If you read this blog regularly you might have seen a cartoon showing a guy in a boardroom telling his neighbor that he is always in conflict with - and worries about - what he writes in his blog compared to what he does there. I guess this cartoon is pretty much reality for many business bloggers. Today also for me I guess. While we have clients that serve the tele/data communications industry and sell all kinds of products and services to operators, I was recently myself more than annoyed about extremely high mobile phone roaming fees that my dear Orange Switzerland provider charged me. Usually when I am annoyed I get dangerous. This time it took me two weeks to settle this. I decided to go full Internet with all our fixed line communications using a provider in Switzerland Phonestar. This will allow me in another two weeks (if my trial is successful - and I have no doubts that it will be) to cancel all our fixed line contracts with Swisscom. A nice saving of a few thousand Swiss Francs right there. That was easy. Now I am also trying to get my mobile phone bills under control. I found this service here and ordered a $19 Motorola Motophone F3 un-locked phone and paid a one time fee of $29. Once the phone and SIM card arrives I will be able to cut my roaming charges dramatically. What I also found out is that even for calls within Switzerland it will be cheaper than my local Orange mobile phone (this includes VAT and fixed fees etc. in the calculation). Cancellations for all our mobile service contracts are on their way too. Sorry, guys, but too much is simply too much.

It is quite fun to watch what Apple is doing with the mobile operators around the globe right now. Fully aware of their superb iPhone success story, they are playing the operators against each other and have - I am quite sure deliberately - launched many rumors of done - or nearly done - deals. Now it seems Vodafone in the UK will not do a pan-European deal and even "worse" not a deal at all. In the UK it will be O2, in France Orange and in Germany T-Mobile, who all seem to be OK with Apple taking (another rumor) 40% of their plan revenue. If true, that will make Apple an operator, without having to invest a dime into a mobile phone infrastructure, any spectrum licenses nor operate the network.

What this really shows is how desperate the mobile operators must be, to be giving in to such a deal. It of course also shows how well Steve Jobs is negotiating by playing them against each other. What he has done with Pixar to Walt Disney is now being repeated in the mobile phone industry, too. Vodafone decided to run against them, and I think they are doing the right thing, while all the others don't seem to have a problem with handing over their expensive assets to Cupertino's Apple.