tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83661582024-03-07T05:58:49.642+02:00Telecoms in LatviaSporadic commentary on the telecoms and IT market in Latvia and the Baltic States.Juris Kažahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.comBlogger750125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8366158.post-14257892214812873222014-02-14T10:09:00.002+02:002014-02-14T10:10:39.881+02:00A "precision investment" blown under the radar by "rag traders"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It was meant to be a highlight of the second annual Tech Chill Baltics conference in Riga and a record financing round for a Latvian startup with global traction, but it ended up blown down below the radar of mainstream media (where it may have been, in any case) by the double-digit afterburners of a Lithuanian rag trader.<br />
<a href="http://infogr.am/">Infogr.am,</a> the infographics platform that has been gaining global traction and publicity, raised EUR 1.34 million from Point Nine Capital, Connect Ventures and a post-mortem dollop of cash from the recently deceased HackFwd. The new injection of cash will go into, among other things, developing Infogr.am's real time data display capacity (which, depending on the task, can involve a bit of rocket science) and in setting up an operation in the US.<br />
Meanwhile, <a href="http://www.vinted.com/">Vinted</a>, a Lithuanian-based used clothing and accessories trading platform, raised USD 27 million from Accel Partners and Insight Ventures. Superficially, Vinted looks like an adaption or port of a generic peer-to-peer selling solution. And as the IT website/blog TechCrunch <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/31/euro-secondhand-marketplace-vinted-raises-27m-to-take-on-the-salvation-army/">notes</a>, the company is entering a crowded market, especially if it's main target is the US (where it already has employees).<br />
Apparently, Vinted won't be building any warehouses or logistics facilities, so it is hard to imagine what the USD 27 million will be spent for.<br />
The comparatively tiny investment in Infogr.am may, by contrast, be a case of precision investment, applying just enough new cash to some very specific needs, while keeping control of the company firmly in the hands of its founders. That seems to be the strategy favored by founder Uldis Leiterts, who recently wrote in an e-mail that "European startups have a problem of selling too early, that's why we don't see great companies emerging from Europe."<br />
"Infogr.am' s founders are committed to stay on board for a long time and build a great service for our customers and a return for our investors," Leiterts wrote. Leiterts has indicated that Infogr.am turned down a "seven digit" buyout offer from an unnamed American company. Meanwhile, Latvian address book and contact management (for MacOS and IOS) startup Cobook was recently bought by Full Contact, a contact management company in the sweet smoke filled state of Colorado. The core Cobook development team from Latvia under co-founder and CEO Kaspars Dancis is moving to Denver as I write.<br />
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Juris Kažahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8366158.post-64755904218797294842013-02-13T16:38:00.001+02:002013-02-13T16:40:03.308+02:00Highlights of TechChill 2013 (Video)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Here is my video of some highlights of TechChill 2013 in Riga, mainly advice to startups by venture capitalists and other experts. Sorry for not posting this earlier, but my day was disrupted by a sudden request from my day job to attend a meeting of a parliamenary committee at the Latvian Parliament. So here is the video:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/7tAgbnRkC8s?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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Juris Kažahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8366158.post-30646230399956021592012-12-26T23:49:00.000+02:002012-12-26T23:49:36.624+02:00TomTom's plans for new services in Latvia<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In early December, some representatives of <b>TomTom</b>, the GPS navigation device manufacturers, visited Latvia and sat down for a short interview with this blogger. Some interesting facts: <b>TomTom </b>has completely mapped Latvia (as part of a Baltic map) and plans to introduce mobile connectivity for its devices, probably by a forthcoming deal with mobile operator <b>Bite Latvija </b>(a <b>Vodafone</b> partner, used by<b> TomTom </b>for its mobile services elsewhere).<br />
<br />
Here is the video interview:<br />
<br /></div>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/AAgkjZZ2LJw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Juris Kažahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8366158.post-31226107953374626542012-09-04T22:48:00.000+03:002012-09-04T22:48:49.061+03:00A talk with Kaspars Dancis of Cobook.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
With more than 250 000 free downloads, Cobook the alternative address book and contact management system for Macintosh computers, is ready to move on. As reported on <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/30/cobook-a-better-mac-address-book-now-syncs-with-google-contacts/">TechCrunch</a>, Cobook is now offering version 1.1, which syncs with the user's Google contacts. In his talk with this blog, Kaspars says there are plans for an iOS (iPhone and iPad) version of Cobook, eventually an Android version, and, somewhat sooner, a paid version for some consumers and for businesses.<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/KkaVUHl3nyU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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Juris Kažahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8366158.post-58662190110179216722012-07-18T00:18:00.000+03:002012-07-18T00:18:55.820+03:00Developments on the Latvian TV market<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
For most Latvians,
television is a service that comes over the net, so it rightly
belongs in a telecoms blog. And anyway, what is telecoms? More and
more, it is using a computer with a voice/video chat function. I am
not only talking about <b>Skype</b>
and its clones, but also those computers with voice functions that we
call smartphones, such as the <i>iPhone4s.</i></div>
There has been a big hoo-hah
about television in Latvia, mainly because of a big merger between a
subsidiary of Sweden's <b>Modern Times Group </b>(<b>MTG</b>),
<b>TV3</b> and another
privately owned TV company <b>Latvijas Neatkarīgā televīzija
</b>(<b>LNT</b>).
