FCC To Probe Exclusive Mobile Deals 159
On Tuesday, we discussed news that four US Senators would be looking into the exclusivity deals between carriers and cell phone makers. Apparently, they didn't like what they heard. Reader Ian Lamont writes with an update:
"The Federal Communications Commission is planning on launching an investigation into exclusive handset deals between mobile carriers and handset makers. In a speech on Thursday, acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps said the agency 'should determine whether some of these arrangements adversely restrict consumer choice or harm the development of innovative devices, and it should take appropriate action if it finds harm.' It's not hard to imagine who might be targeted — at a separate Senate Committee on Commerce hearing on Thursday, much of the discussion centered on AT&T's exclusive deal to carry the iPhone. AT&T claimed 'consumers benefit from exclusive deals in three ways: innovation, lower cost and more choice,' but carriers and senators from states with large rural populations disagreed, saying that their customers had no choice when it came to the iPhone — it's not available because AT&Ts network doesn't reach these areas. One panelist also brought up the Carterfone precedent (PDF), which concerned an 'electrical acoustic coupling device' that a man named Tom Carter developed in the 1950s to let field workers make phone calls using a radio transceiver connected to AT&T's phone network. AT&T, which was then a monopoly, claimed no foreign devices could be connected to its network, but lost when it challenged the Carterfone in court. The result spurred innovation such as the fax machine."
So what I'm hearing is... (Score:5, Funny)
Four Senators want iPhones but don't want to leave Verizon...
As with everything, until it inconveniences a Senator directly they don't see it as a problem
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I'm very glad this was the first (significant) post. Thank you, good sir.
Re:So what I'm hearing is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Suggested mod: +5, Sad but true.
What needs to happen is some senators need to get cancer, and have their insurance company deny coverage based on them mis-reporting their weight 15 years prior. We'll see some shit change real damn fast when that finally happens.
Re:So what I'm hearing is... (Score:5, Insightful)
If there's one thing the insurance companies would never be stupid enough to do, and that's screw with someone from Congress.
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If there's one thing the insurance companies would never be stupid enough to do, and that's screw with someone from Congress.
Never underestimate the power of sheer bloody stupidity!
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They don't pay for insurance coverage... it's just free medical care with highly prioritized and preferential treatment. That's one of the big problems with healthcare -- legislators never see the problem because they never experience it and those who have quickly forget it once they enter that arena.
Senators do get some pretty nasty health problems if you will recall.
Agreed (Score:5, Interesting)
They don't pay for insurance coverage... it's just free medical care with highly prioritized and preferential treatment. That's one of the big problems with healthcare -- legislators never see the problem because they never experience it and those who have quickly forget it once they enter that arena
Which is why we if we want the health care problem solved, one essential step will probably be insisting legislators and their staff have no access to any kind of group health care policy.
Mind you some of them are probably well off enough this wouldn't be a particular inconvenience, but the staff thing ought to do it.
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Re:So what I'm hearing is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is why Congress has a (publicly funded) medical plan, the likes of which the insurance industry will fight to keep away from the rest of us.
We need a law that says: Members of Congress gets the worst plan/deal/discount available.
So, what you're saying, (Score:5, Insightful)
your Government gets a socialized medicine scheme and nobody else does?
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I assume that this is what you're referring to, so this is for those that don't get the joke.
Ted Kennedy is on the TSA no fly list is consequentially hassled at airports. This was covered on Slashdot a few years back.
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Re:enforcement of antitrust laws (Score:2, Informative)
I have not come across any "body" that attempts to lobby, write to local congressman/senators or follow legal channels to help enforce consumer antitrust.
Read: http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/div_stats/211491.htm
Quoted:
"There are three main ways in which the federal antitrust laws are enforced: criminal and civil enforcement actions brought by the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, civil enforcement actions brought by the Federal Trade Commission and lawsuits brought by private parties asserti
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The only ones who can lobby are the ones made rich by existing favoritism.
Positive feedback loop.
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I got Verizon because it was the only company that covered where I worked up in the mountains in NH. I didn't realize it was the same in metro DC.
I just got the free POS phone that doesn't do anything except make voice calls and TXT. I just had to get used to the idea that I could never demand anything of my phone except for that.
Re:So what I'm hearing is... (Score:4, Funny)
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Fax machine (Score:2)
The fax machine was invented long before the Carterphone issue. It even predates the telephone.
