DOJ files injunction against AT&T and T-Mobile Merger

Update: The full PDF text of the DOJ lawsuit can be found here.

Update 2: Sprint has just released their own statement courtesy of senior vice president of government affairs Vonya B. McCann:

The DOJ today delivered a decisive victory for consumers, competition and our country. By filing suit to block AT&T’s proposed takeover of T-Mobile, the DOJ has put consumers’ interests first. Sprint applauds the DOJ for conducting a careful and thorough review and for reaching a just decision – one which will ensure that consumers continue to reap the benefits of a competitive U.S. wireless industry. Contrary to AT&T’s assertions, today’s action will preserve American jobs, strengthen the American economy, and encourage innovation.

The DOJ today delivered a decisive victory for consumers, competition and our country. By filing suit to block AT&T’s proposed takeover of T-Mobile, the DOJ has put consumers’ interests first. Sprint applauds the DOJ for conducting a careful and thorough review and for reaching a just decision – one which will ensure that consumers continue to reap the benefits of a competitive U.S. wireless industry. Contrary to AT&T’s assertions, today’s action will preserve American jobs, strengthen the American economy, and encourage innovation.

The tech blog world is in a frenzy today with the news of the Department of Justice filing an injunction against theproposed takeover of T-Mobile by AT&T. AT&T hasn’t wasted a moment though already releasing a statement promising to vigorously fight the DOJ action and also take over the world. Wayne Watts, AT&T Senior Executive Vice President and General Counsel issued the following statement:

“We are surprised and disappointed by today’s action, particularly since we have met repeatedly with the Department of Justice and there was no indication from the DOJ that this action was being contemplated.

We plan to ask for an expedited hearing so the enormous benefits of this merger can be fully reviewed. The DOJ has the burden of proving alleged anti-competitive affects and we intend to vigorously contest this matter in court.

At the end of the day, we believe facts will guide any final decision and the facts are clear. This merger will:

· Help solve our nation’s spectrum exhaust situation and improve wireless service for millions.

· Allow AT&T to expand 4G LTE mobile broadband to another 55 million Americans, or 97% of the population;

· Result in billions of additional investment and tens of thousands of jobs, at a time when our nation needs them most.

We remain confident that this merger is in the best interest of consumers and our country, and the facts will prevail in court.“

Cellphones don't increase cancer risk in kids, study says

Using cellphones doesn't increase children's cancer risk, according to a new study, the latest in a series of papers that find no link between the phones and brain tumors.

Scientists say the study is important, because it is the first of its kind to focus on children.

The study's authors compared the cellphone habits of nearly 1,000 children

in Western Europe, including 352 with brain tumors and 646 without. Kids who used cellphones were no more likely to develop a brain tumor than others, according to the study of children ages 7 to 19, published online Wednesday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Scientists have been eagerly awaiting these results, says Martha Linet, a doctor with the National Cancer Institute who wasn't involved in the study. "It's very reassuring," Linet says.

Researchers, led by Denis Aydin of the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, looked at their data in several ways, searching for possible trends with long-term use. They found no increase in brain tumors among children who had used cellphones for five years or more, according to the study, funded by European health agencies.

Some scientists and consumers have been concerned about cellphones' health effects, especially on developing children, because cellphones emit energy close to the brain.

In the study, Aydin and colleagues note that radio frequency electromagnetic fields created by cellphones penetrate deeper into children's brains than adults' brains, mainly because kids' skulls are smaller, the study says. Recent studies have suggested that small children's brains absorb about twice as much mobile phone energy as adults' brains.

But authors also point out that this energy — unlike the radiation given off by X-rays or CT scans — isn't strong enough to damage DNA, cause mutations and lead to cancer. And while many people are concerned about cellphones, no one has ever come up with a way to explain how the devices might cause cancer, Linet says.