<b>TV3 </b>and <b>LNT
</b>were both loss makers in a
drastically reduced advertising market and it was a matter of time
before <b>LNT</b><i><b> </b></i>would
go down first, taking a pretty talented crew and substantial audience
down with the ship. So the move was necessary, and, even if it
established a kind of Swedish monopoly on commercial television (with
lots of restrictions imposed on the deal by Latvia's Competition
Council) it was still better than the alternative of <b>LNT
</b>going
down or being sold to some murky Russian media group.<br />
Up
to now, both channels have been paying customers of <b>Lattelecom</b>,
both for its terrestrial digital broadcast services (with the digital
signal also going out over <b>Lattelecom's</b>
interactive IPTV service). Oddly, <b>Lattelecom's
</b>CEO
Juris Gulbis spent quite a few tweets criticizing the merger, even
though both were his customers and it really didn't matter who owned
them as long as they pay their bills. In 2013, if amendments to the
Electronic Media Law are passed, it will put an end to something
called “must carry” and both commercial channels, hitherto
broadcast over cable and internet networks for free, will be able to
charge cable operators and, eventually, viewers, for watching them.
Kaspars Ozoliņš, the CEO of <b>MTG
Baltics </b>says
the extra revenue will allow him to expand locally produced
programming on both “national” commercial channels, thereby
retaining and increasing his audience and the base for future
advertising.<br />
It
may, however, be too little and perhaps too late. A lot of cable
operators are saying they will relegate both national commercial
channels to premium packages with fewer viewers, defeating the
purpose of increasing the number of viewers. Others will pay but
won't pass on their costs to their viewers (the head of a small cable
TV operation in the town of Kuldiga told me this). Still others may
use their cable networks as “common antennas” and feed the
terrestrial digital signal (still for free for all of 2013) to their
viewers. Those who have modern television sets with built in digital
decoders will see the feed effortlessly, others may have to rig their
<b>Lattelecom
</b>terrestrial
decoders to the cable network. So it looks like lifting “must
carry” will not exactly free the Golden Goose to go flying into the
coffers of <b>MTG.</b><br />
An
interesting and still struggling free internet TV operation is
<b>draugiem.tv,</b><i><b>
</b></i>launched by the social
network of the same name. Its assortment of channels is still
limited, but still includes <i>BBC World</i>.
It seems that the commercial Latvian networks see it as an upstart
and have blocked <b>draugiem</b>
from using their signal. Look for a proliferation of internet TV and
TV aggregators in Latvia as entrepreneurs discover how relatively
easy this is to do.
<br />
On
another note, I tested the new random videochat application<i>
</i><b>Airtime.com. </b>The
jury is still out. I ended up talking to an internet entrepreneur in
The Hague, told him about <b>TechHub
Riga</b><i><b>. </b></i>Before
him, some murky faces appeared (bad lighting, bad cameras), not eager
to talk. So it could be another <b>Chatroullette</b>,
which by many accounts degenerated into a series of exhibitionists
looking for random “viewers” of their attributes.<br />
</div>Juris Kažahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8366158.post-90280133630910207012012-07-16T23:33:00.000+03:002012-07-16T23:33:16.171+03:00Back again with an update on 4G, the future of TV<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I have totally neglected this blog, but
I will make an effort to get it back on track. Here is some news that
may not have appeared elsewhere.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Latvian Mobile Telephone</b> (<b>LMT</b>)
has launched 4G services in the Latvian port city of Liepaja. This
is one of the places where 4G was first tested a couple of years ago,
but the first commercial launch of 4G (in the 1800Mhz band) was in
the seaside resort of Jurmala near Riga, then in Riga and the
immediate environs.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
All of this has taken place without
great fanfare, although, when asked, <b>LMT</b> officials will tell
you that all new mobile internet modems sold are 4G capable. So it
looks like the operator is planning to go nationwide. I have been
given a test modem (passed on by a PR agency from another
journalist). Unfortunately, it does not even show up on my MacBook,
although my son managed to download the modem driver on his MacBook
Pro, where the modem didn't work either. But that is, perhaps, an
individual problem.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
It should also be noted that <b>LMT</b>
in its official presentations has downplayed 4G as a priority, saying
instead that it would finish the build-out of its 3G network, which
is capable of download speeds of up to 42 Mbps (the 4G network claims
speeds of up to 100 Mbps). So is the Liepaja deployment a shift in
strategy? Remains to be seen. For the moment, <b>LMT</b> isn't
following this up with any high profile marketing activities.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Meanwhile fixed network operator
<b>Lattelecom</b> has been presenting itself as a multi-platform TV
distributor – digital terrestrial, interactive (IPTV) and internet
TV (for watching on laptops, tablets and mobile phones). This is
available for one package price (internet +various TV services+
increasingly less useful, but “free” fixed telephony), with free
WiFi at <b>Lattelecom</b> sites across the country.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The next major issue <b>Lattelecom
</b>faces on the television market
is the end of its license to broadcast digital terrestrial as of
December 31, 2013. It now looks like a)the <b>Latvian State
Radio and Television Center </b>will
be exclusively tasked with broadcasting the free-to-air public
television channels of <b>Latvian
Television</b> while b)
“more than one packager” of pay television channels may be
selected by tender. In practice, this probably means <b>Lattelecom</b>
and another competitor will be awarded a license starting January 1,
2014, or so the government has indicated. <b>Lattelecom</b>
has said it will participate in the tender, but has warned that if
two winners are selected, there will be a duplication of functions
and a division of the market that will more likely increase cost to
both competitors, especially the newcomer.</div>
On the IT side, the real
excitement in Latvia is the increasing number of internationally
recognized start-ups, such as the alternative Macintosh/iOS address
book <i>Cobook</i>,
the digital goods selling site <i>Sellfy</i>,
the question and answer site for teenagers <i>ask.fm,
</i>as
well as some applications coming out of the Latvian social network
<b>draugiem.lv's </b>
incubator <b>IdeaBits</b>,
such as the productivity tool <i>Desktime</i>
and systems for managing vending machines (<i>Vendon)</i>
and vehicle fleets (<i>Mapon).</i><br />
The
other “hotspot” of innovation is <b>TechHub Riga</b><i><b>,
</b></i>an offshoot of <b>TechHub</b>
in London that provides a co-working facility for startups with
plenty of interesting guest lecturers and seminars. Hopefully I will
be able to do more on both of these centers of innovation, probably
in the form of videoblogs introducing some of the movers and shakers
on the Latvian IT startup scene.