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Funny how much of Slashdot lambastes vendor lock in of handsets unless it's Apple who is making said handsets.
beyond the rural issue (Score:5, Informative)
There's AT&Ts recent withdrawal of the iPhone from Pay As You Go availability.
Basically, if you want an iPhone on an affordable plan, you can't get it, because AT&T doesn't offer PAYG and because affordable operators like MetroPCS can't offer one either (yes, I realize MetroPCS isn't GSM, it's just an example).
Well, my 2 cents (Score:3, Insightful)
The carterfone and that whole line of reasoning has nothing to do with the iphone on competitor networks. I'm not sure what point is trying to be made, like as if the iPhone being able to work on Verizon would lead to some amazing innovation we're missing out on because of an exclusivity deal? I don't think I follow that one. I just don't get it, sorry. It's apples and oranges
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The point is you should be able to sue any phone on any system.
Just like carterfone helped make it so you could use the phones system regardless of who made your telephone.
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The point is you should be able to sue any phone on any system.
I'm not so sure you can sue a phone, but it's worth a try - crazier things have happened.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Forty_Barrels_and_Twenty_Kegs_of_Coca-Cola [wikipedia.org]
It appears you can sue pretty much anything.
Re:Well, my 2 cents (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the idea is that when ATT didn't service an area where service was needed, it not just temporarily, and their rules prohibited the connection of outside devices to it's phone network was shot down in court because it harmed customers.
Much to the same here, ATT or any cell carrier not servicing some areas and locking the devices out from service there, it has the same effect as locking out competitors. We have to remember, as long as the cell phone companies use the wireless spectrum, they have to operate for the public's need or benefit. It's a condition of their license. They can do it at a profit but when they fail to provide to enough of the public, then the same concept applies that drove the carter phone ruling.
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It really isn't that difficult to understand: the customer should have any and all options. No decision made by a manufacturer or by a vendor should lock the customer down, in any way, shape, or form. It's my $100 bucks, or $500 bucks - I should get the phone of my choice, I should get to pick my carrier, and I should be able to pick the plan that fits MY needs, as opposed to the plan that the vendor is trying to push. It's the concept of "free market" that everyone gives lip service to, but instead of i
all plans are too pricey, $20 max should be it. (Score:2, Interesting)
If $10 data plan gives you 1gig, that is equal to more than 8hrs of voice talk per day for 1 month. Which is pretty much to unlimited voice (not including connection costs to LL).
So having that as a fact, no voice plan should ever charge more than $20 per month for unlimited voice, anything higher is pure ripoffs.
Can I get a $10 data plan for a mobile with VOIP?
And surely having one plan for everyone would save marketing and confusing options, no more crap, just one plan, $20 = infinite voice, 1c text, 1gig
If two cells can hear your phone... (Score:3, Interesting)
all newer phones have to be trackable by the police incase you call 911 and don't know where you are.
If three cells can hear your phone (and they have the necessary equipment to agree on timing and cooperatively measure it) they can locate you within feet. Better than remotely-interrogatable GPS in the phone.
If two cells can hear your phone (and ditto) and understand the delay of the phone model's response to a ping, they can do the same but put you in one of two spots - where you are and the mirror-image
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Since when can't you take your phone with you? I took a phone from T-Mobile to AT&T, then took my AT&T phone several years down the line and gave it to a friend for use on T-Mobile.
All you have to do is call your carrier after your contract is up and ask for the subsidy unlock code, or get it unlocked by someone who's figured out how to do it.
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Just about 4 years ago, maybe 5, I took that GPS cell phone into an AT&T office in Texarkana, Texas. Told them I wanted service, they offered me a phone. I showed them my phone, and I was told that I couldn't use my phone - I would have to buy a new one to use on their network. Perhaps I should have researched more, then. Could be, the salesman lied to me, could be he was telling the truth as he understood it, or it could be that he told me company policy.
Either way, I told him that I wasn't going t
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So long as it's a GSM phone not subject to a subsidy lock, I can't think of a good reason it wouldn't work with an AT&T or T-Mobile SIM card (or another GSM carrier outside the US)
2 cents? you owe me change (Score:4, Interesting)
The deal with old phones is that there was a FCC mandated sunset of non-e911 capable phones.
You could maintain already activated phones, but couldn't activate - or reactivate those phones after that date.
You're dredging up old news - there are very few people with 6 year old non-e911 phones.
