Verizon Wireless To Open Network

A number of readers are letting us know about Verizon's plans, announced today, to open their nationwide wireless network to devices that they don't sell. A NYTimes blog posting puts VZW's announcement in industry context. From the press release: "In early 2008, the company will publish the technical standards the development community will need to design products to interface with the Verizon Wireless network. Any device that meets the minimum technical standard will be activated on the network. Devices will be tested and approved in a $20 million state-of-the-art testing lab which received an additional investment this year to gear up for the anticipated new demand. Any application the customer chooses will be allowed on these devices."

Comments

Google pressure

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like they feel the heat from the big G.

Re:Google pressure

[dgatwood]

Or stopped feeling it from the big "H".... I know my feet are feeling really cold all of a sudden. Apparently it is now endothermic.

:-D

No

[Jonesy69]

No, the iPhone wont work. Lets just clear that up right now.

Re:No

[geekoid]

How do you know?

Re:No

[physicsboy500]

Actually, on the contrary this may be a move by Verizon to put a hurt on AT&T's monopoly over the iPhone. I wouldn't be surprised if they designed this with the iPhone specifically in mind.

Re:No

[BecomingLumberg]

Because a GSM phone won't work on a CDMA network.

Re:No

[k_187]

Yes, but you're still not going to get the iPhone running on Verizon's network. Unless Apple makes a new version with a CDMA radio in it. I'd imagine that their deal with AT&T would preclude that.

Re:No

[QBasicer]

Is Verizon is CDMA isn't it? The iPhone is GSM.

Re:No

[timbck2]

For the iPhone to work on Verizon's network, one of two things has to happen:

(1) Apple releases a CDMA version of the iPhone

(2) Verizon changes their network over to GSM nationwide.

(2) isn't going to happen. (1) might, but not until AT&T's exclusive on the iPhone has expired (2012?)

Re:No

[Jonesy69]

GSM != CDMA CDMA != GSM

Re:No

[DECS]

Well Verizon Wireless is almost entirely CDMA2000+ EVDO, while the iPhone uses GSM + EDGE. Unless Verizon rolls out a huge WiFi network, the iPhone won't be able to use Verizon's network. On the other hand, it appears that the move was pushed by the popularity of the iPhone, and the threat of Google. With Verizon locked out of 27% of the US mobile phone market within just a few months of iPhone sales*, it wants/needs as much telephony tied to CDMA2000 as possible as a counterbalance. If Google can buy up and deploy open networks on the old analog TV spectrum within a few years, that would leave Verizon's ~$5 billion new CDMA2000/EVDO networks a vast, unsalable investment that can't be monetized in the subsidy lock model of the 90s.

*iPhone Grabs 27% of US Smartphone Market

Re:No

[sm62704]

No, the iPhone wont work.

It won't work for me, since as I work I can't afford one. Not this year anyway; the price will surely go down and I'll surely catch up on my expenses.

-mcgrew

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

That's 27% of the *smartphone* market, which is not even close to 27% of the mobile phone market. Same article later talks about Apple having 3% marektshare overall, which is not nerely as impressive.

Re:No

[Grokmoo]

While I don't disagree with the spirit of your comment, the iPhone has only 27% of the US smartphone market, which is of course far less than the entire US mobile phone market.

Re:No

[cayenne8]

"(1) Apple releases a CDMA version of the iPhone

(2) Verizon changes their network over to GSM nationwide.

(2) isn't going to happen. (1) might, but not until AT&T's exclusive on the iPhone has expired (2012?)"

Hmm...well...I wonder if Apple was smart enough to ONLY give AT&T exclusive rights to the GSM iPhone. What if they didn't specify who would get an iPhone using a different system, like CDMA???

Re:No

[davester666]

It might just be me, but Verizon could totally kick start this by NOT CRIPPLING THE PHONES THEY SELL. Stop removing features the manufacturers already developed, that end-users might actually want and use, just so they have to download a ringtone from Verizon.com...

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

True dat!

Re:No

[SleepyHappyDoc]

That would require AT&T to be as stupid as Apple was smart. I doubt they'd leave such a gaping hole in an exclusivity agreement.

Re:No

[DustyShadow]

Does the apple-att contract really end in 2012? That seems excessively long for the industry.

Re:No

[Stonent1]

Verizon's biggest problem is themselves. They have the best coverage in my experience by far, but everything else about them drives customers away. They disable features on the phones, they customize the OS on the phones to ensure Verizon lock-in. They are the cellular version of the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld. "What you want extra butter for your bread?! NO SOUP FOR YOU!"

I've never been to Europe so I don't know how Vodafone treats their customers (Vodafone is part owner of Verizon Wireless) so I don't know who's influencing these decisions.

Re:No

[noc007]

(2) Verizon changes their network over to GSM nationwide.

(2) isn't going to happen. Not necessarily. Verizon has stated that it intends to move towards LTE. LTE is essentailly 4G GSM. I guess they caved to the wills of their 45% stake owner, VodaPhone.

I don't know how the hell VZW is going to migrate their customer base. I suppose they'll allot a certain amount of spectrum for LTE with the according devices, then scale back the spectrum allotment for CDMA as customers upgrade away from their broken phones to the new shiny. Mind you, I am not that intimately familiar with CDMA, GSM, or VZW's spectrum and equipment to know if that's feasible, so don't quote me.

