The real cellphone war.
I really like this article - which describes the real war in the cellphone space.
It is not the one between Apple and Google.
It's a more relevant fight, it affects all of us. The one between the phone-makers and the carriers. Who controls what goes on the device.
http://eliainsider.com/2010/09/14/fi...e-wrong-fight/
It's worth a read.
C.
It is not the one between Apple and Google.
It's a more relevant fight, it affects all of us. The one between the phone-makers and the carriers. Who controls what goes on the device.
http://eliainsider.com/2010/09/14/fi...e-wrong-fight/
Quote:
Why should we care? Because carriers have been standing in the way of excellent user experiences for a long time. For years, Palm and HTC and Nokia and RIM have been kowtowing to the carriers.
Why should we care? Because carriers have been standing in the way of excellent user experiences for a long time. For years, Palm and HTC and Nokia and RIM have been kowtowing to the carriers.
It's worth a read.
C.
Comments
I agree that there is a significant power struggle being waged for control of the pocket computer market sector. The result will have quite an impact on everyday lives. Or at least upon gadgets which everyone will soon carry constantly and use many times a day.
We really should be discussing this more!
My opinion is that consumers would benefit immensely if the carriers lost this battle. Carriers are huge and face less competition. When they're in control, the opportunity for abusing their market position is too ripe. This isn't a slam on anyone or any company in particular. But rather a comment on human nature. I would rather have a group of smaller, competative companies in control of the market for computers in our pockets. Continent-wide infrastructure companies don't fit that description.
At least Apple have wrestled away some of the control carriers had in the mobile space. Nothing seems to happening WRT television content.
Anyway I'm done ranting for now. You can have your thread back.
Now that you mention it, I'm dreaming of a hyper-competitive set-top box market. Imagine, appliance grade media streaming centers from all the major electronics and software companies. If you'd told me a few years ago that the cell phone market would become as competitive as it is now, I'd have said you're crazy. Ive got my fingers crossed for the tv industry. I dontwant it run by massive infrastructure monopolies either.
Hmmm. No responses?
I agree that there is a significant power struggle being waged for control of the pocket computer market sector. The result will have quite an impact on everyday lives. Or at least upon gadgets which everyone will soon carry constantly and use many times a day.
We really should be discussing this more!
My opinion is that consumers would benefit immensely if the carriers lost this battle. Carriers are huge and face less competition. When they're in control, the opportunity for abusing their market position is too ripe. This isn't a slam on anyone or any company in particular. But rather a comment on human nature. I would rather have a group of smaller, competative companies in control of the market for computers in our pockets. Continent-wide infrastructure companies don't fit that description.
I think it's easy to forget just how odd the cellphone carrier market has turned out. We would not tolerate this lack of competition from other products.
If I want to buy a sandwich I have a choice of vendors all the time. If I have one bad experience, I don't go there the next day. If I go to another town, I can use the best sandwich place there.
In the cellphone market we are shackled to one vendor, locked completely to a network for the lifetime of the device. (Unless we travel overseas and then pay extra-ordinary inflated rates.)
The carriers turn device functions (like tethering) off . And then introduce their own branding and software so that cellphone customers can be sold to advertisers. The very notion that carriers should sell and endorse handsets is just as odd as a TV network telling you which brand of TV set you can use. When I was a kid, in the UK, you could not own your own telephone. It had to be rented from the Post Office. Sound familiar?
The practices of the cellphone networks are not just consumer unfriendly... They are a brazenly cynical attempt to prevent market forces from taking hold.
Cellphone carriers really offer one useful service. They move bits without wires. The carriers know what will happen in future. It will become a commodity, virtually free. So they seem determined to do anything to push back that eventuality.
It's quite easy to imagine a handset that could intelligently scan networks, look for the best service or cheapest rates, negotiate a price and place a micro-contract with the best available supplier. This would bring the end to dead-zones. The end to ridiculous roaming charges, and would motivate carriers to build more capacity where service was weak. Carriers would compete to supply coverage, reliability and capacity.
But they *really* don't want this to happen.
C.
