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Hong Kong's Lessons on Number Portability
Dr.Hair writes "Dan Gillmor once again hits the nail on the head with his comparison of Hong Kong's competitive mobile phone market to the United States. Experiences of incumbent carriers trying to thwart competition and stifle the free market in Hong Kong should be remembered as the FCC nudges US carriers to carry out number portability. In the end competition should provide better customer service, better coverage, and better pricing in the US, all of which will eat in to carrier profits. But it also might bring the US out of the tech backwaters, where customer lock-in is the marketing strategy and "innovation" is the spin of the day."
Things will be interesting for a while starting tomarrow as people take advantage of this new policy, but I think soon enough we'll see the phones change to everyone's benefit.
OK, I've said that 3 times now, so what do I mean? I mean that right now my Sprint phone wouldn't work if I go to AT&Ts network or Cingular's network or someone else. They all use different systems. It's mentioned at the end of the article that that just isn't the case in Hong Kong (and I believe in Japan and Europe and other places where they have number protability). The having to get a new phone part is still going to be a little bit of a wrench in this plan, but soon enough one or two carriers will try to make it so competitors phones will work on their network and maybe we'll end up with a standard (or just 3 standards that work everywhere). When this happens, our mobile phone market will be better.
It's about time this is fixed. Imagine if the government allowed TV to develop this way. You'd either be able to watch NBC, CBS, or ABC, but not all 3 unless you had 3 TVs. And if you tried to switch, you'd have to buy a new TV. Yeesh.
Horray for number portability, it's time to let the free market decide what sucks so things can improve more.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.