Slashdot Mirror

When Verizon brought its FiOS TV service to Massapequa Park, NY, Cablevision brought lawyers.

When plans were getting drawn for a West Side Stadium that would compete with its (now-spun-off) Madison Square Garden, they brought astroturf ads.

When our place got FiOS, they began to bring salesmen.

When they leave, unsuccessful and late to the table of real competition, and bested by a once-monopoly they apparently sought to outdo, they bring me joy.

(Though to be fair, when they show their Michael Bolton ad, it brings me to the TV.)

Yes, but a dollar figure sets a minimum bar for the cost of the device. If 100 companies when after Apple, all claiming 2.5% of the cost of the device, the device would have to cost at least 2.5 times what it costs. Percentages are an impossible and unfounded way to demand royalties from another group.

Actually, Apple Reality Distortion Field notwithstanding, pretty much all patent royalties are based on a percentage.

This study puts the average royalty rate for a patent in the electronics industry at about 4.5%. The $1/device Apple is requesting would be about 0.2%. As way of comparison, Here are royalty rates other companies are asking for essential LTE patents. They range from 0.8% to 3%. Motorola's 2.25% is a bit on the high end but within the norm. Apple's requested 0.2% OTOH is off the scale at the low end.

Based on what 5 minutes of googling turned up, Apple is going to lose this, and lose it badly.

Tell this to Ericsson, founded in 1876

http://connectedplanetonline.com/3g4g/news/ericsson-lte-patents-061110/

By its own calculations, Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) has 25% of the essential patents key to the development of long-term evolution networks and devices, making the Swedish vendor the single largest intellectual property holder in LTE. Those numbers contradict a recent survey of patent holdings conducted by Informa, which estimated Ericsson was much lower in the intellectual property rights pecking order, behind Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM), InterDigital (NASDAQ:IDCC), Samsung and Huawei in total patents, and even lower when it comes to essential patents. Ericsson chief intellectual property officer Kasim Alfalahi said he had not seen the Informa report and did not know what methodology its analyst used, but he said that any conclusion that has Ericsson at the back of the pack in essential patents is clearly wrong.

MS infects your Apple phone like a Sony rootkit

Bzzt. Wrong. This is an *Apple* API in iOS that third parties can call.

http://connectedplanetonline.com/business_services/news/apple-mdm-ios4-062210/

Did you bother looking at the article I linked? Skype has specifically committed to *not* charging for 3G connections. Period. I'm aware that the original plan was to charge for 3G calls. They've abandoned that:

I admit I didn't click the link since you seemed to be referencing the existence of those apps on the iPhone, which I knew all about. I see that Skype has dropped their plans to charge for service over 3G after the carriers capped data plans.

the GTR works great, and the extra expense and "performance" (which you rarely have the chance to take advantage of) of the Viper are simply not worth it.

Funny you mention that, the latest Viper costs about the same as a GTR, (and used ones are a fraction of the cost), much like more open phones cost around the same as a retail unlocked iPhone. So what's the penalty of using a more open phone? The UI doesn't look as nice?

here's a lesson to be learned here: Your requirements are exceedingly steep for a phone. Your requirements are also very much unlike the requirements that the vast majority of other people have for a phone.

My main requirement is that it lets me do whatever I want with no artificial restrictions. My old Treo 650 did that, even though it ran a closed-source OS and was far less capable, it allowed open development and the only restrictions you ran into were the technical limitations of the hardware and the OS. Once that's possible everything else falls into place - there were on-device compilers, alternate browsers and port scanners for PalmOS as well. Changing parts of the OS itself isn't strictly necessary.

Curiouser and curioser still, have you ever noticed that, despite all the claims that iPhone owners are "status conscious sheep," it's the people using the supposedly "open" devices who are the ones who seem to have the most to prove when it comes to these stupid dick-measuring contests of "My phone can do X, Y, and Z and YOURS is a piece of crap because it can't"?

Like the "useless piece of junk" phrase I never said anything about "status conscious sheep" myself - although some iPhone users definitely are and it's a common sentiment.

We open device people get into these "dick-measuring contests" because we want to discourage people from choosing these OSes that are basically prisons that are really nice inside, because we value software freedom. If this trend of decreasing software freedom on mobile OSes continues, at some point the restrictions might become too much for you as well.

The world's fastest 3G network

But see here for some caveats.

AT&T has fairly good 3G coverage in all major US cities. And the best performance by far, where you can find coverage.

If you're a traveller who frequents many areas (esp. small towns) or live in one of those small cities with spotty ATT coverage for 3G, then you will probably want Sprint or Verizon.

Although their networks are generally slower, and the experience is generally poorer (on average), they have a lot more area covered.

So again: ATT is clearly the superior choice if you live in a well-covered area and don't go too far from home.

Verizon is a superior choice for most other areas.

For a moderate number of areas, Sprint will give you a better service, and there are a small number of areas where T-Mobile will be the best service.

Now service/coverage might not be the only you are concerned about, you may be interested in price too... you might pick a T-Mobile service based on price, even though it's not the best service for your area.

You might pick ATT, because they don't lock down features on your blackberry or other smartphone like Verizon does.

Then again, you might not want ATT, because of them restricting tethering on certain phones, Verizon may be the best choice there, depending on your needs.

So without knowing, how particular you are about what phone and what features you really need. It's a toss-up.

However, with ATT and the iPhone it's hard to go wrong (except on price, and except if you frequent relatively unpopulated rural areas...).