EU Commissioner Wants Standard For Mobile Phone Connectors 374
Jantastic writes "European Commissioner Günter Verheugen wants manufacturers of mobile phones to come up with a standard connector for chargers and microphones. If companies fail to do so, proposed legislation should speed up this process. In theory, this could improve competition, while enabling longer life cycles for these devices."
USB? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:USB? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like a good idea. You just need to get the manufacturer's to do that.
Which is never going to happen without regulation, as they make a decent amount of money selling magical cables and power bricks.
I have only seen one phone with a real standard (not "let's put 2.5V across the data lines for incompatibility purposes" or "requires a special driver on the computer to bestow it's blessing to charge the phone" or other such nonsense) USB connection.
Restoring the balance (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a typical case where pure laissez-faire capitalism can go against the best interests of the consumer. It reminds me of the personal computer industry of the early 1980s, dominated by proprietary, overpriced, non-interoperable components. IBM moved in with its PC and blew the field wide open, paving the way for today's mix-and-match technology.
Today, we need the same thing for cellphones. Given manufacturers' unwillingness to standardise on a connection interface, and given the lack of a massive IBM-like industry giant willing to push an open standard, there is a case for legislative intervention to come up with a freely published and accessible interface.
The cellphone industry would soar ahead if there was an ISO standard for connection of peripherals, power sources and accessories.
Re:Sounds good to me (Score:1, Insightful)
I think so. It's just another instance of regulations of consumer products. It does generally sound good, but what about regulation of other parts of the phone? I see no reason why I can't make a phone that uses whatever charger I want (presuming I'm a cell phone company). So what if nobody uses it, that's not the government's business. Or, in this case, the EU.
Next, let's regulate how much bandwidth any given individual can use at any given period of time. It will make it more convenient for anyone sharing the bandwidth. Or, more similar to this case, let's limit the amount of bandwidth a company can *give* so that it levels the playing field, creates more competition, etc. That way, small company can offer just as good an offer as big company! Better competition! All we need is the EU to regulate that, and boom! Hm. Because we have seen how effective the EU is at stuff like that (like... regulating browser packaging?)
Re:Restoring the balance (Score:4, Insightful)
Creeping along is more profitable than soaring ahead.
USA Competition! (Score:5, Insightful)
Man, it's a good thing here in the U.S. we don't have any overzealous regulator deciding what kinds of power adapters we should have on mobile phones. Here in the U.S. every vendor decides to make their own unique adapter, with their own unique configuration, and their own labelling, and their own connector, so that we have to have the latest power adapter for every phone every time we upgrade.
Looking over the dozens of adapters I've had to buy over the years, it's great that I can have such a variety of choices. Each of these dozen products clearly demonstrates competition at work. In fact, some companies compete so hard they don't even put the name of the phone on the power adapter, so even though the connectors look alike I have to doublecheck all their UL listings to see which one applies to each phone so I don't burn it out every time I plug it in!
What's great is that, now, some vendors are even creating better lock-in techniques. Some USB adapters I have work on some phones and some devices but not on others. Some old adapters fit perfectly but produce error messages on other devices. As a result I have an awesome drawer filled with tons of high-end technology and I get to sift through it to find the advanced technology I need to run my phone.
The best part is that, if I forget my adapter, the company makes tons of profits on selling after-market power adapters! They make so much money on those $30 aftermarket adapters that they can afford to drop their prices elsewhere! That's why I pay $150 per month for my cellphone service when most poor Europeans pay a few dozen Euros each month for their highly regulated mobile phones.
Living without regulation is really the best way to go. I mean, my mobile phone company charges $15 per month for unlimited text messages, and their profits are so good I get all sorts of benefits from working with them! So many benefits that I can't list them all here.
Re:USB? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Restoring the balance (Score:3, Insightful)
Then why don't they do it without legislation?
Because the profit margins on accessory power supplies are huge. By constantly reinventing the wheel the phone manufacturers ensure constant demand for these products. In recent years, however, this proprietary game has become somewhat of a losing battle for them now that there dozens of Chinese companies putting out off brand supplies with compatible connectors.
Re:Sad! Another misplaced priority (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey man, I would like to open MS Office 2007 documents with any office suite of my choice with 100% fidelity. Got it?
Re:USB? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's getting that way, but if the legislators get hold of it they'll probably define yet another new and unnecessary standard instead of something sensible like that.
Re:Didn't China already do this? - Yes (Score:1, Insightful)
It's a way for the EU to get the same standard that the Chinese government forced the mobile industry to adopt into the EU
Re:Restoring the balance (Score:5, Insightful)
Quote:
"This is a typical case where pure laissez-faire capitalism can go against the best interests of the consumer. It reminds me of the personal computer industry of the early 1980s, dominated by proprietary, overpriced, non-interoperable components. IBM moved in with its PC and blew the field wide open, paving the way for today's mix-and-match technology."
