Today’s UK launch is rightly generating a lot of excitement — and given there’s a 1-month free trial (you do need to give your credit card) there’s little excuse for having a wee look.

For far too long I’ve been limited by Apple’s pretty rubbishy iTunes TV/Movie range so it was brilliant to see a whole load of fantastic content available when I signed in to Netflix. Bring it on!

I then thought I’d check it out on my iPhone — I swiftly downloaded the app, signed-in and then looked for something to test out. I quickly tapped on Armageddon. 10 seconds later the movie was playing.

Now — this is wonderful from my personal perspective.

It’s pretty shitty from a network perspective, though.

I was streaming on my new iPhone 4S from 3. Their coverage in Richmond is sublime. I couldn’t help but think that whilst I was having a nice time watching the movie, what effect was I having on the local 3 cell capacity?

I’d expect 3 to be able to handle this kind of traffic. Their data network is most definitely robust enough to take the strain. That is, until every single one of 3′s iPhone customers starts doing the exact same.

It’ll be even worse on the big standard networks. How’s o2 or Vodafone going to cope?

I broke out in a sweat after 10 seconds of watching the opening Armageddon credits because I knew I was using up a significant amount of bandwidth unnecessarily on Monday morning for anyone else using 3 in the area. I stopped the streaming.

Unfortunately, it looks like Netflix is most definitely about streaming. I don’t think you can temporarily store movie content on your phone in offline mode like you can with the likes of Spotify. (With Spotify, I occasionally download music ‘real time’ over the data network but mostly I use offline mode when I’m out and about.)

Streaming — and especially video streaming — is going to be the bane of the UK networks for a long time to come.

I hope that 3G demand for Netflix doesn’t force the UK networks to decide to lower their inclusive contract data allowances to 50mb a month….

That, seriously, has been their response to burgeoning data demand in the past.

I wonder if we need to have that ‘app’ conversation again — that is, you buy super-fast access to a raft of apps on top of your standard monthly fee. For instance, I might opt to pay £6/month extra to get ‘gold level’ access to Netflix, Spotify and iPlayer via my 3G connection. However I’d want to be sure that the operators had put some proper equipment in place to make sure that I actually got decent service most of the time.

It’s such an arse, though, this whole problem. Netflix is hardly likely to want to see operators charging more money to consumers to access it’s service. If anything, Netflix is likely to want a cut. But then, if Netflix 3G usage skyrockets over the next few months, it won’t be long before we see operator CEOs bleating about wanting Netflix to pay access fees to them.

It’s going to be an interesting year.

- – - – -

Current approaches to mobile network and content optimisation will fail to address the real requirements of managing the growth of mobile data in current and next generation networks. The proliferation of mobile devices means that not only are we ‘always-connected’, but that we are also increasingly accessing richer content such as YouTube videos and media-rich social networking services. On top of this, the advent of 4G/LTE network enhancements will bring increased user expectations for faster and smoother access to more and richer content, which will only add to data consumption.

Whilst optimisation techniques have improved over time, they haven’t gone far enough to support the massive volume of mobile data expected in the coming years. The “optimise all” model, currently used to reduce overall data volume, will no longer keep pace with exploding traffic demands. From a total cost of ownership (TCO) perspective, optimisation will not be sustainable in the future. The predicted cost of managing the delivery of all this data means that for mobile network operators (MNOs) to maintain profitability in the long run, it’s time for a new era of optimisation.

The need for a new approach to mobile data optimisation is reflected in today’s key performance indicators (KPIs) which focus on volume reduction. But overall volume in the network is not the critical issue: increasing volume is inevitable. What’s more, in today’s business models, where customers pay for data by the megabit or gigabit, a reduction in overall volume equals a reduction in revenue for the operator.

The new era of mobile data optimisation has to fulfil two main requirements for operators: firstly, to provide a satisfying user experience at all times, and secondly, to keep the cost of the network and capacity expansion investment manageable.

Subscribers expect constant and consistently good user experience: after all, that’s what they pay for. They don’t understand that their experience might be affected by being in a busy cell at a busy time. An operator has to deliver on these expectations whilst taking into account the ongoing capital and operating expenses of the network. Yet congestion problems that cause disruptions in user experience are not consistent across the network, but transient and localised.

