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C) Slate/Dear Prudence: Sélection [Conseils sur la vie sentimentale et la vie tout court. Cette semaine : Mon petit ami "génial" lit Playboy. / Mon ex fait du chantage pour que je recouche. / Mon futur ex mari refuse de dire à ses parents que nous divorçons. / Ma future belle-mère me rend folle.]
http://slate.msn.com/id/2108198/

Dear Pru,
Here's the situation. I have a wonderful, amazing, almost perfect boyfriend whom I've been with for about a year and a half. We've got a fantastic relationship. There's just one itsy-bitsy problem. Actually, I don't even know if it's a problem, but other people SAY it is. My wonderful boyfriend purchases the occasional Playboy. And I don't care. I even read them. (For the articles. Really!) He kind of makes a half-assed (no pun intended) attempt to hide them. If it's from me or from innocent bystanders, I don't really know. Regardless, I usually manage to stumble across them with no snooping involved. He never gets defensive about it when I find them. It's a nonissue with us. With my friends, however, it's a different story. When I have told them in the past about the Playboys, they are appalled and question how I can allow my boyfriend to disrespect me in such a manner. Doesn't it bother me that he's looking at other women like that? And the Playboys are just a "gateway drug" so to speak. Next thing he's going to be cheating on me with hookers or lap dancers. It's difficult to be indignant when I'm voraciously consuming that which I'm supposed to be railing against. I guess my question is: Is this disrespectful?

—Feminist Who May Have Lost Her Way

Dear Fem,
Oh, please. It's a magazine ... and on the tame side, at that, from what Prudie understands "lad" magazines to be these days. Why are you even telling people his reading habits? In any case, don't let your girlfriends get on your case. Respect—or lack of it—is shown by how a man treats you, not by what he reads. Plus, Prudie once wrote for them (when ice covered the earth), so how bad could it be?

—Prudie, liberatedly

-*-*-*-

Dear Prudence,
I dated a guy for a few months, and it turned out he was a real control freak. He hacked into my e-mail accounts and read all my mail, new and old. In his quest for information, he happened across some incriminating e-mails between me and my old boss, who is still a good friend. Now that I have stopped seeing the control freak, he keeps trying (successfully, usually) to blackmail me into spending time with him by threatening to tell my ex-boss's wife what he found out. He is driving me crazy, and if I owned a gun, I'm afraid I am just p.o.'d enough to use it. Luckily for him, I do not. I cannot live in fear of his using this information against me, but having him tell the wife is out of the question, as that would definitely end their marriage. I don't know what to do. I have a job I couldn't get anywhere else; moving away is not an option. How do I get rid of this creep and get my life back????

—Dressed To Kill

Dear Dress,
The following thoughts are the result of mentioning your situation to a few lawyer chums. What is going on is actually an odd sort of stalking rather than blackmail. Going to law enforcement would not work for you in this case because they do not often get involved in personal matters without threats of physical harm. Your best bet is to play poker and bluff (and hope the jerk is not a Prudie reader). You must go to the boss and explain the situation and then, together, either in the company of a lawyer or a private investigator, meet with the jerk, tell him what he is doing is against the law, and hope he scares easily. You will just have to hope you can fake him out.

—Prudie, conspirationally

-*-*-*-
Dear Prudie,
My husband (we'll call him "Chris") and I have been separated for a few months, and I've filed for a divorce. Chris has his own apartment while I live in our house with our children. The problem is that my father-in-law calls every weekend not knowing that Chris no longer lives here. His parents have never liked me very much. In fact, I get the impression that they don't like him very much, either. His mother is always putting him down and making him feel less than adequate. Therefore, Chris doesn't have any desire to talk to his parents at this point. In the past, it's been like pulling teeth just to get him to call them on holidays, etc. I don't really feel like it's my place to be the one to tell them that we're getting a divorce, but I'm tired of his dad calling every weekend and leaving messages. I keep telling Chris that he needs to call them, but he refuses. He doesn't even have a phone in his apartment; he only has a cell phone in case of emergency. I don't know what to do. Should I tell his parents that he has moved out? Should I just let my son tell them? Please help.

—Impatient With the In-Laws

Dear Imp,
You are being impatient with the wrong party. It's Chris who is trying your patience. Tell him he has one week to either call or write his folks, informing them you two are living apart—and that he doesn't have a phone. Tell him that should he not abide by your timetable, you will be forced to tell his father that the phone calls to your house are futile. Do NOT make your little boy the messenger. And do enjoy the positive aspect of separation and divorce: You don't have to "remind" your husband to call his folks, and it is no longer incumbent upon you to deal with the in-laws if you never liked them in the first place. Don't ask how Prudie knows this.