And yes - there are still valid technical reason for not being able to transfer hardware.
You can't use an ATT or T-mobile gsm phone on a Verizon cdma network.
Or an ATT tdma phone on an ATT gsm network.
Cellular carriers are less monopolistic than ever before.
There are fewer players now, but with their expanded networks, they are now most all in direct competition with each other, rather than the almost feudal state that existed in the days of patchwork coverage areas.
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Or Apple could just build a damned iPhone that works with CDMA. The market's out there. Even up here in neoconia, Bell Canada is a CDMA network and they get CDMA versions of most of the same phones as their GSM competitors.
Personally, I wish they'd unify both networks and begone with this proprietary nonsense. This is 2009, fuck proprietary. People are starting to know better and it's just a matter of time before this BS gets called out for what it's worth.
Carterphone led to purchased phones and ... (Score:5, Informative)
The carterfone and that whole line of reasoning has nothing to do with the iphone on competitor networks.
Carterphone is directly applicable.
The carterphone decision is specifically about letting people buy phone equipment of their own choice and requiring the phone companies to let them attach it to the network, rather than renting the limited choice of company-provided equipment.
It led to the "foreign attachments tariffs" and in two steps to the type-approval process, where any equipment that would meet the standards for interoperability could be certified by a lab hired by the manufacturer, then bought and connected by a customer.
(It also led to long-distance service competition, antitrust litigation, and the breakup of the AT&T monopoly: MCI was formed, strung microwave links between cities, hooked 'em up to local phone lines, and let people bypass the AT&T long-distance service by dialing a local number then a customer ID and a long-distance number. AT&T sued, MCI counter-sued on antitrust and won, Southern Pacific Railroad strung fiber beside the tracks for their train signals and formed Sprint to sell the extra bandwidth on their network, ...)
Carterphone was about breaking an anticompetitive tie-in between a network provider and its captive equipment supplier - with wireline rather than wireless equipment. Yes, in this case the bite is on the other carriers more than on the customers of the offending carrier (though the tiny General Telephone company, with its smal islands of local-phone customers, couldn't get Western Electric phones back then - a similar situation). So though the precedent won't transfer directly, IMHO the comparison is still apt.
Ok, so you could also get it on T-Mobile (Score:2)
Not really much of an improvement.
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Not really much of an improvement.
I gotta disagree - I'd love to see the iPhone available on T-Mobile, since they're my current provider. I have no interest in switching to AT&T at all.
Given Verizon's consistent disabling of phone features in order to force use of their for-fee services (which is why I left them), it's hard to see Apple ever allowing the iPhone to be offered by Verizon.
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Why would you want an iPhone on T-Mobile when you can already get an Android handset?
Why not? Most consumers make only barely rational choices based on a myriad of impulses they are hardly aware of. This person wants an iPhone and wants to use it on T-Mobile. You probably want a different combination. What makes your choice any more or less rational than this persons?
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Why not? Most consumers make only barely rational choices based on a myriad of impulses they are hardly aware of.
I could give several reasons why I bought the phone I did. I'm just wondering what his reasons are for wanting an iPhone rather than the equivalent that his carrier already has.
What makes your choice any more or less rational than this persons?
I don't know, I never claimed it was. My choice was rational, and I'm assuming his was too.
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Sorry, I don't see any equivalent phones to the iPhone at T-Mobile. From my perspective, all the other offerings are inferior.
I see. Do you have any reasons for this determination?
It's Not Your Prerogative (Score:5, Insightful)
In response, Roth argued that exclusive deals enable innovation because the operator and manufacturer share the risk. He suggested that operators will ask manufacturers for certain features on phones but manufacturers will often only do so if the operator agrees to buy a certain number of phones, he said.
Corporate trusts are not supposed to decide what features go into products. That is one of the reasons that anti-trust regulation exists. Picking features and rewarding risk takers is the exclusive domain of the silent hand of the market. If you want to share the risk and get some exposure, then buy corporate bonds or non-voting shares from the handset manufacturer that pleases you. It is not a cartel or lateral monopoly's prerogative to manipulate decisions about product features.
The reason it is not the prerogative of trusts, cartels, or monopolies is because they are worse at it than the free market. Demonstrably so:
Did you notice, for example, that it took a computer company -- that had never had anything to do with cellular -- entering the market to finally get a smartphone that didn't suck into the US market?
Did you notice that the second acceptable smartphone came from a search engine company that had also never done cellular before?
