Loads of entries!

The metaphorical sack has arrived and we’re delighted to find more than 200 entries for the 2008 World Communication Awards.

Not only does the quality look excellent, but the diversity of companies is astounding with an even spread across the categories.

Let’s hope the judges are up to the monumental task of sifting through all those submissions to determine winners and finalists in 14 categories – the winners being unveiled at the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane on the 26 November.

The shortlist will be announced in September Total Telecom magazine which also marks the start of the main promotional campaign. There’s still time to benefit from this and join NTT Comm., Orange, TeliaSonera, COLT, Easynet, and Belgacom as sponsors.

Also keep a close eye on Total Telecom for the launch of the voting for Person of the Decade. A special award for this year to celebrate 10 years of telecoms excellence, we’ll be asking the industry to vote for the person who has been the most influential in telecoms over the last 10 years.

Knee-deep in fibre

Somehow I had managed to persuade myself that a trip down the Hackney (east London) sewers to view Geo's fibre network was a good idea. Turns out I really hadn't thought it through at all.

"There are ladders? I hate ladders!" I exclaimed earlier today as the full horror of what awaited me started to become clear.

"Errr... how did you think you were going to get down the sewer?" our guide from Thames Water asked patiently, having already had to deal with getting my (apparently) ridiculously small feet into a pair of thigh-high waterproof boots that were two sizes too big... not to mention the gloves saga.

But that was just it. I hadn't thought about it. At all. On some level I think I'd envisaged a sterile, "visitors" version of a sewer, that I would sashay into, wearing pristine safety equipment, that was somehow both stylish and reasonably flattering. I'd also imagined being armed with a notebook and a camera... and heck, possibly even a mobile phone ("hey mum, guess where I am..."). I was wrong. A notebook was out of the question (sewers are dark - who'd have imagined that?), and even the camera stayed at ground level out of harm's way.

Glossing over the descent into the sewer - because the squealing and carrying on was actually a little bit embarrassing in retrospect - we found ourselves knee-deep in murky "water", standing on a decidedly squelchy floor. That there wasn't much light was probably a good thing; what light there was clearly showed that the water we were wading through contained solids.

Fortunately, we weren't down there long. A look at a row of four cable ducts housing Geo's fibre along the side wall of the sewer, a walk of around 25 metres to the next man-hole and a quick Q&A (I really wished my companions had saved the question about rats until we were safely above ground again) and we were out of there.

Safe to say, it was the weirdest press event I've ever attended! It was quite an experience - positive or negative, I'm not yet sure - but I think in future I'll take a less hands-on approach to reporting on fibre networks!

Ask an Analyst

Got a question on some aspect of recent telecoms news?

Get all the answers with Total Telecom's new Ask an Analyst column. Due to launch on Monday, the service enables our readers to submit their questions to key members of the analyst community. First up, Analysys Mason's Daniel Jones tackles the following:

Omantel is looking for a strategic investor to take a 25% stake. Who is likely to be in the running?

Log on to Total Telecom after the weekend to see what he has to say on the matter.

And submit your analyst questions to me, Mary Lennighan, at mary.lennighan@totaltele.com. Or post them here, on The Editor's Cut.

Queueing

Visitors from Mars may have been wondering what was prompting so many people to queue outside the O2 and Carphone Warehouse stores on Islington's Upper Street this morning. The rest of us know that today is 3G iPhone day in the UK, an event that has caused otherwise sensible people to lose all sense of proportion, the queues would suggest. As discussed by the Total Telecom team, there will be plenty of 3G iPhones for anyone that wants one. But of course the phone is the latest "must-have" gadget and it appears some simply cannot wait just a few more days to get their hands on one.

Taking the extreme approach of camping outside an O2 shop since dawn does not seem to have guaranteed success, however: Reports already on news blogs describe failed efforts to buy iPhones today as shops ran out of stock. O2 has been fanning the flames of desire too by hinting that availability would be "limited" on day one. Tsk.

Anyway, well done if you managed to get one!

iPhone launch hype kicks into overdrive

There are mere hours to go until the world-changing event that is the launch of the 3G iPhone...in the U.K., that is.

Of course, if you happen to live somewhere a few timezones ahead of British Summer Time, say New Zealand for instance, then the new version of the Apple handset has already gone on sale.

This fact was not lost on iFixit, a California-based blog that travelled all the way to Auckland to be among the very, very first in line to get hold of the new iPhone, so they could take it part, take photographs of its insides, and upload them to the Web.

Sadly Total Telecom didn't fancy travelling thousands of miles to pay hundreds of dollars for a handset locked to a New Zealand-based network, but nevertheless you will be able to get your iPhone fix on our Website. Phew!

June's top 10

Want to know who's reading what in telecoms right now?

Here are the 10 most popular news stories on Total Telecom in June:

1. O2 UK bolsters WiFi hotspots ahead of 3G iPhone
2. 3G iPhone unveiled… and it's cheaper
3. Nortel plumps for LTE over WiMAX
4. Verizon wants Vodafone out of Verizon Wireless
5. Verizon Wireless to pay $28.1bn for Alltel
6. Reding proposes 15% FTTH risk premium, Euro-regulator alternative
7. TD-SCDMA woes rise with Datang's T3G sell-off
8. T-Mobile UK cuts data roaming charges by 80%
9. Nokia buys social networking start-up Plazes
10. Telekom Austria CEO blasts EU; cuts SMS roaming fees