Making Sense of the Cellphone Landscape 185
Charlie Stross has a blog post up that tries to make sense of the mobile phone market and where it's going: where Apple, Google, and the cellcos fit in, and what the point of Google's Nexus One may be. "Becoming a pure bandwidth provider is every cellco's nightmare: it levels the playing field and puts them in direct competition with their peers, a competition that can only be won by throwing huge amounts of capital infrastructure at their backbone network. So for the past five years or more, they've been doing their best not to get dragged into a game of beggar-my-neighbor, by expedients such as exclusive handset deals... [Google intends] to turn 3G data service (and subsequently, LTE) into a commodity, like Wi-Fi hotspot service only more widespread and cheaper to get at. They want to get consumers to buy unlocked SIM-free handsets and pick cheap data SIMs. They'd love to move everyone to cheap data SIMs rather than the hideously convoluted legacy voice stacks maintained by the telcos; then they could piggyback Google Voice on it, and ultimately do the Google thing to all your voice messages as well as your email and web access. (This is, needless to say, going to bring them into conflict with Apple. ... Apple are an implicit threat to Google because Google can't slap their ads all over [the App and iTunes stores]. So it's going to end in handbags at dawn... eventually.)"
I Just Did... (Score:5, Interesting)
All in the data (Score:5, Interesting)
Pretty soon, we'll be buying phones with data plans and the voice plan will be optional (if needed at all).
All we need is Google to get their phones coming with a VOIP client as standard. Big unique selling point that no matter what network, or if you're not even on a network but just have wireless at home/work/in car/train/plane, you can make/receive calls.
Using phone numbers and keeping a local phonebook of addresses makes as much sense as using IP numbers in a browser to get to a website. Google providing their DNS to allow new services to be added like this was another one of the steps needed to be done. Google Voice is a stopgap, their newly acquisitioned VOIP stuff is the next step.
Shortly, it'll be standard to call someone using an email address and the data-networks will route as needed to their phone/home/business.
Re:I Just Did... (Score:1, Interesting)
What does the 10 bucks get you exactly?
Unlimited 24 hours a day calling nationwide? Any restrictions?
Re:I Just Did... (Score:3, Interesting)
How often do you call 'nationwide'?
Not a fun conclusion... (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's one reason for the Nexus One that I haven't seen yet.
Google wants it's employees to use Android and test new versions and be inspired to come up with interesting applications. The best way to do this is to give all your employees phones. If you're doing that, you might as well come up with a cool phone. It's not like Google doesn't have the money to do this.
So, no, there's no ulterior motive about breaking the cellphone companies' grip on the market. There's no plan to sell it through T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon, or even Mosaic telecom [mosaictelecom.com]. All there is a phone that Google can give to their employees for testing and being creative with. That's it.
I know, I know. It's far more fun to believe that these corporations are doing all of these things as a battle that we can sit back and enjoy. But the reality is usually far more mundane.
Re:All in the data (Score:5, Interesting)
When I call up the phone app on the n900, the menu asks what typr of call I want to make:
cell
skype (dial out minutes required)
google talk (to some ones computer)
sip (I have a gizmo5 account liked to my google voice number)
The N900 can also get incoming calls from any of those, and treats them the same as a cellular call.
If I wanted to pay moe at Skype for a call in number, it would handle that to. All of these work over 3G or WLAN.
It is seamless to the user.
what if ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Awesome.... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's too hard due to the land size.
Whereas in Europe or the Middle East, you can establish a network with 100% population coverage quite easily, the same size network in Australia wouldn't cover a single state.
Same goes for broadband networks. It's too hard which is why nobody has ever really competed with Telstra.
Re:Buzzwords! Buzzwords! Buzzosphere! (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought of this also when I was reading TFA. The Internet tears down all garden walls, AOL is only the most obvious example.
The Internet tore down the walled garden of every BBS that ever existed, and the operators were glad of it for the most part.
It's tearing down the MAFIAA's walled garden of distribution. Movie studios dislike NetFlix and they hate Red Box. The music cartel really doesn't like iTunes, but they tolerate it because they get a cut. And they all despise The Pirate Bay, et al.
The Internet is tearing down Microsoft's walled garden of software (which is what they mean when they say "ecosystem"). Don't like Windows? Go download any of a handful of BSD's or several dozen Linux distros. And you get the opportunity to make better whichever you choose.
(Which is why I laugh every time I see a Win7 commercial... MS is actually touting the fact that Win7 wasn't their idea. Now, about that monolithic kernel...)
Re:Not a fun conclusion... (Score:4, Interesting)
Your theory does not jibe with Google's involvement with the FCC spectrum bidding a year or two ago.