Did you notice that that second smartphone got relegated to a third tier provider because the big boys were too busy sucking each others dicks to be bothered with an innovative product?
Did you notice that prior to the iPhone, America had just about the crappiest phones in the entire first world? Tiny little Taiwan was about a decade ahead of where we would be today were it not for Apple -- a complete outsider to your supposedly "innovative" little idiocracy.
You guys have been using your cartel to sit on your lazy, incompetent asses. Just like the auto manufacturers, except that Southeast Asian companies have a much harder time getting variances for cell towers than you, you fat, lazy fucks, so they haven't managed to kick your ass all up and down like they did to the auto makers.
I understand that you want to dictate features and restrain trade, but as it turns out, the free market(*) is a more efficient solution. So shove your transparent cartel rationalization up your ass and get out of my face.
Well, that's what the Senators should have said, anyway.
* Not laissez-faire, not anarchy: Adam Smith's free market, including regulation of anti-competitive behavior. Go re-read The Wealth of Nations if you doubt me.
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good lord.... I agree with you, but I'm not as emotionally invested as you are in this discussion.
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Re:It's Not Your Prerogative (Score:4, Interesting)
In response, Roth argued that exclusive deals enable innovation because the operator and manufacturer share the risk. He suggested that operators will ask manufacturers for certain features on phones but manufacturers will often only do so if the operator agrees to buy a certain number of phones, he said.
Corporate trusts are not supposed to decide what features go into products. That is one of the reasons that anti-trust regulation exists. Picking features and rewarding risk takers is the exclusive domain of the silent hand of the market. If you want to share the risk and get some exposure, then buy corporate bonds or non-voting shares from the handset manufacturer that pleases you. It is not a cartel or lateral monopoly's prerogative to manipulate decisions about product features.
The reason it is not the prerogative of trusts, cartels, or monopolies is because they are worse at it than the free market. Demonstrably so:
Did you notice, for example, that it took a computer company -- that had never had anything to do with cellular -- entering the market to finally get a smartphone that didn't suck into the US market?
Did you notice that the second acceptable smartphone came from a search engine company that had also never done cellular before?
Did you notice that that second smartphone got relegated to a third tier provider because the big boys were too busy sucking each others dicks to be bothered with an innovative product?
Did you notice that prior to the iPhone, America had just about the crappiest phones in the entire first world? Tiny little Taiwan was about a decade ahead of where we would be today were it not for Apple -- a complete outsider to your supposedly "innovative" little idiocracy.
You guys have been using your cartel to sit on your lazy, incompetent asses. Just like the auto manufacturers, except that Southeast Asian companies have a much harder time getting variances for cell towers than you, you fat, lazy fucks, so they haven't managed to kick your ass all up and down like they did to the auto makers.
I understand that you want to dictate features and restrain trade, but as it turns out, the free market(*) is a more efficient solution. So shove your transparent cartel rationalization up your ass and get out of my face.
Well, that's what the Senators should have said, anyway.
* Not laissez-faire, not anarchy: Adam Smith's free market, including regulation of anti-competitive behavior. Go re-read The Wealth of Nations if you doubt me.
+1 awesome.
The US cellular market still blows. It was terrible years ago and it will be forever unless something changes! I switched away from verizon because their selection was shit, and instead now I have AT&T, whose network blows compared to verizon. But I still don't have 3G on my damn phone because I want android and AT&T is too into the iPhone love to agree to do anything with android. I could switch to t-mobile but now my work is paying for AT&T, so I'm stuck with EDGE only on my unlocked G1 even though my *FLIP PHONE* 4 years ago had 3G! I used to stream the daily show!
If the manufacturers weren't so damn entangled with the carriers, they wouldn't be able to keep selling the complete shit they call most phones and there might be some real innovation to get consumer interest! I mean really, look at any cheap phone today and tell me what, if any, features it has over a cheap phone from 4 years ago!? They have pretty much stopped developing things on that end.
As far as smartphones go, i hear rumors that AT&T is finally coming out with an android phone this summer, and it has a *QVGA* screen!? WTF? That is horrible. the iphone and g1 have TWICE as many pixels! Why go backwards!?
That may not be true but either way, the US cellular market is just shit and I would LOVE for something to change!
-Taylor
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"As far as smartphones go, i hear rumors that AT&T is finally coming out with an android phone this summer, and it has a *QVGA* screen!? WTF? That is horrible. the iphone and g1 have TWICE as many pixels! Why go backwards!?"