—Prudie, finally

-*-*-
Dear Prudence,
My boyfriend and I have a wonderful relationship. We have lived together now for a little more than a year and plan to marry as soon as we can pay for the wedding and reception that we both want. (This will be a second marriage for both.) Our (my) problem is his mother. While she can be a very sweet lady, she drives me insane. Some days she is bouncing off the walls because she took too many pills; the next all she can do is complain because she took too few. She is a hypochondriac. She tries getting sympathy from her 4-year-old grandson because "Grandma hurts today. Grandma needs a hug. Grandma is going to take some pills." She also compares me to her ex-daughter-in-law. "She could do this and that and the other thing. But that's OK, sweetheart, you can do x, y, and z." And she loves to gossip. If we discuss family, she finds a way to put one of them down. So what can I expect her to say about me? My boyfriend simply doesn't listen to her anymore. He actually tunes out the sound of her voice when she is talking. The woman is nuts. Please, any advice would be greatly appreciated.

—Frustrated

Dear Frus,
Prudie's advice would be to deal with the nutty mother the same way her son does: Tune her out. This is an excellent approach because there is no way you can change her, and it doesn't sound as though she is going anywhere. So make your peace with it: You will have a pill-popping, gossipy, hypochondriacal m-i-l. Believe it or not, things could be worse. Don't ask how Prudie knows this, either.

—Prudie, historically

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2) CNN: Stranger moves in, redecorates while woman's on vacation [Alors qu'une femme est en vacances, une inconnue squatte chez elle et refait même la déco.]
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/10/22/stranger.in.house.ap/

Stranger moves in, redecorates while woman's on vacation
Saturday, October 23, 2004 Posted: 0045 GMT (0845 HKT)

DOUGLASVILLE, Georgia (AP) -- A woman came home from vacation to find a stranger living there, wearing her clothes, changing utilities into her name and even ripping out carpet and repainting a room she didn't like, authorities said. Douglas County authorities say they can't explain why Beverly Valentine, 54, broke into an empty home and started acting like it was her own.

During the 21/2 weeks the owner, Beverly Mitchell, was on vacation in Greece, Valentine allegedly redecorated the ranch home, ripping up carpet and taking down the owner's pictures and replacing them with her own. Mitchell was a complete unknown to Valentine, said Chief Sheriff's Deputy Stan Copeland. He said he had no idea how Valentine knew Mitchell was gone. "In 28 years, I've never seen something this strange," Copeland said.

Valentine was being held in Douglas County Jail on a $25,000 bond, Copeland said. If convicted, she could face one to 20 years in prison. Copeland said Friday that he believed Valentine did not have a lawyer.

The case came to light when Mitchell, who lived alone, returned home October 4 to find the lights on and a strange car parked in the driveway. Mitchell called police, who went in and found Valentine, who at first pretended she was renting the home. Later, Copeland said, she admitted she broke into the house with a shovel and was squatting there. She was charged with burglary.

Authorities found a gun and $23,000 worth of Mitchell's jewelry in Valentine's car. Valentine had the electricity switched over to her name and moved in a washer and dryer and her dog. Copeland said she was even wearing some of Mitchell's clothes.

"There's a lot of people saying, 'What?"' Copeland said. Valentine was asked what to do with the washer and dryer she moved in, and Valentine said she didn't care, so police will leave it up to Mitchell what to do with them, Copeland said.

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3) Slate: The New de Tocquevilles [Les Français tentent de comprendre les Etat-Unis.]
http://slate.msn.com/id/2108796/

The New de Tocquevilles: The French are just trying to understand.
By Elisabeth Eaves
Posted Thursday, Oct. 28, 2004, at 10:33 AM PT

America is a shark. Full of religious zealots. Who are deeply divided against themselves.

These are just a few descriptions of the United States gleaned from just-released French books devoted to deciphering and explaining the other red, white, and blue. Parisian editors are dining out on a new subgenre that includes tirades, serious academic tomes, election-timed quickies by celebrity journalists, and even a novel, Frenchy, about a Parisian living in Texas when the United States invaded Iraq.