Skuze me?!?!?
Wasn't that a clear cut case of laissez-faire capitalism to the rescue? Did some government body force IBM to open their platform?
If you are going to rant against a particular system (what ever it may be) don't use a crowning example of the success of said system in the same paragraph.
Re:USA Competition! (Score:5, Insightful)
Your sarcastic comment would be funny, if it weren't sadly true.
Re:USB? (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, can anyone *please* explain what possible reasoning might lie behind EICTA's Tony Graziano statement that Verheugen's demand is "legally and technically impossible" due to differences in voltage and battery requirements within the European Union? Seriously. Inquiring minds want to know! I have a USB wall wart with a modular mains connector that you just snap the appropriate plug onto and that handles just about any input voltage you care to chuck at it and it has the EU stamp of approval on it, so I think it's absolutely legally and technically possible.
Re:USB? (Score:3, Insightful)
It could be Mini-A instead of Mini-B, or it could be Micro-A or Micro-B, or maybe USB-OTG Mini-AB or Micro-AB.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#Mini_and_micro [wikipedia.org]
Re:USB? (Score:5, Insightful)
The somehow, being the question
By issuing an ultimatum.
When you remove the sugarcoating the european commisioners message seems to basically boil down to "we can do this the easy way or the hard way, agree a standard among yourselves or we will come up with one and ram it down your throat"
Re:USB? (Score:5, Insightful)
You can get cells with their own special USB connectors (like iPod/iPhones).
Then it's not a USB connector, is it?
It's just a random proprietary connector and you just happen to get a USB lead with it.
Apple adapter (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Restoring the balance (Score:3, Insightful)
Sometimes, they most certainly do.
Occasionally in a "best for the company's bottom line" sense. Check out the role of government in Japan's recovery after WWII; their corporations won big, and a lot of that was due to government-encouraged (or enforced) cooperation and collaboration. The Ministry of International Trade and Industry [wikipedia.org] was the key player, if you're interested.
More often, a government knows better in a "best for the consumer and general welfare of the economy" sense, or in a "best for encouraging competition" sense. Standardization of things like this greases the wheels of the free market, and brings its mechanisms to bear on the products and corporations in question. After all, what's the point of free-market capitalism if not using the power of competition to improve our lives? Standardization of common parts like this removes inefficiency from the system, encourage competition, and brings down prices. Not exactly a controversial concept.
It's not so much that the government knows better, as that they have different priorities and the power to mandate that those priorities are respected. I'm sure many of the people in the corporations know that these things are possible, but they don't care to do them on their own for various reasons.
Re:just when you thought... (Score:3, Insightful)
Everyone in Europe has heard of SCART. Every DVD player, VCR, satellite box, DTV box, and TV I've ever seen in Europe has a SCART socket (or multiple). What's the problem? It's only like requiring a standard kind of socket for the 230V outlets in your room.
I'd be surprised if the EU doesn't adopt mini-USB.
If they do, there's no technical reason not to do the same for the rest of the world.
Re:USB? (Score:5, Insightful)
But your looking at it from the wrong side. You did not need to purchase two additional cables that cost a few pennies to make, and sell for $10-$25, in addition to car chargers, international chargers, etc. That's why the industry is dragging its feet.
Too many stupid extra cables (Score:5, Insightful)
If anything that the last 30 years of failed american de-regulation have taught us, is that not all government regulations are bad. The mantra that government regulations are bad because they are from the government is silly. You can have smart government, just like you can have dumb government. You can have a smart company, or a dumb company. Regulations aren't there to promote smart or dumb companies. They are just there to encourage companies to be good, while not allowing evil companies to take advantage of consumers, resources, and labor for gains that hurt the populace as a whole.
The rights of a company should not outweight the rights of a consumer when it comes to choice. Right now, I have no choice. If I want a new phone, almost invariably I have to pay for new cables. That has never not happened. I had a cheesy crappy nokia back in 1998, then the palmphone and two treos, and finally an iphone. Even when switching between treos I had to get new cables, phones from the same damn company! That's not a choice, that's a lack of a choice.
Also, considering all those extra cables take up resources to make, and people are probably not properly recycling them, I have an interest in keeping those extras out of landfills. Companies in the US haven't done a good job of telling me where I can recycle them for free.
Of course, there are counter arguments to this, but there's no reason to be dismissing this as "regulation=bad". That era is dead, let it go. The only reason why we aren't in a full depression now is because of government regulations and programs enacted after the great depression which benefit consumers and US citizens.