<br />
</div>Juris Kažahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8366158.post-87570184894198101712012-03-07T22:54:00.000+02:002012-03-07T22:54:53.388+02:00More on LMT, HAL & the bag man - Lattelecom be slightly afraid<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I found out the real story behind the <i>Latvian Mobile Telephone </i>(LMT) offer that seems to suggest the fixed line numbers can be transferred to a mobile operator. They can. What LMT has set up is a wireless "fixed line" phone service, much the way <i>Lattelecom </i>once did with CDMA standard operator <i>Triatel. </i> The whole thing does run off a GSM SIM card, to which the <i>Lattelecom </i> number can be transferred <i>as a fixed line number</i>. This baffled me at first, since, generally, fixed line phones don't need SIM cards (except when they are wireless). As for tariff plans, the new <i>LMT</i> home package will be on a semi-flat rate basis, that is, giving more minutes for a fixed price than a normal user can consume in a month (up to 1 500 minutes, unlimited on the LMT network. The minutes in can be used both for calling fixed and mobile phones (almost perfect convergence?). It is perhaps better than the <i>Lattelecom </i>unlimited flat rate, because with <i>Lattelecom, </i>once off the network or even calling a mobile phone, the money counter switches on.<br />
So <i>Lattelecom </i> is challenged to some extent. It may have to find a way to offer a similar service, at least to add a mobile component to its offering, or to join forces and co-sell with LMT, with whom they have had a mutually cool arms-length relationship all these years. Maybe things will change when the never-ending story ends and <i>TeliaSonera, </i>hitherto the <i>half-mother</i> (haven't used that term in a while) is finally allowed to buy out the state and other shareholders in <i>Lattelecom</i> and LMT.<br />
<br /></div>Juris Kažahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8366158.post-65055297355567295132012-03-07T16:33:00.001+02:002012-03-07T16:33:20.512+02:00LMT, HAL and the bag man<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
These mysteries will be solved soon. <i>Latvian Mobile Telephone</i> (LMT), has been running a TV commercial where a child approaches a fixed phone, which warns him not to use a mobile (maybe I am confusing something) whereupon the kid's father (the bag man) arrives with a big bag from LMT. Seems it is some kind of family pack. Dad proceeds to unplug the landline phone, which makes a few desperate pleas (like HAL being disconnected in <i> 2001: A Space Odyssey</i>) and announces that everything will be mobile, including the home phone landline number.<br />
The mystery is in just how this works. Seems that the wireless phone that is in the bag and goes with the landline (generally, a <i>Lattelecom</i> line) turns into a direct IP phone (hence it runs on WiFi or at least via the base-station router also in the bag). What this looks like to me is <i>Lattelecom</i> and LMT stealth launching <i>Lattelecom's </i>IP based new network. That means that wherever you can connect the wireless landline phone (via the router or stand-alone, if it is WiFi capable) to the IP network over the internet (in Riga or Singapore), you get a local virtual landline. There has been no announcement or detailed explanation of this, just the TV commercial. Will try to find out what is going on at an LMT event this evening. </div>Juris Kažahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8366158.post-81124576476354604522012-03-07T10:41:00.000+02:002012-03-07T10:41:54.949+02:00Facebook outage hits 300 000 users in Latvia<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A <i>Facebook</i> outage lasting a few hours knocked around 300 000 users off the social network in Latvia (the whole barely 2 million strong nation would barely be a village in <i>Facebook </i>if it were a nation-state). This came just days after Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis set up his <i>Facebook</i> page and two days ahead of the launch of Latvia's official <i>Facebook</i> page "If you like Latvia, Latvia likes you" (the page has been up and running for some time already. <i>Facebook </i> seems to have come back online again just after 10AM local. However, this is the only report my readers will have of what happened (even though I think Latvia was among the first to notice FB going down), because my news agency simply shitcanned the story. Reasons unknown, your best guesses may start at provincialism, ignorance and worse...<br />
Maybe this post also belong under the headline of <i>Failed State Latvia? </i>in my other blog.</div>Juris Kažahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8366158.post-68962852964371408712012-02-08T15:32:00.000+02:002012-02-08T15:32:20.687+02:00TechHub Riga is opening (video)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
TechHub Riga, the first affiliate of London's TechHub co-working space and incubator for IT start-ups, is opening on Februaruy 9. TechHub Riga chairman Andris Bērziņš talks about what the facility has to offer and what it will be doing.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<iframe width="600" height="320" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/naLw42wrFD4?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Juris Kažahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8366158.post-30072508227636932622011-10-31T19:33:00.002+02:002011-10-31T19:34:43.778+02:00IBM's Robert Talbot (while in Latvia) talks about Watson<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>IBM's</b> Robert Talbot attended a local<i> IBM Forum </i>conference in Riga, Latvia recently, where he sat down to talk to this blogger (wearing both my Latvian and English-language blogger hats) about the future of the artificial intelligence entity called <i>Watson</i>. Here it is -- the color is a bit weird and the inter-titles are in both Latvian and English. Anyway, good luck on your med boards, <i>Watson. </i><br />
<i><br /></i><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/iezbMtNhHUg?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<i><br /></i></div>Juris Kažahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8366158.post-54501853052159164072011-08-05T01:08:00.000+03:002011-08-05T01:08:12.082+03:00Catching up on events - Lattelecom to go to IMS by 2017<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>Followup on the Tele2 fiasco</b><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I have been remiss in updating this
blog and there have been some noteworthy events that I will now
belatedly relate.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
First, I was more or less right about
the cause of the big <b>Tele2 </b><span>crash
on July 14. It was, as I said in a previous post, a “piecashit”
gadget that brought down the house, but after talking to </span><b>Tele2
</b><span>technical director Ervīns
