I played around a bit today with Nokia 5630 and voice over internet.  Not because I incidentally got my first phone-bill from Tele2 today, but because I find the concept of making a free call, possibly a video call, from my normal cellphone, absolutely  irresistible.

The standard for Voip is called SIP, and to use SIP you need a SIP account. I checked around a bit for different providers until i stumbled upon sipgate.co.uk. They allow you to setup your account directly for no charge and get a free real number to boot. Excellent. After some configuration I finally got the lovely message on my phone.  “Account is registered” The sipgate.co.uk webpanel confirmed it. It could see my phone. Rock on! My cellphone was ready to make internet calls.

Or so I thought. The Nokia 5630 even has its own field in the contacts for “internet phone”. But trying to call someone with only an internet phone number didn’t work. It should show up as a third call option. And trying to just hit the call button gives me the error “Internet-telephony service not available.” A flicker of fear awoke inside of me, was it all too good to be true?

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This is the same model cellphone as the first one I owned. I didn't have the flashy headset however.

It’s been a while since i bought a new cell phone. As a matter of fact the only phone I ever bought with my own money was my first phone. An Ericsson, back in 1997 or something like that when it was still quite exotic to have one.

You would think that that technology has progressed since then, but what we see today is a market totally overcrowded with bad products. I’m not joking when I tell you that the SonyEricsson p990, a phone I had the misfortune to meet at my current job, actually choke on the task of dialling a number. Out of memory after two digits! Receiving a call was the same gamble, the phone could run out of memory as it tried to recieve the call.. system restart.

So it was with pretty low expectations that I went shopping last week. What I wanted was so simple.

• A phone that is small, and that I can drop without it going a million pieces. A “vacation” phone if you will.
• Not an iPhone clone.
• As less keys as possible and as minimal design as possible.
• Wi-fi  and ability to stream music from my home network.

Ok so that last point was a bit of a joke, because I never expected to find a phone like that. The iPhone does that kind of, via the tversity web-interface. But it’s pretty slow and only works when it feels like it.

But what do you know, looks like Nokia r&d have been reading my mind.  I went and bought a Nokia 5630. The rest of this post is going to be about how great it is, and how UPnP changed everything.

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You are out driving in your car. You stop at a store and while you are there you steal some candy. I’ts illegal and not very nice, but you can’t help yourself, the candy looks so delicious. When you are about to leave the store owner appears and he is very mad.  ”For taking my candy without paying, you will lose your car.”  There is nothing you can do, you walk home.

This is more or less the essence of the telecom package, currently under deliberation in the European Parliament. The proposed price for you to pay for piracy is .. your internet connection can get taken away. Without the involvement of any court. (in the original proposal). They want to ban you from the internet for daring to take their precious movies and music. Nevermind that in 2009, the internet is a more given infrastructural item than even the telephone. You won’t be able to pay your bills or use it to declare your taxes. It is clear that the laws are based on outdated ideas. It is also clear that the people of Sweden have representation in Brussels that are pushing hard for an agenda that is utterly removed from the interests of the common people.

Our rights as citizens are getting compromised for the benefit of companies like HBO and Time Warner. It’s the end of the world.

http://www.dn.se/fordjupning/europa2009/telekompaketet-strid-om-rattssakerhet-in-i-det-sista-1.858591

Burns: And to think, Smithers, you laughed when I bought Ticketmaster. [imitating Smithers] Nobody’s going to pay a hundred-percent “service charge.”
Smithers: It’s a policy that ensures a healthy mix of the rich and the ignorant, sir.

Here is what has been bugging me in the debate: The state is jumping on the bandwagon a bit too fast when it comes to limiting your right on the net. With the telecom package around the corner you start asking yourself whose best interest the state has at heart. Do you know a single person who thinks this kind of government control is a good idea?

Then unfortunately on the other side of the debate, at least in Sweden, you find the Pirate-party. A whole political party whose only issue is the right of filesharing and the freedom of information or something like that. They want to get my vote, when filesharing is like the least of the worlds problems at the moment. Its very depressing, guys there is a name for one-issue organizations: lobby group. Allright?

So it was a complete breath of fresh air to read this article on fokus.se. It brings the discussion back to where it should have stayed in the first place: How is it possible that an album that costs a given amount of money in the store, almost costs the same amount as a digital download?

Read this article

Its in swedish, but I encourage you to use the translation engine of your choice if you need to. It’s worth it. Judging by how the way things are going now, we are heading head-first into a very dark place indeed.