National Parks are some of America’s most important assets. Some are quite off the beaten track… others are more accessible. All are spectacular in their own way. All of them seem to SUCK for cell phone coverage. What was your experience this summer? Did you just put up with it too?

In the last few weeks I’ve been at Crater Lake, Lava Beds, and Lassen. I’ve also visited Pinnacles and Death Valley this year. In all, AT&T coverage was “no service”. At times in some of these I found I had picked up a text message. Phone calls – forget about it. I’m not sure if this is a serenity moment or policy coming from the National Parks. Or simply more of AT&T’s – not a business there approach.

I’ve met and seen many foreigners traveling around these parks. I’m sure they wonder why are we in the US are so backward? You can do a quick search of Google and quickly find that coverage SUCKS in our National Parks.  Then there is the problem of how do you feel? I feel disconnected. I lament that while I am looking at a historical site in India I can google and wikipedia it and find out information. Yet in my own National Parks I can’t do the same. My iPhone is my guide when traveling and it’s effectively dead – at least for real-time activities.

If you breakdown in one of these wonderful parks…. forget pulling out the cellphone. Hope for a good Samaritan. My driveshaft didn’t go in one of these parks but I’d have soon gone through the water supplies I was carrying if it had. We are programmed to rely on mobile today to call for help. No coverage in National Parks is a safety risk and adds unnecessary danger. My mobile provides GPS coordinates. However doesn’t help the rescue if there is no coverage. That adds to search costs which can quickly escalate.

I shouldn’t mention the vacation versus working thing. Yet many of us today need to stay somewhat connected. Are our parks so crowded that we must send people out to find a connection? Why is it that beautiful new looking Headquarters like the one at Lava Beds doesn’t have either a cellphone capablity or even WiFI? I understand that cell towers have to earn their keep and yet each of these parks must have more than enough people going through them to warrant coverage.

I think the time has come where National Parks should have coverage. For tourism, for national dignity, for general efficiency and just enabling new forms of enjoyment. AR – augmented reality in National Parks. More re photo sharing etc. These are actually areas where new technology can be brought in – not to spoil rather to enhance everyone’s enjoyment. It’ crazy that I can’t download the GoogleMap while in the park. Or see a satellite view of the terrain.

So…
Government / National Parks. – If your policies are thwarting or stopping the development of effective mobile coverage in national parks SHAME ON YOU. If your policies are not demanding that AT&T and Verizon provide service then SHAME ON YOU. At a minimum add some WiFi into the various visitor centers. (BTW I did find some WiFi at Furnace Creek in Death Valley although that is contracted out).

AT&T / Verizon et al. There is no good business reason not to be in these parks. You tell me about your national coverage and maps. It’s all BS from my experience. My travels have convinced me that you don’t work for the better good, aren’t interested in providing a universal service or even helping small rural towns stay connected. Data coverage is also a laugh – well no laughing matter. Edge or GPRS may or maynot deliver my emails. You don’t want me safe or secure as a customer, you don’t care if I am lost or broken down. You aren’t looking at my life and adapting for how my expectation have changed, or my behaviors. I could work in these backwoods for ages – if I had coverage.

My conclusion is the overall policy framework for mobile is totally messed up. There are areas that we must have coverage in. It’s in the national interest – as in how we project to the rest of the world. I’m sure if you visit New Zealand you will find at least some coverage at all their National Parks. Their rates are crazy but that’s a separate problem. I know the US is backwards in mobile. We don’t lead the world. Yet a mobile phone and and access to SMS really almost everywhere is a reasonable expectation today.

What’s I’d like is for the FCC to tell me a story about our National Parks, how and when they will get coverage and how regulations and government departments can make it happen. If AT&T won’t provide it then I suggest we need the regulation to force it. If govt departments are in the way then I suggest AT&T start making noises about how to fix it and similarly how to take mobile to small rural village America. Communications is the lifeblood of a nation not just a few large cities where our networks also under perform — dropping calls, slow on data etc.

A month ago I circulated some blog post ideas to friends on Apple Facetime. I got some feedback that they were interesting. In the meantime I’ve continued to trace Apple’s FaceTime video solution for iPhone and contemplate the implications. Ultimately, I’m interested in the opportunities FaceTime is likely to create and present. Then what it could mean for users.

I wrote three different pieces just one week after I took home 3 iPhone4′s on launch day. I titled them (below) and sent them out. My interest tracking against how technology changes are likely to impact on the office, the home, and in the types of conversations we ultimately have. For me FaceTime is a Skype-like launch moment. It’s a point in time where everything effectively just changed. It’s as important (as an event rather than in technology) to the future of communication as touch was to redefining mobile handsets in 2007 or Skype’s original launch. I’ll publish these next week.

1. FaceTime – Has Apple Suckered the Operators Again?
2. FaceTime – Call it SIP 2.0?
3. FaceTime and the Enterprise – Apple’s New Threat to RIM

Since then I’ve been watching for other snippets of information around FaceTime. I’d add to these updates on the iPod Touch that must be coming. Example. More iPod TOuch FaceTime Details Appear which includes details about your apple ID and the ability to use multiple profiles and multiple email addresses. FaceTime and Music Perfect together. While I doubt this given the way audio codecs work it’s an angle I’ve experimented with before using Skype and gaming makes this interesting. Then there are other posts on the URL approach and how 3GS phones recognize them. iPhone 3GS recognizes FaceTime URL’s in IOS 4

Some additional signals that don’t related directly to FaceTime and yet demonstrate an emerging understanding of mobile voip implications. AT&T started charging for data. Skype gave up on the idea of charging a fee.

FaceTime interests me as a user, observer, researcher and strategist. FaceTime is really nothing new. All the pieces, and the inevitability of it have been in play for years. Just like “dumb pipes” and “stupid networks”. Yet FaceTime redefines what’s under the hood in a way that other handset and OS manufacturers and developers must take notice of. What should Nokia or Android do? Samsung? How’s Facetime changed the relationship of handset manufacturers with Carriers etc? What are the implications for Cisco? Avaya? etc? in the enterprise?

My guess is many of these companies still can’t answer a FaceTime strategy question – with a straight or simple answer. From my perspective it remains an upstream signal… and and one from which a number of different scenarios could test alternate views of how things could play out.

Skype launches an iPhone multitasking upgrade. As their list of errors and issues shows it’s premature, and from my perspective lacks understanding of how users will want to use it. I’m also stunned that all those iPhone reviewers and general PR blogs just put out the details without seemingly even testing the product. This release is flawed, even Skype’s own Garage Blog highlights some of them. Yet I read the “multi-tasking” comes to Skype headlines without any qualifications or judgments on how good it is.

Skype – Skype Garage blog – Skype 2.0.1 for iPhone – Multitasking and free 3G calling

Now you are able to send Skype to the background while using other applications and receive incoming Skype calls or IM’s. Also Skype will stay online when you lock the device.

So I too was excited to see Skype launch an iPhone app that could run in the background. It then took only about 15 minutes to work out I’ll never want to use it much in that way and it has many glaring oversights in how it utilizes Apple’s notification services.

This new iteration effectively works like Skype on your desktop – ostensibly always working in the background. Which it does. Log-in to iPhone Skype change to another program and you can still get Skype calls. You will also get notifications for multichat updates, new chats from buddies etc. All popping up when ever you are doing something else. This is very different to the little reminder of the Skype icon dancing at the bottom of your mac screen when there there is a new message. (NOTE to be fair Apple’s Notification approach is also broken. The bouncing icon is so much better and others have asked for a lifestream type quick switch option.) So this new iteration of Skype is intrusive, potentially privacy risk, and provides no controls over notifications. Examples:

• You cannot turn the background feature off in the app you must exit (double click, hold finger and remove) to now exit Skype. This is an extra step if you don’t want it running in the background. For example you don’t want it running up your data plan usage or apparently reducing your battery life. OR you can go to your phone skype profile and set your Skype Status to “OFFLINE”. This little hint wasn’t at all intuitive to me.
• You have no discrete controls over Calls. Eg Should I take notifications for all calls, just some Skype calls or just my Skype-In number. With Skype over 3G Skype running in the background is effectively a second line running on your phone.
• If you are smart and run a password on your iPhone and have call forwarding activated you won’t get through your password and answering the skype call before Skype forwards it to your mobile phone.
• You have no control over notification types. Eg I want notifications for calls – but not new chats. Or again notifications for buddy chats but not mulitichats. Skype had an opportunity to show how it should be done.
• Notifications fail to provide a “privacy setting”. All notifications are effectively public. Most other notification apps enable different forms of notification. Eg ring only, or ring and text, text only. Etc. This lack of control suggests Skype just rushed this iteration into the App store.

Jim Courtney write that a lot of this is Apple’s problem and shares a Truphone example.  Apple iOS4: Multi-tasking, eh? | Voyces

So, we’re doing something about it. We just pushed a new version into the App Store that has all the features you know and love from Truphone, but temporarily it doesn’t have the feature that allows people to call you even when the app isn’t open.

I don’t buy this POV. Notification services aren’t running the battery down for other apps. I use various notification services all the time. I’ll run some tests over the next few days running my Skype constantly in the background (the notifications will be annoying – multichats!). The Skype isssue is how they manage these “signals” or notifications. I can guess what they’ve done to get it working. The problem is…. Skype wasn’t designed to send signals and notifications outside it’s closed system in the first place.

Skype’s rush to add multi-tasking and perhaps soon other features is likely to put iphone skype in that cobbled together space. The danger is Skype will no longer be an elegant solution. On the desktop you could just talk. On the mobile we’ve always done that. In FaceTime we can now Video Call from the mobile (sometimes – wifi). Skype thought about itself as “telephony that just works” – ON A DESKTOP. The problem now is that’s irrelevant to the mobile world and the value of cheap calls isn’t enough.

I’ll be blogging some posts I wrote some weeks ago on FaceTime in the next few days. Almost everything I see emerging around Facetime are solutions and suggestions made to / for Skype five years ago. Skype still has a healthy growing business. It just no longer has either a consumer edge or an innovative approach to creating new interaction opportunities.

There’s still a lot to like about Skype. However, if I was one of the investors I’d be skeptical and I doubt their share price would be heading up.

Update: Yep Skype is killing my battery running in the background. Plus got a GSM call while on a Skype Call. The Skype call dropped while it seemed we were in a 3 way conference. May have to test that now again.