Re:No

[Compuser]

Is it impossible to make a CDMA-GSM converter? Something that would make GSM signal akin to Bluetooth: a local
delivery mechanism to the converter.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

NOT CRIPPLING THE PHONES THEY SELL

Completely agree. I had a RAZR from Verizon. It was okay. Then I compared it to a RAZR one of my friends had on a different network. Even with my special "VCAST" RAZR, the thing was a piece of garbage compared to the RAZR my friend had. Verizon's proprietary software they put on their phones is crap.

I wasn't even able to set the thing to ring "high and vibe". I could only vibrate OR have high volume. For the love of god, why not both!?

Re:No

[mr100percent]

Apple said they aim for 1% of global mobile phone marketshare, which is 10 million phones, by their first year. That would mean they'd outsell blackberry.

Re:No

[$random_var]

It's not just Verizon... with Cingular/ATT (not even sure which it is right now), what used to be the menu button now opens a service that charges me money, I can't use mp3 songs as ringtones without slicing up the file on my computer first, and 3 of the 9 options on the main menu are ways for me to spend money with them (while obscure functions like "calculator" are 9 clicks away if you know the number shortcuts, 18 if you don't.)

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll be sad if the iPhone is still the most desirable device in 5 years.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Not until 2012? So will it be before, or after the world ends?

Re:No

[A New Normalcy]

VZW = Phone Nazi! . ...Lorenzo

Re:No

[overkill1024]

Just want to say that, based on personal experience, Verizon really does disable anything they can. Long story short I flashed my fhone with another carier's firmware (obligatorily voiding the warranty) and like magic I could transfer events to the calendar, use bluetooth, etc.; it extended the battery life too. I'd have less to complain about if the money they make off of people emailing pictures to thmselves or downloading ringtones subsidised the cost of the phone, but of the carriers I've seen with more open phones the prices are the same with the 2-year contract alone. Unfortunately profit takes priority over, well, anything that anyone reading /. would want and in that so much is lost.

Re:No

[Zebedeu]

I've never been to Europe so I don't know how Vodafone treats their customers (Vodafone is part owner of Verizon Wireless) so I don't know who's influencing these decisions. It's hard to tell, because if they wanted to be dicks (and I believe they would), they would get hammered by the competition.

But for reference, I just bought a Vodafone-branded phone, even though it's unlocked and I'm using it on another network.
In this phone, of the three available buttons on the home screen, one is set to access the vodafone web page (which doesn't confirm if you want to access the internet -- it just does). As you might expect, this button is used for other things, like hanging up a call, which means that you can have lots of fun closing your web browser every time the person on the other side hangs up before you do, and you press that damn "vodafone live" option by mistake.

For what it's worth, I never saw the standard software for this phone (SE W660i) so I don't know if the button always had this functionality, but I had another SE (K750i), and it didn't have this problem.

I will buy a phone with Android as soon as it's available. I hope its open nature will stop companies from being able to pull crap like this, but at least I should be able to change some option on the web browser which asks for confirmation before accessing the web.

Re:No

[pbrooks100]

But there's a third option; what if a Zune CDMA phone was released? Nah. Bill Gates et al would never think of doing something like that ;)

Re:No

[chrish]

Given how the Zunes seem to have feature sets trailing the iPod feature sets by a year or more, the Zune phone would be GSM-only (and probably require some sort of additional Live! subscription) and released some time next year.

Re:No

[intheshelter]

It's impressive when you realize that it achieved those numbers in less than 6 months.

Re:No

[AmigaMMC]

Talking about iPhones, the European Union has passed a law a few months ago stating that phones must be unlocked by the operator after one year from purchase upon request of the buyer. Apple cannot possibly be happy with this, I can see Americans buying their iPhones in Europe.

Re:No

[JoeRandomHacker]

I've never been to Europe so I don't know how Vodafone treats their customers (Vodafone is part owner of Verizon Wireless) so I don't know who's influencing these decisions. Note that Verizon owns the majority of Verizon Wireless and manages all VZW operations, so it isn't likely to resemble the way Vodafone is run at all.

Re:No

[Andy Dodd]

From the announcements, "Devices will be tested and approved in a $20 million state-of-the-art testing lab"

If your phone isn't crippled up to Verizon standards, NO APPROVAL FOR YOU!

This announcement is a bunch of PR that means nothing.

1) There are very few sources of CDMA phones other than Verizon. Sprint has a few, and for a long time IF you could get the MSL for a Sprint phone and unlock it, you could activate it on VZW. That's how people got Treo 650s on Verizon for the first 9 months it was available. (9 months is how long it took Verizon for "network certification" which really meant "crippling Bluetooth DUN in addition to a few other features"). I've heard VZW started whitelisting ESNs and refusing to activate anything on the whitelist (which Sprint already did, making it impossible to take Verizon's easily-reprogrammable phones and activate them on Sprint.) So VZW is just undoing a policy they started 2-3 years ago for PR purposes. "Network Certification" delays are why I switched to AT&T two months ago when I found out that the phone I wanted (XV6800, Verizon variant of the Sprint Mogul PPC-6800) was delayed for "Network Certification" - I learned the hard way with my Treo 650 what that phrase REALLY means.

2) Using phones on their network requires approval from their labs. See my comment about "NO APPROVAL FOR YOU".

AT&T, on the other hand, lets you use any GSM device that supports the U.S. GSM bands on their network. Pop your SIM into any unlocked GSM phone and go. (For example, no U.S. provider sells the HTC Advantage, but people use it on AT&T with no problem.)

