FryUp: iPad issue identified in Oz

For once, Telecom is the little guy in a legal stoush

Telecom triumphs in trademark stoush
Telecom is one of the most litigious organisations in New Zealand; one wag once commented that it is really a law firm with a telecommunications network attached.
Cases such as the one about Telecom’s 0867 scheme, which continues to drag through the courts, despite first being aired in the 1990s, have cemented its reputation as a heavy user of legal firepower.
This makes it tempting to sympathise with anyone who is on the other side of a legal dispute involving Telecom, especially if they're a consumer, such as the 1300 who were mislead by Telecom's "Broadband at Dial-Up prices" advertising.
However, in one recent case involving trade marks, you have to side with Telecom.
Classic Media, which owns the rights to the “Lone Ranger” slogan in New Zealand, under licence from the US owners, objected to Telecom using the term “Phone Ranger” for a line of services it provided.
It went so far as to try to get Telecom’s use of the term “Phone Ranger” disallowed under New Zealand’s trade mark laws.
Quite rightly, Telecom prevailed, and Classic Media’s case must go down as one of the most silly abuses of trade mark law in New Zealand since fashion designer Trelise Cooper took legal action to try to stop another designer, Tamsyn Cooper, from trading under that name, her natural-born one.

* Telecom trademark gets go-ahead after court case

* Telecom settles with ComCom over broadband ad

* Commerce Comission seeks leave to appeal 0867 case to Supreme Court



This MicroSIM is not transferable
The iPad isn't available in New Zealand until next month, but when the device is unleashed on our shores, an issue that has been raised in Australia is bound to become one here; namely, users taking the MicroSIM from their iPad and using it in other devices. This is prohibited under the terms and conditions offered by most Australian telecomms carriers, and is unlikely to be encouraged when the iPad finally arrives in New Zealand.

*iPad data plans vulnerable to fraud: Vodafone


IPv4 addresses dwindling drastically
It's been known for some time that IPv4 addresses are thin on the ground, but now, experts in the field have predicted they may all be gone by December. The driver of this accelerated depletion forecast is explosive growth in broadband and mobile devices in the Asia-Pacific region; tellingly, demand for IPv4 addresses remains flat in North America. All the more reason to embrace IPv6.

* Run on IPv4 addresses could exhaust supply soon

* Why IPv4 addresses are finite