Remember how they lobbied to get extra conditions imposed as a contingency for licensing?
They only got a watered down version of what they wanted, but it was still enough that the spectrum licensee had to accept 3rd party devices on their network. Devices just like an unlocked phone from some company other than the telco.
Re:I Just Did... (Score:4, Interesting)
Tmobile has an "unlimited web for phones" for $9.99/mo. It's intended for non-smartphones, basically so you can browse the web on normal phones' tiny screens, or use a Google Maps app. But it can also, apparently, be used with unlocked smartphones, like the N900, that have no way of enforcing a specific premium data plan. Judging by forum chatter, people with jailbroken iPhones are also successfully using the $10/mo plan.
Apple's patents pre-emptive? (Score:4, Interesting)
Remember the Apple patent enforcing ad viewing [slashdot.org] or the Apple patent on OS advertising [slashdot.org]?
Google is known for its advertising business, and has been putting ads everywhere. Eric Schmidt was on Apple's board from 2006 to 2009, when he resigned (or was forced out?) due to Google's entering "more of Apple's core business" with Chrome and Android. The new, unlocked, Google phone has plenty of speculation surrounding it, but one of the more interesting bits was that it could show up in two forms: (1) expensive, not subsidized, and (2) cheap, with advertising subsidizing it somehow, perhaps forced ad viewing or something?
Given Schmidt's time on the board, I wonder if he deliberately or inadvertently revealed any of these plans, or if Apple found itself aware of these plans through some other means. Regardless, if Apple has a patent on OS-level ad displays and/or forced ad viewing on a device, it would seem that they would be in a position to try and extract money from Google if they go forward with an ad-subsidized phone.
So now this begs the questions: Was Apple's patents on these concepts the result of information about Google's upcoming plans (either acquired legitimately or otherwise), or were they plans they had for a device of their own? Tough to say.
Personally I'm all for the carriers to be reduced to a conduit provider only. It's about time too. If they all had to compete as nearly identical providers of bandwidth instead of a myriad of services, then perhaps we'd see some improvements in the network quality. In fact, they'd have a lot more network capacity if they'd deliver one type of service instead of fragmenting it between different technologies. A friend and I often lament the poor audio quality people have come to expect from wrieless phones now that we are 100% digital. Sure there's no more "static" - but audio quality has suffered to get there.
I'm hopeful LTE will improve things - though I'm not holding my breath for it. It's going to be an expensive network upgrade that won't happen overnight. Sprint is banking on wimax and outsourcing their network, Verizon is claiming latter half 2010 for LTE. And along the way comes Google's Android and the exclusivity of the iPhone on AT&T nearing expiration (was it renewed? last I read it was all talk but I didn't see anything come from it), perhaps we'll finally have some heavy hitters that can break the carrier strangleholds. Should be interesting if they can.
Re:Buzzwords! Buzzwords! Buzzosphere! (Score:3, Interesting)
Not really. Apple's relationship with the music industry (and, to a large extent, their handling of iPhone apps) is more like Volvo's relationship to the petroleum industry... if the entire petroleum industry had failed, in spectacular fashion, to come up with a workable means of delivering gasoline to consumers, had spent half a decade suing anyone who tried to deliver gasoline to consumers, and then Volvo had stepped in and opened the Volvo Gas Store. Apple started selling music online because the RIAA wouldn't, not because they wanted to compete with music retailers - although it certainly didn't hurt that the music industry morons accidentally gave Apple enough pricing power to made 99-cent tracks the new sales model.
In other words, Apple is in the business of selling hardware; the music is just a commodity to them, and their only purpose in selling it is to drive more sales of Apple hardware. On the internet bandwidth is already a pure commodity, and Apple's music store is no danger of fading into oblivion: If anything the opposite is true and Apple is dominating online music sales, again thanks to the music industry morons who gave Apple an insurmountable lead (and made the even dumber mistake of allowing DRM that locked the music to the Apple hardware, but that's another story).
It's also telling that iPhone apps quickly raced to the bottom of the pricing scale: If a 99-cent app delivers more than a dollar's worth of value to the customer, then the app has effectively added value to the phone, and Apple pockets the difference in increased hardware sales. If AT&T Wireless became a pure-bandwidth provider, the only thing Apple would do is to stop turning away apps AT&T doesn't like - Skype, Google Voice, Slingbox, etc. - and let those apps add value to the phone as well.
The only thing that might endanger Apple's walled-garden approach to selling iPhone apps would be a competitor with a wide-open app store that attracted more developers, led to more interesting apps, and threatened to reduce the value that third-party apps currently deliver to the iPhone. The Nexus One is a signal that Google wants to go there (and, in passing, that Verizon and other carriers will fight tooth and nail to prevent opening their networks), but the most likely outcome here is pressure on Apple to make their app rejection policies more transparent and developer-friendly.