If cellphones caused brain tumors, researchers might expect to find those tumors on the side of the head where kids hold their phones. In the new study, however, children had the lowest risk of tumors in the part of the brain exposed to the most cellphone energy, write scientists John Boice and Robert Tarone in an accompanying editorial. They note that there has been no increase in brain tumors — among kids or adults — since cellphones came into widespread use in the 1990s. In their editorial, they note that there were 285 million cellphone subscribers in 2009 in the USA alone. If cellphones really did cause brain tumors, doctors would likely have noticed this by now, they write.

But the study also produced some mixed signals.

In a subset of children, researchers found a higher risk of brain tumors in children whose cellphone subscriptions had begun more than 2.8 years ago.

Overall, however, parents should find these results reassuring, says pediatrician Rachel Vreeman, of the Indiana University School of Medicine, who summarizes recent cellphone research in her book, Don't Cross Your Eyes… They'll Get Stuck That Way!: And 75 Other Health Myths Debunked. "This is a good piece of evidence that parents don't need to be panicked about cellphones and cancer," Vreeman says.

Concerns about cellphones were renewed last month, when a branch of the World Health Organization, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, reversed its previous position. In the past, the agency had said there was "no conclusive evidence" linking cellphones to brain tumors. Now, the agency classifies cellphones as "possibly carcinogenic" based on "limited evidence," acknowledging that the few links between cellphones and cancer could be due to chance.

The "possibly carcinogenic" category includes a number of staples of everyday life, however, such as coffee, pickles and styrofoam, Vreeman says.

"Scientific evidence has overwhelmingly indicated that wireless devices do not pose a public health risk for adults or children," said John Walls of CTIA-The Wireless Association, in a statement.

Consumers who remain concerned can take a number of steps to reduce their exposure to cellphone energy, such as using a hands-free device or a speakerphone, the American Cancer Society says.

Via: http://yourlife.usatoday.com/parenting-family/story/2011/07/Cell-phones-dont-increase-cancer-risk-in-kids-study-says/49684308/1

Viber's free, no-registration 3G VoIP app officially launches on Android

Hey there, friends. Do you have the voice-calling blues, wishing for a better way to talk to your friends -- without using your minutes? Consider Viber, a free VoIP app that launched for the iPhone last year. Usable over 3G or WiFi, with built-in SMS, it requires no registration, using your existing phone number and contact list. Our only quibble? A disheartening lack of Android support. But our spirits are lifted today, with the app making its way to the everyone's favorite olive-green market. It has all the compelling features of the iOS version, plus a few extras we saw in the limited beta, like pop-up text message notification, in-app call logs, and the option to use Viber as your default dialer. The company must be doing something right, as it claims 12 million active users just seven months after launch. Interested in being one of them? Check the full PR -- with video! -- after the break.

Five Myths About The T-Mobile/AT&T Takeover Courtesy Consumer Advocate Free Press

While the government remains caught between two very separate sides of the AT&T takeover of T-Mobile, consumer advocate group Free Press is continuing its approach of debunking AT&T’s argument that the takeover is necessary. In fact they’ve compiled a list of 5 myths tackling a number of AT&T’s core arguments that attempt to show that AT&T would be able or is already able to achieve the stated goals it has said it needs T-Mobile’s spectrum to accomplish. Let’s just dive right in with a big thank you to Josh Levy from Free Press for compiling these myths and sending it our way:

Verizon speaks up, confirms usage-based data plans are coming July 7th

Verizon speaks up, confirms usage-based data plans are coming July 7th

By Brad Molen posted Jul 5th 2011 2:00PM

The leaks about Verizon's usage-based plans have become so abundant that it's been nearly impossible to shake off with any amount of skepticism, but one key ingredient's been missing from the saga: official word from the carrier itself regarding the exact date and specific pricing. A mere two days before DataGate's rumored debut, Verizon's finally cleared its throat to make a statement confirming the inevitable. The unlimited smartphone data plan will predictably make a sad and sudden departure from the company's brochures -- lingering only for those grandfathered into it -- and a tiered structure will enter in its place.

