This Nokia/Microsoft/Telecom update is a great case study of how to communicate poorly.

There are obviously three parties involved in the update - Nokia; Microsoft and Telecom.

When i acquired my Nokia Lumia 800 from the Telecom shop at St. Lukes in Auckland, I wanted to know about tethering and whether the phone could do it.  I had an old HTC Windows Mobile 6.5 device a few years ago and could do this with it.

The salesperson told me that it would be released as an update later in the year - "Nokia had run out of time to make this to the production release and will release support for it" - useful support for my rights under the consumer guarantees act.

So, i was happy to hear about the "update" a few weeks ago.

No information initially that this was "Tango" or that there were two Windows Phone updates that needed to be updated prior to the firmware update from Nokia being applied and it is the firmware update from Nokia which finally "makes available" tethering/internet sharing/using your phone like a hotspot.

So, with a Nokia Product Code of 059N7B6 i could see on the Nokia website that my phone was waiting on Telecom to approve firmware 12220 (mine being on 12070 at the moment).

So, surprised i was that about ten days ago, I was notified that Windows Phone was ready to do an update.....which i eagerly connected up with Zune......and about an hour later when it was "Finished Successfully!"......so, where was the tethering? Not there???

I went back to the Nokia site, and yes, my product code was (and still is) waiting for approval.

So, nine days after i'd applied the two Tango updates, I thought I'd call telecom to see if they had an eta on their approval of 12220.

Yes, I know, foolish of me.

Calling telecom, i naturally was routed to the Phillipines and I had to convince the customer service rep that Nokia did have a Lumia 800.  I spent about 25 minutes going from "Mobile Faults" to "Mobile Data" and eventually got through to the "Complex Mobile Data Team".  I was assured that this issue was Nokia's and that they needed to release the firmware to telecom.  I explained that if they read Nokia's web pages about this, there are a number of Product Codes that show "Update Available" and that it appears that it is Telecom that is dragging the chain....making sure that the "complex hacking" they do to the phone to allow the telecom logo to appear when u turn the phone on and their "juggling" with regard to the radio stack....needs to be checked first to see if the phone will actually work in NZ after the firmware is applied.  The complex mobile data team expert said they would call me back after they had spoken to the telecom product management team - it would be within an hour.

So, i hung up and called the Nokia Care Centre.  The agent confirmed what I had thought and agreed that it wasnt a great experience but there was little they could do until Telecom approved their firmware what was submitted to Telecom some time ago.

Surprisingly, the Telecom complex mobile data team expert did call me back to confirm that yes, the firmware was waiting with Telecom to approve.  Nope, no idea as to when it would be approved.

I had a look over some of the other countries to see if the situation we have here in New Zealand is the same in other countries and it looks as though our experiences are the worst by far.

It seems like we want to have the latest technologies like the rest of the world, but we want to muck around with it when we get it and spend a lot of time and money making the devices more complex.  I know it isn't the network because i used to use Windows Mobile images from xda developers which had superceded radio stacks which would perform far better than the "i-mate JASJAM" (rebadged HTC TYTN) than the Model T radio stacks that we needed to use with the CID and SIMlocked devices we are retailed.

Hopefully, I'll be able to tether/hotspot soon and get rid of my additional prepaid data card.

I like the Nokia Lumia 800 - it is a good device.........just waiting for it to get better.