Clotaire Rapaille is a U.S.-based, French-born marketing consultant who specializes in selling across cultures. He has advised Denmark-based Lego that Americans do not read instructions and taught French cheese-makers that Americans prefer their cheese "scientifically dead." Rapaille told me that the last French publishing boomlet had a self-critical tendency: "France is in decline, France is becoming irrelevant. This is what I saw last year." As a former psychoanalyst, he has an explanation for the new phenomenon: "It's transference. The French have transferred their psychology of decline to America, so they feel better," he said. "Now they have a mission: They are going to defend mankind against the United States."

I counted at least 17 French books published this year on the United States or relations with it, most since September. Add to that a handful of books from 2003, plus dozens of U.S. titles in translation—Kitty Kelley, Graydon Carter, and Bill Clinton are all here—and you can find entire bookstore tables devoted to decoding the country that rebaptized frites as frites de la liberté. New titles vie for attention with copies of the genre's prototype, which some would say has yet to be improved upon: Democracy in America, by Alexis de Tocqueville. In 1835 he brought news of the New World back to the old, with prescient observations like this one on local government: "The people wield immense influence over their magistrates and often carry their desires into execution without intermediaries."

So, just what is out there now, and what does it say?

The protagonist in Frenchy, who runs a French food store, suffers prolific insults, and a veteran urinates in his garden. Still, one of his nicer neighbors tells him that America "has nothing to do with those guys in Washington." The review in Le Figaro said the novel was "as valuable as the best courses in international relations at the most prestigious universities."

You can't beat The Shark and the Seagull, by former Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, for the author's way with metaphor. It's about the rotten state of trans-Atlantic relations. (I'll let readers guess which country is which in the book's title.) The takeaway, though, isn't clear. The shark refuses to be halted. The seagull listens. They must reconcile their values, which will save the world. Or something like that.

Some of the other new works include France Against the Empire, Empire of Chaos, The Emperor of the White House, Imperial America, The Good Fortune of Not Being American, and Democracy With an Obscene Face. The last, by Jacques Vergès, a lawyer who has volunteered to defend Saddam Hussein, is illustrated with photographs of prisoner abuse inside Abu Ghraib.

Titles notwithstanding, the new books are not all polemics. Anti-Americanism is certainly present in France, but the chattering classes are making a serious attempt to understand both the United States and the Franco-U.S. dynamic. Earnest broadcasters ask the new Americologists questions like, "Do we hate Americans because we try to imitate them?"

Guillaume Parmentier, director of the French Center on the United States and editor of The United States Today: Shock and Change, says there are two major explanatory fads afoot in the attempt to understand U.S. behavior: It's all about the neocons, and it's all about religion.

With few exceptions, French writers "superbly ignored" neoconservatism for years, Parmentier told me—then suddenly noticed it about 18 months ago. "Now because of the Bush administration, many French observers—guys who have no interest in the facts, but who are interested in big ideas—have discovered neoconservatives and see them all over the place. They call Cheney and Rumsfeld neoconservatives, which is totally absurd," Parmentier said.

While dismissive of many of the new books, Parmentier has high praise for one, Messianic America: The Wars of the Neoconservatives, by Le Monde journalists Alain Frachon and Daniel Vernet. It's a full history of the neocons, from their hatchery among the Democratic left in New York to their post-9/11 influence on the presidency. The publisher's blurb explains that neoconservatives think America is the embodiment of good and that it "can assure its own security and remain true to its moral mission only by exporting democracy, by force if necessary." French readers may acquire a more sophisticated understanding of U.S. foreign policy than many an American liberal.

As for the second fad, religion, authors like Guy Sorman treat it as paramount. The author of Made in USA focuses on the fact that a full 80 percent of Americans say they believe in God. Americans are "a mystical people," he says, and he has a theory that all religions in America are converging into one as their modes of worship become more and more alike.

A third theme emerges in many of the books: It's all about Sept. 11. Except, while there is general agreement that the United States must have been traumatized and profoundly changed by the terrorist attacks, no one seems to be sure exactly how. Indeed, Sorman went looking for evidence of a transformation and found that "American society has remained self-centered, too busy to fuse into a single nation capable of taking an interest in faraway cultures. No more books on Islam are sold, no more foreign films seen than before the attacks; students are not moving any faster toward learning foreign languages."

Can Americans learn anything from foreign anthropologists studying their own? Sorman says the point is moot. He has "no illusion" that he could be influential in the United States—unless he emigrated. "No one is interested in what foreigners have to say, not liberals or conservatives," he said. "The beliefs of Americans are so profound, they are so convinced that they are building a new civilization, with a universal appeal, that the comments from outside are insignificant."