There were no surprises on pricing: for smartphone data, plans start at $30 for 2GB, $50 for 5GB, and $80 for 10GB. New customers can add mobile hotspot service for an extra $20, and Big Red will throw in a couple additional gigabytes as well. Customers currently using the unlimited LTE mobile hotspot will be given the option to retain that service for another $30. We've yet to receive confirmation from our spokesperson, but will keep you updated as soon as we get word. Knowing is half the battle, though, so take action -- interested parties only have two days left.

Cellphones are dangerous / not dangerous: cancer experts say 'What, me worry?'

If you haven't already gotten whiplash from the ongoingcellphone-cancer debate, a freshly released scientific review might just do the trick. In the paper, published Friday, a panel of experts from Britain, Sweden and the US conducted a thorough survey of previous studies, before concluding that existing literature is "increasingly against" the theory that cellphone use causes brain tumors in adults. The researchers also questioned the biological mechanisms underpinning this hypothesis, while acknowledging some lingering uncertainties, since data on childhood tumors and longer-term research are still lacking.

The results come just a few weeks after the World Health Organization released its own literature review, in which it claimed that cell phones should be considered "potentially carcinogenic." ButAnthony Swerdlow, a professor at Britain's Institute of Cancer Research and leader of the most recent investigation, said his group's work doesn't necessarily contradict the WHO, since the latter was simply seeking to evaluate cancer risks according to its own "pre-set classification system" -- under which things like pickled vegetables and coffee are also considered "potentially carcinogenic." Unfortunately, this doesn't mean that the debate will die down anytime soon, though Swerdlow expects more definitive conclusions within the next few years -- assuming, of course, that all of our brains haven't turned to oatmeal by then.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/04/cellphones-are-dangerous-not-dangerous-cancer-experts-say-wh/

Mobile Phones from 1964

By 1964 there were 1.5 million mobile phone users in the US.

No, really. That's not a joke. It comes directly from a report by the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project. (And got to me via Atlantic magazine technology guru Alexis Madrigal.) In fact, the first landline-to-mobile service was offered in St. Louis in 1946! Now, granted, we're talking about a radio-based system of car phones which were such energy hogs that headlights noticeably dimmed when people used them. But still. Mobile phones.

http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Teens-and-Mobile-Phones/Introduction/Introduction.aspx

http://gizmodo.com/5661414/this-is-what-a-mobile-phone-looked-like-in-1964and-there-were-over-a-million-of-them

Disaster Recovery Tip #33

Spread the word.

Last week we discussed how social media can help companies communicate with the public and customers during disasters. This week we're focusing on the internal communication benefits that social media offers through the often overlooked resource of SMS messaging.

We know that cellular networks are often crippled during a disaster by increased traffic and sometimes even physical damage to the network infrastructure. Many times the only information able to sneak through overloaded systems are small packets of data like those in text messages.

Setting up a protected Twitter account for employees and instructing them on how receive mobile updates is one way to build a free text messaging resource. Whether it's about a delayed opening due to icy roads, or that your building has burned down (GULP), a Tweet can spread the word simply and efficiently.

Another alternative is Agility's own Alert Notification System (available to Member's free with every ReadySuite package). Agility's Alert Notification system can send both SMS and email alerts at the touch of the button.

Inventor of cell phone: We knew someday everybody would have one

	By Tas Anjarwalla, Special to CNN July 9, 2010 9:50 a.m. EDT

(CNN) -- In 1973, Martin Cooper changed the world, although he didn't know it yet.

Cooper and his team at Motorola, the communications company, created maybe the only thing that runs the lives of business professionals and teenagers alike -- the cell phone.

It was the size of a brick and wasn't commercially sold for another decade. But as Cooper demonstrated on a New York sidewalk, it worked.

The concept of cellular technology had already been created by Motorola's rival, AT&T, whose Bell Labs introduced a system allowing calls to be moved from one cell to another while remaining on the same channel. But AT&T was focusing this technology on the car phone.

Cooper wanted people to have freedom to talk on the phone away from their cars. So in reaction, he and Motorola embarked on a project to create a more portable device.

