[ILUG-Social] Re: [ILUG] OT: WAP - I'm raging

[Paul Curtayne]

Hi John,

you're pretty much bang on. I just spoke to an WAP network engineer in
Eircell, who is far removed from the decision making process.

(let's please not get into a flame war on whether WAP is any good or
necessary, that is not my point here)

He told me that they could enable access to any WAP-enabled site
anywhere in the world via Eircell at the flick of a switch tomorrow
morning.  But they won't and he doesn't know when.

He said there are a couple of technical issues that make it not quite
as simple as, say, an ISP whoc passes on their dial-up customers HTTP
requests and relays back the results without worrying what site it's
from.

Apparently, (and I didn't fully understand this), the WAP gateway
machine is much more integrated with the Eircell LAN/WAN network than
in the analogous situation in Eircom.net, for example, and this leads
to security concerns. Also, the equivalent of SSL for WAP transactions
is not yet setled, and the standards body is meeting any day now to
fianalise it.

However, the point remains that there is no technical reason
whatsoever to stop an Eircell or Digifone cusotmer with a WAP phone
accessing any web-site anywhere (subject to the web-site being
suitable that is), if Eircell/Esat decided.

In other words, no-one can develop any WAP web-pages or applications
as thetre is no way for anyone in Ireland to see them.

Is this not the quivalent of blocking calls to my (hypothetical)
weather-line beacuse Esat/Eircell runs one of their own?

Is using their dominance in one market (telephone infrastructure) to
dominate in another (info provision) not an anti-trust violation as in
the MS case?

Paul

----- Original Message -----
From: John P. Looney <jplooney-ilug at online.ie>
To: ILUG <ilug at linux.ie>
Sent: Monday, December 06, 1999 10:43 AM
Subject: Re: [ILUG] OT: WAP - I'm raging


> On Sat, Dec 04, 1999 at 07:40:54PM -0000, Paul Curtayne mentioned:
> > Ok, I've been off-list for some time, so apologies if this has
come
> > up, but a quick search of the archives indicates it hasn't.
> >
> > I'm about as angry as I would like to be.
> >
> > ESAT have shipped a limited number of the Nokia 7110 WAP-enabled
> > phones today. I went to the local shop, and in passing while
> > enquiring,  got the impression that if you have one of these
phones
> > connected to the Digifone network you will only be able to access
the
> > info from the Esat service.
>
>  This is true. It's also true for Eircell. Why you might ask...
>
>  It's really early days, and they aren't exactly sure if it's going
to take
> off. They know that without the content, nothing will happen. So
both
> companies are trying to make exclusive deals with content providers,
saying
> "We'll guarantee that for six months, we'll make sure that you are
the only
> ones that provide TV and Radio info for our customers"[0], so that
the
> providers will bite. Needless to say, once there are a good few
providers
> around, and there are sufficent users, it will make good business
sense to
> allow users to access the whole lot.
>
>  It's their (perhaps flawed) way of making sure there is some
guanteed
> content there for the "startup" phase.
>
>  Thought for the day. "Wabi", is a Windows emulator for Unix, and
the
> Japanese word for "Voluntary Poverty". Coincidence ?
>
> Kate
>
> [0] This is a completely hypothetical example.
>
> --
> Microsoft. The best reason in the world to drink beer.
> http://www.redbrick.dcu.ie/~valen
>
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