Verizon used to have superior coverage and customer service, but AT&T's coverage has improved VASTLY in recent years (and so far has equaled or even exceeded the coverage I had with VZW), and their customer service is also superior. With Verizon, if you had a corporate discount applied to your phone, you could only make plan changes through special "corporate reps" assigned to employees of the company you worked for. Not online, not in person in a store. Go figure, when I bought a Treo 650 VZW tried to put a $40/month unlimited data plan onto my account without my consent three times in a row. To their credit, they refunded me the cost when I complained. Once I finished grad school and had income AND a discount, I tried for three months to add the data option and gave up.

AT&T, on the other hand, just puts your company's "FAN number" into the system, and from then on you get whatever discount employees of your company are eligible for. You can still manage your plan and features online (with limits - AT&T's OLAM can be a bit wonky sometimes, for normal or corporate users), or in stores.

Re:No

[Stonent1]

I think the split is 55/45 so I think there's going to be at least some influence there. Now that I recall, Vodafone Blackberries have a custom theme applied that is mostly red with cutesey BeOS style icons.

Re:No

[Shadow99_1]

Well a few points I'll reply to...

As a VZW customer who uses a corporate discount, they only time I can't get my discount is on the phones in the local stores or online through the generic website... However I can get my discount on accessories in store, Use the corporate discount website to purchase plans/phones/accessories, or get plans with discounts in the stores. As many times as I changed my plan in the store I know this awfully well...

Also I'd love it if AT&T had better coverage where I live, but where I live their coverage is interstate and the area directly next to it. That's it. I live 15 miles from any interstate (there are 4 close ones), which is outside of the narrow band of support they offer. They don't even have a store locally where I can sign up, but phones, etc... If they don't service the area where you live what's the point...?

My options when looking for a carrier where VZW and two regional providers. I couldn't travel with the regional ones (my work a few times a year requires travel), so those were out... That left VZW and so far I've had few complaints... Then again I don't jump phones very often and I don't use many 'advanced' features of my current phone...

Re:No

[bkr1_2k]

Not at $999 Euros they won't. That's over double the price, though it will come down as people start selling them so they can upgrade.

Re:No

[m2943]

That's 27% of the *smartphone* market,

I don't think the iPhone is a "smartphone"; it's more like a fashion phone.

This seems very much unlike Verizon

[yincrash]

I'm in shock. Verizon is fairly well known for locking down every phone they offer. What spurred the sudden change of heart? Google Android?

Re:This seems very much unlike Verizon

[geekoid]

Verizon has been becoming more friendly towards there customers over the last few years.
No, not perfect.
Any company that lowers the price of their product, even to people in a contract for a higher amount, is pretty good in my book.

Re:This seems very much unlike Verizon

[jtara]

I wonder how much the Amazon Kindle has to do with this? (The Kindle uses EVDO through Sprint to download books, and Amazon picks up the tab for the airtime.)

It seems to me like this is more oriented toward that type of specialized device, rather than simply a "bring your own phone" option.

I think Verizon may have realized that there is potentially a huge new market to be tapped, which could go to WiFi or other carriers if they don't provide the ability to use these type of devices on their network.

Re:This seems very much unlike Verizon

[Anonymous Coward]

I do believe it's Google they're worried about, but not because of Android. This sounds suspiciously like the terms required by the wireless spectrum auction. On one hand, I'd say maybe they're preparing so they can have a unified platform that uses the other spectrum; on the other hand, it could be a show of good faith to the FCC.

Re:This seems very much unlike Verizon

[a_nonamiss]

IMHO, that's untrue. My company has used Verizon for years, and they are NOT becoming more friendly towards us. They have better PR people now, but they are just as much on the lookout for "revenue leak" as they've always been. Any company that treats their customer as opponents in some sort of battle for cash is not customer friendly. A good business deal should benefit both parties involved. That's not done by screwing your customers.

Re:This seems very much unlike Verizon

[Anonymous Coward]

Verizon has been becoming more friendly towards there customers over the last few years.
No, not perfect.
Any company that lowers the price of their product, even to people in a contract for a higher amount, is pretty good in my book. I don't know about Verizon Wireless, but that certainly hasn't been my experience with Verizon DSL. I called them to ask why they were charging me $40/month when they were advertising $25/month. I learned from their customer support guy that the price had been lowered to $25 nine months ago, but they "couldn't" change my rate unless I called in and complained, because "our database isn't capable of just changing everyone's price." A few months later, when they raised their price from $25/month to $30/month, their database was apparently fixed, since they had no problem making that adjustment without me calling in.

I told my mother to call them because she was also paying $40/month. When she asked why she was being billed so much more than what they were advertising, she was told that the prices were different for different speeds. Since she isn't technical, she accepted that without knowing that she was on the slowest (768kbps up, 128kbps down) plan. I told her to leave them and go to Cavalier, which she did. Scum.

Re:This seems very much unlike Verizon

[2PAIRofACES]

A good business deal should benefit both parties involved. That's not done by screwing your customers. Unless of course you're business is prostitution.

Holy Crap!!! I just realized I figured out the mythical step 2.

Step 1. Screw your customers!
Step 2. Make sure you're a prostitute!
Step 3. Profit!

Re:This seems very much unlike Verizon

[sm62704]

Any company that treats their customer as opponents in some sort of battle for cash is not customer friendly. A good business deal should benefit both parties involved. That's not done by screwing your customers.

Welcome to the 21st century. If you run across a "customer friendly" company let me know and I'll become their customer.

I miss the days when most businessmen weren't sociopaths!

-mcgrew

Re:This seems very much unlike Verizon

[a_nonamiss]

I've run across a great many companies that operate like this. Unfortunately, most of them are small(ish) local businesses. Simple psychology. It's harder to screw someone over when you have to look them in the eye. I do, however, go to great lengths to work with those companies in my business.