So I don't think there's a scenario where Apple's music and app stores fade into oblivion, even if wireless bandwidth becomes a commodity - again, bandwidth is already a commodity on the wired internet, and both the music store and the iPod Touch are thriving.
We need a Debian Atp-Get model for phones (Score:3, Interesting)
Google really needs to rip off Apt and Synaptics and make a version for their phones. All the way. Not only do they need to make multiple version specific repositories (and tested, don't let Debian and its ability to break stable regularly set to much of an example). The ability of users to add custom repositories for our apps that Google wont stamp with approval would be nice as well. We really need the carriers and their inability to do anything but lump surcharges on top of crap out of the way.
Re:We need a Debian Atp-Get model for phones (Score:3, Interesting)
I had Lenny installed before it became stable. All was good. When Lenny became stable, I kept it. They decided to do a "patch" on the firewire drivers. My Firewire quit working.
My sound worked perfectly on Lenny and for that matter Etch when I first installed it. There was yet another update that broke my sound. If I jacked with that for an hour or two I could get it to work, in a few programs, but then it would break again after a reboot or two. (I actually shut my laptop down when I'm not using it)
On another machine the "going stable rush" caused a package cram that broke testing so bad I couldn't fix my system in any easily seen manner, so, considering the way I kept /home as a completely separate drive I decided to just reinstall stable from the standard web install disk. THEY HAD BROKE STABLE SO BAD I COULDN'T INSTALL IT.
I personally thing Debian is the absolute best Linux distro out there. I used to use Testing as my normal distro (whichever testing that happened to be at the time) but I got tired of battling broken packages and things getting merged in that weren't quite ready. I understood that's what testing was for so I decided to just stick with stable. Stable did it also - using my firewire and sound as an example. I'm rather good at troubleshooting. If I can't figure something out, I'll shotgun it, do a complete package removal, even config files, then I'll go into my ~ and delete local configs. If it's bad enough I'll do complete remove even on dependent packages even if it means X is no longer on my system by the time I'm done. This is how I got my sound to work half assed again.
Every time I hit "mark all upgrades" it's a game of Russian roulette. I don't want to just not mark all upgrades occasionally, security reasons, holes get fixed and I really would like a more up to date browser or something on occasion. My current laptop has pretty standard Centrino hardware, it's a Toshiba Tecra A5. I have Kubuntu on it right now and it's working great. I seriously don't like Ubuntu, it's a good OS, I recommend it to beginners, but to me it feels like I'm back to using training wheels. I can fix almost any problem I run into and I can look online for known fixes if I can't figure it out for myself, but developer name calling and squabbles show up in the end product all to often of Debian. Most of the downstream distros use the working packages and mix versions that eliminate most of the internal Debian squabbles, which unfortunately once a borked package goes out on Debian it tends to stay broke for quite a while. (use ZSNES for an example)
As for the Apt reference, I was talking about concept, not code. I knew the code wouldn't work.
One last note, I certainly am not a Red Hat fan.
Not just Nokia (Score:3, Interesting)
Hear hear. I was thinking - an article written as if Apple and Google are the only phone companies? And believes the myth that the Iphone is a "runaway hit"? (Actual market share figures disagree.)
TFA only mentions Symbian briefly, dismissing them as you say, on the grounds that they are losing share. Well yes - at 40% market share, I'd expect over time that to lower as other companies enter. That doesn't mean Apple are remotely near overtaking them. And anyhow, even if they want to focus on the newcomers - where on earth are RIM/Blackberry, who are also ahead of Apple?
It talks about "Version 1" of 3G - but my old 3G feature phone from 2005 had full unrestricted access to the Internet (including tethering). I do agree that ultimately, phone companies need to transform themselves into mobile Internet providors, but it's clear that we're heading in that direction anyway, and I don't see why Apple are so special in this. Indeed, I hope Apple don't play a strong part of this - if they become dominant, then our 2019 mobile Internet, even if it's an open Internet, will only be available on a locked down platform where all software needs Apple approval to run. How is that an improvement?
I agree it doesn't make sense to always restricting the market to only smartphones. It's not just that they're a minority of the market, but it's also so ill-defined. Anyone: why was my old 3G phone that could do Internet and run any applications a non-smartphone, yet Apple's original Iphone, which didn't have 3G, can only run Apple-approved applications, and didn't even support basic features like copy/paste, considered a smartphone? More generally, give me a definition that includes the Iphone, but doesn't include most "feature" phones?
It's not just Nokia - Samsung, LG, Motorola are all companies that have bigger market share, yet you hardly ever hear about them.