Slashdot Mirror
"Disposable" Cell Phone Actually Repackaged Nokia
ewhac writes "Hop-On.com apparently started distributing the first versions of their disposable/recyclable cell phones, which will offer 60 minutes for $30. Hop-On claims their proprietary technology makes this possible. However, the San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that, upon cracking open the phones, they found not the kind of disposable cell phone technology covered earlier on Slashdot, but a jury-rigged Nokia. When confronted, Hop-On CEO Peter Michaels dodged by saying the phones the Chronicle took apart were, "promotional samples only. They are not Hop-On production phones." The article also calls into serious question Hop-On's other claims, and also points out California revoked Hop-On's corporate status last month."
Acquire an existing analog design (nobody said these had to be the latest PCS or anything)
Have chinese company make a pile of knockoffs.
About 10 years ago PBS has a great series called the 'mini dragons' and part of the feature was just how small a company could be to produce something like this. I'm certain they could have a few thousand units produced within that ballpark if they wanted to. My guess is they guy had what seemed like a pretty good idea, but just doesn't have the right ducks in a row. He sounds more snake-oil than genius.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I dount very much that this has 'mistake proof.' VR - has it been invented yet? Is it ever possible? Certainly not in a 30USD phone, and especially not given the non-dictionary words this address book will need to have in it - peoples' names and nicks, and business names.
Mobile/ cell Phones - however cheap they are - are always treated as mission critical appliances wby their owners. Owners will NOT appreciate having to f*** around trying to get the correct number to dial 'cos there's no other UI alternative.
example (and probably what hopon are basing their tech on - if it does exist, but that's another matter)
I have one of these nokias details here with VR for top ten numbers of your choice, and I never use it. Try standing on a noisy street shouting 'Mum, Mum' into the phone and it keeps dialling 'Mee Mee' - your local food delivery place, and you'll see what I mean.
Don't make all tech too simple! How can you 'EZ-Interface' an SMS/ Text msg UI?
That's if it isn't all vapour ware.
http://milkshake.dexy.org
The plastic tooling will cost about $20k. 5 years ago all phones left the ericson factory in lynchburg VA for under $100 per unit. Since then every fab in China can build it much cheaper. Drop the chip direct on the circut board and you cut out 50% of the costs (like casio learned how many decades ago?)
since the major markup is still on the teleco charges, it can be done under $30 and it could be done for less with enough upfront R&D.
Remember silcon is sold by the acre--complexity is irrelevant with large numbers.
A little off topic, but Budweiser (as in beer) are doing a promotion here in the UK to win prizes... but it is the way they do it that is interesting.
Several cans contain a "GPS transmitter" - when you open the can, they find your location, and a team of people turn up at your door within a few hours.
First, this is going to be prone to a few problems, like people moving.
Second, the "GPS transmitter" is probably a gps receiver, and a mobile phone. When it is opened, it calls a number and reports the location of the device.
Surely these things can't be too expensive if they are in a beer can? Simply a gps receiver and a phone would cost in excess of £100 - but they would have to buy phones outright, so even more.
If I got one, I'd probably try getting it somewhere that the signals would not get out of (convenient faraday cage... (car maybe)), and take the thing apart.
One of the better ideas for a disposable phone that I've seen came out of a student contest run by [IIRC] Metropolis magazine.
It consisted of a thick "business card" phone -- a circuit printed on plastic and wrapped in paper, slightly larger than your average business card. The phone had about 60 minutes of talk time, couldn't receive calls, and had a single large button on one side. The idea was that you could buy a sheet of these phones for about $5-10 per, print your business card on them, and "burn" your own number into the phone. Pressing the button on the phone dialed that number.
This is, of course, insanely useful. A first-contact client can phone you back with very little effort, without having to pay for the call. 911 emergency phones can be given away or sold in stores. Vending machines could let you key in any number you liked (say, your SO) and print up a batch of phones for you.
I think it's on ultra-low-end applications like these that disposable cell phones will really find their stride. Even if Hop-On was legitimate, they'd have a hard time competing against companies like Cricket. Service is already a commodity, and people seem to like the flexibility and robustness of NON-disposable phones.
In a former life, I worked on a similar scam (at the time, unknowingly). It was for one of the first of the Customer-Owned Payphones back around 1985, called COCOT or COPTS phones.
.COM boom of a year ago).