Optimisation must evolve: the optimise-all approach is a sledgehammer when, in fact, it’s only a scalpel that is often required. Mobile data optimisation shouldn’t be aimed at reducing overall volume: instead it should keep a real-time lookout for signs of congestion in order to predict congestion just before it occurs, ensuring that optimisation is applied only when absolutely necessary.

We believe that MNOs should adopt an evolved approach to optimisation which addresses these issues by redefining optimisation as a congestion management and quality of experience (QoE) approach, rather than a volume reduction technique. Only then can the direct link between traffic growth and data optimization investment may be broken.

Beyond identifying congestion just before it occurs, MNOs should be able to implement cloud-based caching and optimisation to more efficiently manage resources in a distributed model. This means that optimisation resources are utilised only when needed and where they provide benefit to the user, with faster page load times and fewer video stalls; and to the mobile operator by targeting only areas that, at a given point in time, have insufficient capacity.

This evolved approach to optimisation enables operators to decouple investment in optimisation infrastructure from soaring data volume growth. Without it, MNOs will find it more and more challenging to maintain sustainable levels of infrastructure investment as the need for optimisation grows: thus, evolved optimisation is necessary to ensure sustainable profitability as volume increases exponentially.

How MNOs cope with the explosion of data across their networks is crucial to their long-term profitability. By focusing on real needs – user experience and resource management – an evolved approach to optimisation can scale with the problem and not with the rapid increase in overall traffic volume.

To return to the question you posed, “The Data Capacity Crunch: Are we still in it?”, the answer is maybe. It is true that data (especially video) consumption has and will continue to grow. But it doesn’t have to cause a “crunch”, at least not if the operators evolve their approach to it.

- – - – -

Noam Green is VP Marketing at Mobixell.

This morning I did a video conference call from my office at home in Ascot. My equipment was simply a BT Infinity internet connection along with an iPad 2 running Polycom’s all new RealPresence app.

My colleague’s equipment? £15k’s worth of Polycom kit attached to a whopping 42″ screen. He even has a little control for pointing the camera.

I’m pleased to report that the results were flipping fantastic.

Here’s how it worked.

When I started up the app, I was immediately presented with a dial-pad. My colleague gave me his IP address. I typed it in. Bang. His smiling face appeared.

I’ve always wanted to ‘dial an IP address’, ever since someone years ago told me that they’d like to replace their phone number with an IP. It’s geeky, I know.

I chatted away on the iPad and I have to say the experience was seamless.

The downside — as the app’s write-up on the App Store points out — is that in order for this stuff to work properly, you really need an enterprise deployment of Polycom’s RealPresence Infrastructure (“CMA 5.4 and higher”). My colleague has got that. Indeed, his company has a couple of hundred ‘codexes’ (as he referred to them — i.e. endpoints). So much so that he makes huge, huge use of video conferencing.

The concept with the iPad app is simple: Polycom are making sure that everyone can participate. So whilst your typical massive enterprise might deploy dozens and dozens of Polycom-enabled meeting rooms worldwide (along with individual desktop units), the reality is that not everyone will be connected. Give’em all an iPad and boom, you’ve now connected the company. Or, as is more likely, give senior executives an iPad (or, let’s be honest, they’ve probably already got one) so just connect those iPads into the Polycom RealPresence service and you’re done. Everyone can HD-conference to their heart’s content.

You do need some decent networking infrastructure too from somebody like Verizon. And you’ll need to do a good deal with Polycom for all their kit.

The net effect is nothing short of science fiction though. It’s like in the movies. Indeed I couldn’t help but think of a variety of scenes from the movie Aliens where video calling is used in common-place situations. It’s also very, very Star Trek.

Video conferencing is nothing new. FaceTime is a super example of a consumer product that you can definitely use for business purposes. The problem is when you want to scale beyond one-to-one. With most business meetings you typically need more than 2 folk, right? That’s FaceTime out. Skype, or Google+ Hangouts can cope.. but not to the level that most of us need for enterprise quality discussions.