Motorola spent three months building a prototype for a portable, mobile handset that Cooper publicly demonstrated in April of 1973. The company's first commercial cellular phone, the "DynaTAC," went on sale 10 years later.

Cooper, now 81, is founder of ArrayComm, a company working to improve cellular networks, smart antenna and wireless communication. He and his wife are also inventors of the Jitterbug, a simplified cell phone geared to senior citizens.

Cooper was surprised when his landline dropped our call. After calling him back on his mobile, we had a chance ask him about the creation of the device that changed the face of communication as we know it.

Here is an edited transcript of our conversation:

Cooper: There were no large-scale integrated circuits, no computers, no closed-circuit televisions, no LCD screens -- I can't tell you all the things that did not exist in 1973. But, we'd been building phones for years and years in cars, and we [Motorola] thought the time was ready for personal communication, 'cause people are just naturally mobile.

For 100 years, people wanting to talk on the phone have been constrained by being tied to their desks or their homes with a wire, and now we're going to trap them in their cars? That's not good.

So we decided to take on AT&T. By 1973, we decided to put on a dazzling presentation, and I decided the best way to do that was to build a phone and have someone actually have the experience of talking on a real personal handheld telephone. And that was the genesis of that phone that we built.

When did you make that first phone call? Who was it to?

I thought everybody knew the answer to that question! The first public call was made out on the streets of New York. It was to [Joel S. Engel], the head of the cellular program at AT&T. I called and told him, "Joel, I'm calling you from a cellular phone, a real cellular phone, a handheld, portable, real cellular phone."

I don't remember exactly what he said, but it was really quiet for a while. My assumption was that he was grinding his teeth. He was very polite and ended the call. When asked about it, he says he has no recollection of this moment.

What were the reactions to the cell phone like? Did people think it was unbelievable, impossible, unnecessary?

Well, people were dazzled by the concept! It was beyond imagination that more than half the people in the world would have these phones. But people were absolutely amazed by the fact that you could hold the phone up to your ear, walk around and make a phone call.

Remember, there were not even any cordless phones at that time. We had a press conference [in 1973], and I handed the phone to this young lady journalist and told her to make a phone call. And she said, "Can I call my mother in Australia?" and I said, "Sure!" And she did that.

This woman was just spellbound, she couldn't imagine how this little phone could reach more than halfway around the world, and talk to her mother who actually answered the phone. Sophisticated New Yorkers were standing there with their mouths open.

The reception was quite extraordinary. The chairman of our company happened to be in Washington the time we did the next demonstration [in the early 1980s]. He visited with the vice president ... [George H.W. Bush] ... and showed him this new phone, and he was so taken by the phone.

He said, "Well, I have to show this to Ron." And the next thing you know he was showing it to Ronald Reagan. And Reagan asks, "What's keeping us from having this?"

What did the phone look like? How much did it cost and who actually bought it?

The phone [was] about 10 or 11 inches high, about 1 1/2 inches across, and about 4 inches deep. It weighed about 2 1/2 pounds.

How much did it cost?

If you think about it, this is not a commercial product and if you had to build one it would cost about a million dollars. By the time we built a commercial product, it was 10 years later. We didn't sell that product until October of 1983, and the phone then cost $3,900. So that would be like buying a phone today for $10,000.

That's quite a lot of money. Who actually bought these phones?

Well, I wouldn't say it was large number of people; in fact it was a very small number. In the beginning it was wealthy people, but also people who had to be on the move. It was for people like real estate agents and doctors, who were already more accustomed to technology because they were using pagers.

Cell phones didn't really get to be a big deal til about another seven or eight years later. Everybody thinks that the cell phone has always been here and that it's always been popular, but it wasn't until 1990 -- before there were as few as a million cell phones in the world -- that's where it started to really explode.

Did you ever think the phone would ever be available to everyone?

Well, we knew that someday everybody would have a [cell] phone, but it was hard to imagine that that would happen in my lifetime. And now we've got almost five billion phones in the world. Wow.

How do you feel about the advancements cell phones have made, especially with features like apps and cameras, etc.?

