3G heebie jeebies and being nice to BT

Any telecoms freaks out there may remember that back in January, the country's 3G auction didn't go quite according to plan. In fact, an analyst we spoke to on Wednesday neatly called it "a complete disaster". (http://www.silicon.com/a44748 )

The long and short of it is that two licences went unsold because no one could afford them, rather denting any hopes there would be true competition in the market.

But the hunt is now on for a brace of vendors willing to stump up the cash and buy the remaining licences.

This process will in itself cause problems. If the licences are put on offer at a bargain-basement price, the vendors that forked out billions in January will kick up a stink. If they cost a similar fistful of francs, we could end up back at square one with some rather large pieces missing from the jigsaw.

And the regulator will be well and truly immersed in the merde.

Meanwhile, back in dear old Blighty, Gordon Brown has ruled out any chance of a rebate for the winners of last year's £22bn auction fandango.

The 'iron chancellor' said: "There won't be any change in our policy. People paid the price they were prepared to offer."

And as some of the debt-ridden telcos are finding it a wee bit tricky to fund the building of the networks they boldly bid for the right to run, things aren't exactly going swimmingly here.

But elsewhere, one or two players have at least dipped their toes in the 3G waters. BT (via Manx Telecom) almost had the world's first working 3G network, but as reported in a previous Round-Up, a small technical hitch has delayed the roll-out until the summer, leaving (somewhat inevitably) the Far East to steal a march. Sort of.

Both South Korea and Japan have now claimed the title for having the world's first functional 3G infrastructure.

South Korea's network runs on something called 1X 1595, a hybrid of the CDMA standard. Only problem is that this isn't really 3G at all: users are likely to experience connection rates of 30-40Kbps, way off the 2Mbps 'pure' 3G promises.

So over to Japan, where NTT DoCoMo, itself recently the victim of a handset-shaped spanner in the works, claims to have launched 3G services. Properly.

Only problem here is that they're only being trialled by 3,300 users. And 1,200 of them will have to wait a month for videophone facilities.

So rather than an all-whizzing, all-banging firework display of a launch, they've got a bit of a damp squib on their hands.

But DoCoMo remains ebullient, saying that this softish launch will give it a valuable insight into generating profits from 3G.

(Sorry, did someone say profits...? But that's a whole new can of particularly wriggly worms we'd rather not open right now.)

Still in the land of mobile, former Formula One driver and current ITV presenter Mark Blundell made his own expensive telephony blunder last weekend. While working ever so hard in Monaco for Sunday's Monte Carlo grand prix, he somehow managed to drop his phone into the harbour.

Sounds trivial enough, but his problem was fairly major: this was no ordinary phone, you see. He was evaluating a prototype model from Motorola. Only four of which have been built. Ever.

So a Ferrari-red faced Blundell had to hire a diver to fetch it for him from the bottom of the deep blue sea.

Readers of last week's Round-Up will remember FlickDotCom - touted as the internet's answer to the Yellow Pages. It'll be a paper-based directory listing genuine, stable and family friendly online businesses.

Proving that no publicity is bad publicity, several of you rushed online to find out more about FlickDotCom. None of you were able to find anything.

Oh dear.

This either proves FlickDotCom's belief that online search engines really are rubbish - or the company hasn't quite got round to creating a website for itself yet, which would presumably preclude it from an entry in its own directory.

Which could it be? Hate to spoil the party for all you irony lovers, but it's the former. See http://www.flickdot.com . (Sorry to be picky, but doesn't that make its name flick-dot-dot-com?)

And now for a reader's email which we think is a world first. Yes, it's a message in support of BT which didn't come from a BT employee.

Normally the Round-Up wouldn't give the space the what are clearly the lunatic ravings of a madman, but we have an inkling Julie (for that is her name) may be saner than you might at first expect. In fact, this almost touched a nerve. So here it is, in full:

"Please leave BT alone - I am fed up of reading your newsletter always running them down. Find something more interesting and newsworthy to write about, or try and be imaginative and put a positive slant on something - I bet that would be a challenge to rise to for a change.
"I hate having to read negative put downs - especially first thing on a lovely morning - it really sours the day. Can't you find anything nice to report about anyone - no wonder businesses go under when there are so many like you and your reporters out there throwing daggers at them. Why do we have to be people who love to destroy - why can't we build up for a change?
"Personally I am fed up and not at all surprised there are riots going on when hope is all drained away by so much negative. Make a difference! Reverse the downward spiral. Become worth reading again."

Right. Err. Well. That is a challenge. Ummm. We'll certainly think about that.

Unfortunately, just as we were digesting these thoughts in the editorial department, we got a tip-off about a spot of bother an ISP was in. A phone call or two led us to BT's door... but to save Julie from undue heartache, you'll have to click here (http://www.silicon.com/a44744 and then here (http://www.silicon.com/a44764 ) to find out the whole story because we've run out of space.

But it's just so much easier to slag people off than praise them. Sad but true. I blame the politicians. Speaking of which, please make free use of the links below to catch up on the latest IT-related election news. We'll be back (probably throwing daggers but hopefully not causing riots) next Friday.