Near Field Communication

When you are walking across the street, the mobile phone starts giving you the sales information in the shops. Is it going to happen in the near future? Yes, it is the power of technology and consumerism. The near field communication technology (NFC) lead us to a new platform where your mobile phones can be used to read the RFID tags from the shops/billboards and give you more information about the sales. To realize the NFC services in mobile phones, an NFC mobile phone should be able to utilize the functionalities of a contactless card and a mobile phone.

NFC is a short-range wireless technology. The equipments enabled with NFC, contain a transmitter and receiver to send and receive data from other NFC enabled equipment. Multiple devices in a small area can communicate with each other using the same frequency.

Google included support for NFC in the Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system and this functionality is also included in the Nexus S smartphone. The other smartphones enabled with NFC technology are Nokia C7, Nokia Astound, Samsung Galaxy S II, Samsung Wave 578.

Few applications based on NFC are given below (from wiki).

• Mobile ticketing in public transport: an extension of the existing contactless infrastructure, such        as Mobile Phone Boarding Pass.

• Mobile payment: the device acts as a debit/credit payment card.

• Smart poster: the mobile phone is used to read RFID tags on outdoor billboards.

• Bluetooth pairing: in the future, pairing of Bluetooth 2.1 devices with NFC support will be as easy as bringing them close together and accepting the pairing. The process of activating Bluetooth on both sides, searching, waiting, pairing and authorization will be replaced by simply bringing the mobile phones close to each other.

Related Links


http://www.nearfieldcommunicationsworld.com/2011/03/15/36451/nfc-business-models-white-paper-sets-out-the-key-issues-involved-in-introducing-mobile-wallet-services/

The Other Side...

This story happened back in 2010. My friend John had just got an onsite assignment. He was to travel to the US in a week’s time. He was so busy and excited that he forgot to deactivate his postpaid mobile connection. After a couple of months, One day around 2 a.m. John gets a call in his phone. It’s from XYZ Telecom Company’s legal department. A threatening voice from the other side says” If you don’t pay your bill of 2300 rupees we will take legal action against you”. John was angry and confused at the same time. “A bill of 2300 rupees? I had paid my bills online before coming to US. Moreover the company has to give me 1000 rupees, a deposit which I had made while taking the connection”. He then realised he had an outstanding amount of 500 rupees for which they added up late charge fee over and over again till it reached up to a 2000 rupees level . Well John was a fighter. He had no intention of paying the bill till he got his 1000 rupees deposit and an apology for the rude behaviour. After all he was a faithful customer for nearly 5 years.

Fast forwarding the story and coming to March 2011.I met john in a friend’s birthday party. Somehow the XYZ Telecom Company story came up. It was really sad and shocking to see the true colour of these companies. According to John making you pay the bill is a simple 5 step process for them

· They track the numbers to which you have made the most number of calls/recent calls. They call those numbers claiming to be your friend and ask about your whereabouts and personal number

· They call you and threaten to take legal action against you for not paying the bill

· They call your family and friends and portray you as a cheat and sometimes even threaten them.

· You get totally out of context replies for the mails you send fighting for justice

· You surrender and pay the bill

On my way back home I was wondering why don’t they use the ARPU (Average Revenue Per User)? Or can’t they even do a loyalty check before taking such absurd actions? If they treated John well they would have got a loyal customer and promoter for life.

The Harvard business review says ”Loyalty has a lot more to do with how well companies deliver on their basic, even plain-vanilla promises than on how dazzling the service experience might be.” How true!

A Telecom Scam

Bob received a call from ‘XYZ’ Telecom Company saying he won cash prizes.At first he thought it was a scam but when the caller quoted the first eight digits of his SIM card, Bob believed him. Apparently bob was unaware that the first eight digits were identical for all XYZ telecom SIM Cards. Bob was asked to buy phone cards of the ‘XYZ’ Telecom and give the card numbers. He did it for a relatively good amount and then he started realising something was fishy. Upon contacting the telecom company Bob just find out he was the victim of a scam. It may sound really foolish of Bob but again this can happen to any one of us. Read more about these kinds of scams and what to do about it in my next post.

Zero paisa plan - A Free Lunch?