Re:This seems very much unlike Verizon

[The_Wilschon]

Shouldn't steps 1 and 2 be switched?

Hmmm, step 1, accomplished! Now let's see about step 2... ... .... Crap. I'm not a prostitute. No Profit!!! for me after all.

Re:This seems very much unlike Verizon

[Intron]

It's not psychology. Small companies depend on repeat business and word of mouth. They can't afford to get a reputation of screwing customers. Large companies depend on advertising and just being no worse than the next large company. They can't spend any time on individual customers, just on providing the same quality to everyone, bad or good.

When my ISP screwed up I called the VP of Operations because I have his cell phone number. That's the advantage of using small businesses.

Re:This seems very much unlike Verizon

[TooMuchToDo]

Are you arguing that small business threat you well just because they have to face you? I've built a boutique hosting business based on providing excellent value for a fair price. My partner and I started the company because we wanted to compete on service. Not every business is out to screw the customer.

Re:This seems very much unlike Verizon

[Isao]

What spurred the sudden change of heart?

Sprint. They were the first to lose the class-action lawsuit.

Re:This seems very much unlike Verizon

[tobiasly]

Verizon has been becoming more friendly towards there customers over the last few years.

Issuing patent-troll litigation to shut down Vonage isn't what I'd consider being customer-friendly.

Re:This seems very much unlike Verizon

[bearxor]

It was likely the announcement by Sprint (although forced by a lawsuit), of the same thing last month.

Re:This seems very much unlike Verizon

[Workaphobia]

This really caught me by surprise. If it's lawsuit related, I would've liked to see mention of that in the summary. My guess was that they're realizing they're nearing the end of an era of one form of lock in and want to practice others before their obviated by other open networks. Pressure from the 700 MHz spectrum?

Re:This seems very much unlike Verizon

[t1n0m3n]

Which has nothing to do with "opening" the Verizon network to "non-Verizon" phones. Verizon will lose money if they don't lock "Verizon-provided" phones. Therefore I think it would take another class-action lawsuit (like the Sprint lawsuit linked via parent post) to get Verizon to stop sim-locking their phones.

Re:This seems very much unlike Verizon

[noc007]

Whoa! Who at VZW have you been dealing with. For me the privledge of being their customer costs a premium over their competitors (e.g. Sprint), they'll cancel my ass for going over 5Gb of usage on my Unlimited plan, cripple their phones, and find new ways of charging for doing stuff that wasn't charged before. I should have stayed with Sprint; their CS sucks ass, but their more reasonable with their services IMO. Meh, all mobile phone companies just suck big hairy donkey dick.

Re:This seems very much unlike Verizon

[krbvroc1]

Democratic Congress, potential Hearings, 2008 Presidential Elections with new FCC appointments, etc.

Re:This seems very much unlike Verizon

[psychicsword]

If (Screwing_customers==True){ If (isProstitute==true){ Return PROFIT; } else{ if (verizon==false){ isProstitute=true; } Return lessProfit; \\less profit because it is first time } } else{ System.out.println("You are a google Company"); }

Re:This seems very much unlike Verizon

[Andy Dodd]

In my opinion, they've been doing just the opposite. Two years ago, I was an incredibly happy Verizon customer, and evangelized them frequently.

In the past two and a half years, my opinion of them went downhill fast. A laundry list of problems (including but not limited to phone release delays for crippling, phone crippling, and them adding unlimited data to my plan when I explicitly refused it three times in a row) led to me hating them and switching to AT&T three months ago.

I've been much happier with AT&T than I was with VZW for the past two years.

Re:This seems very much unlike Verizon

[shagan]

I've run into several big-ish companies that are very "customer friendly".

Maglite. I had one of there flashlights and the switch broke. Looked them up on the web to get a replacement part and they sent it at no charge for the part or shipping.

LL Bean. I've had nothing but great interactions with them as well as others.

Crutchfield. Could they do more to make customers happy.

There are others, but not nearly as many as their should be. I think a lot of companies feel like they are abused by a small percentage of their customers and they feel they have to screw them all to make a profit, which is true when your profits are razor thin (think Wal-Mart and Best Buy).

Re:This seems very much unlike Verizon

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the correct sequence is:

Step 1. Make sure you're a prostitute!
Step 2. Screw your customers!
Step 3. Profit!

Unprecedented doesn't begin to describe it

[jeffmeden]

What might Verizon have up their sleeve on this one? They have traditionally been a VERY closed, clandestine network that offers no support for third party anything, and a very aggressive attitude against any efforts to open up (bluetooth lockout is one example). To see them changing their attitude is great, but what is the catch?

Re:Unprecedented doesn't begin to describe it

[kackle]

Undoubtedly it was in response to Google's bidding to make an "open spectrum".

As a person who has explored making a device for use on Ver*izon's network (job related), I tell you that there is a substantial certification fee for such devices; 2 years ago anyway I was told it was roughly a couple of hundred thousand dollars for a design. I wonder whether they are changing that too...

Re:Unprecedented doesn't begin to describe it

[GuyWithLag]

Simple: don't allow handsets/devices to talk via the network directly. Instead, they have to talk with a third-party provider, and charge based on bandwidth used that provider. Like the Amazon/Sprint deal with the kindle.