Kampāns, the picture was a bit more complicated. What actually
happened was that the system that was supposed to warn about a
failure of the cooling system did itself fail, but not all the AC to
DC transformers went down at once. When the first ones did, the UPS
attached to the </span><b>Nokia-Siemens</b><span>
core switch did kick in, but shared the power-supplying load with the
diminished flow of current from the failing transformers. What
resulted was that at some point, both the supply of current from the
transformers and the UPS (which is intended to work for a short time
until reserve generators kick in) was degraded and finally the core
switch and all the complex systems it sustained crashed. It was,
indeed, a perfect storm kind of event. According to Kampāns, </span><b>Tele2</b><span>
has now added additional backup and security systems, so that a
repetition of the highly unlikely July 14 event is even more
unlikely.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>Lattelecom to go all IMS by 2017</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
On July 20,
<b>Lattelecom </b>and China's <b>Huawei</b><i><b> </b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">announced
they had signed an agreement to convert the entire </span><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>Lattelecom</b></span><span style="font-style: normal;">
fixed line network to run on IMS (</span><i>IP Multimedia Subsystem</i><span style="font-style: normal;">)
standards by 2017, with the first pilot tests to take place in early
2012. Migrating to IMS would expand the services available to
fixed-line subscribers as well as offering them a kind of global
mobility. </span><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>Lattelecom</b></span><i><b>
</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">would be one of the first
telcos in the region to go all-IMS (globally, as far as I can see,
there aren't too many other operators who have made a conversion,
although IMS is used by some for a limited range of services)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">People
would be able to take their fixed-line </span><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>Lattelecom
</b></span><span style="font-style: normal;">numbers (actually, IP
addresses attached to their handsets) anywhere in the world where
there was a fixed or WiFi internet connection. </span><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>Lattelecom
</b></span><span style="font-style: normal;">CEO Juris Gulbis also
told this blogger that the telco operator would develop applications
for smart phones that would make it possible to call on the IMS
network. With most </span><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>Lattelecom</b></span><span style="font-style: normal;">
subscribers on flat-rate, “free” calling plans, calls between two
</span><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>Lattelecom </b></span><span style="font-style: normal;">numbers
anywhere in the world would cost only what the respective internet
connection costs.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Technically,
the move to IMS would mean eliminating most, if not all local
switches and replacing them with two redundant switches to run the
whole network. Existing copper landlines would be turned into DSL
connections, while optical internet customers are already on the
internet and would simply have their voice services upgraded to IMS. </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">The
deal with </span><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>Lattelecom </b></span><span style="font-style: normal;">is
also another achievement for </span><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>Huawei</b></span><i><b>,
</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">which has succesfully
challenged traditional infrastructure suppliers in the region, such
as Sweden's </span><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>Ericsson</b></span><i><b>
</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;">and the Finnish-German
</span><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>Nokia-Siemens. </b></span><span style="font-style: normal;">The
project will be handled from the Chinese company's Swedisj office,
which is located about a kilometer from </span><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>Ericsson's</b></span><span style="font-style: normal;">
headquarters in the Stockholm suburb of Kista. </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
</div>
Juris Kažahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8366158.post-35850310285896626182011-07-15T21:56:00.000+03:002011-07-15T21:57:00.786+03:00Did an obscure "piecashit" gizmo bring down Tele2 in the Baltics?I got an official description of what happened July 14 to knock out <b>Tele2's </b>core switch (?) and take down (for some, briefly, in Latvia, well into the night) services to around two million customers in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Despite it being a Swedish-based international telecoms company, the network crash in the Baltics (as far as I could see) got exactly <i>fuck all </i>coverage in the Swedish media, which, like much of Scandinavia, is zoned out in a hammock somewhere or on the beach in Greece before, to use the Latvian expression, the place goes to the Devil's mother.<br />
Basically what happens is this: the core switch, possibly a <i>Nokia MCSI </i>runs on 48 volt DC current, which is fed to the device through a AC/DC transformer getting it from the 220V grid. The transformer apparently can get hot, so it has a "climate control" (read air conditioner or chiller on it). Because the AC/DC transformer is mission critical, the climate control comes with a temperature sensor and some kind of alarm that alerts <b>Tele2 </b>technical staff that the system has failed, but giving them enough time to prevent damage to the transformer. The alarm and the sensor are what may have been the "piecashit" gizmos that ultimately crashed the network. The alarm failed to go off until it was too late. By then, the transformer had overheated and shorted out, knocking out the switch. With no transformer, there was no way to power up the switch until extensive repairs had been made. In addition, very complex systems like mobile phone network core switches do not usually reboot very easily, especially after a power-failure induced crash.<br />
Utility power was still on --<b>Latvenergo's </b> press secretary freaked out a little when the media blamed <i>electricity</i> for the failure and said, rightly, that the electricity from the utility was never interrupted, it all happened inside the walls of the <b>Tele2 </b>facility. So it does look like one fucked gizmo brought down everything..<br />
