Interesting People mailing list archives
Re: FCC sets wireless sale rules
From: "Dave" <dave () farber net>
Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 10:26:54 -0400
----- Original Message ----- From: "Bob Hinden" <bob.hinden () nokia com>
To: "Brad Templeton" <btm () templetons com> Cc: "David Farber" <dave () farber net>; "Bob Hinden" <bob.hinden () nokia com> Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2007 1:53 PM Subject: Re: [IP] Re: FCC sets wireless sale rules
Brad,For IP. This is good news from my point of view and will result in a lot of innovation from the device vendors. Also, in my view, Google did get what they wanted (as opposed to what they were asking for). BobThat remains to be seen. Generally, you can connect any unlocked GSM phone to the GSM providers. However, AT&T and T-Mobile only offer certain blessed models for sale, and in particular only provide subsidies on them. You can buy an unlocked Nokia E61 for $350 with wifi, and use it on AT&T's network as far as I know, but you can get a Wifi-less locked Nokia E62 for $50 withsubsidies.That is certainly true for GSM, but it's not true for CDMA. Last time I checked, US CDMA networks accounted for about 60% of the wireless customers (and faster data services). The GSM operators do have the capability to lock out non-official devices, even though they choose to not excercise this capability. While they don't do this now, they could. They don't offer any support for customers with non-officical devices or as you point out, offer the same service plans. Have have you ever tied calling Cingular and tell them about a service problem? The first thing they ask is what model phone you have.The overall effect is that most US wireless customers can't or won't buy a device from anyone except from the operator.I don't think the conditions on the wireless sale will solve all problems, but it is a step in the right direction. Something we haven't seen in a while.Regards, BobThey do however only officially offer certain data plans to certain blessed phones. While often the other plans work, the iPhone's $60/month plan is not available on many of the other phones AT&T sells and not on any foreignphone you bring in. Now, they don't do open apps today. They block apps for two reasons. One, they compete with voice services (Skype or SIP get blocked) orother services the carrier sells. Two, they just plain use a lot of bandwidth and we know that with "unlimited" pricing the carrier wants to discourageanything high bandwidth as much as they can. But will these new rules simply direct the victorious carrier to offer"any application" on bandwidth that is billed by the kilobyte, but still prohibit applications if you want the "unlimited" that customers all love? Or will they just change the name to call it "Unlimited web surf and e-mail" while putting per-kb charges on other apps? That's still _open_ to all apps.This is the thing that wholesale pricing might have changed. If the carrier's own services pay the same price as the resellers pay, they you would get competition over what unlimited actually means.Of course, the truth is nobody should own spectrum. The opening up of a fewmhz of spectrum where microwaves blare created the greatest period of innovation and price reduction in the history of radio. Yet, even with an example like that, people can't see it.Another hidden tragedy is the allocation of spectrum to emergency services. What a waste. If all that spectrum were opened up, the police and fire depts. could buy superior radios, with ten times the features, at 1/10th the price, and they could all talk to each other and even to members of the public they wish to talk to. There would be so much spectrum available they would not need a priority channel, but if they insisted on one, their radios could be given special certificates that the access towers which made use of frequencies in "their" band could obey, though they would probably neverneed to use them ------------------------------------------- Archives: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
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- Re: FCC sets wireless sale rules David Farber (Aug 01)
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