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Wireless Carriers Accused of Antitrust Violations
phoneboy writes "From Wireless Consumers Alliance: A class-action lawsuit was filed on April 5 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of wireless consumers seeking to end the control of the handset market by wireless carriers. Read the Antitrust Complaint. While the complaint is fairly short and easy to understand, a summary is in order: The carriers basically dictate required features to handset manufacturers. Phones are tied to specific carriers and cannot be moved between carriers. Carriers refuse to allow handsets on their network they didn't approve. Handset manufacturers thus cannot sell handsets that aren't approved by carriers because carriers will not allow them to be used. All of this rises costs for the consumer, making it difficult and more expensive to switch carriers, and unfairly restrains trade for both handsets and cellular services. As someone who recently tried subscribing to AT&T's new GSM service with an unlocked GSM phone (they didn't allow me to "activate" the service unless I bought one of their phones), I'll be watching this case very closely."
Carriers set phones' SIDs and MDNs so that they work with only one provider (AT&T, for example). They add encryption on top of that so that it's hard to reprogram a phone. Carriers are currently regulated only in terms of tariffs on the service (i.e. federal tax), not on the handset-to-service binding. The latter is unregulated, hence this filing with the district court.
In Europe, with the GSM system there, you usually ahve two options.
1) An open GSM phone. You can use this anywhere, on any network. Either roaming, or with a sim card from that network.
2) A branded phone, where it is locked to a certain carrier. So you can't just take any sim card and use it, you have to use that network.
With #2, they usually sell the phone cheaper, because you are stuck with their network. Which makes sense.
But.. a carrier will not refuse service or differentiate at all as to what phone you use.
I work for a wireless billing software company. About Item (B)... the FCC is requiring cellular companies to make their numbers "portable" in the near future (more on that later). In other words, you will be able to keep your current wireless phone number, bringing it to another competing wireless provider, provided that it's in the same market.
The problem is, every time the FCC has set a deadline for this to happen, all the big wireless companies whine a lot, petition the FCC because implementing the switch/billing software/etc upgrades would be "too difficult" (i.e. costly), and the deadline gets postponed. As it stands now, it was supposed to already have happened over two years ago, and the latest deadline in late November is probably going to be pushed out another six months (if it hasn't been already). The net result is that it really sucks to be the consumer, 'cuz folks like you have to face decisions like the one you're faced with now.
The people making this lawsuit have no idea what
they are talking about.
I lived in Japan for two years, and just returned to the US. I found that the cell phones in Japan are literally years ahead of phones in the US, and data and Internet features like iMode, email, and Java apps on the handset, which simply work
in Japan, are completely hopelessly brokne in the US.
As far as I can tell this lossage is due precisely to the lack of any leverage that carriers have over handset makers in the US. In Japan, NTT DoCoMo, and the other carriers, dictate exactly what features they want, and thus
they get high quality user experience; all the phones have compatible web browsers, color displays, internet email, and other features. The features all work almost perfectly across the different handset models from different manufacturers.
Contrast this to the pathetic piece of junk called WAP in the US, where each phone has different incompatible implementations. Some phones have color WBMP support (hah!), others handle GIF, other PNG, others JPG. Some carriers gateways have byte limits of 1 kbyte, others higher, no telling which is which though. Chance of actually displaying a color picture, or a proper web page on your phone: about zero.
Email does not work consistently on US phones, and Java applets are still science fiction. People have the WAP forum to thank for this
pathetic situation. They were so greedy that they
tried to get all the carriers to standardize prematurely on technology that solved non-existent problems. NTT DoCoMo just went ahead and basically just built HTML 2.0 into thier phones (iMode) and it works an order of magnitude better than WAP.
First, if you got the phone directly from Voicestream then it is definitely locked. Call customer service and explain that you would like to have the phone unlocked so that you can use a different SIM in a different country. As long as you still have a few months left on your contract (and you tell them how happy you are with your service), they will be happy to give you the code to unlock it. That's all it takes... I also have the T28 and did exactly that, and it works fine.
I hope that this discussion motivates people to switch to Voicestream. They are the network that most "gets it" of all of them.
I have a voicestream tiband phone (a motorola one -- b/c I like motorola). I am based on the east coast but right now am down in sydney australia. The phone logs onto one of the 3 major carriers in Australia (Telstra, Optus, or Vodaphone) and just works. The service is great (although a bit expensive) and easy to use. They also do not have regulations about which phone you can use -- they even have some info on their web site about how to use a phone not issued by them on their network (they do mention that it has to be a gsm phone).
On the flip side of things, in australia (from what I've seen), phones and plans are sold seperate -- I have 2 friends with the same phone but different carriers that were purchased from the same store (I think).
---You're all I need, When the water runs deep, You're all I need, Now I cry my soul to sleep -- Collective Soul, Needs
My Ericcson phone was sold to me by AT&T over the phone, it doesn't have the time. It has a feature to set the time, but it says carrier doesn't support this feature. Now what this tells me is two things:
1) Phones are capable of detecting what features are available by their provider
2) AT&T needs a time synch feature, just like every other provider. I hate my phone because it relies on the provider to set the time and can't be set manaully. But really, in this day and age AT&T in SF is the only provider in this area that doesn't set the time.