My colleague does most of his key work at home nowadays. And why not? It’s the ultimate future-work lifestyle. What’s the point of getting on the train every day when you can talk to colleagues properly and constructively via video — for free* — without all the overhead?

* Free in the context of having to spend a lot of money on RealPresence and Polycom hardware.

Adding the iPad into the mix for real time video calling just makes things even sweeter, I think.

Have you seen this stuff working? It really is very, very smart. Good work on the iPad app, Polycom.

Have you checked out any alternatives I should be examining?

Read all about Polycom RealPresence here. I should point out that you can use their services not just on iPad but on the Motorola XOOM and the Samsung Galaxy Tab too.

Here’s a video giving a brief overview of the iPad 2 app:

And now, have a look at this swish demo I found on Youtube:

Over to Sean:

Over to Nimrod:

Anyway, I enjoyed Mobixell’s take on the issue of network congestion – the causes of it (mainly video according to Mobixell) and some ways to try and fix it. I know they’ve had some success recently with operators, so I asked Noam to highlight some of the issues of congestion and what the operators should do about it.

Over to Noam:

- – - – -

Should Mobile Operators Optimise Only Half of Your Mobile Videos?
We only watch about halfway through anyway

It can’t be disputed that mobile video is a growing cause of network traffic with the rise in the popularity of “over the top” video – 60% of all HTTP traffic today and projected to reach 64% of all mobile traffic by 2013 – putting video optimisation firmly on most, if not all, operators’ agendas.

For mobile operators, the Holy Grail is to find the right balance between user experience, network availability and profitability. Let me illustrate the issue — imagine a group of teens hanging out:

One of them receives a link to an amusing video and starts to watch it. His mates want to watch so he starts the clip again. However they can’t all watch around the same phone so someone else gets their phone out to watch it. When the first clip is over they both browse other suggested videos. The first is boring, the second one’s slow to load, the third is good to start with but then it gets dull so they switch it off. The fourth video is great, but then the phone rings.

How many videos did they watch? How much of each one? And most importantly, how should an operator optimise those videos to get the best results for the consumers and the network?

In our recent “Viewer abandonment” studies we found that about 50% of viewers browse away from video clips after watching less than half. Knowing how users watch video and what they watch can make a dramatic difference to operators, saving network resources in the place of ‘optimise all’ strategies.

Whilst video optimisation can reduce video network traffic by as much as 40%, operators can keep the network resources required for optimisation manageable by employing user-aware video optimisation techniques. These continuously analyse user viewing patterns in real-time, deciding where best to implement optimisation resources. Operators can optimise only the most viewed videos, rather than every clip that crosses the network, thus making the desired bandwidth savings and also reducing their optimisation resource requirements.

User-aware video optimisation techniques include caching and optimising the most frequently viewed videos, or the most viewed sections of each clip, rather than the whole clip itself, and ‘just-in-time’ delivery, which serves each video stream at the same pace at which it is being viewed, opening up bandwidth for more concurrent sessions.

Both for individual and statistical purposes, it’s key to know how long users watch before browsing away, as well as how they pay and where they are when they stream video – at home or roaming, for example. Operators can choose whether to apply optimisation on an individual basis according to their rules databases, for example setting how optimisation is applied for video streamed to prepaid users who are charged by packet, or delivering only optimised video to roaming users by default, but giving them the controls to turn off optimisation.

In this manner, video optimisation techniques reduce the volume of data required to deliver video traffic across the network. Operators can defer expensive network upgrades while ensuring excellent user experience and what’s more, user-aware optimisation helps them to significantly reduce the amount of network resources required for implementing optimisation. For subscribers, user-aware optimisation gives them the best viewing experience possible, whether they choose to watch clips all the way through or whether they use their imagination to fill in the ending.

- – - – -

Thank you for this Noam. You raise a very valid set of points — why should operators spend a heck of a lot of effort optimising 100% of videos when the vast majority are abandoned so readily? With today’s handsets getting better and better, and — actually — cheaper and cheaper, mobile video optimisation is an issue that’s going to continue to cause network trauma.

