Just when you think that the world is collectively moving in a more digital wireless direction, you get a reminder that everyone has different definitions of progress. Despite all the great advances for GPS based systems, including having 10% of all iPhone apps using the Location API, some governments simply don’t trust that sort of knowledge to their people.

It turns out that Egypt will not allow its people to have GPS location devices such as a GPS enabled phone unless they have a license from the government. Now the people are smuggling in their smart phones. Bizarre. The sad part is that a GPS guided tour of popular tourist destinations in Egypt would be so cool. Hopefully, Egypt will notice that as part of the anti-GPS club, it now has lots in common with the other two countries that ban their citizens from having GPS devices, North Korea and Syria. Yeah, that will look great on the tourist literature.

Last week, the SF mobile community dropped whatever they were doing and headed off to CTIA Wireless. The conference officially covers 4 days, if you include a day of preshow telecom university classes. But it is jammed packed with other sessions and parties. In addition to meetings and networking, I spent time at Location 2.0 and Mobile Jam. I recommend both highly.

Location 2.0 is sponsored by SiRF and others. Its focus is on mobile location and tracking. What I did not realize until I got there was that it included a pitch session for startups to discuss their take on location for the mobile device. Next time, Geogad will be entered for this competition. The big winner was DialDirections. Congratuations.

The Mobile Jam was held the last day of the conference. This was more of an unconference, free-flow event. This really attracted the hard core mobile people and/or the local mobile people. The highlight of the session was the announcement of a new mobile app platform from T-Mobile. It is designed to get mobile apps before the end customer with fewer headaches for both the carrier and the developer. The key is that T-Mobile seems to realize that they have trained the end user to call their support lines with all of their questions. This behavior is costly for the carrier and frustrating to the end customer and the developer. The new model going forward will be that the customer will realize that they need to call the app developer with any problems that they might have.

Gee, it sounds like the regular Internet and PC environment. Finally!

What a difference a year of experience makes. The public safety groups that were pushing for exacting standards for locating users are realizing that there is only so much the technology can do at this stage. There is no surprise that cell phones are harder to locate inside buildings and in rural areas. But now they are starting to realize that the best solution for everyone at this stage is to let some phone companies get some waivers in areas where the geography makes location especially difficult.

With the relaxing of the standards, the FCC is officially letting the issue slide. But it is only temporary. A solution still needs to be found, especially since so many people use their cell phones so much of the time.

For this first generation system, this is really the best solution. There is no point in spending huge amounts of money to locate users in places where few users ever go. It will allow the money that could have gone into such a system to be deployed elsewhere in the network to improve features for more users.

I attended the Java SIG and the Mobile Internet SIG of SD Forum a couple of weeks ago. What was interesting was the amount of talk that I heard on the Google Android platform and the Google Phone, especially since the latest news from the Google IO conference the week before is that the rumored Google phone that was supposed to be released in time for Christmas this year is either pushed back to 2009 or not scheduled for production at all, depending on the source of the rumor. The latest stories are still officially quoting the release for the first Android-based phones to be at the end of 2008.

My guess after having played with the Google Android SDK and reviewing its rapid release updates as ordinary developers found problems in the SDK is that Google still has a ton of work to do on Android before it is ready for an actual phone. After all, the Android simulation really did not deal with the mobile Internet, accessing the cell phone network or playing music. Forget about getting the Location API to work easily with the cell phone carriers’ networks. The Android competition was a cheap, quick and easy way to get thousands of developers to check the SDK for bugs. But Google still needs to check the other parts of their operating system. Since Google does not have any experience creating a real physical phone, I am sure that there are many things that are not tested yet. Android is in for a bumpy ride before its first cell phones appear.

In related news stories that show how the brightest of wireless stars can come crashing down, Virgin Mobile has agreed to buy once-promising MVNO Helio for $39 million. This is a great deal all around. Earthlink and SK has finally managed to upload this bottomless pit of money. Both have literally lost hundreds of millions of dollars. Back in September, SK bought its way onto this sinking ship with $270 million, while Earthlink was losing over $300 million per year. The $39 million is in Virgin Mobile stock, which has been steadily dropping since its IPO in the mid-teens less then a year ago to its current value of $2.75. Virgin ends up with two new directors on its board from SK and a cash infusion of $25 million from SK and $25 million from its parent, Virgin Group. Even more plus side for Virgin Mobile is that they are getting $17 million of handset inventory and 170,000 subscribers practically for free. If the Virgin Mobile management cannot get the stock up with these huge additions to their company, then maybe it is just not possible to make it as an MVNO.