Re:Unprecedented doesn't begin to describe it

[imstanny]

What might Verizon have up their sleeve on this one? They have traditionally been a VERY closed, clandestine network that offers no support for third party anything, and a very aggressive attitude against any efforts to open up (bluetooth lockout is one example). To see them changing their attitude is great, but what is the catch? Not a catch - this is a response to them losing customers. I can tell you this from personal experience. Their network is great, but everything else about their service sucks. To get any deal you need a 2 year contract; and this essentially allows them to tell you to go to hell if you ever do have a problem. The service in their stores is horrible - any cell phone problem is remedied by trying to sell you another cell phone at an absurd premium - how does $250 for a mediocre LG flip phone sound? I can get an iPhone for slightly more. Anyways - after they refused to help me acquire a new phone when I lost mine (they offered me to pay $250 to replace my lost phone), and then didn't help me fix an older VZ phone (from previous contract) I ended up using - I sucked it up, canceled my 2yr contract 8mos before expiration, and got Tmobile w/ the Blackberry Pearl instead. While the area coverage is worse than Verizon's, I am infinitely happier - I got a 1 year contract, 50% more minutes, unlimited data/email, + txt msgs for only $20 more a month. Once the contract ends, I'll prob move to AT&T/iPhone.

Re:Unprecedented doesn't begin to describe it

[nine-times]

Maybe it's something like: you can use any hardware and any apps you want, but they can only connect to Verizon paid services.

I agree, though-- it sounds great, but what's the catch? I have a hard time believing there's no catch.

Re:Unprecedented doesn't begin to describe it

[Anonymous Coward]

Bluetooth is my biggest issue with VZW right now (disabling OBEX in their handsets). Will this allow users to fully utilize Bluetooth in future handsets? Will new handsets be 'locked' into the same cookie-cuttered software they seem to force on all of their handsets?
 
...maybe I'm asking for too much? ;)

Re:Unprecedented doesn't begin to describe it

[TooMuchToDo]

Try using their HotSpot@Home service, which is just a consumer-friendly way of saying they tunnel your calls over IP. I've been a T-Mobile customer for almost 5 years in Chicago (back when they bought Voicestream) and I absolutely love them (seriously, they've been nothing but good to me). I bought a Blackberry Curve, and when I'm near a Wi-fi access point, the phone tunnels the calls over IP instead of over the GSM network. This has helped me a lot, as my office is in a basement (i.e. no reception), so we now have great reception by setting up some 802.11G access points. Also, in our datacenter locations, we simply put some 802.11G access points on an isolated VLAN, and we now have blanket coverage.

Re:Unprecedented doesn't begin to describe it

[Intron]

"they refused to help me acquire a new phone when I lost mine" ... unlike every other business which is happy to replace your lost items. I can't tell you how many times Dell has cheerfully replaced my lost laptops and Sears gave me a new pair of Dockers after I spilled paint on mine. Not.

As for Verizon Wireless, you can buy any cdma phone and connect it to your account for free via their website. I've done it. They say up front that if you want a deal on a phone, you get it with a new activation or contract extension.

Re:Unprecedented doesn't begin to describe it

[VP]

What might Verizon have up their sleeve on this one? 4G. Verizon announced that their choice of 4G technology (the one coming after EVD0 for CDMA-based networks and after WCDMA for GSM-based networks) will be LTE, which is the same technology chosen by the GSM-based 3G networks.

If the new technology requires the use of SIM cards (like all GSM-compatible standards), this makes it near impossible to close up their network in the same way they have been doing it so far.

Re:Unprecedented doesn't begin to describe it

[Orange Crush]

I just wanted to add something about HotSpot@Home that I didn't realize until recently--it's an extra $10/month, but all your VOIP calls are unlimited (don't use minutes) however they *will* let you use VOIP on a phone that supports it *without* the extra fee if you don't mind VOIP calls using your minutes as normal. I never go through all of my minutes anyway but still wanted the added VOIP coverage, so I was happy to find out it was available without paying an extra monthly fee.

Re:Unprecedented doesn't begin to describe it

[TooMuchToDo]

The promotional period was $10/month. It's now $20/month for individuals and $30/month for family plans. Still a deal for unlimited calling anywhere there is WiFi available (including Starbucks and FedexKinkos).

Re:Unprecedented doesn't begin to describe it

[imstanny]

"they refused to help me acquire a new phone when I lost mine" ... unlike every other business which is happy to replace your lost items. I can't tell you how many times Dell has cheerfully replaced my lost laptops and Sears gave me a new pair of Dockers after I spilled paint on mine. Not. As for Verizon Wireless, you can buy any cdma phone and connect it to your account for free via their website. I've done it. They say up front that if you want a deal on a phone, you get it with a new activation or contract extension. You, sir, need a lesson in economics. They don't have to replace my phone, that's correct. But the result of them not doing so was me no longer being their customer! (This is the heart of capitalism - they don't have to give me shit and/or sell it to me for cheap, and conversely - I don't have to buy shit they try to sell me at a cost of an arm and a leg). It was economically beneficial for me to drop their service for $170 cancellation fee, and then get a blackberry pearl for $120 (w/ 1 yr contract), not to mention I got 200 more minutes for the same monthly rate. So $290 for a better phone, more minutes, 1 year contract...or $250 for the same crap phone, which I would then get rid of in 8 months once my contract ran out and I would be able to get a new phone w/ new contract for discount and/or free.

Re:Unprecedented doesn't begin to describe it

[jrmcferren]

You don't need CDMA (maybe in February you may), simply activate an old AMPS (analog) phone and disable all of the unnecessary extras (Caller ID, text/pix/flix messaging, and of course voicemail).

Let me get this straight...