More from Rio:

A few years ago I bought a top-of-the-range Canon XH A1 video camera. It’s a piece of genius. It’s a highly popular ‘semi professional’ camera and a rather magnificent step-up from the donkey cameras you see at family barbecues. You’ll often find many news channels using something in this category to get out to the middle of nowhere, quickly, and capture footage.

The great thing with the Canon is that I just point it and press record.

I make no excuses. I can’t stand arsing around with white balances and special buttons. No. I am usually in a hurry and my interview subjects are too. So with the camera’s ‘automatic’ green mode, I almost always come away with excellent quality video. And since I can plug in proper XLR audio kit, the audio quality of the videos I’m able to produce is excellent.

There’s quite a bit of kit needed to support the Canon. I can get most of it stuffed into a large carry-on-size camera bag.

Filming abroad was therefore reasonably straight forward: Stuff everything into the camera bag along with a change of clothes and boom, I’m done. I could carry the camera as hand luggage. Rarely did anyone at airport security need to check the bag after an X-ray scan.

Until that arse tried to bomb a plane using his shoes.

That made it very difficult to take ‘equipment’ on to the plane as hand luggage. Every airport seemed to have a different policy to the point whereby I ran the risk of being able to carry my camera OUT of the country but have to check it into the hold on the way back. My camera bag is sturdy but the contents wouldn’t survive the experience very well.

So I needed a flight case.

I bought a brilliant, brilliant Peli case. It’s utter genius. It’s a huge big plastic container with two layers. It fits all the camera equipment beautifully — with space left over for all my editing gizmos — MacBook Pros, chargers, batteries, leads, leads and more leads. Even the tripod fits into the peli case.

But since the case routinely runs to 32kg weight — which is not tolerated on a standard class ticket, I started having to upgrade my trips abroad. In some cases, many press trips are business class, most of which allow luggage up to 32kg.

That was my solution and it worked for a while. Many regular readers will know that up until my little boy was born, I often used to spend one or two weeks a month on the West Coast. I was back and forward with my camera and my flight case like a yoyo.

Genius.

Until, that is, I had arrived into Los Angeles international airport with a few other bloggers to visit Qualcomm’s Uplinq 2010 event.

At baggage I had to stand about with no small amount of embarrassment as every other blogger eventually retrieved their suitcases from the carousel. With the huge Peli flight case, I never knew if it would arrive on the normal carousel or if I’d have to head over to ‘Outsize Baggage’ to get it. Or, as was regularly the case with British Airways flying out of LHR Terminal 3, whether anyone had bothered to put the case on the plane in the first place.

I waited about 45 minutes and eventually the Peli arrived.

I had to apologise profusely to Qualcomm’s PR team and to the bloggers all waiting, staring at me as the sweat continued to pour down my brow.

I had to keep on explaining that I needed all this equipment to produce proper video. You know. It was necessary. I felt I really had to explain why a £200 special stuffed into the bottom of my suitcase wouldn’t work so well.

As all visitors to the US will know, once you’ve got your bag, you only have the Customs hurdle to navigate before you get access out to the airport concourse. Typically this is a formality. Hand your white form to the Customs man and go about your business.

My recollection is cloudy but this is, to the best of my knowledge, how things proceeded.

“What’s in the case?” the US Customs man asked, gesturing to the flight case.

“Camera equipment,” I replied.

“Got a carnet?” he asked, clearly expecting a positive response.

“Er… no,” I replied. What the hell is a Carnet?

“All the folk with camera equipment usually have a carnet,” said the chap with some finality.

I stared, expectantly at him.

“How much is the camera worth?” he asked.

“Probably about $2,500,” I said, “It was about $4,000 new.”

“If it’s over $2,000, you need a carnet,” said the guy, a decision clearly made in his mind.

That was it.

I’d blown it.

He signalled as such by calling over his partner.

“Now see here,” his partner asked, after a bit of conferring, “You don’t have a carnet?”

“No.”

By this point, my blogger friends were already hopping into their transport. Lots of normal people were walking by handing over their normal white forms to another US Customs chap who’d come to deputise whilst their colleagues circled.

“How do we know you won’t sell that camera here?” the first guy asked.

“Well, …” and I thought… screw it, “Well, you don’t know that. I suppose I could sell the camera.”

