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How Great Cheap Phones Never Get to the U.S.
prostoalex writes "Gary Krakow from MSNBC is impressed with Motorola's C116 phone only to find out that that the phone is not available in the US. The reason? 'A very, very basic GSM handset that handles incoming and outgoing calls as well as SMS messages, the C116 is sold all over the world -- except for the United States. It's not sold here because it's too cheap!' The phone is targeted for emerging markets, where people don't like to tie themselves into monthly contracts, and with little value proposition presents little interest to US wireless operators."
Aside from this, he makes a great point about how the U.S. phone market is too controlled by a tiny handful of providers. I would like to see phones unlinked from the service providers, much as personal computers are separate from the DSL and cable broadband providers. Imagine if you had to buy a Verizon PC or a Comcast Macintosh and if you switched from Comcast Cable to Verizon DSL you'd need to buy a new PC!
It seems as though GSM is a step in the right direction because T-Mobile, Cingular, and ATT branded phones are basically interchangeable. Even so, the Europeans and Japanese always seem to have much cooler phones, and the options in the U.S. are just so limited.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Indeed, what an amazing and insightful "news" story. It's not because of cell phone technology that cell phones are such a drag in the US, it's because of the cell phone "service" providers. Who would have thought.
You probably shouldn't click this.
I'm one of the people mentioned that don't like to tie myself into monthly contracts. The fact that a phone will make less profit for the phone companies should not make a difference as to whether it is sold here. I'm sure there are many people who just want a phone to be a phone.
/., the Register, and a few more online news sources before the mainstream media realizes they can't ignore it much longer and starts to cover the story (being careful of course to not step on the toes of any of their advertisers), getting the (usually watered-down) message out to the unwashed.
Crappy (for us, the 'consumers') corporate decisions like this happen every day, and we're going to need to speak up sooner or later if we want anything to change.
Right now, it takes a story on
These situations seem to require getting to that point before the companies will 'take a look at' their actions, Sony's DRM CD being the latest example. Your customers don't know what a rootkit is? They have a better idea now.
Making noise about these things is making a difference, however small it may be.
The idea is that people interested in having a simple phone want just that - a simple phone.
Monochrome display lengthens the battery life, colour screen shortens it. Simple.
Some people shouldn't be given complicated phones, like my parents as an example.
It's complete and utter feature overkill for them. They don't play the games, don't change the ringtones & don't know how to use anything besides the address book.
This phone would be perfect for my parents
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
and isn't it great the way the profit motive works? There's tons of crap like this in the PC world. You can't buy an inkjet with easily (and properly) refillable cartridges, and the American counterparts print half as many pages before dying. There's little or no innovation in midrage ($100-$200) soundcards since too much too fast might kill the market for next years upgrades. And noone wants to sell you a decent video card for less than $200 dollars ever since 3dfx bought the farm. I'm sure you could find this crap going on outside the technology sector ( I hear it's a major problem in the drug industry ). I say get the gov't involved in combating this. Sure they'll muck things up pretty bad, but the way I see it the corps are screwing us all so bad hamstringing them a little couldn't hurt. Christ, at least put a stop the the landfill expanding nightmare that is inkjet printers.
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Personally, I want to tell Ma'Bell to take her phone and shove it where the sone don't shine. Give me something that I can hack and create my own programs on instead of this bubblegum mainstream crap anyday!
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
What's annoying is that it is getting impossible to find a decent PHONE. I don't want a camera, I don't want a web access device, I don't want an MP3 player. What I do want is a SMALL PHONE. It seems like any basic phone without gimmicks is three times the size of a RAZR, which makes no sense whatsoever.
All it does is cause headaches for those of us who work in secure environments and have to choose between carrying a walkie-talkie in our pocket looking like we have a tumor, or else we have to leave our compact phone at the security desk. Does ANYONE make a tiny clamshell phone that just, you know, makes phone calls and receives them?
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
"Besides, unlike a cellphone, the crank-powered laptop is very useful even with no infrastructure - you can store an entire library of information on it."
Thank you so much for having a clue. Seriously. I work in development, specialising in communications, and I run into this silly reductionism so often it sometimes makes me want to scream. I don't know why it doesn't occur to more people, but power generation is a problem in most of the world, and with oil prices (and supply) what they are, things are only going to get worse. Charging (or disposing of) batteries is a real problem where I live. Rather than trade in my crank-powered laptop for a mobile, I'd rather run a crank-powered mobile (okay, VOIP) from my laptop.