[Shoeler]

The most evil of evil cellular companies, the company that replaces perfectly unacceptable, already crippled stock phone operating systems with COMPLETELY UTTERLY crippled operating systems, the same one who if you buy their Motorola RAZR and try to use MOTOROLA's OWN MOBILE PHONE TOOLS, will not allow said use. The same one who requires a USB CHARGER PURCHASED FROM THEM, when any charger will suffice, is now opening their network???!!!

'Scuse me - that sizzling sound was hell freezing over.

Re:Let me get this straight...

[tim_darklighter]

I didn't see it in the article, but does this mean Verizon will allow other software on phones now, i.e. can I unbrick my RAZR and actually use bluetooth to do things like putting my own ringtones on it, or will all non-Verizon phones be required to use VCast and the other crap software they have?

Re:Let me get this straight...

[chrisgeleven]

So does this mean Duke Nukem is coming soon?

After all, the past few years we have seen:

Apple moving Intel
Internet Explorer actually updated
Red Sox win the World Series not once but twice
Apple releasing a phone
DRM-less music from major label(s) being sold on major internet retailers (iTunes, Amazon, etc.)
Vista actually being released.

And now...

Verizon letting you use "any" phone on its network, running "any" application.

I'm running out of things to complain about here...work with me people!

Re:Let me get this straight...

[rwyoder]

The most evil of evil cellular companies, the company that replaces perfectly unacceptable, already crippled stock phone operating systems with COMPLETELY UTTERLY crippled operating systems, the same one who if you buy their Motorola RAZR and try to use MOTOROLA's OWN MOBILE PHONE TOOLS, will not allow said use.

And that is why after 5 years of being a loyal Verizon customer, when my old Startac died, I canceled my Verizon account and went to Sprint, who were happy to sell me a fully-functioning Razr for the same price Verizon wanted for a crippled one. Even the guys at the Verizon store were sympathetic when I came in to cancel the account.

Re:Let me get this straight...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The most evil of evil cellular companies..."

Seriously, shut the fuck up. It's a phone company you fuking loser, stop pretending there's anything "evil" about it at all.

Sometimes you jackasses need a kick in the groin to give you some fucking perspective.

Re:Let me get this straight...

[jdjbuffalo]

Yes, but we've replaced these old problems with a bunch of new ones that have been festering for decades and are really much bigger and scarier issues:

Unending war of against the Iraq's
Another Permanent War (on small groups of Islamic Fundamentalists)
Removal of our basic Civil Rights
Fundamental loss of confidence in our political process (picking the best of two awful candidates is often our only choice)
Unsafe food from China
Unsafe toys from China
Nearly doubling of our National Debt in only 7 years (5 trillion to 9 trillion)
And much much more...

Oh yeah, and still no Duke Nukem Forever... Sorry.

Hell isn't freezing over, it's shifting into high gear!

Re:Let me get this straight...

[ThE_DoOmSmItH]

i find it an odd statement that you cannot use mobile phone tools on a CDMA razr. Mobile phone tools is not intended to work with CDMA phones, but actually with GSM phones, as per motorola's web site.

Re:Let me get this straight...

[PipsqueakOnAP133]

No way.

Verizon is allowing the certification of devices (most likely not phones), to use their network.

There are three parties involved:
1) Network owner : Verizon.
2) Device manufacturer :
3) End user :

Just because #2 is now allowed to register stuff with #1's net, doesn't mean #3 can do whatever they want.

Example? Kindle uses Sprint's 3G EVDO network to provide connectivity without WiFi. Amazon (#2) got permission from Sprint to have these non-phone devices connect to their network. Amazon also foots the EVDO bill for #3. As end users (#3), we're not given any easy way to use Kindle for anything but buying books and wifi with a crappy browser.

Re:Let me get this straight...

[maxume]

There is no most evil of evil cellular companies. There is the one who just screwed you so hard you up and left, and the one that is right now screwing you as hard as they think they can get away with. Later, the company that is screwing you right now will become the company that was screwing you, and some other company will be screwing you as hard as they think they can get away with.

Re:Let me get this straight...

[Andy Dodd]

Yeah, to Verizon's credit, the guy at the store didn't try at all to convince me not to cancel when I went in to stop. VZW management might not be happy with the guy for this, but it gained VZW a few lost brownie points with me, and raised their infinitesimal chances of me returning a little bit.

Admittedly, the AT&T Tilt I was surfing the web on while I was in line might have been a sign to the guy that convincing me to stay was futile...

Translated

[techpawn]

Any application the customer chooses will be allowed on these devices.

We know Google won't sign any exclusive contracts and we want a piece of their mobile action when the time comes and people bring us the device...

Re:Translated

[a_nonamiss]

I think you just hit the nail right between the eyes.

Re:Translated

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you just hit the nail right between the eyes.

We HAVE to get you a metaphor book Doc... This mix and match shit has got to go...

Re:Translated

[JCSoRocks]

Well, a penny saved is worth two in the bush, isn't it?
and Don't cross the road... if you can't get out of the kitchen.

Re:Translated

[realthing02]

Someone please mod parent up for the reference...

Any device?

[a_nonamiss]

Any device that meets the minimum technical standard will be activated on the network That's a helluva loophole. It's possible that they just want to protect their network from rogue devices, but I think they could use that clause to deny a lot of devices. Also, the article mentions fees associated with testing. Are those fees geared towards the individual consumer or phone manufacturers? Hundreds or millions of dollars?

I'd like to be optimistic, but I've (unwillingly) been a Verizon customer for years, and I'd be surprised to see a leopard change its spots...

