T-Mobile Kinda Suck

OK, my first run in with T-Mobile sucked. I tried to order the Web And Walk USB Stick yesterday, expecting it to be delivered today. I checked my spam filter today, and found this from T-Mobile websales:

"Unfortunately, we were unable to gain verification of your identification and address details using our online systems."

They were unable to make a £2 payment and then refund it. I phoned them up, talked to a very unfriendly and completly unhelpful chap, tried a different card and that failed. I know both cards have credit, so it's not me, it's their shitty address verification system. I am astoundingly angry at T-Mobile at moment. I think if their "customer service" rep was less abrasive and actually helpful I'd be a bit pissed off, but nowhere near as angry as I am now. I don't know why people make a song and dance about UK Call Centres - I'd rather speak to someone helpful in India than the jerk I spoke to in the UK.

I'm in 2 minds about saying "fuck 'em" and going with Vodafone. Especially as I'll be trapped with people for 2 years (which wasn't that much of a concern before this, as years ago I was a Mercury/T-Mobile subscriber and never had a problem with them). If it wasn't for the temptation of free WiFi, I'd be on Vodafone's website right now. Once I calm down I'm going to pop up to the T-Mobile store in town at lunch time (I'm working from home today, thinking that the USB stick would turn up). If that doesn't go well, I will be off to Vodafone.

Free Coffee From BT Openzone

Todays post brought a free coffee at Caffe Nero voucher from BT Openzone as BT Openzone is now to Caffe Nero what T-Mobile is to Starbucks.

Speaking of T-Mobile and BT Openzone,I still haven't heard from BT Openzone as to when I'm supposed to choose the new plan. I've pretty much decided to go with the £5 a month plan from BT Openzone and the £15 a month plan from T-Mobile for 3G + WiFi.

AOL PhoneLine RIP

While catching up on my reading, I came across this, and a quick check of the homepage for AOL PhoneLine confirmed it - it's gone. It been replaced with "AIM Dial Out", which, as the name implies, doesn't have dial in capability.

I'm not surprised PhoneLine died - if after 30 days there was no activity you lost not only the number, but the ability to get a number for that screen name. So if you wanted to try it again you had to create a new AOL/AIM account. I understand wanting to monetize a service, but that level of inconvenience is just shooting yourself in the foot. And the way it used SIP but wasn't open didn't help either.

Oh well, I said a year ago that it was little more than a toy VOIP provider.

"Exciting News" From BT Openzone

For some reason, whenever I read "Exciting news" at the start of an email from BT I expect to be informed that a (not very well disguised) price hike is on it's way. On Thursday I got an email from BT with those exact words and I was not disappointed (wait a second, I was disappointed as it was the announcement of a price hike).

While I get to keep my current pricing plan until sometime next year, I will ultimately have to choose between one of BT Openzone's new price plans. The one that is 100% equivalent to the one I am on now is 10 pounds a month - a 100% price increase. I could go for the service that is the same cost as what I'm on now, and it's almost exactly the same but for one crucial difference - the minutes don't roam onto T-Mobile. With the 10 pound a month option, the 500 minutes do roam.

I've got sit down and do some calculations - do I go with the £5 or £10 a month service - or do I just drop BT Openzone altogether.

Anything for an N800

I went down to Victoria Station this lunch time to try and win an N800 with BT Openzone's event going on down there. When an N800 (amongst other things, such as a laptop and wireless baby monitors) is up for grabs I loose the ability to feel embarrassment - so I dutifully stood in inside a plastic box trying to grab flying bits of paper. The rules were simple, stand inside the box for 10 seconds and grab at least 6 yellow pieces of paper. I did just that and I won a 24 hour Openzone pass. I guess it might come in handy some day, now that there's WiFi almost everywhere I go*. Those 500 minutes a month are starting to burn up more than they used to, so it might be a handy backup if I run out of credit.

* I have noticed that The Cloud often doesn't work - full signal strength, but no connection. Not just on the 770, but on 2 Nintendo DS' and a laptop. And not just at one location - I've found the same problem at both a Wetherspoons and a McDonalds.

Westminster Wireless

There was a 2 page ad in this morning's Metro announcing "Westminster Wireless" from BT Openzone - which is now live. In celebration, there are events going on in Soho square and Victoria train station this week (at Victoria, you can win a Nokia N800, amongst other WiFi goodies).

More importantly for me, it works (more or less) even in the office, so now I don't have to go downstairs to Starbucks just to download something on to the 770.

BBC iPlayer for Linux

In an article about free access to the BBC website via The Cloud is news that iPlayer is coming to Linux and the Mac by the end of the year. At least something like iPlayer - instead of downloading, the programmes are streamed in Adobe Flash format. I think this is a far better solution than having DRM encrusted files taking up hard drive space and is what iPlayer should have been to begin with. It looks like the streamed programmes will be embeddable in people's webpages, similar to YouTube.

And while most of that article is about the streaming version of iPlayer, a small section at the beginning states that the BBC's website will be available via The Cloud for free. Which is great for when you're sitting in a Weatherspoons waiting for your friends to turn up and you have your Nokia 770 on you.

via TechCrunch UK

Free WiFi

Since getting the 770, I've been getting a lot of use out of BT Openzone, The Cloud and T-Mobile. However, today I came across free WiFi where I did not expect it - at an Old Orleans restaurant. Apperently, free Wifi is available at "Regents Inn" premises (Old Orleans, Walkabout and Jongleurs).