You are aware of the fact that the 320x480 that the iPhone and most Android phones use (IIRC) is also quite a step back from the VGA and WVGA (800x480) resolutions that have become pretty much standard on Windows Mobile-based phones, right? :)...
Haha, that is bullshit! I had windows mobile for 3 years in 3 phones and they were ALL 320x240 and it was horrible. What phones are you talking about?
-Taylor
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Pretty much everything HTC makes these days... The Touch Diamond, the Touch Pro, the Touch HD, the Diamond 2, the Touch Pro 2. Not to mention stuff like the Samsung Omnia...
Ah, well that's nice.
But still, don't get me started on windows mobile... Nice hardware can't help a crap OS.
And either way, none of that changes my original point, which is that it's asinine for AT&T to come out with a 320x240 android phone (or any smartphone for that matter) and it probably has to do with pressure from microsoft and apple or some bullshit. I really wish that this whole fucking cartel mentality they have was outlawed, because it sucks for us consumers!
-Taylor
Re:It's Not Your Prerogative (Score:5, Interesting)
* Not laissez-faire, not anarchy: Adam Smith's free market, including regulation of anti-competitive behavior. Go re-read The Wealth of Nations if you doubt me
Thanks for pointing this out, I get so annoyed by people who assume that trying to apply free market solutions means endorsing complete anarchy. And then there are others who don't see how regulation can sometimes help make a market more free and increase competition.
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Without a neutral referee, i.e., the government supervising the market to make sure nobody cheats, the strongest will overrun the system and become the new "government"
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Did you notice, for example, that it took a computer company -- that had never had anything to do with cellular -- entering the market to finally get a smartphone that didn't suck into the US market?
While I take your meaning, I wouldn't say that Blackberries "sucked." True, they were boring business tools and not the sexy web-browsing media players that the iPhone and its successors are, but there were a few decent data-capable phones in the US before it.
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>> to finally get a smartphone that didn't suck into the US market?
> I wouldn't say that Blackberries "sucked."
Nor would I -- I owned one for a few years. But I wouldn't call them smartphones, either. Smartphone implies "pocket computer." The Blackberries (the models that earned them the name "crackberry") are very nice wireless email devices, poor web browsers, and lousy cell phones. The wireless email device part they really nailed, but they're not smartphones any more than an electric typewriter
Re:It's Not Your Prerogative (Score:4, Interesting)
Except for the nasty gay reference (why...?) that was well-written.
Wow - very sorry to put it in a way that could be so easily misunderstood. I am totally in favor of whatever sexual and emotional bonds make a person happy. I meant it in the sense of pleasuring one another to the exclusion of outsiders, not about gender preference. I totally see, though, that my choice of turn of phrase could be easily misinterpreted and so I should avoid it.
Seriously, I'm sorry - I think anything that can give two people a little happiness is a beautiful thing.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is what I'd like to see (Score:5, Insightful)
And for God's sake kill those 2-year contract extensions!
You're going to see people crying about the price of unsubsidized phones awful fast.
Re:This is what I'd like to see (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why they need plans that don't subsidize phones. I'd like to actually pay for service and not pay back the cost of the phone.
Plus it would give people perspective to where there money was actually going. Is that transparency? IDK, but I still want to be able to purchase the hardware and the plan separately.
Currently I have an iPhone that I bought unsubsidized, yet I still pay the same monthly rate that the subsidized buyers pay. That's just plain unfair.
Re:This is what I'd like to see (Score:5, Insightful)
Subsidized phones aren't the problem; the fact that the cost isn't a separate line-item on your bill is. When you are out of contract, why don't your rates go down? You have paid off the cost of the phone...
If people are too stupid to understand, well, not much you can do for them.
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That's a great idea. I will definitely look into doing that, as my contract is up.
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Allow subsidizing phones, but change how it works.
Right now, the phone subsidy is used as an excuse to lock you in to a lengthy contract. They carriers claim they have to do this to recover the value of the phone. They do, of course, need to recover that subsidy, but the minor truth obscures the bigger lie. There is no reason you need to be locked in to a contract to recover the subsidy.
A simpler less antagonistic way to recover the subsidy would be to tell customer the value of the subsidy, then tell the c
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If you look at many cell phone contracts, they do in fact decrease the early termination fee (recovering the value of the subsidy) by an incremental amount each month, such that an early termination results in a roughly pro-rata recoupment of the subsidy.