Except -- was there really no UPS (providing DC electricity) attached directly to the switch to keep it going for a while until the techies fix whatever broke or switch to generators? Perhaps the emergency protocol was to go directly to the generator, forgetting the possibility that the transformer, thanks to some cheapo gizmo, could blow? This is how we learn...Juris Kažahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8366158.post-19678311472278156822011-07-14T21:30:00.000+03:002011-07-14T21:30:40.746+03:00Charlie Foxtrot visits Tele2 in Latvia and the BalticsAs I understand it, you weren't supposed to use obscenity on US Army radios, so instead of saying that something was a <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=clusterfuck" style="font-style: italic;">clusterfuck</a>, you said Charlie Foxtrot instead. Well, today, and to some extent, still, tonight (2100 local time, July 14), Charlie Foxtrot visited Swedish-owned <b>Tele2</b><i style="font-weight: bold;"> </i>in Latvia and took a chunk out of Lithuania and Estonia as well, knocking a total of well over two million customers off the network (just over a million in Latvia, a million pre-paid users in Lithuania, and the undisclosed prepaid part of a total of 467 000 users in Estonia).<br />
The problems started just after 1400 local time when, according to <b>Tele2's </b>official version, a disturbance in electricity supply took down a major switch. To me, this was an immediate, red-flag <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">WTF??</span> because mission critical switches have, by default, big motherfuckers of UPS (uninterrupted power supplies) that will keep things going until utility power is restored or switched to emergency generators.<br />
My theory is more that there was some kind of perfect storm event or someone stumbled across a power cable (between the UPS and the Mother of All Switches, if that is possible) causing enough of a power fluctuation to crash the switch at a software level and perhaps fuck up some vital hard disks. That is just my guess.<br />
Business and post-paid customers in Lithuania were unaffected, and in Estonia, pre-paid customers were only down for around 20 minutes, or so the spokesperson said.<br />
Whatever happened, it possibly showed the downside of <b>Tele2</b><i style="font-weight: bold;"> </i> and possibly other operators rationalizing their networks by concentrating services in one switching center (for smaller countries like the Baltics). It appears that prepaid service (billing, switching) were run for all three Baltic countries on servers/switches in Riga. Given how mission critical (more mission critical than if the supporting device and software systems were distributed) the Riga switch is, one wonders how there could be any event involving electric power that could take it down. Some part of the truth may come out tommorrow (July 15).<br />
Juris Kažahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8366158.post-11682992742637051782011-06-19T22:13:00.000+03:002011-06-19T22:13:18.876+03:00Another look at Kista Science City<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Unfortunately, I didn't get around to posting this video on this blog because I was busy with other stuff and then, from May 26-June 6, I was in the US for a personal visit. I don't think much has changed from what Åke Lindström said when we met on May 23. So here, ahead of the Midsummer holiday that the Scandinavian and Baltic nations share, is an insight into what is going on at <b>Kista Science City</b>.<br />
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<iframe width="540" height="290" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/cm4wwaY697E?rel=0&hd=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
</div>Juris Kažahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8366158.post-79930031542030569162011-05-13T23:53:00.000+03:002011-05-13T23:53:15.793+03:00Bite Latvija announces new tariffs (video)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Looks like Charlie Foxtrot took over <i>Blogger</i> for a while, so I delayed posting this video, where Fred Hrenchuk, the CEO of mobile operator <b>Bite Latvija </b>talks about how the company (the smallest in Latvia with somewhat over 320 000 customers) has reduced its offering to just three tariff plans (all on a pay-as-you wish - pre, post, contract or not).<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="292" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/icede_7iMQs?rel=0&hd=1" width="480"></iframe> div></div>Juris Kažahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8366158.post-17009760893203377222011-04-27T22:55:00.000+03:002011-04-27T22:55:43.682+03:00A "cyberterrorist lite" attacks a Latvian news agency<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">A person with sophisticated knowledge of data security matters became a self-appointed censor and avenger in an act of "cyberterrorism -lite" against the Latvian news agency <b>LETA. </b>Delivery of news to <b>LETA's</b> customers was impeded for several hours while <b>LETA's</b> home page <i>www.leta.lv</i> was replaced with a message from the hacker, who seemed aggrieved by a routine news story about the defacing of small business home pages that were hosted by low-cost hosting services.<br />
The message from the hacker (in translation from Latvian) read:<br />
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<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Dear colleagues, before publishing the views of doubtful experts about small server hosting companies and discussing (their)competence, I suggest you review the content of this defamatory news story and stop publishing these offensive advertorials. As you can see, nothing is safe and unbreakable – if needed, therefore, don't try to leap higher than your own a(rse). Thanks for your attention.</i></span></span></span></div><div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><br />
</i></span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The message included a link to the defacement story from <b>LETA </b>as published by the <i>www.apollo.lv </i>news website (I will admit here that this story was written by your blogger). The story quoted by name two persons associated with data security companies -- one from <b>Panda Software </b>(the Latvian representative of a Spanish security) and the other from a local company with past ties to Russia's <b>Kaspersky Lab.</b></span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b><br />