I think it's easy to forget just how odd the cellphone carrier market has turned out. We would not tolerate this lack of competition from other products.
...
It's quite easy to imagine a handset that could intelligently scan networks, look for the best service or cheapest rates, negotiate a price and place a micro-contract with the best available supplier. This would bring the end to dead-zones. The end to ridiculous roaming charges, and would motivate carriers to build more capacity where service was weak. Carriers would compete to supply coverage, reliability and capacity.
But they *really* don't want this to happen.
The lack of competition is true of pretty much every market for massive infrastructure.
I love the competitive scenario you're imagining. Now that cellphones are basically full computers, this scenario is actually feasible. When cellular networks were new and phones primitive, it wasn't feasible and perhaps not even desirable. Customer lock-in encouraged network build-out and development of radio technology. And I'm still not sure that new carrier technologies could come about without such lockins. Getting support on handset chips and building the associated network would be difficult without customer lock-in.
But yeah, the current situation sucks. Carriers are abusing their market position, no matter whether the market structure is necessary or not. Either way, it results in a balance of power where carriers are taking advantage of us and charging more than is necessary for the admitedly massive infrastructure they've invested in.
The lack of competition is true of pretty much every market for massive infrastructure.
Depends on the age of the infrastructure.
The monopoly of land-line telephone networks was a given last century. But now the line-rental is pretty cheap, and the calls practically free.
Government has a role in curtailing market abuse. In Europe, it gotten easier to move networks and take your number, and carriers are obliged to unlock handsets.
In fairness, the carriers are entitled to profit from the massive investment they have made. But once they have had a fair chance of earning that back we should clamp-down on the market abuse.
C.
What has made this possible with land lines is the switch to digital switching and sophisticated switching equipment. Water, gas, sewage, roads,etc... Probably will never enjoy the same opportunity.
One major difference with mobile networks is that we are much farther away from reaching a permanently adequate level of service. Until that happens carriers will need to continue building new continent-wide networks. Unfortuantely, fair pricing is hard to determine while this is going on. It is harder to tell the difference between price gouging and funding a new network roll-out.
Water, gas, sewage, roads,etc... Probably will never enjoy the same opportunity.
I might have read that wrong.
In the UK we can easily switch our gas, water and electricity suppliers. Is that not commonplace in the US?
C.
I might have read that wrong.
In the UK we can easily switch our gas, water and electricity suppliers. Is that not commonplace in the US?
C.
In some places you can switch between gas and electric companies, but not all. Good point. To some degree, this is possible with those services as well. Suppliers and consumers can bill on what they put in and take out of a shared infrastructure network. Although we can't measure or track exactly what happens in between. The entire point to point route isn't precisely billable.
With that in mind, a remaining difference is that these services are run on a distributed infrastructure that has reached a level of quality that is essentially "good enough". The gas lines and water lines to our homes and businesses haven't really changed in over a century. Hell, the water service line into my home was over a century old until it ruptured last year. It was solid lead. Not lead lined, but pure lead. Significant build-out or upgrades of existing systems is not needed unless trying to bring service to a new area.
Not that repair or replacement isn't needed every few decades or centuries. However, the repaired or replacement infrastructure isn't any different than what it is replacing. New facilities are needed to feed the infrastructure, but the infrastructure remains largely unchanged. Or at least it really doesn't offer improved service most of the time.
The same won't be true for digital communication systems for quite a long time. We have reached that point for voice calls on land lines, but not for general data communication. The copper phone lines to my home were from the 1940s until 2 years ago when I upgraded to fios. They still had the original party-line separator in the basement, still in-line with the wiring to the pole. 14 gauge, 3 conductor telephone service throughout the home and to the pole!
OK, enough of my rambling. The point I was trying to make is that semi-socialized/heavily-regulated infrastructure, with competing service providers, is more feasible when the underlying infrastructure is static. This is why it is possible with gas, electric, etc. However, mobile phone (wireless data) networks haven't reached that "good-enough" stage yet. Disparate and competing networks are still beneficial. The trade-off is that this results in customer lock-in and carriers abusing their captive customers.