need to believe in their competence and efficacy.

Similarly, we need to trust our telcos. As a commercial entity operating in a regulated and competitive free market environment, even the biggest telco has a duty towards its subscribers and a duty to tell the truth - not only to earn the trust of its customers, but to underpin the level of trust required by investors and multinational companies who wish to trade in that environment. Mendacity and silence are not good enough - people are still facing problems with their terminals even now because there has been no clear attempt to reach out to customers and fix this issue - let alone roll back the update. There are critical issues related to privacy and security that the operator has refused to address - and questions are now being asked by a wider community about the long-term implications for BlackBerry security in general as a result of this whole farago.

Finally, there is the issue of responsibility. Someone was responsible for this Keystone Cops attempt to police BlackBerrys and the subsequent lack of timely and appropriate response that turned a customer service problem into a full-blown case study in how fumbled issues management rapidly evolves nto crisis management and how ignoring a crisis simply, in today's commercial environment, won't do.

Speech!

Etisalat BlackBerry Software Upgrade Aims to Enhance Performance of Devices and Facilitate Handover from 3G to 2G Networks

Abu Dhabi 15 July 2009: Etisalat today confirmed that a conflict in the settings in some BlackBerry devices has led to a slight technical fault while upgrading the software of these devices. This has resulted in reduced battery life in a very limited number of devices. Etisalat has received approximately 300 complaints to date, out of its total customer base which exceeds 145,000.

These upgrades were required for service enhancements particularly for issues identified related to the handover between 2G to 3G network coverage areas.

Customers who have been affected are advised to call 101 where they will be given instructions on how to restore their handset to its original state. This will resolve the issue completely.

Silence is Golden

Image via Wikipedia

The Etisalat BlackBerry update story has started to grow little legs now, with the coverage from Gulf News and ITP.net yesterday joined today by a story from The National and a GN followup. Both of today's UAE dailies focus on the irritation of subscribers and the silence of Etisalat, an angle that The National, in particular, highlights:

"Etisalat does not lack the ability to talk to the public. It is one of the UAE’s largest advertisers and it would be difficult to spend a day without seeing one of its promotions in print or on television. Its public relations machine is well oiled, putting out press releases daily..." says reporter Tom Gara before launching into an entertaining, if slightly surreal, series of nautical metaphors spanking the uncommunicative communications company.

Now coverage has gone international, with stories from Wired and from the UK's rightly feared (or revered, depending on which side of the industry fence you sit on. Rather marvellously, its tagline is 'Biting the hand that feeds IT') The Register.

It is, yes, a wee social media case study, this one. A single user posts some stuff he found on a specialist forum, triggering the swift passing of that information among a frustrated customer base that is being poorly communicated with. The news is examined, refined and passed on again, a great deal of that traffic going via Twitter BTW, and now it's going wild. Many media reports internationally are focusing on one or two media reports locally - the role of a single Qatari software expert being key right now in the coverage from 'mainstream' media as it is picked up by media outlets. In fact, both Wired and The Register covered the story from ITP.Net. And now uber-blog engadget has covered it from The Register. And if that isn't as bad as ReTweeting, I don't know what is!

Now major international technology media outlets are repeating a story based on the stated views of one man following his comments on a local blog. Scary, in its way. I'm not denigrating that expert, BTW: Nigel (and original discoverer DXBLouie) are both chaps that certainly appear to know a great deal about what they're talking about - as does Steve Halzinski, whose post on BlackBerrycool here still contains his considered view on the nature of the 'network update' that apparently forced BlackBerries into meltdown as they scrambled to contact an overloaded server.

News expands to fill a vacuum. Particularly a social vacuum. For what it's worth, my prediction is that this story will grow - Etisalat really needs to fill that vacuum before it does, although I suspect that by now the genie is well and truly out of the bottle.