Arun

^^ Are you using the "Mobile mode" in Opera Mini? You have to use the "Lo Fi" skin. It now has the option for replying to topics and opening new topics.

yes, Its available when we directly go to the sub forums, but not when "View New Content" is clicked. In the "View New Content" page, you just need to click on the topic title, it will take you to the last unread post directly.

Birthdays have been added to the calendar now.

All old emoticons and system avatars have been added back now!

Reputation system is for rating a member based on his/her contribution. You can add your vote (positive or negative) for a member in his/her post. See the + and - icons on the right side (below) of every post? You can use that for voting in the reputation system. The reputation points of a member can be seen in his/her profile. Very useful for Buy/Sell buyers and sellers.

The profile fields have been further trimmed to save more screen area now. The alignment issue for the custom profile fields as been fixed now. Three cheers for punbros for fixing that!

I checked using Opera Mini on Nokia N82 and it seems to be displaying fine. The Opera Mini version was 4.2.14320 I have attached a few screenshots from Opera Mini

^^ um its opening "Forums" tab itself, can you try from a different browser and see if the same is happening in it also? ^^ Thank for the update

^^ Yes, I will be switching over to SEO Friendly URL, need to make some changes at the server side for that first.

All plans are listed here: http://www.airtel.in/experience/ Very good plans indeed, I hope other providers will follow suit soon

^^ They haven't updated the Help Topics for IPB3. It is from IPB 2.3.6 manual which was converted for IPB3, so the text is same.

@MOBILE FAN: 1. It will show all active topics since your last visit. If your last visit was 7 days ago, then it will list all active topics within the last 7 days 2. "Today's active content" link was in the same place in IPB 2.3.6 too. The link can be added on the top as well. "Today's active content" and "View New Content" are different. 3. "View New Content" will show only topics that have new content activity since you last visit as the name says. For the "Active Topics for past X days/week/month" option, we will have to wait and see as I have submitted a feature request for it.

I'm not sure if the member birthdays can be added to it but I have to check that. Yeah, the Rep Yourself offer was valid for the first few hours only so that you will like the new reputation system

You are right, you can't do that anymore from now There is a time restriction set for 24 hour period based on the member group. Newer member groups will be allowed fewer votes to avoid misuse.

When someone gives you a + or - for a post of your's, it will add to your overall reputation score. Yeah, you had a lot of Interests, didn't you?

Removed some fields now from the profile display in posts to save screen area. The removed profile fields can be seen by opening the profile page of the member. There is an alignment issue for the custom profile fields where they align to the left instead of center and Invision Inc. will be fixing that soon.

I will submit a feature request to the developers to have a week/month cut off option added to the "View New Content" feature. For now you have the option to list either active topics content since your last visit OR all active topics that you have not read before.

The option is already there. "View New Content" has two modes, the default is to fetch active topics posted in since your last visit (as per 2.3.x) OR based on the topic marking system (as per 3.0.0). The option to switch that is in your "My Settings" > Settings tab > General Settings. The only difference from the earlier version is that you do not have to option to show ONLY past "week/s" or "month/s" active topics, instead it will lists all active topics from either your last visit (default) OR all content that you have not read (if you changed in Settings). The topics will be listed based on the date, so if you just need to go through the active topics in the last week then check the date and read the topics since the last week and ignore the ones listed after that.

But thats a very cumbersome way to view posts of last 24 hours. Do we need to keep this URL in favorites ? I think there should be a link on the page only for that. That link is on the main index page itself above the Board statistics bar. See attached screenshot.

Are you sure that you haven't given them your number to subscribe to their service for receiving those SMS earlier? The national do-not-call registry does have a complaint redressal system but those are for Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC). UCC has been defined as "any message, through telecommunications service, which is transmitted for the purpose of informing about,or soliciting or promoting any commercial transaction in relation to goods, investments or services which a subscriber opts not to receive (quoted from ndncregistry.gov.in) I am not sure if SMS tips come under it because they aren't promoting something but giving you tips. You can still try to give a complaint if you had subscribed to the National Do Not Call Registry more than 45 days ago. The complaint has to be given through the telecom service provider. While making complaint, mention your telephone number, the SMS sender number and their SMSC number, date/time and type of SMS. Obtain the complaint number for future reference. Your telecom service provider has to take action as per TRAI Regulation against defaulter on receipt of complaint. Even after 30 days of complaining if you still get the same SMS, you may mail your complaint to TRAI at ucccomplaints (at) ndncregistry.gov.in

2. It depends on what you are going to use in an emergency. I would stick to a package which doesn't have usage charges, so the 1 GB plan will be ideal if you are sure that your emergency usage won't go above that limit.

Which software are you using to edit the registry?