Either way, the post is quite irrelevant.
Can I get an eye poke?
Dog House Forum
Thanks for your answer. I took a look at some of the wireless rumor sites, and they suggest that VoiceStream's policy is to give out the SIM unlock code to customers who have been in good standing for at least three months. If you call customer service, you should ask for the "Advanced activations" department. The other way is to send e-mail to -simunlock- at -voicestream- dot -com- (I like this company enough to spam-protect their address!). It's supposed to take about a week. I just sent an e-mail request; we'll see what happens!
The phone manufacturers generally make GSM based phones before they make phones for the US providers, as these phones are sold world wide, where almost every country but the US uses the same std. of GSM. So its financially sound for them to create the phones for the largest market share.
What the US non GSM based providers do, is look at the phones as they are released, and strike up a deal with said manufacturer to create a phone that they can use on their network, with whatever "special" additional functions they want in the phone that they offer on their services. The reason you cannot use a sprint phone on ATT is cos PCS is different from Analogue or digital.
I'm no fan of this type of crap, if all the providers used sim cards (which they could have easily done with ALL phones), I would not have 4 phones lieing in my drawer.
I recently dropped ATT, which has provided me with great service, cos they are yet to offer GSM on the east coast. I moved to Voicestream, they don't lock out any phones, and they don't even tell you to use only their selection of phones, if its GSM 1900, you can use it. If ATT ever gets GSM out on the east coast, and its on the STD GSM 1900, and they don't start pulling this proprietary crap, I'll change back.
American companies have this tendency to not want to share, voicestream included, which is why I can't send SMS messages out of the voicestream network without changing my message center number to the message center of the telco I want to send messages to (which works, but then youc annot recieve voicestream SMS's, and said telco may get cranky with you hopping onto their network uninvited). Thats just one point, there are many, granted you can pretty much send a text message from any phoen to another using phone_no@provider.tld but thats not the same as sending it to just phone_number, which is much more convenient. If US companies got off their fat lazy asses, and worked togethor on anything for the better of their consumers, we would not have this bull. The main reason for non interoperability, as most consumers would rather stick with their crappy service, then go out and buy a new phone and get new service, as that can get costly (my nokia 8260 cost me $450 for ATT as they had no specials at the time).
Anyways, enough rambling
If phoneboy's summary is correct, this lawsuit is a joke. Let's look at each piece separately:
The carriers basically dictate required features to handset manufacturers.
I've seen these requirements, and they don't generally dictate anything other than what the GSM standards require. It's a way to ensure that all the phones on the network have the same set of features for the customer. Take Orange for example, a major operator in the U.K. They require 2-line support on all their phones, so they can offer phones with 2-lines to all their customers. This is a customer win, and is a key reason to pick Orange over someone else in the U.K.
Phones are tied to specific carriers and cannot be moved between carriers.
Absolutely! No question! And they should be! That lovely little Nokia 8290 you just got was likely subsidised to the tune of $100-$150 by your new operator. If the operator wants any chance of getting their money back for that subsidy, they have to prevent you from getting a cheap phone from them and then grabbing a SIM from another operator.
Most operators will gladly unlock your phone for you so you can use it on another network, especially in Europe. Just call them up and ask. They might charge you ~$50, but that's still less than their subsidy. Even Voicestream in the US will do this for free if you ask them, I've had it done.
Carriers refuse to allow handsets on their network they didn't approve.
This is flat out wrong. I've been using tri-band phones that I purchase in Europe over in the U.S. for years with my basic Voicestream SIM. In fact, I've never purchased a phone from Voicestream. Cingular does this as well. AT&T currently doesn't sell SIM-only packages, but they are going to. (Keep in mind they *just* started GSM service, and are still trying to get everything sorted out).
Manufacturers thus cannot sell handsets that aren't approved by carriers because carriers will not allow them to be used.
True, you cannot sell a handset *to an operator* that the operator hasn't approved for sale on their network. This is because the operator is responsible for all the support calls, replacement, and management of the phones on their network. Would you buy 1,000,000 phones from a company if it hasn't passed your quality assurance tests? Heck no!
If your phone fails these tests then it just means that you can't sell your phone to the operator directly and have to make it available through other channels. But (and again, if I've seen these tests) if you can't pass the tests then something is *seriously* wrong with your phone.
While it hasn't hit the U.S. yet, there are companies in Europe that make a killing selling phones that are not tied to a specific operator. Carphone Warehouse is a great example from the U.K., and you can bet that now that the U.S. has woken up to cellular it won't be too long before the same types of companies are available here.
All of this rises costs for the consumer, making it difficult and more expensive to switch carriers, and unfairly restrains trade for both handsets and cellular services.
This is the statement that shocked me the most. Have you *looked* at cellphone pricing and plans lately? My newspaper is constantly filled with offers that include 1, 2, or even 4 phones for *free*, with tons of minues included. For $29.99 a month I can get a really nice phone and more airtime than I can possibly use in a month.
If the operators *couldn't* lock their phones to their network to guarantee they'll make back their subsidy, do you actually think the prices will go *down*?