Re:Any device?

[illumin8]

I'd like to be optimistic, but I've (unwillingly) been a Verizon customer for years, and I'd be surprised to see a leopard change its spots...

Yeah, this is such a non-announcement it's not even funny. Verizon can pretend to be open, when in truth their network uses a proprietary version of CDMA which is not even compatible with any of the GSM hardware out there. So basically, nobody will ever become certified, unless they really want them to be, and the only companies with the money and time to apply are the ones that are already providing them with handsets like Motorola, LG, etc.

Verizon gets to pretend "see, we're open, really" when meanwhile the barriers to entry are still so friggin' high that you need a multi-million dollar R&D budget just to play in their proprietary sandbox.

No thanks... Go to hell and take your locked down proprietary handsets with you.

Re:Any device?

[Wdomburg]

Verizon can pretend to be open, when in truth their network uses a proprietary version of CDMA which is not even compatible with any of the GSM hardware out there.

That's like saying they use a Philip head screwdriver which is not even compatible with any of the Robertson head screws out there (GSM uses TDMA signalling, not CDMA). And Verizon's network is CDMA2000, a TIA standard.

Re:Any device?

[penultimatepost]

As long as the minimum requirements are clearly stated, I don't see how there is a loophole, Noe if the requirements are unreasonable, a moving target or worse not clearly specified you have a bit of an issue.

Re:Any device?

[Bananatree3]

As you say, the fee they're discussing is unspecified. There are probably small hardware companies that will take advantage of this opening. I don't think Verizon isn't 100% bullshitting here. However that being said, I don't think Verizon is showing all its cards on this.

Re:Any device?

[TheCRAIGGERS]

proprietary version of CDMA which is not even compatible with any of the GSM hardware out there.

You do realize that GMS and CDMA are entirely different standards, right? What you just said there makes no sense.

I'm not a fan of Verizon either, but all the carriers in the US lock their phones. And the decision to go CDMA or GSM is largely made by the phone manufacturer, based most entirely on market penetration.

Re:Any device?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't believe one word of this propaganda either.

Verizon refused to activate my Kyocera 7135, which was stamped with their logo, because of some lame excuse.

My guess is that this will actually turn into a super-expensive licensing program, with consumers kicked in the teeth as usual.

Re:Any device?

[Achromatic1978]

when in truth their network uses a proprietary version of CDMA which is not even compatible with any of the GSM hardware out there

Do you understand what you say? Their network is CDMA, not a "proprietary version of". Other CDMA devices can, in theory, be used on their network - with the caveat that the device ID, etc, needs to be allowed to register by the provider.

CDMA and GSM were never intended to be, never will be, compatible, and it has precisely fuckall to do with Verizon.

Re:Any device?

[BlueMerle]

From the Ars write up on this:

One Verizon exec went so far as to say that if someone builds a device in their basement on a breadboard, Verizon will test it and activate it. Smaller players will definitely be able to get in on the action, something that hasn't previously been possible.

John Stratton, Verizon's chief marketing officer, noted that Verizon will support far more than simply handsets, and it hopes that the move to open its network will unleash an explosion of wireless innovation. Everything from wireless water meters to digital cameras to game devices can feature Verizon connectivity without needing a Verizon-built or approved device. The only limits will be "subject to the imagination of the marketplace," said Stratton.

I think this is as clear as it gets, as long as it's truthful.

Re:Any device?

[squiggleslash]

For what it's worth, Verizon Wireless is publicly committed to switching to the 4G version of GSM, known as "UMTS Release 8" or "LTE", within the next few years. So yes, they will be switching to (a version of) GSM, albeit not the 2G version.

UMTS Rel. 8 is a very open system even compared to previous versions of GSM. It's all-IP and sufficiently layered that you - the end user - could use the lower layers as a pure Internet-access medium with your own VoIP protocols, or at an opposite extreme use a phone that can roam on WiMAX networks with the upper layers of Rel. 8 implemented over WiMAX's Internet access network. So despite the cynicism, Verizon Wireless's announcement of more openness today is in keeping with the direction they're likely to head in anyway.

If Sprint and Alltel can be persuaded to switch to Rel. 8 too, then we might finally see a universally supported standard in the US that's actually worth using as well.

Re:Any device?

[sm62704]

I'd like to be optimistic, but I've (unwillingly) been a Verizon customer for years, and I'd be surprised to see a leopard change its spots...

How can you be an "unwilling" customer? Are they the only company in your area?

Cingular sure changed their spots when AT&T bought them out. I was perfectly happy with my $50 per month bill, never going over my minutes, and then BAM all of a sudden I'm using $150 a month, then $450 a month, then $150 when they've shut off the service!

We, as nerds, need to create some sort of wireless mesh that doesn't need the carriers' networks. I'm sick of being shafted by the corporate sociopaths.

-mcgrew

Re:Any device?

[Ghubi]

You're missing the point.

Any application the customer chooses will be allowed on these devices. It's not about making it easier for phone makers to design phones that will connect to Verizon. It's about being able to run any software I choose to run, including software that I wrote, on my electronic devices.

Re:Any device?

[VeriTea]

Not necessarily. If the device on the other end doesn't perform as well as you planned when you designed the network you end up with unhappy customers who blame the network, not their phone. Verizon has always had the most strict standards when it came to approving devices. Yes, some of the reason is because they tried to lock them down, but mostly because they only allowed devices that were guaranteed to make the network look good. Not every phone performs the same - anyone who has ever put them on a test set can tell you that.

Re:Any device?