I must tell you as much as we were dreamers, we never imagined that all these things could be combined into one, and I'm really not so sure that it's a great thing. Phones have gotten so complicated, so hard to use, that you wonder if this is designed for real people or for engineers.

I think what's really going to happen is we're going to have a lot of different kinds of phones when our industry grows up -- some that are just plain, simple telephones. In fact, my wife and I started a company, and she designed the Jitterbug, which is just a simple telephone.

What kind of phone do you have now?

I'm sitting here looking at all of my phones. I'm talking to you on a phone I'm trying out for a company in Europe. It's called the Vertu, and this phone starts at $5,000. And that's for the very cheap model. You could buy a solid-gold version of this phone.

So this phone, even with inflation, costs about half as much as your first cell phone.

Yep, and really this phone is not a really complicated phone. It does have a phonebook in it, it does reach certain parts of the Web, but it's not a PDA. You can't read e-mail on it; it doesn't have a camera on it. It really is a basic telephone.

I also have a Droid. I got a Motorola Droid that I use. I also have a Jitterbug. I'm always trying whatever the latest telephone is. I had an iPhone for a while, I gave that to my grandson. Kids are really caught up in that. But I think that the Android phones are catching up now, and the latest version of the Android phones are every bit as good, if not better, than the iPhone.



For the original article, click here.

Paintings with Cell Phone Jammer

Painting Cell Phone Jammer with Remote Control - covertly and completely blocks mobile phone signals in an 80 meter radius. Powerful and effective, this cell phone jammer effectively disables any cell phone and will stop all signals on the GSM, CDMA, DCS, PHS, and 3G bands without interrupting any other electronic device. With the included remote control, users can turn the device on and off for instant jamming and unjamming. Also included is sensitivity control for partial and selective blocking of any mobile phone signal. With a working radius of up to 80 meters, this device can be used in any location, but is found primarily in places where a phone call would be particularly disruptive because silence is expected or needed. The inconspicuous painting design effortlessly blends in with (and easily mounts on) the wall and is ideal for churches, hospitals, libraries, museums, movie theaters, class rooms, and for business meetings and legal proceedings. This unique and high powered cell phone jammer is available in our warehouse now for single and bulk order purchases. Order today and we'll express ship it out tomorrow, brought to you by the leader in China Electronics - Chinavasion.

At a Glance...

• High powered signal jammer designed for use against mobile phones
• Jams GSM, CDMA, DCS, PHS, and 3G signals - separately or all at once!
• Works in an 80 meter radius
• Remote controlled
• Additional 3D painting cover

Read more at the original post here.

Supreme Court's Lack of Knowledge on Texting, Paging, & Cell Phones

During oral arguments today in the case City of Ontario v. Quon, which considers whether police officers had an expectation of privacy in personal (and sexually explicit) text messages sent on pagers issued to them by the city, the justices of the Supreme Court at times seemed to struggle with the technology involved.

The first sign was about midway through the argument, when Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. - who is known to write out his opinions in long hand with pen and paper instead of a computer - asked what the difference was “between email and a pager?”

Other justices’ questions showed that they probably don’t spend a lot of time texting and tweeting away from their iPhones either.

At one point, Justice Anthony Kennedy asked what would happen if a text message was sent to an officer at the same time he was sending one to someone else.

“Does it say: ‘Your call is important to us, and we will get back to you?’” Kennedy asked.

Justice Antonin Scalia wrangled a bit with the idea of a service provider.

“You mean (the text) doesn’t go right to me?” he asked.

Then he asked whether they can be printed out in hard copy.

“Could Quon print these spicy little conversations and send them to his buddies?” Scalia asked.

It wasn’t just the justices who had technical difficulties. When Justice Samual Alito asked Quon’s attorney Dieter Dammeier if officers could delete text messages from their pagers in a way that would prevent the city from retrieving them from the wireless carrier later, Dammeier said that they could.

A few minutes later, Alito gave Dammeier another shot at that question.

“Are you sure about your answer on deletion?” Alito asked.