Business Standard Kolkata July 13, 2009, 0:36 IST Mobile tariffs in the world’s cheapest telecom market are set to fall further by at least 20-25 per cent during the year, thanks to the increasing number of telecom operators and infrastructure overcapacity. With local call rates at 33 paise and STD rates at 50 paise per minute, for most mobile operators, the country has the lowest telecom tariffs in the world. According to industry analysts, the telecom industry is expecting the new licensees (including Loop Telecom, Datacom Solutions and Unitech Wireless) to commence operations in this year itself. Again, the expected expansion of existing players like Aircel Cellular, Idea Cellular, Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communications (RCom) is expected to have an impact on the mobile tariffs. Moroever, the increase in the number of players will benefit the consumers in terms of newer enriched applications, choice and affordability. The on-ground traffic is increasing, but quality of traffic is not, clearly indicating that there is a need for more capacity. According to Sridhar Rao, Chief Executive Officer, Vodafone Essar East, telecom tariffs in West Bengal is already among the lowest. “There has been a 50 per cent drop in base local tariffs and 45 per cent drop in long distance rates. This is apart from bonus cards which have given an additional 20 per cent or so reduction from the base tariffs,” said Rao. “Vodafone has tariffs as low as 20 paisa for local Vodafone to Vodafone in prepaid and 15 paisa in postpaid,” Rao added. According to Vsevolod Rozanov, President and CEO, Shyam Sistema Teleservices, the newest entrant in the Bengal telecom circle, “Our standard local call rates are already 30 per cent less than the market norm, and on-net prices are 70 per cent less. This is before taking account of our million minutes on-net introductory offer, or 30 paisa lifetime local calling promotion, which has re-defined ‘value’, in our industry.” “We will be coming out with innovative offers on our content services which will be launched on the ‘BREW’ platform this summer. Our immediate and near term ambition is to fully roll out our services on a pan India level by 2010. We are just making our offers more palatable and lucrative for value seekers to set an initial foothold,” Rozanov said. Shyam Sistema has introduced ‘MCard’ as a ‘value offer’, for Rs 99 where customers can make local calls at 30 paisa for life. According to Shyam Sistema, this translates into a guaranteed lifetime saving of 70 per cent against the current market norm. Among other plans, Shyam Sistema will soon be launching its first innovative value propositions for CRBT and downloads. These will be supported by the introduction of the ‘BREW’ platform, that is expected to enable a rich customer experience for these services. “We have plans to foray into the data services market. We will make inroads with our data cards and other data related products like wireline and wireless broadband. We are planning to also launch the USB data modems and high speed data services this year. These are currently under trial,” said Rozanov. Industry figures indicate that data services account for 8 per cent of a service provider’s revenues. However, many operators consider SMS revenue as a part of the data revenue. A spokesperson of Aircel said, “Tariffs are now completely need-based. So we have a card for Rs 14, valid for three days. This otherwise sounds like a drop in tariff, which is true to some extent, but the focus for all service providers currently is actually need-based tariff plans.”