“You can’t bring goods into the United States and just sell them,” explained Customs Guy #2.

“Right, but it’s my camera. I’m going to use it to do some filming, hence all the surrounding equipment you can see here.”

I’d opened the case by now.

The chaps were not impressed.

“The BBC guys all have carnets,” said Customs Guy #2.

I wanted to respond with some kind of ridiculously offensive remark. But I didn’t. I just looked expectantly at him.

“And you don’t have a carnet?” the first guy asked. Again.

“No, I don’t know what one of those is. This is my camera, I want to use it to film some people at the Qualcomm event tomorrow.”

I was fully prepared to explain all about the event, to show them Mobile Industry Review’s video output and so on. Customs Guy #2 headed off to speak to his supervisor.

“So,” I said, stepping outside my standard Britishness, “If I’d told you the camera was worth $1,900, would you have let me pass?”

He nodded.

I smiled to myself, “But the $2,500 was a guess. I’ve no idea what it’s worth. I just made it up, best guess.”

He almost shrugged his shoulders. I could feel him itching to ask about the sodding ‘carnet’.

Customs Guy #2 returned with an even more serious look on his face. This was clearly a pretty challenging exception to the day’s normal events.

“We can’t let you take that through,” he said, pointing.

I was ready for this. I’d been preparing the logic.

“So the issue is that this equipment,” I touched the camera, “Is worth more than $2,000, based on my generic random valuation?”

They both nodded.

“And you’re worried that I might sell this equipment here in America, without, obviously, the proper import/export requirements?”

They both nodded again.

“Right then gentlemen,” I said, lifting up the first section of the internal Peli case (it’s split into two levels).

I reached in and grabbed my first laptop.

“This is a MacBook Pro laptop and it is worth at least $3,000.”

I looked at both gents. I got initial blank looks.

“This is a MacBook Air that was $2,500 new — which, incidentally, I bought in Las Vegas.”

I continued.

“This wireless microphones set is $1,500 — and including the other microphones and cabling, that all comes to well over $2,000.”

“In fact I reckon I’m carrying about $15k’s worth of goods, easy.”

I was still getting blank looks although Customs Guy #2 was beginning to get the message.

I carried on.

“All of these goods I own and use for my own computing and audio visual requirements. What’s to stop me selling this MacBook Pro for $3k in San Diego?”

If they’re going to try and impound the camera, they can explain their sodding logic, I thought.

“Er,” said Customs Guy #1, “You can’t do that.”

“Right, well I’m not going to.”

“We don’t know that,” he replied.

“You really need a carnet,” said Customs Guy #2.

“Can I get one now?” I asked.

“No.”

“Right then, what do you suggest I do, gents?” I asked.

They talked.

They talked a lot.

I think they spoke to a supervisor again. I can’t quite recall.

Then they let me through.

Not before they made a note of my name on the system.

“Don’t bring a camera into the United States again without a carnet,” said the first guy.

I have since looked into the business of getting a carnet and it’s a complete arse. This is how the UK Government defines a carnet:

The ATA carnet is an international Customs document that can be used in different countries around the world to cover temporary use of goods without payment of Customs charges.

Obviously the BBC guys do use carnets. When they’re transporting $100k of filming equipment it makes a lot of sense. I can see why they’re needed. I see why they had to ask the questions.

Still.

You don’t argue with the United States Government. I’m a big fan of most things US and I can most certainly understand their policies. Ergo, I do not take my Canon to the States.

Enter ATS Rentals

I still need a decent camera when I’m in the States though.

One option would be to FedEx my equipment ahead of time. I’ve done this before. It’s fine. It’s doable. It’s quite expensive and you do run the risk of unexpected customs complications. I have a lovely Sony VAIO laptop that is STILL somewhere in Customs in Indonesia after I tried sending my laptop equipment ahead of me when I went to Bali a few years ago. FedEx obviously washed their hands and trying to communicate with the Indonesian Customs — who couldn’t understand why someone would send himself a laptop — was a total nightmare.

Recently though I happened upon the idea of renting a camera when I’m in the States.