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Seems somehow they still managed to piss off big fed.
Or maybe big fed saw through the smoke and mirrors for once.
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You forgot another reason why they don't like doing that. Once the subsidy is paid off under the current system, you still pay the surcharge in your monthly bill and they profit it.
They may be covering the cost of the phone in the first couple years, but after that, your bill doesn't decrease.
Re:This is what I'd like to see (Score:5, Informative)
But, you see, this doesn't preclude subsidized phones.
Look, I have no problem with AT&T saying, "Hey, join our network for two years and we'll give you an iPhone for $199!" That's a fine way to get business and I have no problem with it. I don't even have a problem with Apple making this deal exclusive with AT&T.
Where I have the problem is when that's the only way. If I want to spent $700 on an iPhone and use it on T-Mobile, Commnet, Indigo Wireless, Smartcall, or Union Wireless, that's fine, too. If any of the above companies want to support Visual Voicemail, they should be able to get the specs from Apple and implement it as well.
This way, I can sit down and determine what kind of plan I want. Do I want a contract where I'm locked in for x years, but I have less immediate out-of-pocket expenses, a subsidized phone, and more predictable bills? Do I want a pay-as-I-go plan which may mean some really heavy months but some really light months, too? Must I have an iPhone? Is it better to spend $700 for the iPhone and $50/month for my plan, or spend $200 for iPhone and $70/month for my plan. Have I gotta have the latest/greatest phone and I'll want to switch every year? Am I the kind of person who keeps a cellphone for three or four years?
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Uh, why? We've had four Moore cycles since phones got tiny. They ought to be cheap as dirt to produce (at least "just-a-phones" anyway). Sure, you can pay $500 for your smartphone if you want, but there already are pretty capable phones that cost less than $100, and aren't subsidized. You can get them at wal*mart, and they go under the name "go fone" or "trac phone" or whatever. They have few frills and cost as little as $30.
That's right. Cell phones that cost less than some "cordless" phones. No s
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You're going to see people crying about the price of unsubsidized phones awful fast.
WTF?!
Here's something interesting: in Denmark, 3 (a phone service company) has just announced the HTC Magic, running Android.
They charge ~3600 DKK for the phone plus a half-year subscription (excluding the 200 DKK account creation and SIM card fee).
(1 USD =~ 5-6 DKK)
Here's the kicker: you can either pay 1200 DKK for the phone and 400 DKK per month in minimum usage, or 1800 DKK for the phone and 300 DKK per month, or 2400 DKK for the phone and 200 DKK per month.
What does that tell you? You pay 3600 DKK for
Where is the subsidy? (Score:2)
It is more like a deferred payment of the phone.
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Show me one phone that lasts 2 years also.
Kyocera QCP-3035
LG VX4400
LG VX7000
Samsung SCH-u740 (Alias)
Surely I'm not the only person who uses a phone for two years or more before replacing it.
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Scarce resources, such as airtime during heavy traffic, should be expensive.
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Phone comapnies only make plans because they want a stable revenue projection plan, else it would be wildly up and down and harder for them to plan capacity.
The practice of locking people into plans is only widespread in North America though, from what I've seen. In the rest of the world, operators seem to be doing just fine without this.
Re:This is what I'd like to see (Score:5, Insightful)
You know...
I can buy a computer from *any* company and then get Internet from *any* provider I want.
I can buy a land-line phone from *any* phone maker and then get phone service from *any* provider I want.
It does make one wonder why the only exception is my cell phone.
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Well, you can't buy any kind of modem and get internet from any provider. First you need the right kind of modem (i.e. ADSL, fiber, cable or regular old dial-up). And as far as I know, I can't go out and buy just any kind of cable or ADSL modem either. Granted, I don't rent or buy those (apart from the dial-up), but still.
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Probably because, as in all the examples you have listed, no one wants to dangle an adapter that weighs more than the phone, to the cell phone, to get what you claim the others do.
I can't plug my TV into a single cable company to take advantage of their services, i need a converter box that ONLY works with them.
I can't plug my computer into any internet service. I need a modem/router/bridge device that generally only works with their service.
Only the land line (POTS) phone is a ligit example, and you have
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1. Be able to buy your phone from anybody who sells them.
I've done that. An unlocked Motorola RAZR.