The Hindu Business Line Monday, Jul 13, 2009 WiMAX-based broadband services are expected to boost India's broadband penetration. While the private operators are awaiting auction of spectrum by the Government to roll out the technology, SOMA Networks is the first company in India to have deployed WiMax through a franchisee model partnership with state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. eWorld caught up with Yatish Pathak, Founder & CEO, SOMA Networks, to understand the future of this technology in India. Excerpts from the chat: Is WiMAX suited best for mobile broadband or for broadband to home? One of the reasons that SOMA Networks chose to use WiMAX 802.16e-2005 technology, also called Mobile WiMAX, is that it supports mobile broadband as well as has the capability to provide wireless broadband to homes and offices. However, its application depends on the context and availability of competing technologies. In an emerging market such as India with vast areas under-served due to lack of wired infrastructure or due to sub-optimal DSL connections (slow speeds), the best use of WiMAX today is to deliver broadband to the homes and businesses that have no broadband, or poor broadband connectivity. Using WiMAX as a mobile broadband application is better suited for developed, more mature markets that have high data consumption. Classic examples are Tokyo and Korea. Given that Indian operators will not get more than 5Mhz spectrum for 3G, do you think that there will be more takers for WiMAX for providing mobile broadband services? It is an interesting possibility. Instead of few operators getting enough spectrum to run 3G, we have more operators getting lesser spectrum and given that they will dedicate most of its capacity to voice which is their cash-cow, they will be left with very little capacity for data. As a result, some of them will look at WiMAX to provide mobile broadband services. If an operator decides to use WiMAX to target the laptop user market, then it will simply be a service such as EV-DO, but with higher data rates. However, if the operator decides to use WiMAX for mobile data on cell-phones, then such a service would require it to invest in and run two separate networks - an FDD network for 3G and a TDD network for WiMAX. Besides, the service will require dual mode phones (GSM + WiMAX) that will support both FDD and TDD. The support for two different types of radios will make the handsets cost-prohibitive for Indian consumers, until there is service acceptance and we see economies of scale. So you reckon that most of the existing GSM players will not use WiMax for mobile broadband? Given the huge investments made by all the large Indian operators in GSM it would be fair to assume that they will continue to evolve their network towards LTE to address the mobile broadband need of consumers over time and as the business case becomes stronger. It is more likely that they will opt for WiMAX deployments in select high traffic business districts/cities to address enterprise customers as has been the trend amongst several big global operators as well. Even in India, Reliance and Tatas have deployed WiMAX technology for broadband selectively and their initial emphasis is not on mobility, but fixed WiMAX. So while mobile WiMAX for broadband services will certainly happen, its end consumer audience will be limited due to the costs involved and limited roaming capabilities. SOMA is focussing only on the home broadband segment. Is this because its technology does not allow it to go mobile or is this because you think that there is a business case only in the home segment? Broadband to the Home (BTTH) does not necessarily mean just the home market. BTTH is a misnomer in a way; I prefer to call it Wireless DSL as it refers to broadband data service that optimises the use of bandwidth link to wirelessly deliver a megabit-rate experience within the comforts of a fixed location, such as home or office. Initially Soma's emphasis will be on Wireless DSL to scale up its rollouts in line with the much larger and more immediate market demand and with the commitment of its partner, BSNL that also has a social obligation to meet some of the national objectives of providing broadband connectivity to the people of India. Our technology, used for rollouts in India for BSNL, supports mobility even today. However, it is BSNL's prerogative to make a decision depending on its business model and strategy on when it wants to extend the mobility features to consumers. Has everyone focusing on the mobile broadband segment on WiMax platform got it wrong? Going for mobility from day one is a very ambitious plan and requires massive investments. Take a look at Clearwire. They've already indicated that they will need more money to reach the 2010 goal of providing coverage to a population of 120 million across 80 cities. Also, this doesn't include the current valuation of $4.5 billion for the spectrum assets. The population we cover in the three circles of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh is 240 million. And even assuming that the broadband penetration goes up from the 0.5 per cent it is today, to 3 per cent over the next three years, we are still talking of very small volumes to justify that kind of investment, given the lower ARPU numbers in India. In my opinion, a prudent approach is to focus on Wireless DSL market where there is a huge pent-up demand. This helps us deploy in a scalable manner without making billion dollar investments before any revenue starts accruing. By phasing the rollouts, we lower costs and risks to achieve rapid RoI and then scale up the investments to stitch the coverage areas to offer mobility. By then, consumers would have graduated a notch higher in their usage of broadband to demand mobility. Isn't there a danger of SOMA losing a huge potential market in the mobile segment? Will it get into the mobile broadband space in two-three years? Currently, we don't see a huge mobile WiMAX market. If the mobility business case for WiMAX was so compelling, then the likes of Verizon, AT&T, Vodafone, and others would make a beeline to roll out WiMAX. That said, the mobile segment has two sets of consumers. Those who will use mobile broadband with laptops, and those who will use mobile broadband with phones. In the case of the former, our technology supports that even today and it is a matter of sizeable network coverage for it to make sense for the user. In the case of the latter, it will require WiMAX-enabled phones, and the devices industry will have its own cycle of 12-18 months before you will see a critical mass of such devices in the market. As and when the mobile market for WiMAX evolves, we will participate in it. You mentioned that no mobile operator in the world has ventured into WiMax space. Why does it make business sense for SOMA to enter into this segment and not for a large integrated player such as Airtel? If a major mobile operator were to enter the space, they would think in terms of pan-India coverage, mobility and roaming, as that would provide them the business synergy. And having invested in 3G, this is a duplication of investment. Those like SOMA, Tatas and Reliance, see WiMAX as a DSL alternative, have started with areas that have a huge pent-up demand to provide quick RoI, and are clearly making their foray into this segment. According to the May 2009 report of Juniper Research, WiMAX will take 12 per cent of DSL subscribers by 2013. What is the status of your rollout in the three circles? What kind of services are you planning to roll out? What kind of devices are you bringing? What price points are you planning for your services and the device? We have launched commercial services in all the three circles. We are now working on expanding the BSNL WiMAX network to areas with high demand density and where rollout is a national imperative to support the broadband mandate. Our service supports all the computing devices in the market with an Ethernet port to connect to the CPE provided with the service. We believe PC penetration is very important to improve the broadband penetration. We have conducted extensive research to understand issues around PC penetration and DSL level service optimization over wireless. We will soon launch a device that addresses these issues making broadband more affordable and enriching end user experience. Price points for the service are decided by BSNL.

Both are related actually, we will be seeing some changes in the coming days. Change is refreshing