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Maggie Shiels

Do/don't believe the ihype

  • Maggie Shiels
  • 4 Jun 08, 15:07 GMT

Seriously it is just not becoming for grown people to get so so so worked up about a phone.

iPhoneThere is less than a week to go before guru Steve Jobs saunters on stage at the Moscone Conference Centre in downtown San Francisco and puts an end to the frenzy that has ensued for weeks and weeks about the latest edition of the iPhone.

Don't shoot me but I admit that I have added to the hype by reporting on the hype. And here's some more.

The internet is simply awash with real or fake photos, depending on what you want to believe, is the new 3G iPhone. Case makers have already been turning out cases based on these photos apparently.

One fabulous rumour is that the iPhone has already shipped and is waiting under guard, presumably armed and dressed from head to toe in black, at some warehouse in Fremont in the East Bay.

But then that is also countered by another claim that the iPhone is sitting in a factory in Taiwan. Or the rumour that it hasn't even been made because there is a shortage of parts. Quelle Horreur!

There are also claims the new phone will have 3G, won't have GPS, will have GPS, will/won't have Bluetooth, will be thinner, fatter, dearer, cheaper, have more plastic, more chrome, be blacker, no wait red and definitely cooler than any other darned product on the planet.

AppleAnd just in case you are not convinced that the new 3G phone is on its way, stop the presses because the news is that an advert for this much anticipated piece of mobile gadgetry was shot at the Apple store in Manhattan.

Apple blogs were alight with gossip and convinced by their supposition because the iconic cube store had never closed before except for two other times when the company launched the original iPhone and OSX Leopard.

So how does that affect the rumour that Apple admen built a full size replica of an Apple store on the lot to film an advert for the shindig next week?

Oh I nearly forgot my favourite favourite rumour du jour...that Steve Jobs has sworn to never again wear black polo neck sweaters and jeans that don't fit. Sacre bleu what is the world coming to?

Rory Cellan-Jones

Broadband Britain - Digital Dundee

  • Rory Cellan-Jones
  • 4 Jun 08, 09:05 GMT

Suddenly, I know how Dr Who feels. Yesterday afternoon I was in a phone-box in Glenelg pumping coins into the slot as I used 20th Century technology to talk to my bemused boss in London. (Anyone remember "Press Button B"? I do, I'm afraid). Now, after some rapid time-travel in the telephone box (oh, okay, the producer Jonathan drove us for five hours on windy roads across the Cairngorms) we're in 21st Century Dundee.

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This is one of the UK's most digital cities, with a thriving cluster of games developers - it's where Grand Theft Auto was created more than a decade ago - and high take-up of broadband and 3g phones.

And it's soon to become a centre for ultra-fast broadband. A small company called which specialises in has decided this is one of the places which could become what it calls a "fibre city", along with Bournemouth and Northampton.

H20 has already worked with to give it a fast network, and this morning we tried that out in a hall of residence on the campus. It's quite a few years since my student days and the accommodation has come on a bit with en-suite bathrooms and lager on tap through the water system (or did I imagine that?).

Sunrise over DundeeBut it's the level of connectivity which has really moved on. I wrote my essays in longhand, typed out articles for the student paper on an ancient typewriter, and made calls home from the college phone-box once a week. Today every student has a laptop - and can be online from their rooms at lightning speeds via H20's fibre network, getting access to teaching materials, or maybe watching YouTube.

We tested it, and got speeds hovering between 35 and 45Mbps. And when of that 10Mb video file, we came up against a problem - it was so fast it was just about impossible to time, though we think it downloaded in under 2 seconds. Back in our Glenelg hotel, where they generously let us hog the broadband line in their office, the download took over four minutes.

Rory Cellan-Jones broadcasting live from Dundee UniversitySo is fibre-through-the-sewer the way forward? It's the hefty bill for digging up Britain's streets which frightens the telecoms industry as the debate about our need for a nationwide fibre-to-the-home network gathers pace, with memories of what happened to the finances of the cable television pioneers fresh in many minds. But H20 says its system means few if any road closures and cuts the bill for installation by as much as 80%.

Now H20 will be a wholesaler and will have to persuade ISPs that they need to offer these kind of speeds. With a pretty vicious broadband price war underway, many may be sceptical about whether they can persuade customers to pay more for higher speeds - though H20 claims there should not be much of a premium.

But one thing is worth remembering after our coverage yesterday of the urban/rural speed divide in Britain. H20 can cut the cost of bringing fibre to cities where there's the right kind of sewer system - but in the words of one of its executives 'we don't go into septic tank territory". So fibre-to-the home is coming closer - but fibre to the farm may have to wait awhile.

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