I’m a pretty mild-mannered kinda guy, but today I’m mad. 3 Mobile, my mobile phone provider seems to be struggling with the concept of customer service. My Dopod smartphone has not been taking phone calls since last Thursday. That’s 5 days where callers to my mobile have dialed my number and heard one ring before the call is hung up by the network. It’s not me being rude, I promise. SMS still works fine, and I can still make calls. But I can’t receive calls.

I logged the fault with 3 customer care on Friday morning when I realised I had a problem. They promised to call me back on Saturday with a status update on why the network was having issues. It’s now Monday and I had to call them myself. They had no idea why I didn’t get a call. And they still had no idea what the problem is. And they had no idea when service will be restored. In fact, the customer service person I spoke to (not sure if he was in Australia…) could not even promise that I would get a call back from their customer service people today. Maybe tomorrow he offered…

Nope, not good enough. I pointed out to the customer service guy that my mobile is my business line. It must be restored today. And if they were smart they’d see in their CRM system that I give them a lot of money each month. You’d think that means I need to be looked after!

My experience with this carrier, until late last week, has been fantastic. But now I’m starting to seriously question what’s going on with this company. It’s not just me. Cameron Reilly has been having a more difficult experience than yours truly – story here. And Shane Williamson, an ex-3 employee, has gone into bat for Cameron.

Stories like these remind me that many companies in Australia still have not engaged with new media.

Update: Well, I’m not sure how it happened. But at 7.30pm last night I got a phone call. We’re back on the air and I’m a happy man again….

Back on deck this week, having re-entered the AFR atmosphere after three weeks on holidays and an unforgettable time in Hong Kong. I became something of a fan of their Octopus smartcard system over there, a card that lets you buy ferry, bus, train tickets with a quick swipe. It’s also in high volume retail shops like Maccas and 7-11. Add some credit to the card at one of said stores, and off you go. Hello cashless society. Man, have we got some catching up to do in Australia.

Other random geeky goodness. I bought my wife a Tom Tom satellite navigation system for Christmas. It’s already paid off. I’ve had zero distress calls and related transit arguments. She even made it from Sydney to Wollongong without a hitch. Sweet.

Meanwhile, my Christmas stocking contained a iPod video. So I’ve gone from listening to podcasts on the way to work to watching vodcasts. I guess that’s progress? The resolution is incredible, but the headphones included in the kit were dodgy. And upon learning about the iPhone, I wondered if the whole thing was redundant anyway. Turns out I’ve got until some time in 2008 before the iPhone hits Australian shores for reasons that escape me.

Finally, to subjects of information filtering, where has all the news gone?? Is it just me, or is the IT industry practically asleep this January?

I’m pleased to announce one of my projects has hit the ground running today.

IDG Communications has signed up as one of Telstra’s content partners to deliver news and information via i-mode (Telstra’s FAQ page is here). And today we launched the i-mode versions of Computerworld, PC World and GamePro magazines. In geek-speak, it means we have built cHTML versions of each site and linked them with Telstra’s i-mode portal – a feature built into new i-mode phones being sold in Australia.

While i-mode is a global (and non-US) phenomenon, it’s obviously not yet a household name in Australia. That being said, I can see the opportunity. It’s clear to me that our audiences don’t want to be constantly tied to a PC/Mac and browser. Mobile phone sales a booming in Australia, and i-mode is a great opportunity for IDG to test the mobile waters by offering people a different way to access our content.

Now for the ‘but,’ full disclosure statement. Official i-mode sites are subscription based. Australia is following the rest of the world in this regard. We charge $4 per month for unlimited access to content on Computerworld and PC World, and $3 for GamePro. In addition, Telstra charges 2.2 cents per kilobyte.

Do I think our subscription rates are too expensive? Given the amount of content available, no, not really. We’re also charging the same rate as i-mode sites like Fairfax’s SMH and The Age.

Do I think Telstra’s 2.2 per KB is too expensive? Yep. And I believe they should move to a cheaper rate or flat rate pricing scheme ASAP. I’ve also told them as much. The official line is that it’s ‘under review’.