Re:Sounds good to me (Score:3, Insightful)
It's just another instance of regulations of consumer products. It does generally sound good, but what about regulation of other parts of the phone?
We already have tons of regulations about other parts of the the phone from the standard phone jack to 911 capabilities to FCC allowed frequencies. It seems to be helping.
I see no reason why I can't make a phone that uses whatever charger I want (presuming I'm a cell phone company).
It's that parenthetical that makes me disagree with you. As an individual you have the natural right to make any kind of phone you want. You could even argue that as a small business you can apply those individual rights... provided you don't take advantage of any of the benefits the government confers to small businesses. As a corporation, however, you have no rights beyond what are granted by the government for the good of the people. As a corporation, if you're not benefitting the people when we see fit to regulate you, what incentive to we have to allow you patents, trademarks or copyrights? What incentive do we even have to have the police investigate if people break into your office and take your corporation's possessions? How does spending those tax dollars and inconveniencing citizens help us at all?
Next, let's regulate how much bandwidth any given individual can use at any given period of time.
You see, there you're touching upon individual rights. As a person, you have unalienable, natural rights the government is restricted from messing with. Businesses, especially corporations, however, are not individuals (no matter if they manage to get laws granting them some similar rights).
Or, more similar to this case, let's limit the amount of bandwidth a company can *give* so that it levels the playing field, creates more competition, etc. That way, small company can offer just as good an offer as big company! Better competition!
I think you've completely failed to understand how competition is beneficial and why it is often touted as important to the economy.
All we need is the EU to regulate that, and boom!
In principal, there is no reason the EU should not regulate how much bandwidth a company can offer, assuming they see benefit to society in so doing. I just don't see such benefit and I doubt they do either.
Because we have seen how effective the EU is at stuff like that (like... regulating browser packaging?)
Actually, the EU's competition laws have done a great deal of good in recent years and is a heck of a lot nicer to get a cell phone and plan there than in the states. Your comment about regulating "browser packaging" however makes me lose what little confidence I had in your ability to understand economics or law. The EU has never regulated browser packaging nor proposed to do so. The EU is prosecuting a criminal where as part of the punishment that criminal may or may not be ordered to change how it packages its browser. That's "browser packaging" regulation in the same way that sending a thief to prison is "housing regulations".
Re:USB? (Score:4, Insightful)
But the point of the article is that the industry DIDN'T offer any uniform solution. How much longer should we have to wait?
It's for *mobile* phones. (Score:3, Insightful)
maximum power draw of 500 mA @ 5V? {...} Charging takes too damned long already.
Huh... sorry, what do you plan charging that requires 10A on 5V ? A (non-netbook) laptop ? A portable oven ? An arc welder ?
Read again the title.
They want standard data & charge for *mobile* cell phone. For these small candy-bar sized electronic device, which can charge at 500mA for a couple of hours, and which consider 1A as "mad lightning fast turbo charging OMGBBQFTW !!!"
Most phone are quite happy with 500mA and provide 1A only as a convenience for super-impatient users.
If your current monster requires 5A to be able to charge in less than 2 days, maybe you should try considering buying gadgets which are a little bit more energy efficient. The environment will be grateful.
Re:USB? (Score:1, Insightful)
Meanwhile, Firewire was invented precisely for this scenario. It's peer-to-peer, so there's a bit of overhead implementing a hardware host on each device, but that costs a big fat $0.05 per device to do. The benefits far outweigh the drawbacks in that the bus carries 500mA for any device that wants it and can connect to the power pins. Mini-FW connectors lack those power pins in some cases (but not all).
So,
Pros: designed to do this task, cheap to implement, not restrictive and poorly designed like USB, way the hell faster than USB for data transfer (not that anyone seems to care anymore)
Cons: not as cheap as USB, not as universal as USB (dumb people will try to cram the connector into a USB socket, just watch), requires a slightly rarer connector to be "mini" and still carry power (but it's still in the spec)
Re:USA Competition! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:They need to do this for auto components (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason alternators aren't standardized is because you rarely have to work directly with them. If you had to replace your alternator and battery if you wanted a new radio head unit, you better believe people would be up in arms.
Re:USA Competition! (Score:3, Insightful)
Europe is far away from dreamland though.
Every manufacturer has its own transformer and connector so you can't interchange them. Nokia itself changed almost a dozen different types of connectors in the last 10 years (as did others too). Finally they settled (I hope so) on micro-usb connectors for charging and computer tethering. But they only did this because Chinese authorities decided that all mobile phone connectors should be micro-usb. As the Chinese market is too large to ignore, Nokia had to change their connectors to micro-usb.