That may be true. But while only hindsight will tell if Sorman and the rest are truly Tocquevillian, I think this passage from Made in USA will hold up for a long time to come:

[In America] it's taken for granted that a community left to its own devices will spontaneously organize, without waiting for higher authorities to do it. This democratic ideal, shaped by the history of the United States, can lead American governments, in their foreign interventions, to expect the same of other societies. Sometimes in vain.

Elisabeth Eaves is the author of Bare.

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4) CNN/Reuters: U.S. tomato shortage hits restaurants [Les restos américains pâtissent d'un manque de tomates.]
http://money.cnn.com/2004/10/22/news/funny/tomatoe_shortage.reu

U.S. tomato shortage hits restaurants: Restaurant chains tweak menus and start 'rolling blackouts' after hurricanes double tomato price.
October 22, 2004: 6:56 PM EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. restaurants are scrambling to find menu alternatives to dishes requiring tomatoes as severe weather in Florida and California have hampered crops and caused prices to more than double.

Restaurant chains like Wendy's International Inc. (Research) and Olive Garden parent Darden Restaurants Inc., which need large quantities of tomatoes to supply their outlets, are among those making changes to combat the shortage. Wendy's canceled plans to advertise its Chicken Temptations sandwiches, which are each topped with a slice of tomato. The Dublin, Ohio-based chain said the last-minute switch to promote its Kids Meal and Homestyle Chicken Strips would contribute to a profit shortfall this quarter.

Darden (Research), which also owns the Red Lobster chain, is modifying recipes and using alternative varieties and sizes of tomatoes until supplies return to normal, spokesman Mike Bernstein said. McDonald's Corp.'s (Research) Mexican-style Chipotle chain is also considering alternatives such as salsa recipes that are less dependent on tomatoes, spokesman Chris Arnold said. The chain, which has not made any decisions yet, could also implement what Arnold called "rolling blackouts," where certain markets may not have tomato salsa one day a week.

Unlike Wendy's, Burger King Corp. said it would proceed with plans to promote its TenderCrips chicken sandwiches, which include tomato slices. Burger King's senior director of product marketing, Carlos Ribas, said the chain will tackle the problem on a region-by-region basis, and will inform customers with signs in restaurants when there are no tomatoes.

Hurricanes drive prices up 167 percent

Hurricanes including Charley and Francis, which hit Florida in August and September, forced many of the state's tomato farmers to replant crops that were expected to be sold in November and December, according to Gary Lucier, an economist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. As a result, tomato prices in October have risen 167 percent to about $15 for a 25-pound box, Lucier said.

To make matters worse, heavy rain in California this week flooded the state's tomato crops, halting harvests and threatening to put the brakes on a deal, which began last Saturday, for California growers to supply McDonald's restaurants in Japan. "I have one supplier that's trying to continue but I have two others that can't supply them at all," said Ed Beckman, president of the California Tomato Commission, a trade group for tomato farmers.

Officials for McDonald's in Japan could not immediately be reached for comment.

Small restaurant owners, like Gerardo Cea of Cafe Prima Pasta in Miami Beach, are also being hard-hit as costs have escalated and the quality of tomato shipments has plummeted. "Over 80 percent of our items have tomato sauce," said Cea, who added that he would not raise prices on menu items for fear of driving away customers. "I guess we are going to spend more money for tomatoes."

But while consumers may not feel the brunt of the tomato shortage while dining out, they are certain to be paying more in supermarkets. "We are seeing prices more than double on some products," said Patti Councill, a spokeswoman forGreat Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. (Research) Inc., which operates 630 A&P, Food Emporium, Waldbaum's and Farmer Jack grocery stores.

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5) The Economist: Mobile 3G telecoms [La réalité de la téléphonie mobile de la 3ème génération correspond-elle aux rêves ?]
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3150731

Mobile 3G telecoms: Vision, meet reality
Sep 2nd 2004

After years of delay, third-generation (3G) mobile-phone networks are finally being switched on. How will the reality compare with the original vision?