I'm also looking forward to McDonald's free wifi service, though I was wondering what happens at the restaurants that already have BT Openzone. Reading the press release, it looks like The Cloud is providing the new free service. Oddly enough, when I went to the McDonalds at Friern Bridge Retail Park a few weeks back I was confused to find both The Cloud and BT Openzone SSIDs and connecting to the BT Openzone SSID brought up The Cloud welcome page.

Nokia 770

Expansys are selling Nokia 770 Internet Tablets at an irresistible price (~74 quid). Needless to say, I bought one and it arrived this morning.

I've only had time for a quick play, but so far it's the best gadget I've bought in a long time. The screen is sharp - you can actually read full size web pages on it (this is the first handheld device I've had where websites look like they're supposed to). The BBC and Slashdot load reasonably quickly (not as fast a desktop, but fast enough).

I found WiFi configuration to be reasonably pain free and would have been painless if my network didn't use a hidden SSID. The network browser (which pops up during initial configuration) could only find my neighbours networks, most of which were still set to the default SSID, telling me exactly what bit of hardware they're using. I still remember when I was the only wireless network in the building (assuming there weren't any hidden ones), now there are several. In order to connect to my network, I had to go through the control panel and inform the tablet of my networks existence.

One of the first things I did was install Gizmo and I was able to call TellMe, so VOIP works. I'm in the middle of building a new asterisk server (I've tagged project 1 here), but gizmo should work with it once that's built.

I know many feel the device has it's flaws (most of which have been corrected on the N800), that Nokia's long term support might not be there (ie, OS updates are hidden away under the title of "for developers only", and those updates have been few and far between since the arrival of the N800) and that it's not fully open (ie, like a Tivo, you can't download and rebuild the OS) - however I don't care (at least for now) about such matters - at this price point the device is astoundingly good.

BSkyB Buys Amstrad

According to Broadband TV News, BSkyB have bought Amstrad. I wonder what (if anything) will become of the emailer.

Linux Magazine Issue 82

Linux Magazine Issue 82 is going to have several articles on VOIP (I just got the preview email yesterday). Not sure when it hits the stands or (more importantly for me) drops through the letterbox.

A Link On Installing Asterisk on FreeBSD

Here's a link to a how to on installing asterisk on FreeBSD. My current plan is to get Asterisk running a FreeBSD VM, and from there into a nanobsd image (which will, hopefully, also initially run in qemu for test purposes)

Installing nanobsd on freebsd

I haven't actually seen this explicitly stated anywhere, as I'm guessing it's obvious to FreeBSDers how to get the nanobsd tool installed. For those of us who are more into linux, it's not so obvious or straightforward (ie, it's not sudo apt-get install nanobsd). Instead, you have to log in as root, run sysinstall, choose Configure, then Distributions, then src, then tools (I added base and sys as well - dunno if they're actually needed or not). sysinstall will then install nanobsd into /usr/src/tools/tools/nanobsd (yes, tools is twice).

Nanobsd

Another option for my tiny asterisk server may be Nanobsd. It might be easier to get Asterisk 1,4 running on it. This evening, I've been trying to create a FreeBSD virtual machine for qemu/kvm, so that I can try building a nanobsd image. That's taking awhile.

Astlinux

I've got a slow project on the go the build a new asterisk server out of a neoware thin client. Astlinux looks good, but it's still using the 1.2 series of Asterisk. I want 1.4. I'm trying to build it using the latest versions, but I can't get zaptel to build.

PhoneGnome Box

I'm not sure why I haven't come across this before - the PhoneGnome Box. It looks like it's a standalone SIP based FXO/FXS. It's $99 - I've sent an email to try and find out what shipping to this side of the Atlantic would be.

update - Well, I would get one - shipping is $40, so it's only £70 total, but I can't seem to get them to process my credit card. I know I have enough credit, I know I entered the right details, but I keep getting "Declined - Matched AVS/CVV2 Filter"

update - my bank phoned me up - they noticed that they received several authorization requests at once (that they authorized). I've tried to phone PhoneGnome, but nobody's home. I've sent an email - I'm guessing no one will be in till monday. This is pissing me off.

update (2007-7-24) - I got the order through, but phonegnome had to put the order through manually. Now I just have to wait for it to turn up (but I guess I'm going to have to pay VAT when it does)

Google May Bid For US Spectrum

Ever since the net nutrality debate in the US started to kick off, with words from a telco executive (iirc, from AT&T) along the lines that Google owed them money, I've figured that there was going to be war between Google and the telcos in the US.(A quick aside - I've always felt that the executive got it the wrong way around - if anybody owes anybody extra money, it would be the telcos owing Google, Yahoo, etc - as without the content then no one would subscribe to their internet services, but I digress). First Google acquired GrandCentral and now they're commiting to compete in a US spectrum auction. They want the spectrum to be open, so they've said they would put thier hat in the ring if the FCC follows principles of openness around the spectrum. I have no idea if 4.6 gigadollars is a serious competitive bid or just a warning shot (apparently, it's the reserve price), because I have not been following the 700 Mhz sell off as I don't live in the US. Either way, war is coming.

The F3 Appears to be unlocked.

I noticed that the can the Motorola F3 came in didn't mention a specific provider. So I thought I'd see what happens when I insert my Orange SIM - it worked!

Homechoice Goes Tiscali Green

I had to restart my Homechoice Box this morning - it appears that Tiscali have re-themed the menu system - now it's a (somewhat disgusting) shade of green where it used to be red and the font used also looks different (at least at first glance - I'll check more tonight)

Tesco Internet Did 999 Calls?

I got an odd email from Tesco's Internet Phone service saying that 999 calls were going to be temporarily unavailable - I was unaware that they were ever supporting them in the first place. I distinctly remember reading a "this will not work with 999 calls" warning on TIP product at some point in the past.