I made a few enquiries late last year only to discover that the companies I’d spoken to were wanting upwards of $1,000 a day hire fees. Just ridiculous. Surely it doesn’t cost that much?

Well, no.

I searched. And I searched. And eventually I found a company by the name of ATS Rentals. They hire all sorts of Audio Visual equipment — projectors, video cameras, PA systems, lenses and that kind of thing.

My Canon XH A1 model was just $296 (£183) to rent for 3 business days. Very reasonable. $19 delivery, there-and-back. Done.

I thought I’d try them out.

Their online ordering system was brilliant to the point when it asked for my country. I could only select ‘United States’ during the credit card section… I tried using their Live Chat customer support. I was expecting no answer.

I got an answer right-away. I placed the order by email instead. It was a piece of cake.

Instead of the XH A1, I upgraded and went for a Sony EX1 HD. That was $100 more but it didn’t use HD tapes. Instead it used MemoryStick — far easier to transfer the footage. I ordered some wireless microphones too.

I asked them to deliver the equipment to my hotel. It actually ended up arriving the day before.

Needless to say, I walked straight through US Customs like everyone else as normal.

I arrived at my hotel and asked if they had a package for me. I knew they did. Somebody called ‘Lopez’ had signed for it. They sent it up to my room for me. In the package was a return label for UPS and some sellotape to seal the box back up. The team at ATS thought of everything.

Never again will I cart about 32kg of camera equipment across the Atlantic.

I’m pleased to say the ATS Rentals service was impeccable. I will be using them again — next week, provided the Ash Cloud doesn’t prevent me from going to San Diego for Qualcomm’s Uplinq 2011 event.

And I trust I will breeze through US Customs.

Meanwhile if you find yourself looking for camera or audio visual rental services, I strongly recommend checking out ATS Rentals. I’m delighted with their services.

One thing I’d really like — and I haven’t yet worked out how I might work this one out yet:

The ability to rent both the camera equipment and 2x 28″ Apple flat panel monitors along with a Mac Pro Apple tower.

Now that would be brilliant.

Even better, I’d like it all setup and ready for me when I arrive into the hotel! Now, I think perhaps I’m dreaming.

I popped by the SundaySky stand at the Amdocs InTouch 2011 event to meet Aviv Goren. One of the company’s key products is video bill technology that automatically creates a personalised overview video of your latest bill. It’s aimed at mobile operators (and other utility companies) to help easily explain usage to consumers. I think it’s a brilliant way of delivering information an easily digestible manner to consumers. Aviv points out during his demonstration that the technology is helping operators significantly reduce customer care costs related to bill queries. Good news! While I think it’s a great idea, our video editor Momchil is not sold on the concept — pointing out that this facility offers the operator the ability to prioritise certain sections of the bill. I do agree — however I also think that a consumer is more likely to ‘read’ (or look at) a 2 minute video rather than pages of data.

Continuing our video episodes from the most recent Unlimited Drinks event, next up is Whan Stransom. Whan, as a senior consultant at System Concepts is focused on user experience and helping people embrace technology.

In this video we asked Whan to talk to us about the importance of user involvement in the design of products in order to improve user experience. Whan gives an overview of the concept of “Designing technology around the people, rather than designing people around the technology.”

Unlimited Drinks was kindly supported by Qualcomm — thank you very much to all at the company for their help. You can find out more about Qualcomm’s support for Unlimited Drinks at this post from last week.

Continuing our video episodes from last week’s Unlimited Drinks, next up is Darryl Ashing. Darryl is a very, very useful chap. There comes a time in all budding entrepreneurial careers when the realities of cash flow begin to hit home only too vividly. Darryl, as founder of Ashings Chartered Accountants, is your man. It’s better to know Darryl before you actually need his help so he can avoid you ever needing to stare at the wall in blind panic should the tax authorities call for a natter.

Darryl specialises in helping startups start-up properly. He’s a taskmaster at it all, from the initial shareholder agreements, options arrangements to sorting out the finance.

In this video we asked Darryl to give us an overview of the kinds of mistakes he typically ends up fixing for startups (many of which are increasingly based directly in the mobile field nowadays).

Unlimited Drinks was kindly supported by Qualcomm — thank you very much to all at the company for their help. You can find out more about Qualcomm’s support for Unlimited Drinks at this post from last week.