THE biggest ever gamble on the introduction of a new technology; an attempt to maintain growth in a maturing industry; or an industrial-policy fiasco? The introduction of “third-generation” (3G) mobile-phone networks around the world is all these things and more. In 2000, at the height of the dotcom boom, mobile operators around the world, but mainly in Europe, paid a total of €109 billion (then $125 billion) for licences to build and operate 3G networks, which offer higher performance and more capacity than existing second-generation (2G) networks. In part, the mobile operators were victims of their own hype. A report that year from the International Telecommunication Union, the industry's standards body, gives a sense of the high hopes for 3G:

The device will function as a phone, a computer, a television, a pager, a videoconferencing centre, a newspaper, a diary and even a credit card...it will support not only voice communications but also real-time video and full-scale multimedia. It will automatically search the internet for relevant news and information on pre-selected subjects, book your next holiday for you online and download a bedtime story for your child, complete with moving pictures. It will even be able to pay for goods when you shop via wireless electronic funds transfer. In short, the new mobile handset will become the single, indispensable “life tool”, carried everywhere by everyone, just like a wallet or purse is today.

Dotcom mania aside, the industry had concluded that 3G networks would make possible new services to provide growth as its core business, voice telephony, matured. As the proportion of people with mobile phones has increased—it now exceeds 85% in much of the rich world—the average revenue per user (ARPU), a key industry metric, has levelled off. This is because the most valuable subscribers were the first to buy mobile phones; later adopters make fewer calls and spend much less. With subscriber numbers reaching saturation, at least in the rich world, the industry began casting around for new sources of growth, and fancy services such as video and internet access seemed the most promising prospects. Hence the appeal of 3G.

Even so, forking out €109 billion for 3G licences—plus roughly the same again between 2001 and 2007 to build the actual networks, according to predictions from iSuppli, a market-research firm—was an enormous gamble, arguably the biggest in business history. But in many cases operators had no choice. Several European countries held auctions for their 3G licences in which operators bid huge sums: in Britain and Germany, for example, operators ended up paying around €8 billion for each 3G licence. Why? Because with their 2G networks filling up, and with no additional 2G capacity on offer from regulators, operators felt compelled to buy 3G licences to ensure scope for future growth. Andrew Cole of A.T. Kearney, a consultancy, remembers when a client who was taking part in the auction received the order to “win the licence no matter what”. The €109 billion was, in effect, a tax on the right to continue to do business. Few firms were brave enough to refuse to pay up.

So the 3G adventure got off to a bad start in Europe by nearly bankrupting the industry. Since 2000 most operators have written down the value of their 3G licences. Some even handed the licences back to the governments from which they bought them, rather than commit themselves to building expensive new 3G networks within strict time limits. (Reselling the licences was forbidden.) The whole episode is now something the industry would rather forget. “The spectrum auction is a nightmare the operators don't want to remember,” says Mr Cole. “I haven't heard it mentioned in a long time.”

Ready, steady, flop!

The pioneering launch of 3G services at the end of 2001 in Japan and South Korea, the world's two most advanced mobile markets, did little to lighten the mood. In both countries, operators were using 3G technologies different from the W-CDMA standard (which is also known as UMTS) being adopted in Europe. An unproven technology, W-CDMA was plagued by teething troubles: base-stations and handsets from different vendors would not work together reliably, and early handsets were bulky and temperamental. Operators postponed the launch of 3G services from 2002 to 2003 and then to 2004, though a handful chose to launch sometimes shaky 3G services earlier.

Yet now, at last, the 3G bandwagon is starting to roll. According to figures from Deutsche Bank, there were 16 commercial 3G networks worldwide at the beginning of the year, and there will be around 60 by the end of the year (see chart 1). Matti Alahuhta, head of strategy at Nokia, the world's largest handset-maker, says the second half of 2004 will be seen as “the starting point for the global acceleration of 3G”. Nokia and other handset-makers have high hopes for the Christmas market. The early, brick-like W-CDMA handsets have given way to much smaller, sleeker models. In Japan and Korea, sales of 3G handsets are booming. Even in America, that wireless laggard, 3G services have been launched in several cities, and the country's largest operators have committed themselves to building 3G networks.

Having swung too far towards pessimism, the industry is now becoming cautiously optimistic about 3G, says Tony Thornley, the president of Qualcomm, the firm that pioneered the technology that underpins all of the various technological flavours of 3G. Qualcomm has announced that it is having trouble meeting demand for W-CDMA radio chips. “As we get very near to seeing these things become a reality, we become more optimistic about what 3G can deliver,” says Peter Bamford of Vodafone, the world's largest mobile operator. So now that it is finally happening, how does the reality of 3G stack up against the original vision?

