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Tag Archive for 'wifi'

Is your mobile operator crippling your phone?

Published

on 19/4/2007

. 2 Comments

Making calls from your mobile over wifi, instead of your mobile provider’s network, saves lots of money on call charges. This has the obvious consequence of reducing the income of the ~~bloodsucking~~ mobile operators (all together now, awwwww).

To ensure you can’t do this, some mobile operators have crippled the ability to make Internet calls on the phones they sell you as this video demonstrates:

If your mobile operator has done thisto your phone, shame on them. I presume re-installing the original Nokia firmware on your phone will bring back the Internet calling functionality. Can anyone confirm this?

FON need to improve their router firmware

Published

Tom Raftery

on 10/4/2007

in wifi

. 5 Comments

FON have a nifty little idea (and some investment from Google, Skype and Index Ventures, if memory serves). Their idea is that if you use one of their wireless routers, you get a login which you can then use on any other FON owner’s wireless router.

This gives you free wi-fi Internet access anywhere there is a FON user. Great.

One thing about this really bugs me though. Whenever my computer has to re-establish a connection with my router (whenever it wakes from sleep, or I return to the office from a meeting), if I try to browse to an Internet page, I am presented with the FON login page.

This wouldn’t be too bad, if the login page could remember the page I was originally trying to browse to and re-directed me there after successful login.

No, instead the successful login re-directs to a useless FON page.

Now, consider what happens when I re-start my computer. I shut down my browsers (I generally have 4-5 browsers running simultaneously with 30-40 tabs per browser). When I re-open any browser, I am presented with 30-40 FON login pages with no hope of getting back to the page which had been originally open.

AAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!! Totally infuriating.

This happened once too often this morning and I am now turning off my FON router.

FON, if you get this issue resolved, let me know and I will give you another try. Until then, hasta lluego!

Wireless Wednesday in Cork

Published

Tom Raftery

on 5/12/2006

in wifi

. 0 Comments

I see Damien is chairing an event in the Rochestown Park Hotel on tomorrow at 6pm called Staying Competitive in the International Arena.

The event has an interesting line-up of speakers including Pat Phelan of Roam4Free.

If you have the time, I’d say it will be well worth dropping along.

Zune to illegally add DRM to podcasts?

Published

Tom Raftery

on 28/9/2006

in Podcast, Web 2.0, iPod and mobile

. 9 Comments

Microsoft is to launch the Zune on November 14th according to its PR site.

This date is just in time for the American holiday of Thanksgiving. What is not clear from the site is if this is an American launch date of a global launch date.

I wrote, in not too glowing terms previously about the Zune. One criticism I missed at that time is that if someone shares one of my podcasts over wifi on the Zune, the Zune adds on its own DRM to my podcast, in direct contravention to my podcast’s Creative Commons Licence causing the podcast to self-destruct in three days or after three plays.

Can someone in Microsoft explain the legality of that to me please? ‘Cos to me, that’s just plain illegal.

How to beat the RIAA?

Published

Tom Raftery

on 31/7/2006

in Technology

. 15 Comments

Via Bernie comes news that the RIAA is starting to drop cases against people who have open wifi networks!

The RIAA (the Recording Industry Association of America) has to date, sued over 18,000 people in the United States suspected of distributing copyrighted works, and have settled approximately 2,500 of the cases. Sue first and ask questions later seems to be their motto. As I have witnessed first-hand, bringing out the lawyers is never a good PR move.

In any case, now it seems that:

if you want to win a lawsuit from the RIAA, you’re best off opening up your WiFi network to neighbors. It seems like this strategy might actually be working. Earlier this month the inability to prove who actually did the file sharing caused the RIAA to drop a case in Oklahoma and now it looks like the same defense has worked in a California case as well. In both cases, though, as soon as the RIAA realized the person was using this defense, they dropped the case, rather than lose it and set a precedent showing they really don’t have the unequivocal evidence they claim they do.

I wonder would that work with a FON network or does it have to be completely open?