Continuing our video episodes from last week’s Unlimited Drinks, next up is Keld van Schreven. I’ve known Keld a long time (as he touches upon in the video) so it was super to see him at the event discussing his all new startup, Diary.com. It does what-it-says-on-the-tin: Online diary management that syncs with almost everything.

But let’s hear from the man himself…

Unlimited Drinks was kindly supported by Qualcomm — thank you very much to all at the company for their help. You can find out more about Qualcomm’s support for Unlimited Drinks at this post from last week.

Right then! It’s time to publish the video interviews from last week’s simply brilliant Unlimited Drinks networking event in London.

We took the camera equipment along to the event to capture a few people for posterity. The concept was simple — stand in front of the camera and tell us about yourself. Briefly. Of course at least half the people at the event ‘weren’t public’ (i.e. they weren’t authorised to speak on camera / stealth mode and so on) so I grabbed as many as I could — in as polite a manner as I could — and the first one to say yes was Dominic Travers, Product Owner at Brighton-based mobile extrodonnaires, Future Platforms.

Unlimited Drinks was kindly supported by Qualcomm — thank you very much to all at the company for their help. You can find out more about Qualcomm’s support for Unlimited Drinks at this post from last week.

Richard was there to talk about his organisation’s new arrangement with the upcoming Taxi service, TaxiStop (see the next video for more about that). Thank you for taking the time Richard!

And remember, next time you need a cab in London, why not Tweet one?

I’m delighted to say that it’s everything I expected: Clear packaging, simple instructions, evidently the output of a team of smart people who’ve really thought about it. Everything you need to go live is right there in the little package including all the APN details you need.

I filmed an ‘unboxing’ — that is, opening up the little package and having a nose about. I hope this is useful for anyone considering getting one. Just a quick reminder — the SIM offers mobile data roaming in 50 countries (including the US) for a unified simple fee of €0.59 per megabyte. Now, that will soon add up if you plan on a significant amount of use, but at least the pricing is clear, reasonable and you can immediately re-load it whenever you want. I think that’s probably the *best* feature, not having to arse about going into ‘foreign’ shops to get it charged up. You can either use PayPal or your credit card to top it up.

Most other operators will charge you at least €1 or £1 per megabyte, if not a lot more.

Abroadband do a MicroSIM for your iPad/iPhone and a pre-configured USB dongle. I went for the normal SIM as I’m intending using it in my MiFi unit.

I recognise that this doesn’t necessarily compare to a €15 all-you-can-eat deal that you get if you go shopping locally, but if you are in-and-out of the 50 countries covered — and you just need to check email and do a bit of twittering, Abroadband could be for you.

Now, I haven’t actually tried the SIM yet. I’m going to get a screen recorder installed and I’ll detail that soon so we can see precisely how it works — especially in terms of re-loading credit.

Abroadband is the brainchild of the team at Telekom Austria. I wrote about their launch late last month here.

Here’s the vid:

I’ve just come across a rather interesting service from ThirdPresence. Their service fixes a key nightmare for a lot of organisations: Getting video working on mobile devices.

Almost every modern mobile phone is capable of playing video. The problem is, they all play different formats and different resolutions. That’s why most people simply format their videos for iPhones and… screw-everybody-else.

Indeed, here at MIR we used to produce a Nokia N95-compatible video podcast stream. For a little while. It was such a flipping hassle I eventually stopped though.

With ThirdPresence, you simply upload your video to their system and boom… it’s done. That’s it. It’s ridiculously easy.

As a test, I uploaded an old video of Flirtomatic’s Mark Curtis accepting a recent MEF2010 award. It was processed and ready within just a few minutes.

Want to test it? Visit this page on your mobile device and you should be able to view the video:

Or visit directly by clicking this URL.

When I signed up for the service, I got to create a custom domain. I also got the option to text myself (or any mobile number) a simple URL that clicks through directly to play the video.

Interestingly, I tried this on a corporate BlackBerry Curve on OS 4.6 and the video didn’t work. It wanted to stream, but I think the corporate permissions have locked it down. (This is not an issue related to ThirdPresence.) The video played beautifully on a non-corporate-locked BlackBerry Bold 9780. And on the iPhone 4 I had to hand. Did it work for you?