Less data, more voice

That depends upon whom you ask. Mr Bamford, for example, denies that there has been any downgrading of the original vision. But he is at the most optimistic end of the spectrum, a view reflected in Vodafone's reluctance to write down the value of its 3G licences. Most observers agree that there has been a shift in expectations about how 3G networks will be used, away from video and other data services and towards traditional voice calling.

“Three years ago, everyone was talking about video-telephony,” says Mike Thelander of Signals Research Group, a consultancy. But while video-telephony sounds cool, the evidence from early 3G launches in Japan, South Korea, Britain and Italy is that hardly anybody uses it. Market research suggests that women are particularly reluctant to adopt it, says Mr Cole. Nokia's first mainstream 3G handset, the 7600, does not even support video calling, but nobody seems to mind.

Nor have the high hopes for data services been fulfilled—so far, at least. The idea was to encourage consumers to adopt data services on 2G phones, paving the way for fancier services on 3G phones. But while text-messaging is hugely popular, with over a billion messages sent daily worldwide, other forms of wireless data such as photo messaging, news updates, and music and game downloads have proved much less popular with consumers in most countries—Japan and South Korea are notable exceptions.

Such services “are still embryonic, but are going to be very important,” insists Mr Cole. Today's advanced handsets, he notes, are disrupting many industries simultaneously, including photography, music and gaming. The handset is slowly coming to be seen as “the Swiss Army knife of life services”. But the changes will take years to play out, even though they are happening at breakneck speed. Mr Bamford likens the transformation in mobile phones over the past five years to the evolution of television over the past 40 years, from crude black-and-white to hundreds of digital channels in colour. “To expect customers to snap into this in five minutes is just unrealistic,” he says.

Enthusiasm for data is growing, just not very fast: data services now account for 16.3% of Vodafone's worldwide revenues, for example, up from 15% a year ago. So hopes of a breakthrough in mobile-data usage still persist. At the moment, most optimism surrounds the prospects for music downloads to mobile phones (the most advanced models of which can now double as portable music players). Downloading ringtones is already popular, so downloading entire tracks—something that is only really practical using a 3G network—is the next logical step. Motorola, the world's second-largest handset-maker, has just done a deal with Apple, whose iTunes Music Store dominates the market for legal music downloads. And Nokia has just done a similar deal with LoudEye, another online music store. But it is still too early to tell whether this will turn into a mass market and, if it does, whether it will prove profitable for operators.

Greater emphasis is being placed instead on 3G's ability to deliver cheap voice calls—for as well as being able to support faster data downloads than 2G networks, 3G networks provide vast amounts of voice capacity (typically three times as much as a 2G network) at a lower price (typically a quarter of the cost per minute). As a result, says Bob House, an analyst at Adventis, “operators' sights are now much more firmly trained on displacing voice from fixed networks.”

By offering large bundles, or “buckets” of minutes as part of their monthly tariffs, operators hope to encourage subscribers to use their mobile phones instead of fixed-line phones, and even to “cut the cord” and get rid of their fixed-line phones altogether—something that is already happening, particularly among young people, in some parts of the world. In America, for example, where large bundles are commonplace, subscribers talk on their phones for 700 minutes per month on average, compared with 100 minutes per month in Europe, where call charges are much higher, notes Mark Heath of Analysys, a consultancy. Since 3G networks offer voice capacity at a quarter of the cost of 2G networks, it ought to be possible for operators to offer larger bundles at a lower price per minute and still make money.

But operators must price their bundles carefully, and distinguish between peak-time and off-peak minutes, to avoid getting caught out. Offering generous bundle deals may, for example, cannibalise revenues from their most valuable customers, who will quickly switch to a better deal. Operators also want to avoid having to spend money adding expensive base-stations to the busiest parts of their networks to handle peak load. And, of course, they want to avoid a price war. Although everyone agrees that the advent of 3G will cause the price of voice calls to fall and margins to decline, operators are in no hurry to cut their prices before they have to.

But there are signs that Hutchison 3G, a new operator that has launched 3G services in several European countries under the “3” brand, is already leading the European market down this path, notes Mr Thelander: in some cases, 3 offers voice calls for a fifth of the price of its rivals. Further pressure on pricing, argues João Baptista of Mercer Management Consulting, will come as fixed-line operators combat the flight of voice traffic to mobile with ultra-low-cost telephony services based on “voice over internet protocol” (VOIP) technology. With price cuts, he says, “someone starts, and then you can't stop it.”