The exclusionary logic that states 'mobiles are more effective than PCs; let's forget about PCs' is not only wrong in the assumption, it's wrong in the conclusion. Mobile telephony is great. It has tremendous value in the developing world, where laying out copper simply cannot happen. But guess what? Computers are great too. So let's try something really crazy, a-and - stay with me here - do both.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
OT, but always near the topic in this pedantic place. Your sig has been informative to me. I hate to feed grammar trolls, but up until now I have always used its and it's backwards. I thought I knew the rule and I was wrong. I looked it up, and I have been enlightened. It's still a stupid rule, and I don't agree with it, but at least I know the convention now. Thanks for making me feel stupid. On a completely unrelated side note, the United States is probably too geographically large and sparsely populated in great expanses of land for a small mobile carrier to compete on infrastructure with the big boys. We have a well entrenched oligopoly as any mobile phone customer support representative will let you know. First hand experience has shown me that they really don't care if the customers feel they are treated unfairly. Where else are they going to get a mobile phone without a 2 year contract? I quote: "Go ahead and look. You'll be back." As long as there are Americans willing to pay $2.99 per ringtone, we will never see a cheap mobile telephone for the masses.
Waiting for ad.doubleclick.net...
Au contraire, the phone companies understand their customers all too well! You are just not their average customer. Their target demographic is a twenty-something (or even a teenie) who's far more interested in flash and glam than in solid construction, long-lasting performance, and a basic feature set. Nor does s/he want to keep that phone for more than a year before replacing it with the next new thing either. The phone companies know this, so that's who they pander to -- not to you, my stolid, counter-current swimming, engineer friend.
You are not alone
licet differant, aequabitur
Capitalism is neat. It gives consumers choice.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
In the US you have to *PAY* to *RECEIVE* mobile phone calls!
... crazy.
That's just
I hear that the receiver of an SMS has to pay to receive text messages too - is this true?
It isn't, simply. Thing is real pure capitalism is just as utopian as pure communism (only more evil in its nature, weaker ones get destroyed). The problem is these are economy systems and some people get blindfolded when talking which one is good and which one is evil, while forgetting the underlying political systems - basically totalitarism and democracy.
Communism by all means is socially more advanced, more human-friendly and so on, capitalism is the law of the jungle, kill or get killed. The problem is that politics trumps economy and totalitarian communism is worse than democratic capitalism. Of course both are better than totalitarian capitalism ('banana republics') and we're yet to see a country with real democratic communism to happen. (Sweden and Switzerland are pretty close though.)
Now all the systems are suspectible to corruption. The problem with communism is that it's very vulnerable in that matter. Humans by nature are lazy thieves, so communism without safeguards against that is doomed to fail, and the safeguards usually mean totalitarism, making it a hell to live in. Communism gets corrupted by semi-totalitarian powers like huge monopoles. Price fixing, secret arguments, cutting the customers off cheaper and better goods, that's all corruption of capitalist system. The problem at hand though is, that while mostly everyone saw how bad is the corruption of communism in Eastern Bloc (blaming it on ideas of communism though, not on totalitarian rule), nobody seems to see the depth of corruption of the market and the failure of democracy in the US. Instead of really ELECTING your leader, you're given a choice between two almost equal evils, you can choose to shoot your left or right foot, or if you don't vote, leave the shooting of your feet to someone else. The powers elected do nothing to fix the current corruption of market (because it profits them) and maintain the status quo, handing the power to each other, mock-fighting and giving the masses ilusion of choice.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
Right now I use a Kyocera SE44 slider. Tiny phone, tiny screen. Works great, though. The buttons are too small for my fat fingers and the screen is getting a little hard for my presbyopic eyes to see, but it works until the current contract's up.
;-)
;-)
But - I'm closer to 50 than 40 (or even 45) and have been a professional geek most of my adult life. At this point in my life I want *simple* technology that works.
Last May I kicked my cable TV provider to the curb and got a satellite dish. Got two TVs and two computers wired up for the price I was paying coughcomcastcough for a a two-tv digital cable setup (had analog-only to the computers). Plus, I got this really cool DVR
That same month I told the local phone company to take a hike, ported our home number to the spousal unit's cell and got a cell phone for myself. Since only about ten people have the number to my phone, interruptions have decreased significantly.
Last fall when my mother-in-law's laptop died (second HD failure) I took her down to the Apple store and she bought an iMac. She's almost 80 years old and can surf the web, do email and whatever alse she needs to do with a minimum of fuss. Once I got the iMac connected to her wireless network she *never* called me again for technical support. I'm so impressed I'm getting ready to buy an iMac for me. Bye Bye, Microsoft
But I digress.
As I continue to try to simplify my life (which is what technology's supposed to do, ain't it?) all I want is a phone that *makes phone calls*, has an address book that I can synchronize with my computer and doesn't play games, MP3s, support polyphonic ringtones, have a camera (and especially not a flash - I own a digital camera, honest) and so on.
Of course, if you looked up 'curmudgeon' in the dictionary you'd see my picture, but the older I get the *less* impressed I am with devices that can do everything.
But can't do any of them well. Can I have just a phone, please?
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin