Phone company overcharged clients

David George-Cosh
Province

TORONTO — Telus residential customers who were charged a monthly long-distance access fee even when they didn’t use the service will get be getting a rebate.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission ordered Telus yesterday to offer a $2.95 rebate to customers who paid the fee but did not make long-distance calls. Telus isn’t required to rebate clients who made long-distance calls.

“When applied to customers who did not make any long-distance calls, the monthly fee was equivalent to an unauthorized increase to the residential local-service rate,” said CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein.

“We will use our powers whenever necessary to uphold the interests of consumers of telecommunications services, particularly in instances when companies impose unauthorized charges,” he added.

The ruling is vindication for Globalive Communications Corp., parent of telecom reseller Yak Communications (Canada) Corp., as well as a number of customer-advocacy groups, who initially filed a complaint with the federal regulator last December calling the fee an “unauthorized residential local-rate increase.”

In November 2007, Telus added the $2.95 charge to more than 500,000 customers in Alberta and B.C., regardless if they had signed up for a long-distance plan with the company. Telus customers could avoid paying the network-access fee if they subscribed to its free Call Guardian service, which permits only local or toll-free calls from being placed.

However, Telus charged its customers $10 if they wished to cancel the service.

Public Interest Advocacy Centre counsel John Lawford welcomed the CRTC’s ruling in a statement.

“Telus overcharged customers,” said Lawford, who brought a complaint about the charge to the CRTC on behalf of consumer groups Consumers’ Association of Canada and the National Anti-Poverty Organization.

“The CRTC said no to Telus making up the rules on local telephone rates as they go along.”

Lawford called it “unfortunate” that the CRTC didn’t remove the monthly network-access fee entirely since customers are levied the charge even if they make one long-distance call.

“Now you’ll see this fee copied by Bell Canada, Bell Aliant and other large telephone companies,” he said.

© The Vancouver Province 2008

 

 

Jefferson Graham
USA Today

You’ve got Gmail.

If you use online e-mail programs, chances are you’ve added Google’s free Gmail to the mix. Since leaving “by invitation only” status in early 2007, Gmail has seen its usage rise 47%. It’s the fastest-growing online e-mail offering.

That’s intensified a four-way battle in the lucrative market between Google, Yahoo, Microsoft  and AOL. They’re all offering a barrage of new e-mail features to get you to switch — or stay. Need to send big video files with your e-mail, as large as 5 gigabytes? That’s now possible. Want to read your webmail in an Outlook-like e-mail program, and on your phone? Easy.

“There is a much stronger sense of competition now,” says Tom Austin at researcher Gartner. “The big four are anxiously trying to build share not just to provide e-mail, but to keep you in their network.”

Advertisers spend more marketing to e-mail customers than anywhere else on the Web after search advertising, according to market tracker Nielsen Online. In March, advertisers spent $302 million, 34.8% of non-search online spending, up from 30.9% the previous March, Nielsen says.

Microsoft and Yahoo dominate webmail. They’re virtually tied for the top spot. In February, the most recent statistics available, they had 256.2 million and 254.6 million users, respectively, according to researcher ComScore Media Metrix.

Google is No. 3, with 91.6 million users. No. 4 AOL, the company that first popularized Internet mail in the 1990s, has 48.9 million.

Here’s what’s new at four e-mail providers:

Google:

Chat and sync outside of Gmail

Gmail fans can now send instant messages directly from Gmail to both Google’s GTalk and AOL’s AIM, and sync Google Calendar with Microsoft’s Outlook program.

Colored labels are available to tag different types of e-mail (friends, soccer team, etc.). Keyboard shortcuts let you click “c” to compose a new e-mail or “r” to reply.

Gmail began in 2004 as a private beta, or test, available only to those who were lucky enough to be “invited” in by friends who already used it.

Gmail is still in beta, but that’s more of a private joke at Google; it’s expected to leave beta sometime this year.

Gmail’s dramatic growth in a year (at a time when Microsoft and Yahoo saw increases of 10% and 5%, respectively) stems from the overall rise of Google, analyst Austin says.

“People spend so much time with Google that adding Gmail was natural. You could argue that Yahoo Mail has a better interface and is easier to use, but Google is the brand right now,” Austin says.

AOL:

Send more photos

One big consumer gripe about e-mail — the frustration inherent in trying to send large files — has been solved. Ever try to send a group of photos or a video clip only to have your inbox slow to a crawl? More likely, your e-mail provider wouldn’t let you send it at all because of strict size limits on attachments.

Now, AOL will let you send up to 5 gigabytes of data via your e-mail, but not as a traditional attachment. Instead, it’s via a link to its Xdrive online backup service.

Warning: This could take anywhere from a few minutes to two days, if you truly put up 5 GB of data.

Meanwhile, want a new e-mail address but find that your name is already taken? AOL is offering a new form of vanity e-mails in the AOL network. You can choose among 30 domains, such as [email protected], and [email protected].

“You don’t have to be some number at AOL.com; you can be who you want to be,” says AOL Mail Vice President Richard Landsman. “We’ll be doing a lot more of this. We feel it’s very important to give people choice.”

Yahoo:

Faster contact search

Looking for all the e-mails from one contact? Yahoo Mail has a shortcut that’s much faster than typing a name into a search box. Double-click the contact’s name in the e-mail, and previous e-mails from that person show up. In development: a feature that will help users target the e-mail from their most important recipients. “We know the people you e-mail the most,” says John Kremer, Yahoo’s vice president of mail. “We could surface them to the top of the inbox.”

Microsoft:

New look and new name

The old Hotmail is now called Windows Live Hotmail and has been redesigned to resemble the desktop Outlook Express program (now renamed Windows Mail). Contacts and calendar are part of the inbox. Live mail is part of the new Live network, home to not just Hotmail, but also Live Messenger and Spaces, a place to share photos via the SkyDrive virtual hard drive. Like AOL’s Xdrive, SkyDrive also offers 5 GB of shareable online backup. However, Microsoft has strict file-size limits — 50 MB per file — that will knock out anything beyond a handful of photos.

 

Ron Chalmers
Province

SITE SEEING

Selected home-exchange websites:

– www.digsville.com

– www.greatrentals.com

– www.holiday-rentals.com

– www.homeexchange.com

– www.homelink.ca

– www.intervac.com

– www.vacationrentals.com

– www.vacationvillas.net

© The Vancouver Province 2008

 

Sun

Nike + SportBand, $60

Just in time to give a boost to your spring training comes Nike’s new + SportBand that lets you track your distance, pace and time as well as the calories you’re burning while you’re running. A new addition out this month for runners who choose silence over their Nike + iPod or those who just want to add to listen to how their run is going through their iPod nano system. It picks up from a sensor in Nike+ ready shoes and can plug into a USB drive to send the run data to nikeplus.com.

6-in-1 Personal Safety Device, LifeGear, $35

Powered by hand cranking, this will provide you with a radio, a cellphone charger, a flashlight, an emergency flasher, a siren and a compass. An all-in-one device that goes in a backpack, in the car or in the kitchen junk drawer where hopefully you’ll be able to dig it out when the power goes off. www.lifegearcompany.com.

Sanyo Xacti CG9 cameracorder, $330

Is it a camera? Is it videocamera? As any YouTube aficionado knows, you have to have both and Sanyo is offering it in this 9.1 megapixel pocket-sized device that delivers high quality digital video and still shots. With a five times optical zoom, up to 60 times digital zoom and Face Chaser technology that automatically focuses on up to 12 faces in each image. It takes standard SD or SDHC memory cards and has 40 megabytes of internal memory. www.sanyo.ca.

L2610NW Westinghouse Digital 26-inch Monitor, $500

If you’re squinting at the old monster screen that came with your wood-burning computer maybe now’s the time to consider coming into the next millennium with a digital LCD version. At 1920 x 1200 resolution, it promises to display 36 per cent more content than a traditional 1440 monitor. Better image quality makes photos, videos and even those tedious spreadsheets more appealing.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

 

Devil is in the fine print, experts warn

Sarah Schmidt
Province

OTTAWA — Canadian banks mislead their customers about the safety of online banking in their marketing materials and give users a false sense of security with a refund guarantee if hackers raid their accounts, a leading software-security expert concludes in a new study.

Paul Van Oorschot, Canada Research Chair in Network and Software Security at Carleton University, and Ph.D student Mohammad Mannan, a specialist in Internet security, tested the standard banking claim of a “100-per-cent online-security guarantee” against the fine print that makes it conditional on fulfilling complicated security requirements.

The researchers opened up bank accounts at Canada‘s five major banks and one online bank, and surveyed 123 technically advanced users, mainly computer-science students and security researchers.

Most in the survey are more security-aware than average customers, and still failed to satisfy common security requirements. Expecting average people to meet them is “extremely naive,” they write.

“We conclude that most average users are ineligible for the 100-per-cent reimbursement guarantee banks assert, and doing online banking with ‘confidence’ and ‘peace of mind’ is no more than a marketing slogan which misleads users.”

They found that despite strong recommendations about password uniqueness, in one case, RBC listed “iwthyh,” an acronym for the Beatles’ song I Want to Hold Your Hand, as an example of a “rock-solid” password.

Meanwhile, most banks’ customer agreements require users to maintain up to date copies of anti-virus, firewall and anti-spyware programs. The survey of 123 tech-savvy users found fewer than half reported using anti-spyware on computers used for banking, and more than a quarter do not use anti-virus software. Ten per cent do not use any firewall.

© The Vancouver Province 2008

Satellite-TV distributor willing to help broadcasters switch to digital

Barbara Shecter
Sun

GATINEAU, Que. — Executives from satellite-TV distributor Bell ExpressVu say they are prepared to give their service away for free to viewers to help broadcasters such as CTV and Global defray the hundreds of millions of dollars it will cost to make a mandatory switch from analogue to digital signals.

But there’s a big caveat.

The plan to offer “Freesat,” a limited package of channels to anyone who buys ExpressVu satellite receiver equipment when analogue is “switched off” in 2011, could be taken off the table if the broadcasters are successful in a bid to extract millions of dollars from distributors in new fees for carriage.

“If our business gets impacted by fee for carriage . . . we may not be able to help the industry [with] the Freesat,” Gary Smith, president of the Bell Video Group, said during a presentation to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Wednesday.

The CRTC is holding three weeks of hearings in Gatineau, Que., — just across the river from Ottawa — to overhaul the rules governing TV carriage and distribution in Canada for the first time in 15 years. Broadcasters are asking the federal broadcast regulator to mandate fees from distributors of 50 to 70 cents per channel, noting that they operate the only channels in the system that are not directly compensated for providing content.

But Bell ExpressVu and other TV distributors strongly oppose the fees, with one Bell executive accusing the broadcasters of “crying wolf” about the declining state of their business and the challenge of meeting obligations to fund and broadcast Canadian news and entertainment. “Anytime there’s a shock to the system, fee for carriage? That can’t be the solution,” Mirko Bibic, Bell Canada‘s chief of regulatory affairs, told CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein and a panel of commissioners.

ExpressVu’s “Freesat” proposal would help broadcasters’ bottom line without fees for carriage, said Smith, because it would eliminate the need to build expensive towers that would otherwise be necessary to reach a small percentage of TV viewers who will be blacked out in the digital era because they don’t subscribe to satellite or cable.

Broadcasters have estimated the cost of building new towers to convert their signals to digital from the current analogue system at as little as $50 million for a network such as Citytv to as much as $200 million for CTV, Canada‘s largest private network. ExpressVu would charge broadcasters a fee to operate Freesat, but it would be less than the “huge expense” required to build a network of towers, said Smith.

However, Paul Sparkes, CTV’s executive vice-president of corporate affairs, at CTV, lashed out at the Freesat proposal.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Anti-virus software isn’t the only computer security tool

Byron Acohido
USA Today

Mike Saign smelled something fishy about the e-mail he received — purportedly from an eBay auctioneer — accepting his lowball offer for a high-end golf club.

The sender claimed his PayPal account was down and asked Saign to wire payment to him via Western Union. Instead, Saign, 25, downloaded Iconix e-mail ID, a free tool that pegged the e-mail as a fake.

Saved from being scammed, Saign, a real estate adviser, disabled Iconix and hasn’t used it since. “I feel like the security software in a normal computer keeps you away from most bad things,” he says.

That’s not necessarily so. Fraudulent e-mail and tainted websites are more prevalent than ever. Spam, much of it pitching fake drugs and financial scams, accounts for 80% of all e-mail, says Symantec. The number of new strains of malicious programs increased fivefold in 2007 over 2006, and about 20,000 new malicious programs are unleashed on the Web each day, says AV-Test Labs.

Yet most consumers are in a fog about the array of tech security tools they can — and probably should — use to protect themselves, tech security analysts say. Craig Spiezle, Microsoft’s director of security and privacy, says his own wife couldn’t tell anyone which security tools they really ought to be using. “The big challenge we’re dealing with is the volume and velocity of new threats,” says Spiezle.

Tech security companies add to the confusion by focusing on solving very specific problems. “We’re in a pandemic situation with consumer infections,” says Chris Rouland, chief technology officer for IBM Internet Security Systems. “And no one has figured out a business model to cure that.”

The result: Home PC users are left to decipher for themselves what set of security products they ought to be using and how much protection they are actually getting.

“There are many tools in the armory, but each will only offer narrow protection,” says Paul Wood, senior analyst at e-mail management firm MessageLabs. “Therefore, consumers need to try to understand what each of these tools actually tackles.”

Anti-virus programs fail to catch every malicious program. So keeping anti-virus subscriptions current isn’t enough. Consumers must also get in the habit of quickly installing all software program updates from Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, Mozilla and Java, because many contain the latest security patches.

Beyond that, consumers should consider using:

•Certified e-mail. Iconix and Goodmail each sell services to businesses that assure the authenticity of e-mails sent to customers. Iconix recently launched e-mail ID as a free program consumers can install in their Web browser. The program verifies e-mail sent from 500 companies, including eBay, PayPal, Citibank, Amazon.com and Expedia.

“This additional tool can help consumers know for sure whether they’re dealing with a safe e-mail message,” says Jeff Wilbur, Iconix marketing vice president.

•Web page scanners. These tools use varying technologies to gauge the reputation of most Web pages. Programs such as AVG’s LinkScanner, ScanSafe’s Scandoo, Trend Micro’s TrendProtect, McAfee’s SiteAdvisor and Finjan’s SecureBrowsing grade Web pages as safe, unsafe or questionable.

Web scanners aren’t perfect. But they provide a layer of protection against what has become cybercrooks‘ favorite way to spread malicious programs: via the Web. “The more layers you have, the safer you are,” says Roger Thompson, AVG chief research officer.

•Browser security tools. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 and Mozilla’s Firefox 2, the most widely used Web browsers, both offer anti-phishing filters that alert users if they try to click to bogus websites set up to fool them into typing passwords and other sensitive data. Microsoft distributes IE7 with this feature disabled, so users must choose to turn it on. Firefox 2’s anti-phishing filter is always on.

Mozilla is in the final testing phase of Firefox 3. It will feature a much broader “anti-malware” filter designed to block Web pages tainted with programs that can turn a PC into a spam-spreading bot, or imbed a key-logger that steals all valuable data typed by the user. If a user tries to click to a known malicious page, a red screen appears and a button labeled “Get me out of here!” returns the user to the browser’s home page. Firefox 3 is expected to be ready for free public use by the middle of the year.

“There are no 100% solutions in security,” says Window Snyder, Mozilla’s chief security officer. “But we can get better step by step, and that’s what all of these technologies are doing.”

isps: CRTC to decide if limiting traffic is legal practice

Province

TORONTO — The Canadian Association of Internet Providers filed an application to the federal telecom regulator last week requesting it direct BCE Inc. to cease and desist from “throttling” wholesale Internet traffic, which has degraded its services “beyond recognition.”

The CRTC will now decide whether such practices are lawful and could have far-ranging implications for any Canadians that are heavy Internet downloaders.

The move is the latest salvo in a contentious debate that started several weeks ago after Bell told its wholesale ISP customers that it has begun to limit bandwidth to users that engage in peer-to-peer downloads during peak usage hours. So-called “net neutrality” advocates argue that the bandwidth “throttling” or “shaping” practices violate basic tenets of the Internet by dictating how users access content.

“Bell is wrong on so many levels with what they are doing that it has not only the wholesale customers upset, it has Canadian Internet users at large incredibly upset,” said Tom Copeland, CAIP chairman and owner of Eagle.ca, a Cobourg, Ont.-based independent ISP.

In the 56-page filing, the CAIP argues that Bell has to comply with a prior CRTC ruling to ensure its wholesale offerings are resold based on market forces. Copeland worries that if the association is forced to adhere to Bell‘s actions it will now be at a competitive disadvantage.

“It really sounds scary,” said Copeland. “Bell has unilaterally, and without permission from the regulator, implemented changes to the tariffs and contracts that have not been approved.”

He adds that more than 55 independent ISPs and about 100,000 subscribers could be impacted.

Mirko Bibic, Bell‘s chief of regulatory affairs, said the company plans on contesting CAIP’s application to the CRTC and argues that it needs to use technology to better balance web traffic during peak traffic usage.

“The fundamental problem is that close to 95 per cent of subscribers are negatively impacted by a very small minority of Internet users,” said Bibic.

A spokesman from the CRTC declined to comment on the matter until a final ruling is made.

Industry observers say it is unlikely the general public will be aware of drastic changes to their online activities, but the issue is creating awareness that their ISPs have the ability to monitor the traffic that flows through its servers, which was normally assumed to be anonymous.

“It kind of disturbs [Canadians] because it has a Big Brother connotation to it,” said Kaan Yigit of Solutions Research Group.

As peer-to-peer usage becomes more mainstream with the advent of online video incorporating the technology, Yigit said, Canada‘s major ISP carriers could face a dilemma on how to structure a profitable business model while managing much higher levels of traffic.

© The Vancouver Province 2008

 

Sun

REGZA XF550U LCD HD TVs, Toshiba, starting at $2,000

Toshiba’s new line of super skinny, 1080p full high-definition LCD televisions is out with the company’s ClearFrame 230Hz frame conversion technology that doubles the standard frame rate to 120 frames per second. That means no blurring of motion when you’re watching a hockey or other high-action sports or movies. The lineup comes in three sizes, starting at the 40-inch model at $2,000, followed by a 46-incher at $2,500 and a 52-inch model at $3,100. www.toshiba.ca.

OpticFilm 7300, Plustek Technology, $290

For converting your existing slides into high-quality digital images, Plustek has extended its OpticFilm line of scanners with the OptimFilm7300, the 7500i SE ($400) and the 7500 AI ($590). The new scanners make for improved image quality plus the 7500i model steps it up even more with SilverFast’s Infrared Smart Removal of Defects (iSRD), which removes defects on the surface of the film in the scanned image. www.plustek.com

Solio Magnesium Edition (Solio MG), hybrid solar charger, Better Energy Systems, $200

The latest Solio charger pushes up the power with a maximum rating of eight watts, up from the 3.6 watts of the earlier Solo Hybrid 1000. An hour of sunlight provides 20 minutes of talk time on your cell phone or 50 minutes of MP3 music. A fully charged Solio MG is good for more than 20 hours of MP3 music or enough power to charge a typical cell phone more than twice. It stores power for up to one year and the power can come from the sun through its solar panels or from the grid by plugging it in. www.solio.com

i399 BluePin 2.1 Channel Audio System, iLuv, $230

BluePin II technology in an iPod dock gives it a wireless range of 300 feet (90 metres). The new iLUV i399 lets audiophiles listen to music on their Bluetooth headphones or feed music from another stereo Bluetooth device through the i399. You can follow the beat with a rhythm-sensitive blue LED light. An auxiliary line input works for first, second and third generation iPods and other audio devices, and it’s compatible with all the new iPods. www.i-luv.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

 

TIM MULLANEY
Sun

Adobe Systems Inc., facing competition from websites letting people edit photos online, created a free, Internet-based version of its Photoshop software.

A test version of the service, Photoshop Express, will allow users to store, sort and edit pictures online and move them to social-networking sites such as Facebook, Adobe, the largest maker of graphic-design programs, said today in a statement.

Programs run over the Web are cheaper and easier to update than software running on desktops, while traditional software supports more features. By giving away a basic version of Photoshop online, Adobe is hoping to entice digital-camera owners who may become customers of its software later, said Martin Pyykkonen, an analyst at Global Crown Capital.

“It’s about getting more people into doing this,” said Pyykkonen, who is based in Denver. He recommends Adobe and doesn’t own shares. Adobe shares have fallen 16 per cent this year.

The current version is for the “casual consumer, who creates digital images but doesn’t know how to make them better,” Doug Mack, Adobe’s vice president of consumer and hosted solutions, said in an interview.