Dammeier admitted that he didn’t know. “I couldn’t be certain,” he said.

More on oral arguments in the case here on Lawyers USA Online.

Many teens send 100-plus texts a day, survey says

(CNN) -- As most parents of adolescents know all too well, text messaging has become the preferred method of communication for American teenagers, with one in three teens sending more than 100 texts a day, a new survey says.

The survey by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project illustrates the indispensable role that text messaging, and mobile phones in general, play in the lives of today's teenagers.

Three-quarters of 12- to 17-year-olds own cell phones, up from 45 percent in 2004, and daily text messaging to friends has increased rapidly in recent years.

The research, made public Tuesday, confirms that teens make and receive far fewer phone calls than text messages. They primarily use their phones for voice calling when communicating with parents, although they prefer text messaging when it comes to communicating with their peers.

Although teens make or receive about five calls a day, half of them send a minimum of 50 text messages a day, the survey found.

"Texting is so functional and efficient," said Amanda Lenhart, a senior research specialist at Pew, when asked to explain the survey results. "It's convenient and fits into those small spaces in daily life. You're not talking about much, but you're telling people you're connected to them."

How do teens manage to send so many text messages while spending the better part of Monday through Friday in the classroom?

Forty-three percent of teens who take their phones to school reported sending at least one text message from class a day, despite the fact that many schools have banned cell phones in class.

Lenhart said this just goes to show how important text messaging is to teens.

"Teenagers have been looking for ways to skirt around rules and defy administrators for millennia, whether it's passing notes in class or passing digital notes in class through cell phones," she said.

And teenage girls are doing most of the texting. Girls send and receive about 80 text messages a day, while boys send and receive only 30.

This is not a surprising find, according to Pew, as females also use other communicative tools more than males. Girls will text for social reasons more so than boys will, the survey found. For example, 59 percent of girls text their friends multiple times a day "just to say hello," as opposed to 49 percent of boys who do the same.

The fact that girls use their cell phones more than boys might be one reason that of the 64 percent of parents who have monitored their teens' cell phones, the vast majority are parents of 12- to 13-year-old girls.

"It's a historic relationship. ... Parents tend to regulate girls more than boys for a variety of social and gender reasons," Lenhart said.

Teens are using their phones to record and share their daily experiences, Lenhart said. In addition to texting, 83 percent of teens use their mobile phones to take pictures, and 64 percent of teens share their pictures with others.

During focus groups, Lenhart said, she asked teens what they liked to take pictures of with their cell phones. The most common answers: their pets, the people in their lives and the funny things they want to share with their friends.

Lenhart said the growth of wireless carriers' unlimited texting plans has made it easier for teens to communicate via text message.

"It's like the all-you-can-eat plan," she said. Teenagers "don't have to worry about cramming everything into 160 characters anymore. ... It doesn't cost 20 cents to send 'OK' to a friend."

The Pew survey was conducted last summer on landline and cell phones, and it included 800 youths ages 12-17, plus one of their parents.

For the original article, click here.

Case Study: The Cellular Telephone Business Model a World Away in Uganda, Africa

By Tom Sheridan

In February, I had the opportunity to travel to Uganda, Africa for two weeks to work on an expansion of an elementary school in Lukaya and to provide support in repairing a solar powered water system in a neighboring village called Kalungi. It was a wonderful, life-changing experience and a remarkable privilege to be able to go there. While on the trip, I saw the business of cellular telephones and wireless Internet in a completely new light. In an industry that more typically thrives on the confusion of an endless array of feature phones, complicated plans, contracts, bewildering line item charges and often poor customer service levels, I must ask, is “confusion” the best brand building approach?

In Uganda, cellular rules are all different. In fact, they’re deceptively simple. It’s fascinating to me how the business of cellular communications has evolved so well there in less than ten years. Excepting Kampala its capital, there are few wired telephone lines. I don’t remember seeing wired phones except in the hotels, and I’m not so sure you could even make outside calls with them. Cellular phones however have really caught on and the networks there are “3G” and reliable.