That said, Telstra’s "I like i-mode very much" $7 million marketing campaign includes picking up the cost of your content subscriptions for the first two months while it evaluates user reaction to the service. So if you’re due to sign up for a new contract, get your hands on a mobile that includes i-mode. The models I have tested don’t attract an up-front premium for i-mode.

So, lemme know what you think? Telstra is pretty ambitious about its ability to attract millions of people to this platform. Will they succeed? Do you use similar services from Optus, Vodafone, or 3?

UPDATED

The mobile bug is biting people again. This time it’s not the Blackberry, Smartphone or Wi-Fi revolution. It’s 3G.

3G is the buzzword in mobile and media circles this year. It’s the great panacea that will deliver a golden raft of rich applications to our hot little hands. The common phrase uttered in industry circles sounds something like: ‘Sure, 2G’s nice for starters…but have you seen what 3G can do? That’s when it will really take off..’ I’ve learnt not to discount such enthusiasm, but also maintain some healthy distance.

You’ve probably noticed all the media buzz around this year’s mobile talk-fest in Cannes, the oh-so-gloriously named 3GSM World Congress  (read related 3G musing from Michael Sainsbury here). The world has realised that a new generation of video-capable phones could drive significant growth in the telco markets. And that’s to say nothing of the social impact.

Take for example SonyEricsson’s forthcoming z800i (also at Camera Phone Zone blog). To me the killer feature is not the megapixel camera (cameras to develop), but the possibility of 1GB of storage. Yes, 1GB. Start thinking iPod Shuffle meets high-end mobile phone coupled to a high-speed network.

One scenario: Imagine catching the bus to work and using one device to read news & product reviews, check the weather, buy concert tickets AND listen to music you just downloaded from one of the legal or illegal sites using your phone, not PC. (And if you’re really savvy you might also be time-shifting radio and listening to a podcast like G’day World or IT Conversations.) Nokia, Microsoft and LoudEye have certainly got their head around that business model.

The best analogy to describe what’s happening here is to recall the shift that happened when we moved from dial-up to broadband. The dial-up business model effectively restricted the growth of  online content providers because metered-pricing affected online behaviour. It’s hard for cost-conscious consumers to happily surf around when they’ve got the meter running. But introduce flat-rate broadband and you’re cruising on what feels like a toll-free highway. There’s no great incentive to get off the road (network) unless the scenery (content) is boring.

So here’s where things get interesting. Most telcos now offer mobile content services on a metered basis. Three is a notable exception. They are helping grow the pie by introducing us to a whole new set of uses for mobile phones. But when existing 2G and 2.5G offerings from Telstra, Optus and Vodafone etc promote per kilobyte data charges, it takes us right back to dial-up psychology. 3G on the other hand, could be a really fast freeway. But regardless of speed, if the metered pricing remains content consumption may be limited. Too many people were burned by WAP’s failure to deliver anything more significant than bill shock.

So what has to change? Flat rate data charging must be considered inevitable for all these carriers. And it doesn’t take too much imagination to realise why content providers would be anything other than happy by that development.

Imagine new generation of storage-laden mobile phones sucking down truckloads of flat-rate data, internet style. The 3G hype curve starts to flatten out as good service meets consumer expectation. I like the sound of that very much.

Update: Citizen journalist & blog buddy of mine Walter Adamson reports on the i-Mode opportunity meeting held in Sydney last week. What do you think about this business model?

Jason Barnes, the business development manager of news and content (at FairfaxDigital), told the audience that he was "driven by monetization" and that the i-mode business model and platform enabled them to:

• have people pay for content that was currently free, by repositioning and redesigning the content for the mobile audience;
• distribute the news content to a wider geographic reach than the physical newspapers;
• reach a younger audience than the newspapers; and,
• spread the brand into a new subscriber base.

Although the revenue from mobile was expected to remain a small income stream as compared to other sources, its importance was in reaching a new younger audience with different usage patterns for news content.