Verizon Embraces Google's Android 148
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Zonk
from the hard-to-hug-a-robot dept.
from the hard-to-hug-a-robot dept.
An anonymous reader writes "BusinessWeek has up an article on Verizon's decision to fully support Android. After passing on the iPhone, the company says they're going to open their network to more devices, move their network to GSM-based radio technology (LTE), and now support Android. 'In an open-access model, though, Verizon Wireless won't offer the same level of customer service as it does for the roughly 50 phone models featured in its handset lineup. Though the company will insist on testing all phones developed to run on its network in the open-access program, Verizon plans only to ensure the wireless connection is working for customers who buy those devices.'"
This is good news (Score:5, Interesting)
LTE is especially good news. It's an open standard, it similar underlying technologies to WiMAX and like WiMAX is all-IP - you can run any protocol over it you can run over the Internet, because your LTE device is an Internet connected terminal. Unlike WiMAX various protocols are standardized on top of it, so an LTE "phone" is still charge up, and plug in the SIM card, and go in much the same way as a GSM phone is today.
It's going to be hard for me to shake my impression of Verizon as a bunch of psychotic control freaks: maybe the Vodafone influence is finally having an affect. It'll be nice to have a third national operator with a genuinely open network that's worth considering. Being stuck with two GSM operators, one stuck with poor spectrum, the other barely giving a rats-ass about quality of service, sucks.
A Java-ish success? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This is good news (Score:2, Interesting)
You know what's a better way to get me to sign up? (Score:3, Interesting)
Verizon's Data-Plan is 80 per month base (with no option for not buying voice time), versus T Mobile's 40 a month (with no Voice plan). That doesn't include the use of wifi spots, which comes standard for t-mobile but is extra on Verizon. I'm an open-source guy, but I'll take a locked proprietary phone that works as a bluetooth modem for my (soon to own, hopefully) Nokia n810 over a google android phone on an open network any day of the week, when it's going to cost me 40 less a month.
Re:Ok, I get it now... (Score:3, Interesting)
That applies the other way around, too. I heard a fellow just yesterday mention the heavy metal band "Queen-Sryche"
Re:Ingenious corporate spin (Score:4, Interesting)
So, who's to say if "the internet connection is working" - the customer? Comcast? the computer itself? Windows/Linux support? Makes sense to me, we deal with this all the time! Would you rather that ISP's sold rigorously tested locked down PCs that they could give customer support on? Or would you rather that connection and your computer remained separate, so you contact them when your internet SERVICE doesn't work, and contact the computer/application developers for support when the device doesn't work.
I think the problem is that people are so used to being fucked by phone companies, its hard to see how things should be. Ideally, service should be completely separate from the device. Yes, you would now have to trust two different entities, the service company for connectivity and the device maker for a robust device, but we seem to do this just fine with TV and computers.
It looks like they are trying to move away from the locked down phones for greedy reasons, but if it works out that way its better for us. If they are actually doing this, I see it as a good thing for competition and the abysmal situation in the US for cell service. Whether or not they actually go through with it only time will tell
Re:CDMA and GSM protocol support (Score:3, Interesting)
UMTS has caught on with most GSM operators - their major issue isn't any "forklift" upgrade (I think you're saying a switch to an entirely unrelated technology, but that's not the case, the upper levels of GSMv2 and UMTS are very similar) but the spectrum issues it has coupled with regulatory challenges. W-CDMA and TD-CDMA, the two major UMTS air interfaces, require 5 MHz of spectrum in either direction to work properly which has been a problem for US operators as many only have 5MHz of spectrum in various markets. Of the two major US operators, AT&T is in the process of rolling it out anyway as AT&T has huge amounts of spectrum in most markets; and T-Mobile is waiting on the FCC to hand over the AWS (2100/1700MHz) spectrum it won last year. Outside of the US, most operators aren't allowed to run UMTS on anything but 3G spectrum. Most have bid on 3G spectrum and won some, and have rolled out UMTS networks.
CDMA2000 to LTE will be a major change, but no more a major change than AMPS/D-AMPS to GSM, something AT&T Wireless and Cingular did at the beginning of the decade - in fact, it's an extremely similar switch over, from 1G versions of the TIA standards to 2G GSM for Cingular; from 2-3G versions of the TIA standards to 4G GSM for Verizon. It'll probably work better for Verizon than it did Cingular because OFDMA and CDMA have similar characteristics when it comes to spectrum usage and cell size/location requirements, something that wasn't true of D-AMPS vs GSM.