Videocon the latest entrant in India’s telecom market is heavily advertising its ‘Innovative’ zero paisa per second plan. The devil is in the details. Just take a look at their site

http://www.videoconmobiles.com/combo_offer.htm

In short you have to buy their handset to avail the 0paise/second and again it ranges from 10 mins to 30 mins for a period of 6 months to 1 year depending on the handset you buy. After all that hype about zero paisa per second I have to say it doesn’t live up to the expectations!

Universal Subscriber Identity Module (USIM)

The SIM, which is an integral part and behind the success of GSM, is also supporting the UTMS/3G network in the form of USIM. This new form carries out the functions of the SIM, enabling the new range of data services in 3G network. The term USIM refers to a software application and not to the smart card device itself, which is actually known as the UICC.

Regarding security, the USIM is in charge of authenticating user to the network and also allows the authentication of the network by the user. USIM uses latest cryptographic technology for the authentication purpose which results in the protection of the users and networks against the mobile phone security attacks stronger than ever.

USIM maintains a phonebook database which can store thousands of entries and each contact can contain email addresses, a second or third phone numbers etc. The contacts are stored much more securely on USIM compared to those stored in phone memory.

Fixed Mobile Convergence

Fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) is a technology innovation which helps seamless connectivity between fixed and wireless telecommunications networks. This innovation allows the cellular phone to work smoothly with the fixed line network infrastructure and can be switched between wired and wireless networks.

FMC for voice should merge the capabilities of the desk and mobile phones to make an organization’s voice capabilities just as mobile as email and data, so mobile workers can be reached at a single phone number, manage a single voice mail box, access advanced desk phone features and transition calls to and from the desk phone no matter where they are. Since a single number and voice mail concept can be achieved by FMC, the clients and colleagues don’t have to try multiple numbers to reach mobile workers which creates communication delays.

How are organizations benefited by implementing enterprise FMC?

The current economic climate is encouraging businesses to become more mobile and at the same time reduce the overall operational cost. Since the mobile call charges are forming a major part in the corporate expenditure the implementation of the enterprise FMC can reduce the cost for the mobile calls.

The FMC solution is more helpful to the enterprise where the delay in communication costs a valuable business. The solutions to getting the office mails, data and applications to the cell phone have already been implemented by many of the organizations in order to increase the productivity. Considering the fact that the number of mobile/remote workers continue to increase, the organizations have proactively implement a significant solution to get the organization’s fixed voice services to mobile device. This will not only reduce the cost but also increase the employee satisfaction.

The extension-to-cellular is a PBX-based software solution that bridges the gap between the enterprise telephone system and external mobile networks. In this solution your mobile number is programmed in the PBX against your office number and when somebody calls your office extension the software accesses the user profiles to determine which phones and devices rings simultaneously or sequentially.

Articles related to FMC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_FMC
http://www.it-director.com/enterprise/technology/content.php?cid=11361
http://www.damovo.co.uk/mobility.html

Fixed – To –Mobile

Most of the people around the world use the mobile phones as their preferred device for communication and the percentage of the mobile phone calls are drastically escalating over the period. The cost of calling from a fixed line to a mobile phone was expensive in the past due to the charges which adds to make the connection between two technologies, the mobile and the fixed line.

The invention of the F2M GSM gateway was a good news for the business category since this can reduce the total cost of fixed to mobile phone calls. A GSM gateway connects to a business telephone system in the same way that a traditional analog PSTN or Digital ISDN line does. A GSM Gateway uses the SIM cards to enable calls directly to the mobile phone network. The mobile phone tariff used in the gateway will determine the cost of calls.

The GSM gateway hub contains normally two or more mobile SIM cards. When the user makes the calls from the fixed phone to a mobile, it will land in one of the SIM card installed in the gateway and then connect to the PLMN network as a mobile to mobile call which will reduce the call rates.

The telecom providers offer this service in two flavors. One offering is, the customer purchases the device with a onetime charge and will be there after charged for the usage. In the other offering the customer subscribes this as a managed service where the provider manages the equipments and the volume of calls landing in the hub. In this case the customer will be charged a monthly recurring fee in addition to the usage charge.

There are different types of GSM gateways in the market which can be used with different fixed line technologies like PSTN, ISDN BRI, ISDN PRI etc. Legitimacy of using these devices is based on the telecom rules and regulations in each country.