I cannot think of many businesses that could be started in Uganda that could charge enough to make a profit and recoup the original investment within a reasonable time. Uganda is most definitely a third world country, as it is in the bottom fifth of economic output per capita in the world. Average income per person is around $100 a month, so little disposable income remains for having a phone. Historically, I would imagine telephones weren’t needed much outside of the major populated areas. For most Ugandans, their world was quite local. In Uganda, cell phones are not registered to people, only to the networks. Phones are plentiful and you can easily buy them “reconditioned” or you can purchase a new one from a number of phone stores in Kampala. For service, a SIM card (a small computer chip) which costs 3,000 Shillings, about $1.50 US, is required. That activates the phone, provides a phone number, and the first five minutes of airtime. Additional airtime can be purchased in increments of as little as 200 Shillings, about ten cents. Except for the phone itself, all costs are included in the airtime charges as there is never a bill or a contract required. SIM cards can be interchanged between phones so your number and contact list can be “ported” to another phone in seconds.

Airtime cards are sold everywhere and the commission to the seller is just a couple of percent of the purchase price. They are about the size of a credit card and come sealed in a plastic wrapper. Open it and scratch away a strip on the back of the card to reveal an activation code. Airtime is added to your number by texting the code in a free message to the carrier. A reply with your new balance comes back instantly.

Receiving calls and text messages on cell phones is always free. As long as one has a working phone with a SIM card, they can be received without charge. That is the one aspect of their business model that supported strong market penetration and encouraged cell phone use at the outset. However, all calls originated are timed, and the calling phone is charged for the airtime used. By North American standards, calls are not expensive (about ten cents a minute), but when the average worker earns just a few dollars a day, making calls is a luxury. Most are quick exchanges of information and last just a minute or two. After each call made, a text is received providing the cost of the call in Shillings and the remaining balance. Pricing seemed to be variable, with some calls costing more than others for no obvious reason. Calls made during weekday hours are more expensive than calls at night and on weekends.

Since there are no plans or contracts of any kind required, there is no central phone directory or public registration of numbers. You cannot call “directory assistance,” as there is none. But there are about five competing cellular companies in Uganda with overlapping territories. Each company has a color, much like a team color. While there, I used “MTN” as my provider, the “yellow” team. If one calls a phone on another provider’s network the calls are typically charged at a premium, much like a roaming charge. In fact, there are even “two SIM card” phones available so that networks can be switched on the fly to help keep call charges more affordable.

Electrical power is irregular and frequently unavailable, and many Ugandan’s live without electricity altogether, so recharging of phones is often an issue. There are generator powered “recharging stations” available in the towns. Samsung recently came out with a “solar powered” phone, which is the model I purchased for about $50. Every hour of solar charging provides about ten minutes of talk time. That is not much, but enough to power the phone in an emergency. It was more of a novelty than a necessity for me. I ended up giving it in like new condition to one of the teachers at the school. Suffice it to say it was a most welcomed gift.

In the towns and villages, most storefronts need painting, but paint is expensive. Capitalizing on this, the cellular companies (particularly MTN) will send a worker and offer to paint it in their company color for free and emblazon it with their logo – so you see MTN just about everywhere. Where else can you buy nearly free billboard-size advertizing for the cost of paint and a few dollars in labor? No permits are required either.

Wireless Internet is a different story. “High speed” bandwidth costs a fortune or is unavailable. I purchased a wireless USB modem and a SIM card for about $90 and added a month of service (minimum $45) to get a whopping 238K of connection speed. The actual speed was slower than the most primitive dial-up connection I’ve ever used. In the pioneer days of AOL, access was frequently busy, but once you got on it was good enough for basic tasks. My experience with wireless Internet in Uganda made my AOL experience ten years ago look appealing.

