Lessig Blog Archives

Insanely destructive problems with my machine here in Japan, so I apologize for the silence and unanswered emails. To my pleasant surprise, however, I discover that my Powerbook G4 has a world wide warranty. So after finding a number of the Apple Japan website, I called to get support. The Apple Store helpfully gave me an English speaking “toll free” number to call. At this point, of course, I didn’t care squat about the toll; I wanted a voice that could fix the problem. I dialed the number. Couldn’t connect. Over and over again, no luck. So I called the Apple Store back. “Are you trying to call this number from a business or university?” “Yes,” I told her. “You can’t call this number from most businesses or universities. You’ll have to go to a payphone on the street and call from there.” “Isn’t there another number, maybe a non-toll free number I could call?” “No, only the toll-free number. We don’t want to charge for support.”

Yes, it is true, like America at the beginning of the last century, you can’t call all numbers from every phone in Japan. (For a great historical account of that, see Mueller’s Universal Service). End-to-end neutrality not yet a concept here. And while, after explaining that it would be a bit inconvenient to troubleshoot a technical problem standing at a phone booth, I was able to convince the Apple Store people to have the Support Center call me, you begin to understand something of why this interesting and beautiful place is not more Mac. (I’ve often wondered what those guys standing outside of office buildings at payphones with PowerMacs were doing….)

I’m in Japan for the fall, so I was eager to see MovieLink come online (not much on Japanese tv for a language-idiot like myself). As I was told by someone from the other side, MovieLink was intended to remove the “excuse” people had for “stealing” movies online — once a “cheap, fast system” was offered, there was no good reason not to pay. So does that mean that because non-Americans, and non-MicrosoftOS users don’t have a way to access MovieLink, they have an excuse to “steal”?

This should be a general rule: If you don’t make it cross-platform compatible, you’re not welcome on the Internet.

Doug Isenberg, whose GigiLaw.com and its companion Guide are a great resource, sent along some more examples of awful wireless marketing.

From Doug:

(1) T-Mobile now offers Wi-Fi service at various locations including Starbucks coffeehouses. The service plans include one called “unlimited,” which apparently it ain’t. Here’s how the plan is described by T-Mobile on the company’s page for “unlimited” service in my hometown of Atlanta: “Get unlimited access within all T-Mobile locations in the Atlanta area for $29.99 per month. Monthly subscription plan includes unlimited monthly minutes within the Atlanta local plan area and 500 monthly MBs of data transfer.”

(2) Sprint PCS now offers an “unlimited” subscription to its new wireless data service, known as “PCS Vision.” However, according to the Sprint PCS Terms and Conditions, here’s what “unlimited” really means: “Unlimited PCS Vision. Sprint may deny or terminate service without notice where use is in connection with server devices or host computer applications, other systems that drive continuous heavy traffic or data sessions, or as substitutes for private lines or frame relay connections.” While some of this seems reasonable, what, exactly, is “continuous heavy traffic or data sessions”?

The lack of broadband access at hotels drives me nuts. It was bad enough when you had to carry a screw driver and alligator clips. But it’s been years since cheap and effective broadband technologies should have been deployed in major hotels. So it was a pleasant surprise when I received spam about this offer from W Hotels — offering “free” Broadband Internet Access plus telephone calls — for stupid people, apparently.

It was a pleasant surprise because I had hoped it would signal a trend. Just like TV, and electricity are “free” at hotels, so too should internet access — at least at hotels that are trying to attract business clients. And more importantly, the access should be as simple as plugging a shaver or hairdryer into an outlet. If the market really worked, then there’d be wi-fi access throughout hotels, with no registration or payment needed.

Instead hotels are installing idiot firewalled systems that break end-to-end compatibility — and for $10 to $20 a day. (I had to check out of a Westin in DC when its server refused to allow me to connect to my smtp server. After convincing the “tech people” the problem was their server and not my settings, I was informed that they set their systems up like that to avoid spammers “abusing” their system. I hadn’t realized there was a problem of spammers checking into Westin hotels and sending spam.)

So I followed the link in the email from the W Hotels to see what the future may hold. I ran a search on rooms at the W in San Francisco to get some rates. And guess what: The rates for the “WIRED” [SIC] rooms are about $100 higher than the exact same rooms’ “Internet Only rates.”

So: if you use the internet to get WIRED rooms with the W, you’ll pay $100 more a night than if you use the internet to get “Internet Only” rates. Only with “Internet Only” rates, you don’t get the internet. To get the internet with internet only rate rooms, you have to pay $9.95. Go figure. At least you’ll be saving about 90 bucks.

Hey hotels, here’s an idea: Just offer simple, unfirewalled, wireless broadband access on 1/2 your floors; charge $10 more per room, and see what the market demands. And stop picking on stupid people.