Re:USB? (Score:4, Insightful)
If nokia does it then everyone will...
Every nokia phone I've had has had a different charger connector that didn't work with the other nokia phones. Every non-nokia phone I've had (OK, with the exception of one sony/erikson one) has used a mini-usb connector for both data and charging.
Re:USB? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I agree that it would be bad for a government to regulate this as a standard, because most governments have proven to be spectacularly poor with most standards. Strangely enough, this is a place where the United States actually does OK, I think. Rather than try to create industry standards, they will usually pass standards applicable only on federal government purchased products, such as with Defense department contracts or GAO purchases. If any manufacturer wanting to sell 100,000 phones to Uncle Sam is required to use mini-USB for charging and headphones, the chances are good they'll put mini-USB on their consumer models as well, as a part of the economies of scale.
But I do think this is a case where the free market just isn't working. For example, me. I'm buying Motorola products partly because they follow a useful (to me) standard. That's exactly how the free market is supposed to drive decisions like this.
The bigger problem is I'm backing a dying horse. Motorola has been struggling as a mobile phone maker ever since the RAZR lost its dominant seat. Mini-USB connectors aren't enough when the rest of the features are blown away by the iPhone, Android, or Symbian offering, or by some other manufacturer's lowball pricing. And quite frankly, the Motorola apps are pretty awful (except for the MOTOMAGX linux system, and even that has bugs.) There's a giant pile of competing features and attributes, and connector standardization just isn't going to be the deal breaker for most people.
Re:USB? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Restoring the balance (Score:3, Insightful)
OK, I'm going to ignore the "have you stopped beating your wife?"-esqueness of this question, though rest assured I had a nice counter-snark prepared involving post-Reconquista Spain, among other things :)
Rather than respond in kind, let my attempt to address this head-on:
I don't think you're looking at the whole picture; the actions of a bunch of individuals within a system (their generation of a certain kind of economic demand, for instance) do not necessarily reflect their actual desires--they reflect their (hopefully rational) reactions to the circumstances they are placed in. This is precisely what the story of the Tragedy of the Commons [wikipedia.org] is about; obviously, anyone in the story who realizes that the commons is being ruined will want use of it to be regulated, however, in absence of regulation their best choice is to go ahead and use it as much as they can. The details of the story itself are obviously poor analogues to what we're talking about, but the core idea of desires running counter to economic actions is exactly the same.
It is entirely possible that the vast majority of people want standardization of the chargers, but are lacking an economic incentive to make an individual choice supporting standardization. Especially given that much of the benefit of buying a phone that uses some kind of standard charger style is absent without widespread or universal use of said charger, this strikes me as being very likely. Will the market sort it out eventually despite this? Maybe. But we can certainly sort it out now.
A more serious discussion would be one over whether this is the proper role of government or not--and on an example this trivial, the argument against it would not be without reason. Arguing that that governmental intervention in business must necessarily be contrary to public desire (as surely people would have simply "voted with their dollars" if they wanted otherwise), on the other hand, is more than a bit silly, as I suspect (and hope) you knew when you asked the above-quoted question.
Re:USB? (Score:3, Insightful)
My razr can only charge from its own charger or off-brand chargers designed for it. If I try to use my blackberry charger with the exact same usb plug, it says something about it being an invalid charger. Both phones charge just fine from a USB port so they are definately using standard voltages. The razr however needs a driver to be installed on windows before it will actually charge (sucks if you don't have admin rights) but this may be a windows issue rather than motorola.
Re:USB? (Score:2, Insightful)
Do you have clue about how many iPods exist on planet?
You actually prove my point. One of the few times Apple loosened up (by licensing a spec to 3rd party manufacturers), the basic quality and design of the product (here the ipod) is allowed to tramp all over the competition. Imagine what could have been in the sphere of personal computing if they'd allowed Mac clones to continue...
Re:USB? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Conflicted goals? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't get it... how can the same commission that calls for doubling copyright to a ridiculous 95 years also recommend a good-for-the-rest-of-us standard like this? It seems like this commission has some rather conflicted or confused goals and motivations.
It's quite simple, really:
1) Nobody has bribed them to keep mobile phone connectors proprietary and incompatible with each other.
2) Politicians use mobile phones themselves. A lot. They're personally annoyed by having to keep track of the different cables and connectors. They're not annoyed by having to pay a bunch of money to buy copies of 90-year-old works, because they have a bunch of money and aren't interested in doing any of the cool things that can only be done with works in the public domain or released under a free license (Creative Commons etc.).
Re:USB? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:USB? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not only did the last charger I bought cost 1/10th the price of one bought from the Verizon store, but it's build quality actually felt better than the name brand one. So far, it's lasted longer also.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)