Getting online was easy but once “authenticated,” the initial connection speed lasted just a few seconds. More often than not, sending a small file attachment (50K) would time out and fail. Connecting to an SMTP or POP server here in the States to send and receive e-mail was tedious, time-consuming, and usually failed as well. Before wireless Internet became available, “Internet Cafes” provided computers and Internet service where one would literally spend an entire day to do some basic e-mailing. Not surprisingly, they charge by the minute, too. Cafes are still around but the bandwidth has improved enough that a connection there can actually be productive now. Can you imagine a dozen or more computers simultaneously connected to the equivalent of a sporadic dial-up connection? That is what access was like before wireless Internet.

The big news is that fiber is coming to much of Africa. My understanding is that the continent has had a growing bandwidth bottleneck getting traffic to and from the rest of the world. New fiber has been installed on the ocean floor and that fiber is now being extended across the continent. In fact, fiber was being buried in conduit along the main road in Lukaya while I was there. Because labor is plentiful, Ugandans are installing it in a ditch across Uganda, dug entirely by hand. These laborers are paid 17,000 shillings a day (about $8) to dig a section of ditch 1 foot wide by 4 feet deep by ten feet long. This is about a day’s work and is considered good pay for “temporary work.” Digging is backbreaking work in the hot sun, yet the dedication to task of the laborers is remarkable.

My guess is that this fiber will be connected to the cellular infrastructure shortly, and since the 3G network is already in place, a quantum leap in Internet connection speeds and overall reliability will occur soon. Most of the 33 million Ugandans don’t have computers (or even the electrical power for them), so I don’t see this affecting the average person greatly in the near term. But I do see the commercial economy in Uganda and throughout Africa “blossoming” in the next five years. Labor is plentiful and raw materials seemingly abound, but being connected to the rest of the world has lagged behind most other places. I do believe Internet will benefit the business community and spur foreign investment once better systems are in place. To wit: I did not use my credit cards once on the entire trip. Credit cards are not accepted anywhere, as the banking infrastructure does not yet exist.

There is beauty in the simplicity of a “cash society” and participating in a diverse local business community comprised of small specialty shops and services. This is a leasure not easily found elsewhere. The headmaster of the school, a young gifted teacher, did not know about the Golden Arches or Wal-Mart. Why would he? Those giants would wreck havoc on the local economy and I do not believe there is nearly enough wealth to spark that kind of development anytime soon.

Cellular is a corporate anomaly in the Third World. No doubt, these companies invested tidy sums to build out their networks, and they have become a part of the daily lives of perhaps the majority of Ugandans by now. It’s become a big business. Yet, for most, communication by telephone didn’t exist ten years ago. SMS text messaging is also commonplace and each one costs 140 Shillings, about seven cents. Most phones I saw were more basic than the smartphones typical of Western business. Voice and text messaging worked consistently well. People there like their phones and use them.

Undoubtedly, reliable communications and improving Internet have added economic value to the local economies throughout Uganda even though the steady stream of Shillings spent on airtime disappears, perhaps for good. Despite their remarkable market penetration and apparent success, the cellular companies remain an automated industrial complex, a world away from the labor of the masses still digging in the trenches.

What Is Google Buzz?

So what exactly is Google Buzz? Used on a PC or mobile, Buzz reminds us of an RSS combined with all of your social networking—all within the existing Gmail and Google.com infrastructure.

Buzz's five key features include:

• Automatic friends lists (friends are added automatically who you have emailed on Gmail)

• "Rich fast sharing" combines sources like Picasa and Twitter into a single feed, and it includes full-sized photo browsing

• Public and private sharing (swap between family and friends)

• Inbox integration (instead of emailing you with updates, like Facebook might, Buzz features emails that update dynamically with all Buzz thread content, like the photo viewer we mentioned above)

• "Recommended Buzz" puts friend-of-friend content into your stream, even if you're not acquainted. Recommendations learn over time with your feedback

Google Buzz is available today, and it should creep up as a new tab in Gmail any minute.

But What About My Cellphone?

Of course, Buzz also works on mobiles right from Google.com on Android and iPhone browsers, and it locates your position from a one button press. From here, Buzz can tailor your feed to their information on things like businesses and restaurants. More on mobile Buzz here. [Google Buzz]