2. Then choose your carrier.
I can do that (within limits). I can choose AT&T or T-Mobile here in the USA, or throw a prepaid chip in it in Europe.
Why Apple needed to cut any kind of deal with AT&T I never understood. Anything with GPRS voice plus a data plan should work. Just sell the phones at Apple stores and tell the customers to walk around the corner to an AT&T reseller for the chip. Or T-Mobile. Maybe build two prorocol models to support Verizon, etc. as well. If AT&T tr
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1. Be able to buy your phone from anybody who sells them.
More stores selling more phones has to lead to lower prices
This sounds like a recipe for lowest-common-denominator phones... like we had before the iPhone.
Doesn't Anyone Remember? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Doesn't Anyone Remember? (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh? So if AT&T said no Apple was just going to build their own cell phone network? I don't think so. Apple's terms were they didn't want to be restricted in what they can do with their phone. That scared the hell out of everyone. But AT&T took a chance and it paid off big time. Every other carrier turned Apple down cold. There is nothing "fanboy" about this.
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Yeppers.
Apple had to sign an exclusive with AT&T to get the network access. However AT&T also gave 'em a cut of the service revenue. So they're not hurting all THAT much. B-)
And that's why iPhone users are paying as much for service as people with subsidized handsets: They're paying the extra to Apple month after month.
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Why not the FTC or the DOJ? (Score:4, Insightful)
This has nothing to do with spectrum, and is not the FCC's jurisdiction. The FTC should be investigating this - and in 2006.
(Unrelated - why does my Karma bonus not work any longer? My Karma is Excellent)
One out of three ain't bad... (Score:2)
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Perhaps AT&T should use as their new slogan, "War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength."
True, that sounds even better than their current slogan ("Your world. Delivered. To the NSA.")
Cheaper my ass. (Score:4, Insightful)
I save at least $50 on T-mobile using an iPhone and unlocking it (my wife has one also, so it's a shared plan). ATT has taken advantage of the iPhone to tack on the $30 data plan per phone, which is quite a bit more expensive than most other plans with similar service.
I haven't fully decided if the iPhone penetration has reached a point where the government should be regulating them, but for ATT to argue that their deal really helps make things cheaper is bullshit.
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I save at least $50 on T-mobile using an iPhone and unlocking it (my wife has one also, so it's a shared plan). ATT has taken advantage of the iPhone to tack on the $30 data plan per phone, which is quite a bit more expensive than most other plans with similar service.
I haven't fully decided if the iPhone penetration has reached a point where the government should be regulating them, but for ATT to argue that their deal really helps make things cheaper is bullshit.
Actually it's not. I assume you're comparing iphone on an EDGE network plan to a 3G speed network, so of course T-mobile is cheaper. I just finished pricing out comparable 3G speed plans and was shocked that Verizon was basically the same cost as AT&T for 3g. T-Mobile was about $10/month less than Verizon and AT&T for 3g, but heck T-mobile network is even worse than At&T :).
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To be fair, I've had my plan for a lot longer since I've been with T-mobile for a while, so my current bill is closer to $90 after taxes. It's a little harder for me to justify a switch right now, though I certainly have been tempted at times for the 3g upgrade.
I also went to compare the prices though a little bit ago, and while they've gone up, they're still a bit cheaper than the other plans and I wasn't that far off. My example is close to what I would be getting now.
For example, go add familytime 1000
Precedent (Score:2, Interesting)
A little Telco history here. (Score:3, Informative)
It wasn't that non-AT&T phones wouldn't work, there -were- no phones except AT&T phones manufactured by Western Electric, an AT&T subsidiary. Not only that, AT&T owned 100% of phones. You could only rent them. If you were in possession of a Western Electric phone not rented from AT&T, it was stolen. No non-AT&T devices could legally be connected to the PSTN, because this (AT&T FUD) would damage the network. There were no RJ-11 modular phone jacks, phones were connected to te
While you're at it... (Score:2)
I wish them luck.. (Score:2)
In the UK, whole departments are deployed to ensure the offerings can never be like-for-like compared - AFAIK that's partly to withhold that opportunity for customers but more so that regulation doesn't get much grip.
If they want to drill through that game I wish them luck - they're up against years of well practised obfuscation..
Quick, call the Whaaambulance. (Score:2)
I'm American, I have a "right" to have an iPhone! Another brand phone with similar features won't do, I insist on the Apple (TM) iPhone(TM)! Whaaa! I'm calling my senator!