</b></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The latter source pointed out the latest round of defacements, providing a list of URLs and had, in earlier cases, spoken of the vulnerability of low-cost hosting companies. The other source said that <b>Panda</b> and others (meaning the security business in general) had solutions that could prevent such defacements, which can be assumed (with a grain of salt, there is no absolute security, only a raising of the barriers to hackers) to be true.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The news story was originally filed under the business news portal of <b>LETA</b>, <i>nozare.lv</i>. As a business news story, it unavoidably involves quoting people with some degree of commercial bias (tempered by the fact that one cannot stray radically from the truth even when self-promoting in front of a reasonably intelligent audience). To freak out over a small amount of self-promotion and label the whole story an "advertorial" is, to say the least, an overreaction from some strange mixture of ignorance (of journalism) and paranoia.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=latvitelec-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0061962236&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>Taking it to next step and using specialized skills to take down a news agency (whatever one may think of its content) is, to my mind, an act of cyberterrorism-lite. If we envision <i>real</i> cyberterrorism as attacks on the IT infrastructure of utilities such as water, electricity, gas or telecommunications that prevent delivery of these services, then why not consider information/news as a utility that has been attacked in Latvia by an electronic terrorist?</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">OK, to be fair, and as a journalist, I try to be fair, <b>LETA's </b>IT infrastructure leaves much to be desired. It is not exactly a digital fortress. For that matter, most housing in Riga doesn't have steel doors, state-of-the-art locks and alarms. That explains, but does not excuse the successful activities of burglars. Except in this case, nothing was "stolen", but the homeowner was locked in and prevented from doing his business.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Also to be fair, there are hacking activities and "thefts" of information from those in power and with power over the population that should be hacked -- like Wikileaks or the activities of Neo (exposed as Ilmars Poikāns), who obtained government and municipal salary data from the Latvian State Revenue Service. However, a privately-owned news agency (clinging to its old label of "national news agency", whatever that means...) is not an agent of state power.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">It should be mentioned that the censorious cyberterrorist was cheered on by a number of commentators on the usual Latvian news portals (what the British Bethlehem Asylum for the Insane -- hence bedlam -- was for part of the 19th century as a place to be "entertained" by the antics of the mad, has been replaced by the commentators on portals such as <i>www.delfi.lv - </i>a place to read the howlings and ravings of the deranged).<iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=latvitelec-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=1441572171&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">In any case, one can only hope that this does not herald the start of more of what I can only call mad-dog (it takes little to trigger the rabid) cyberattacks on the media. But all it takes is one skilled wacko, and in Latvia, we have found him. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div></div>Juris Kažahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8366158.post-62795929833190473162011-04-25T00:58:00.000+03:002011-04-25T00:58:07.274+03:00A request for leads, tips and job offers :)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">It is pretty clear to me that Latvia is going to be in economic stagnation and suffering political disability of one kind or another for the foreseeable future. While this may make for some interesting news stories for the next five or seven years, it is not a place to stay with a family and a teenager who needs some kind of future. I'm afraid I don't see one in Latvia - not for someone who needs an education, nor for someone who may choose (strange as it seems) to retire at some point.<br />
With some reluctance I am posting my attempt at a video CV to explore, very seriously, a "plan B" outside of Latvia. This is nothing against my present employer LETA, but to be frank and objective, I don't see any growth or development for the media in Latvia for several years, and the adaptation that media companies must make, economically, in terms of their employees, may work for the young, but it is distressing for me, even if, day to day, things are still tolerable. In short, I have served my nearly 16 years here, given it a good try, but conditions are not going to improve and will probably deteriorate in my remaining working life. Time to move on...<br />
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So, here is my video CV to any and all who are interested:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="292" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ymdl9mrzCYE?rel=0" title="YouTube video player" width="480"></iframe></div>Juris Kažahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8366158.post-71742287419591116292011-04-19T09:04:00.000+03:002011-04-19T09:04:43.375+03:00Michael Curry talks about the Websphere Application Accellerator at Impact 2011<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Here is my video interview with Michael Curry of IBM about the new Websphere Application Accellerator for Hybrid Networks during Impact 2011 in Las Vegas. The video was originally edited for a Latvian speaking audience, hence some of the opening and closing titles.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="250" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Fi1_Caq6Rfo?rel=0" title="YouTube video player" width="400"></iframe></div>Juris Kažahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8366158.post-67997275778237123902011-04-09T14:17:00.000+03:002011-04-09T14:17:15.880+03:00An adventure in electronic uselessness on the way to IBM Impact 2011<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I am on my way to one of the world's high-techiest conferences, IBM Impact 2011 in Las Vegas. However, I was sent a travel plan that a) keeps me in the air as long as I think, it took me to get to Australia in 2003. b) I was unable to check in online due to the travel having been ordered by IBM's travel agent. Fortunately, Riga Airport this morning was not as much of a zoo as I expected.<br />
Then here at Schipol in Amsterdam, I was also unable to check in on one of the automated machines because I had checked baggage in Riga (the Riga check in machine didn't let me check in either). So I am finally checked in and typing this in one of the two 30 minute free WiFi sessions you get from KPN. Otherwise, it is starting at EUR 3 for 15 minutes. Insane. At least Las Vegas airport has/had free WiFi. I will see what Minneapolis offers, must spend a couple of hours there, too. All together, I am 24 hours, almost, from door to door. And then, with a 10 hour time shift, IBM expects European journalists not to write gibberish about their event :).<br />