I won't memtion the exact brand name, but I was one of two design engineers that designed this payphone. The entire industry was new, having just been deregulated. There were about 5 companies producing them at the start, and about 30 by the end, so the industry experienced explosive growth (just like the
The two owners of the company had us start designing the phone. They then proceeded to march in Investors to see "the phone" work, well before it's design was even finalized. At first, we rigged a mock-up to act something like a phone.
"Harumph, it works", claimed the investors. Eventually, we did design and have a fully functional payphone. But most of the phones out there in the industry were horrible. They didn't look or act like Ma Bell payphones, and the most critical areas, how much to charge for the call, and answer detetion (do I thake or return the user's money?) were dismal and highly unreliable.
In fact at one point it seemed that no-one could get these areas of operation reliable.
I assume it was at this point the owners decided to make it a full-blown scam. They sold the crap out of the phone. They sold EXCLUSIVE rights to manufacture the phone to at least 5 companies that I heard of afterward.
The funniest part of the whole story is that my parter and I actually screwed up the whole scam by making the phone actually work well. Instead of doing a nose-dive in 6 months as they expected, the company endured successfully for 4 years!
If anyone has ever seen the movie "The Producers" by Mel Brooks, then you know the plot - oversell the product many 100% - then BK the company and you don't have to pay any investors back. Well, the same thing happened.
Last I heard from the owners, they were hiding out in Snake's Navel, Arizona, and one actually called me, late one night, drunk off his ass, to bitch me out personally for costing him Millions!! Snicker.
Well anyway, I smell the EXACT same type of scam here. These are the bait for the investors, even with the admission that they are mock-ups of the final design. My prediction is, once the money is raked in, then actual production will start on the phone and they'll find there's no way it can be done for $30.00. The people they hired will be left holding the bag, and the bills for manufacturing phones that actually tunred out to cost $100.00 to $200.00 or so like any other phone.
And the owners? They'll be joining the Scammer's Relocation Program in Snake's Navel, AZ.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
I don't see the point, when any "deactivated" cellphone can still be used (and is legally required to) be able to call 911 on the networks they can access.
Test your net with Netalyzr
Totally nonsensical reference to the DMCA.
I'm going to have to post the rules for Slashtard Bingo someday, since I'm the only person who knows them.
- Have a picture
I had a discussion with someone that manufactures phones, and what he told me was very interesting. The current "bomb cost" of producing a phone is close to $100 for the manufacturer. The markup the manufacturer gets is sometimes less than 5-10% - considering the risks, thats not good money. The way that they usually get the money is through the accessories - the case, headset, etc. The markup on these - sometimes as high as 500%, helps make up for the disapointing phone cost. How someone can make a phone for $30 is beyond me - sounds like another dot-com idea to me.
Most mobile phone dealers buy phones in bulk at around £100-£150 (probably $150+ in the US) each from phone manufactures and receive the cost of the phone plus a commission from the phone network for signing up customers. The phone network makes this money back later by trapping the customer with a year's contract, line rental every month, and call costs much higher than the cost of actually providing them. Of course, the customer must think they're getting something for all this, which is why they get some free minutes every month. Pay as you go is similar, they make money with the expiry dates on credit vouchers and even higher call costs in comparison to a contract phone.
So providing a disposable phone with a limited amount of calls for $30 is economically unviable, because the whole system is geared up to not having a phone with a limited lifespan in order to recoup the cost of the phone and network infrastructure and finally make a profit with later calls.
I also don't see how they're going to do a voice recognition in a $30 phone that understands at least 10 words said in any American accent (at least) right from the first time you use it. Proper mobile phones have to sample each person's name in turn and you have to say the name again in the same tone of voice, and even this limited functionality comes in quite a pricey middle-to-high-end phone.
They could buy airtime in bulk from networks so they don't have to make their own network and they might have some mighty computer at the other end listening to everyone screaming numbers down their phones, but I still don't see how it'd be economically possible at that price, especially when they'll have to provide far more phones than other networks as the old ones will keep being disposed of.
As for those demo phones, Hop On probably bought a bunch of old phones off Cingular which were returned by their customers because the case got smashed or the loudspeaker didn't work or the buttons fell off or the customer wanted to upgrade the phone to a later model or something and stuck their plastic case on it.
So, given all that, it's probably just an exercise in disappearing to the Caribbean with lots of money.