It would be a great irony if, after years of hype about data services, the “killer application” for 3G turned out to be boring old voice calls. In truth, however, nobody talks about killer apps any more. This reflects the realisation that 3G allows operators to offer lots of new services—music downloads, cheap voice calls, wireless broadband access to laptops—but that the appeal of these services will vary widely from one group of customers to another.

“Unlike traditional voice service, the adoption of 3G services is very much customer-segment specific,” says Su-Yen Wong of Mercer. The lesson from Japan and South Korea, she says, is that “certain customer segments are interested in video, but others are not—some go for games, others for traffic updates.” The challenge for 3G operators, she says, is to understand the appeal of different services to different types of customer.

The challenge of segmentation

That will require careful market segmentation. “3G gives you more scope, and segmentation broadly becomes more important,” says Mr Bamford. The example of KTF, a South Korean operator, is instructive. It offers a service called Bigi Kiri to 13-18-year-olds (with unlimited text messaging between subscribers). Na, its brand for 18-25-year-old students, includes free cinema tickets and internet access at 68 universities; and Drama, another brand, caters to women. Other operators in South Korea and Japan do similar things.

The question for operators, says Mr Cole, is whether they can successfully appeal to all segments. At the moment, most operators have bland, generic brands that are intended to appeal to as broad a cross-section of the public as possible. But now they must decide whether to create sub-brands, or partner with other firms who are better able to appeal to specific demographic groups. There are already signs of this happening in many parts of the world as companies set themselves up as “mobile virtual network operators” (MVNOs).

Rather than build its own network, an MVNO teams up with an existing operator, and resells access to the operator's mobile network under its own brand. By far the best example is Virgin Mobile, an MVNO that resells airtime on T-Mobile's network in Britain, and Sprint's in America, to teenagers. The appeal for operators is that MVNOs enable them to reach out more effectively to customers. There has recently been a flurry of activity, with established brands including Tesco, 7-Eleven and MTV setting up as MVNOs.

Much of this activity has been prompted by the growing awareness that MVNOs are likely to have an important role in generating enough voice and data traffic to fill up those expensive new 3G networks. Since 3G phones can deliver graphics, music and video, large media firms, such as Disney, are actively investigating becoming MVNOs. Indeed, media giants might be more effective at driving uptake of data services than mobile operators, which are struggling to transform themselves from boring, technology-driven utilities into sexy consumer brands.

That in turn, suggests Mr Baptista, poses a long-term question for 3G operators: are they primarily network operators, or providers of services to consumers? No doubt some operators, with strong brands, will be able to hold their own against the likes of Disney. But second-tier operators might choose to focus on running a wholesale business, selling network capacity to others.

The calculations being made about the prospects for 3G are further complicated by the fact that the technology is still evolving, making new services possible. As things stand, the W-CDMA technology being adopted in much of the world has a maximum data-transfer rate of 384 kilobits per second. The rival 3G technology, called CDMA2000-1xEV-DO, which is already deployed in South Korea, Japan and parts of America, can deliver higher speeds of up to 2.4 megabits per second. In markets (such as Japan and America) where the two technologies compete side by side, W-CDMA operators are anxiously waiting for an upgraded version of the technology, called HSDPA, which will be faster still and will make its debut in Japan next year.

Faster, better, sooner?

Never mind what all those letters stand for: the point is that as its speed and efficiency improves, 3G technology may, in some markets, start to compete with fixed broadband connections. Other, more obscure flavours of 3G technology, such as TDD-CDMA (again, never mind) and CDMA450 can also be used in this way. In New Zealand, Woosh Wireless is offering wireless broadband service using TDD-CDMA, while backers of CDMA450 point to its unusually long range, which makes it ideal for providing broadband in rural areas, as well as telephony. This opens up yet another new market for 3G operators.

3G is evolving in other ways, too. In 2003, SK, South Korea's leading mobile operator, launched a video-on-demand service over its 3G network. Subscribers paid a monthly fee of 20,000 won ($17) for access, and could then have movies beamed to their phones (while commuting, for example) for 1,000 won each. The service proved so popular that the 3G network could not cope, and SK had to raise its prices dramatically, causing demand to collapse. But evidently video does appeal to 3G subscribers, provided it is cheap enough. So SK has now developed a hybrid satellite-cellular system. New handsets, to be launched this month, will have built-in satellite-TV receivers, offering 11 video and 25 audio channels. Meanwhile, both of the main 3G standards are being updated to allow for more efficient video broadcasts to handsets. Again, this could open new markets for 3G operators.