ThirdPresence is elegantly designed — it was a piece of simplicity to use. And at $39/month for 10,000 minutes of delivered content, highly reasonable given the problem it solves.

If you’re trying to mobilise your video content, do take a look at ThirdPresence.

Meanwhile, I was looking through the traffic logs today and saw this post (“Apple iPhone 4: Shove It Up Your Ass“) was getting quite a bit of referral traffic this weekend.

The post features a Condescending Apple Press Conference spoof video from the team over at CollegeHumour. The video was produced during the height of the ‘Antennagate Scandal’.

I watched the video again. Heh. I did enjoy it.

I particularly like this slide that appeared near the beginning:

Apple > you

Love it.

Here’s the video from CollegeHumour again in case you missed it:

The confusion, however, is nothing to the widespread excitement I’ve been witnessing from people raving over this introductory video released by the Android team.

I have to say, it does look rather good — particularly the 3D Google Maps screens.

What do you think?

At the MEF Americas 2010 Content & Commerce event in Miami recently I sat down with Nokia’s top Ovi man, Marco Argenti, to ask him about how things were going with the platform.

In a measure of how quickly things are progressing, the stat he gave in this video (over 3 million downloads per day) is now out of date — and that’s in just 3 weeks! The Ovi Store is now getting in excess of 3.5 million downloads each day.

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Here’s Part 3 of the Smartphone Obsession Series that I’m producing thanks to the support of mobile messaging giant, OpenMarket.

I managed to get Jon Mew on camera for you — Jon is the man who runs mobile for the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB UK). What does he think of my assertion that the mobile marketing industry is utterly obsessed with smartphones?

Have a watch and find out!

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Here’s Part 2 of the Smartphone Obsession Series that I’m producing thanks to the support of mobile messaging giant, OpenMarket.

I caught up with Mark Freeman, one of the founders of mobile agency, Movement, at the recent IAB Mobile event. Given Mark’s company has been working with many of the leading lights in the mobile industry, I wanted to see what he thought about my assertion that the mobile marketing industry is far too obsessed with smartphones. I especially liked Mark’s comments on brands writing for the medium of SMS.

Have a watch and see what you think:

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The CollegeHumour guys re-imagined Steve’s recent press conference thus… (I particularly like the slide: “Apple > You”)

I’ve been getting emails from people wondering when the next episode in the Future of Voicemail Series was going live. Tah dah! It’s here. Episode 4 features the co-founder of HulloMail, Andy Munarriz. Andy’s no stranger to Mobile Industry Review — indeed we first interviewed him on camera about two years ago when HulloMail first launched their iPhone application and service.

Having co-founded a company supplying next-generation voicemail services to consumers (and operators), you’d expect Andy to have something to say on the subject. I’m pleased to say you won’t be disappointed. In today’s episode you’ll see Andy talk through his perspective and experience on the background, development and next generation of voicemail services. It’s particularly interesting given HulloMail’s history delivering voicemail services to mobile operators around the world.

I should point out that it’s down to Andy’s generous support (and the rest of the team at HulloMail) that I’ve been able to produce and publish this series in the first place, as HulloMail are the series sponsor. So thank you Andy.

Right then, have a watch and let me know what you think!

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I thought it was fitting to take a picture of 3′s new MiFi unit operational. In this photo the iPhone is connected to the MiFi unit whilst it uploads the unboxing video!

The best feature of the new device, apart from the rather funky screen? The always-on element. You just switch it on and boom, it connects and gives you a WiFi network. No other buttons required. I shall publish the video shortly.

Posted via email from MIR Live

Here’s the vid…

I had no idea of Qualcomm’s breadth of operations. Yes I knew they did the SnapDragon processor. Yes I knew this was relevant to the latest Android and Windows phones, but I didn’t have a clue about their medical operations, nor did I realise that they’ve paid mobile developers $3bn of revenue so far.

Have a watch below…

Part 1:

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Part 2:

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Thank you for taking the time Andrew, it was very good of you.

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