Anyway, will try to post both text and video from the event, with my Latvian day job taking precedence. Watch this space...</div>Juris Kažahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8366158.post-60120126030560783752011-03-02T20:22:00.000+02:002011-03-02T20:22:02.762+02:00Latvia's 2011 census on the internet is off to...a clusterf**k<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Latvia's attempt to conduct part of its 2011 census on the internet has gotten off to a start that can only be described as a total <i>clusterfuck</i>. The Latvian Central Statistic Bureau (CSB) opened a internet page <i>www.tautasskaitisana.lv </i>where people could fill in a census questionnaire using three methods of authorization -- their passport number and personal code number, the PIN code and access code from a number of internet banks, and the official e-signature.<br />
While the last two authorization methods are relatively safe, passport numbers and personal code numbers are often publicly available, widespread information. For example, the personal code of controversial Ventspils mayor Aivars Lembergs, on trial for money laundering and other economic crimes, was recently published in an official list of charitable donors. Travel agencies and employers also often have both personal code numbers and passport data.<br />
The possibility to circumvent the authorization system was first pointed out by the Latvian language IT blog <i>www.defense.lv. </i> The internet news portal <i>delfi.lv</i> then conducted an experiment, opening the census data filed by a third person, altering it, then putting it right again. This clearly proved that it was possible for anyone with the right data to change someone else's census questionnaire.<br />
The Latvian State Data Inspectorate (<i>Datu valsts inspekcija/DVI</i>) then hastened to stop internet census data collection, calling the authorization method a violation of the law. However, around 100 000 persons had already used the internet to answer census questionnaires, most, though not all using their passport and personal code data. The CSB announced on the evening TV news that it was freezing all these questionnaires to prevent anyone from making any changes.<br />
Local data security experts are shocked by the way the CSB handled data security. Ilmars Poikans, a researcher at the University of Latvia's Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science, also known as the cyberactivist "Neo", who leaked state salary data from a poorly designed data base last year, called the census fiasco " a breach of sound thinking rather than a data security breach".<br />
Ilze Murane, a lecturer in computer science and a data security specialist said the bungled internet census could destroy public trust in any kind of e-government services.<br />
Baiba Kaskina, who heads the recently re-organized CERT.LV cyberincident reaction team, said the CSB had never consulted her staff about security issues, and there was no law that compelled them to do so. Although CERT.LV has a small staff, Kaskina said the agency would have advised the CSB on where to find descriptions of best practices and recommended data security auditors.<br />
Somehow, almost year after "Neo" started leaking government agency salary data because he was able to leaf through reams of "unauthorized" data simply by changing the last number of an authorized URL in the State Revenue Service electronic filing page, this doesn't surprise me. As Poikans/Neo said -- now there can be many more "Neos" and it is doubtful whether the police can catch them all. Poikans is still under criminal investigation for his activities last year. </div>Juris Kažahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8366158.post-65772163651423276172011-02-10T00:23:00.000+02:002011-02-10T00:23:01.230+02:00Latvia proposes an internet kill-switch -- Mubarak on the Baltic?<div lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=latvitelec-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0804763852&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>Latvia's new draft law on a “ A State of Emergency”, which was presented to the meeting of state secretaries (part of the process of introducing it to the parliament or Saeima) last September, was way ahead of Egypt's authoritarian ruler Hosni Mubarak by granting the government the right to throw a kill switch on the internet and all other electronic media. They can also censor the press and all correspondence, too.</div><div lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The draft law also contains provisions for regulation the movement of citizens during an emergency, for overruling the decisions of local authorities, for searches and seizures in private homes and a number of other totalitarian measures. It also provides for emergency allocation of resources, goods and services and other steps that are at least superficially reasonable in case of a natural disaster, war or insurrection.</div><div lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">What is worrisome is that a state of emergency can be declared for political reasons, such as “a threat of civil disorder”, and that the provisions for regulating media and electronic communications, especially the internet, are dangerous and disproportionate. It is hard to see what benefit the population could gain from being shut off from domestic and outside media during a major global or regional disaster. As far as preventing people in Latvia from disseminating information over the internet and social media, it looks like the main purpose of such measures would be to keep the outside world from learning of repression or other violent and irrational actions by Latvia's own government and authorities.</div><div lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Let us assume that a megastorm, a Cyclone Yasi or Hurricane Katrina type of storm was raging over Northern Europe and about to hit Latvia, where a state of emergency had been declared. Why should people be cut off from looking at the Weather Channel, the BBC, CNN or other news sources on the internet or on their mobile phones for a “second opinion” in addition to what the government was saying in official announcements? </div><div lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I don't think the government would cut off the internet simply because a storm was coming, but such measures could be used if there were mass demonstrations that presented a “danger of civil disorder” to police and government bureaucrats advising those able to declare a state of emergency. In such a case, the reason for cutting off electronic communications, including the internet and the social media that live on it, would be to prevent information about state repression from getting out and to interfere with efforts by dissident groups and civil society to self-organize using the internet. </div><div lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In short, this is a dangerous piece of draft legislation that leaves way too much leeway for the state to censor, repress, and prevent the dissemination of information about its own repression. This law must be stopped and/or drastically modified so that it is not a compilation of “rubber clauses” that can be stretched to attack inalienable human rights in times of social and political tension. There shall be no Latvian Mubarak, no internet kill switch.