What a bunch of fucking crybabies.
This is only a political shake down for more ... (Score:2)
bribes,,,,er,,,"campaign contributions". As soon as the right palms get enough greese on them this "issue" will go away faster than due on the morning grass.
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Every carrier is a crappy carrier.
Re:This should've happened years ago (Score:4, Interesting)
as an iPhone owner i'd like to pose a thought specifically re: iPhone and AT&T service. I live in the NY,NJ,PA tri-state area where AT&T has less than reputable service. (in much of the US AT&T has fairly good coverage) i've been with AT&T for over 10 years (from Cingular) in multiple locations in the US. i've never had any issues whatsoever with my phone service until i got my iPhone. now i will be the first to admit i _really_ like my iPhone, i like it enough to spell it with a capital "P" and lowercase "i". i dont even capitalize myself when i say 'i'. that being said, the iPhone has dropped calls more times than i possibly can fathom! i'm sure i've dropped over 250 calls minimum in the past 8 months or so that i've had the device. prior to this, i've only ever dropped 1 call in 10 _years_ with AT&T. i am dissatisfied with AT&T service plans but i have to recognize there is a possiblity that the iPhone itself has some real issues, it may be just the way it works with AT&T service (if anyone has any experince with other carriers, O2, the canadian one or whatever please ceel free to add your experience.) it may be the device, either way i wont know for sure till i can take my iPhone to another carrier.
Another possibility is capacity. (Score:5, Interesting)
[iPhone drops on tower handoffs in SF south bay area.]
Something is clearly wrong with their tower firmware and this is a *recent* problem. It worked flawlessly in these same spots until just a few months ago, and it does reestablish access to the tower with full bars after a few seconds if you sit at one of these "dead spots". ...
The only other possibility would be a baseband crash, but that seems unlikely to occur so consistently during tower handoffs. Also, I often have full bars within a fraction of a second after the call dropping, ...
IMHO another possibility is network saturation. If you have to switch to a new tower or pie-slice because you're losing the old one, and all the slots in the new one are in use, you're hosed until a slot frees up. Park in the "dead zone" and eventually somebody will hang up or move on and the tower will give you a slot. Meanwhile the phone can hear the tower (and its control channel) just fine, so you get bars but no audio. (You'll also be able to send and receive text messages, which are on the control channel. But try to make a new call and you'll get all-trunks-busy.)
This doesn't require a firmware change or anything else other than not having enough cells for the traffic in the area. The "correct" solution is to split the cells up more finely - by installing a bunch of new short range cells to replace a few long-range ones or possibly to split the pie-slices more finely or do steerable antennas.
But both approaches require capital investment in a "lending freeze" economy - where cellphone upgrades are the first thing the consumers cut. The first one also requires regulatory approval for more antenna sites in eco-wacko land where "no nasty carcinogenic electromagnetic fields in MY back yard" is the paradigm of people who don't get the inverse-square law and are perfectly willing to put the antenna of the portable end of the system right up against their skulls.
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Something is clearly wrong with their tower firmware and this is a *recent* problem. It worked flawlessly in these same spots until just a few months ago...
Happens every spring. Foliage is opaque to gigahertz RF.
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I've never understood why you could only use certain phones with certain carriers. I've never used an iphone before until yesterday and I really liked it, but was extremely dismayed by being stuck with AT&T.
I can't speak for all situations but for the iPhone I believe you should ask Steve Jobs why he wanted to stick with AT&T and why AT&T let it happen. AT&T wasn't his first choice but it ended up being the only choice to get the iPhone. I bet the carriers and the phone manufacturers make some type of deals where it is somehow beneficial to only sell phones through specific carriers rather than all of them.
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I think you are confusing free markets with capitalism. Capitalism is about resource ownership, and the rights relating to those resources.
Free markets are a different beast. You can have capitalism without free markets, e.g., most utilities, where the prices are pretty much set by government regulators and/or access to the market is severely restricted. Heck you could even have free market communism although I am not sure it has been tried.
The cellphone market in the USA is very capitalistic. It's the free
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You are lying, first of all. Capitalism does NOT require "free and open markets" as defined by you. Capitalism is served just fine by a new carrier having the ability to enter the market. Anybody with sufficient money and motivation can start a new cell phone company - ergo the market is "open". I know you "more capitalist than thou socialists" think you make a convincing argument here, but I'm afraid the definition of "capitalism" doesn't mean what you think it means.