All of this makes it very difficult to answer the question of whether 3G will succeed, for 3G is a range of technologies that makes possible all kinds of new services. In Europe, 3G's main impact may simply be cheaper voice calls; in America, 3G may have most appeal to road warriors who want broadband access wherever they are; in the developing world, 3G could help to extend telephony and internet access into rural areas; and in South Korea and Japan, 3G might even—shock, horror—live up to the original lofty vision for the technology. The switching on of 3G networks around the world is not the end of the saga; the story continues to unfold.

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A Clearwater man is charged with aggravated assault after allegedly smashing a Red Sox fan's windshield.

By CHRIS TISCH, Times Staff Writer
Published November 2, 2004

LARGO - Police have arrested a New York Yankees fan on a charge of assaulting a man wearing a Boston Red Sox cap outside a Largo night club. Richard F. Padilla, 31, of Clearwater was arrested Friday on an aggravated assault charge. He was released from the Pinellas County Jail the next day on $500 bail.

The incident occurred in the early morning hours of Oct. 21, just hours after the Red Sox defeated the Yankees in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series. Largo resident William Grant, 29, and his roommate went into the Country Club Lounge to talk to a bartender. Grant, who was wearing a Red Sox cap, said he noticed two men staring at him, police reports state.

When Grant and his roommate left, the two men followed. One of the men ordered Grant to throw his hat on the ground and spit on it. Grant refused. Grant said the man then grabbed a hammer out of a truck and again ordered him to toss the hat and spit on it. Grant threw the hat to the ground, but refused to spit on it.

His roommate then yelled at the man to leave them alone, but the man ran to their car and smashed the window with the hammer, Grant told police. The Yankees fan took off before Grant could get a tag number. But police found that either the attacker or his friend had used a credit card to pay their bar bill. Using that information, police identified Padilla as a suspect. When confronted by detectives, Padilla said Grant and his roommate were teasing him and his friend about the Yankees loss. "(Padilla) said it was the Boston fans who were berating him," said Detective Scott Gore.

Grant has said he did not provoke the attack. But police said Padilla admitted to grabbing the hammer and swinging it around. He told police he broke the window with his palm, though investigators could find no injury on his hand, Gore said.

"Words alone don't constitute a crime," Gore said. "He took it to the next step by getting a hammer and kind of swinging it around."
[Last modified November 2, 2004, 00:33:22]

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Russo was one of the founding executives who helped launch Lucent in 1996 and has spent 20 years of her career managing some of Lucent's and AT&T's largest divisions and most critical corporate functions.

Before returning to Lucent in January 2002, Russo served as president and chief operating officer of Eastman Kodak Company, overseeing the day-to-day operations of Kodak's operating divisions. Prior to this appointment, Russo was chairman of the board of Avaya Inc., one of the world's leading enterprise communications businesses.

From 1999 to 2000, she served as executive vice president of Lucent's Service Provider Networks Group and had responsibility for $24 billion in sales, distribution, installation and development of products and systems for Lucent's service provider customers worldwide.

Russo also served as executive vice president, Corporate Operations at Lucent from 1997 through 1999. She was responsible for the executive management and oversight of strategy and business development as well as human resources development, public relations, investor relations, advertising, government affairs, global procurement and real estate services.

From 1992 through 1996, Ms. Russo was president of AT&T's Business Communications Systems unit (now Avaya Inc.). She led the business through a successful restructuring and financial turnaround, making it the second largest global business when Lucent was spun off from AT&T. Ms. Russo led the global sales and service operations in Business Communications Systems before becoming president.

Prior to 1992, Ms. Russo held key management and executive positions throughout AT&T in strategic planning, marketing, human resources and operations. Before joining AT&T in 1981, she spent eight years in sales and marketing at IBM.

Ms. Russo is a member of the board of Lucent Technologies, Schering-Plough Corporation and Georgetown University. She is a member of the Network Reliability Interoperability Council, and in April 2003 was appointed by President George W. Bush to the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee. Also in April 2003, Governor James McGreevey appointed her to the New Jersey Commission on Jobs Growth and Economic Development.

She received her undergraduate degree from Georgetown University and completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard University in 1989. She has received an Honorary Doctorate of Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology as well as an Honorary Doctorate in Entrepreneurial Studies from Columbia College in South Carolina.

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