</div>Juris Kažahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8366158.post-48155490272450151162011-01-17T18:33:00.002+02:002011-01-18T07:58:32.346+02:00Amigo versus Bite, the unfucked versionThat's a pretty harsh title, but it describes what I want to present here in English on my personal blog. The story of the latest <i>war of the gagoons</i> as I translate the curious Latvian phrase <i>gāganu kari </i>got severely fucked up in the <i>LETA/Nozare.lv </i>editorial process, either by a technical or editorial failure. The essence of the story, abot how two mobile operators got out the long knives in Latvia over what was a comparison of differently derived ARPU (average revenue per user) figures from 2009 got the hatchet. The story was reduced, without explaining the core of the problem, to a tale of one side suing the other after the other denounced the former to the <i>Latvian Consumer Rights Protection Centre</i> (CRPC). The date for that event seemed very important, not the core of the conflict.<br />
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<b>Amigo</b>, the brand under which<b> Latvian Mobile Telephone</b> (<b>LMT)</b> subsidiary<b> Zetcom</b><i> </i>operates, came out with an ad saying that ARPU for <b>Bite Latvija </b>was LVL 8.86 per month, and only LVL 3.56 per month for <b>Amigo</b>. Which is why<b> Bite's </b>claims of having a "zero tariff" (which they do, on their own network) was wrong, and one should choose <b>Amigo</b>, which charges 1,5 santims per minute on its network as the lowest tariff for prepaid customers calling "friends" ( a limited circle) on the <b>Amigo</b> network (runs on the <b>LMT</b> net).<br />
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ARPU is only indirectly related to specific consumer tariffs, it is more an indicator of corporate health (if reasonably high) than anything else. Low ARPU can be interpreted as a bad sign. Excessive ARPU, compared to the market, is a signal of poor competition. This is what I tried to explain in the story. This is what vanished from the text, along with some<b> Bite</b> and <b>Amigo</b> tariff figures. There was also a bit of what the Brits would call a cockup with emails between the editorial process and me, so I basically had to run the story out very fast, without restoring the deleted/butchered? parts.<br />
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I also explained in the story that ARPU comparisons only make sense among operators with a like set of services (including income from roaming, mobile internet, whatever, that doesn't affect the ordinary customer). Amigo, as Bite rightly pointed out, is making an incorrect comparison. For this, as I dod get across in the lead of the story, <b>Amigo/Zetcom</b> is suing <b>Bite</b> and asking it to retract its statement that it is wrong to compare different things as if they were alike. Well, maybe in Latvia you can find a judge for that...<br />
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In any case, this simply continues the rather bizarre tradition of courtrooms and consumer protection agencies as marketing battlegrounds for Latvian mobile telecoms operators. Last summer it was <b>LMT' </b>s pre-paid <i>Okarte</i> against <b>Tele2' s</b> <i>Golden Fish,</i> each represented by Gumby-like characters in TV commercials. That bogged down the CRPC for a while. This one will keep the lawyers busy. The sum of it all is that someone has to step aside with their leaking winter boots (footware is tha main consumer problem brought before the CRPC) and wait for the corporations to finish their fight.Juris Kažahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8366158.post-65302218922047069862010-12-29T10:31:00.000+02:002010-12-29T10:31:02.637+02:00Latvia affirms, yet again, it will someday privatize Lattelecom and LMTThis is beginning to remind me of a black humor headline from way back, when popes were dying frequently -- "Pope dies yet again". <br />
Well, Latvia's Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis and not-too-swift Minister of Economics Artis Kampars (he just offered to buy Russian gas at winter premium prices) said, yes, we want to sell off the state shares in <b>Lattelecom</b> and <b>Latvian Mobile Telephone</b> (<b>LMT</b>). Latvian governments have been saying this since the late 1990s and "jack shit" has happened. I think that "jack shit" will happen again in 2011. An earlier Latvian government passed up a chance to sell the state stake in both companies for around 500 million USD (?) back in what the Latvians call the "fat years." Now the government keeps muttering that they don't want to sell to "the Swedes" because that would create a monopoly.<br />
This is horseshit. There is competition on voice telephony with most people in Latvia using mobiles, and fixed domestic voice is no longer tariffed if you buy a package deal -- phone plus internet (optical 100 Mbps or more) and TV. On the cable TV market there is competition and in fast internet as well -- both <b>Baltkom</b> and <b>Izzi</b> offer 100 Mbps on different technologies. The problem is that Latvia cannot politically unfuck itself and get on with getting the government out of telecoms. It also has to realize that there isn't exactly a queue around the block waiting to buy the 51 % stakes in both operators. <b>TeliaSonera</b> is probably it, unless you want to sell to some bizarre, sleazy Russian consortium. <br />
And so the never ending story continues. That is my piece of cynicism to round out the year.Juris Kažahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8366158.post-40860507301889538172010-11-30T22:25:00.000+02:002010-11-30T22:25:09.091+02:00SAP Baltic honchos talk about their deal with Lattelecom TechnologyI talked to <b>SAP</b> Baltics managing director Carl Langhorn and a channel manager from Lithuania, whose name I may have confused :( about their "software on demand" deal with <b>Lattelecom Technology</b> and the roadmap for <b>SAP's</b> small and medium business software as a service <i>Business by Design</i> solution. Since I had to use this video on my <a href="http://blogi.nozare.lv/kaza/">Latvian-language blog</a>, the titles and intertitles are both in Latvian and English.<br />
<object width="530" height="285"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/tDiKrSxLCno?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/tDiKrSxLCno?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="530" height="285"></embed></object>Juris Kažahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.com0