[snoogans126]

AT&T Didn't buy Cingular. Cingular was owned by SBC and Bell South. SBC acquired the original AT&T. And decided to re-brand themselves as AT&T, presumably because of the name's strong history.

Re:Any device?

[TooMuchToDo]

Mind you though, some carriers will unlock the phone for you. I called T-Mobile and had an unlock code for my newly purchased Blackberry Curve in under 15 minutes.

Re:Any device?

[Anonymous Coward]

when in truth their network uses a proprietary version of CDMA which is not even compatible with any of the GSM hardware out there.
 
Uh, dumbass? CDMA and GSM are two different standards. I dare you to show me the version of CDMA that supports GSM. I fucking dare you.
 
  Go to hell and take your locked down proprietary handsets with you.
 
And this announcement means that they're not going to be locked down anymore. I guess it's hard for you to read.
 
Not to even mention that this is a real rich argument coming from an iPhone owner. Can you say FUD?
 
How about you get your head out of your ass or stop being such a fucking shill?

Re:Any device?

[a_nonamiss]

My company uses VZON, and I have no say in the matter. I have a kickass 4000 minute plan, plus unlimited data and TXT, and my company will purchase any phone I want once every two years. But with VZON, I'm consistently stuck with crap. I'd love to go to a provider like T-Mobile that more or less leaves their users alone. It's true that VZON provides unbeatable coverage and great call quality in my area, but I'd sacrifice a lot of that to get a phone that doesn't suck. The fastest EVDO network in the world still sucks on my Palm 700P.

Re:Any device?

[Vegeta99]

And just what were SBC and Bell South originally part of? AT&T!

This company is one sick, incestuous group of Russian dolls that keep eating each other up. At least, that's the image I get

Re:Any device?

[sm62704]

It doesn't matter to me who bought who; the service and price was excellent, then they became AT&T and started sucking like a Hoover. The Feds should have never let the merger happen! They have become what the old AT&T that was forced to break up was.

At least this time they're not a monopoly and I can get service from another (probably equally evil) company.

Re:Any device?

[snoogans126]

The point I was trying to make, and re-reading my post, I'll admit I didn't make well. Was that the re-branding to AT&T occurred separately from the accusation.

Cingular bought AT&T wireless in October 2004. The re-branding efforts started in 2007 ("Cingular is now The new AT&T").

So while your billing problems might have occurred on the first bill where the logo on the top changed, the behind the scenes stuff happened well before that, so whatever overcharges you had were made by the same company as the months before, they just put a new coat of paint on the building.

Unless perhaps, putting the string "AT&T" onto the bill kicked on an "evil flag" in some old mainframe that had been dormant for years :)

Re:Any device?

[sm62704]

Hmmm, I'll have to check into T-Mobile. Thanks!

This is non-news...

[lstellar]

...until Verizon defines "technical standards," fleshes out billing methods and joins the Google alliance (along with Sprint/Nextel and T-Mobile). Until then, this just sounds like evil Verizon trying to up their Karma modifier.

Peachy....

[wowbagger]

Peachy. So I can now get mobile devices by a wide range of vendors, and pay Verizon large amounts of money every month to use those devices. What great altruists are Verizon.

Verizon charges US$60 a month to access their data service from my computer via my phone.

I tried calling a modem under my control as a data call - while modem speeds aren't great, they are better than nothing, and I'd gladly spend minutes I wouldn't otherwise use for those rare occasions I want data access but have no WiFi.

It didn't work.

I verified that I could call the modem with a normal phone - thus the only variable left was Verizon. I contacted them, and asked them about this. I was VERY CLEAR that I was not trying to access their data service, but rather my own modem.

Their response? "Oh, you need the US$60 plan to do that." I need to pay them US$60 a month to access my own damn modem.

Sorry, but being able to access Verizon with other people's devices doesn't really thrill me - especially since every one of those devices will still have to license the CDMA patents form Qualcomm - the Microsoft of the phone industry.

Re:Peachy....

[Anonymous Coward]

I need to pay them US$60 a month to access my own damn modem.

Yes, you need to get the data plan in order to be permitted to transfer data over their network. You're not paying $60 for an IP address assigned from their modem bank, you're paying $60 for filling up a slot in their network with something that isn't voice and is probably not going to hang up after a couple of minutes.

Re:Peachy....

[LunaticTippy]

I am not trying to defend Verizon, a company I actively hate, but I'd like to explain why this didn't work.

Most digital voice service uses lossy compression, like the mp3 format. If you lossily compress the analog modem noise you won't have a stable signal. You would find the same problem with pretty much any cellular service and most VOIP services. Even with lossless compression you would probably have problems and end up with a low data rate.

Re:Peachy....

[hal9000(jr)]

Mod parent up. Between lossy compression, generally crappy audio quality, latency and jitter, todays modems just can't handle it. If they could, they would most likely rate down to a speed so slow, you wouldn't use it anyway. Sorry dude. POTS with a guaranteed spectrum is what you need for modems.

Re:Peachy....

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Have you actually tried doing it? I'd be interested to find out what actually happens and what connection speeds are possible. I understand the compression issues, but the modem sends pretty clear tones. I guess it depends on the compression. If it compresses with an eye towards human voice ( non exact frequencies, remove anything not noticeable), rather than just doing some blind frequency filtering then I guess it makes sense. Still, I'd expect at least 900 baud ( if you can find a modem that goes that low), I connected with my voice at 300.

Re:Peachy....

[wowbagger]

No, a data call initiated by Bluetooth DUN does NOT go through the vocoder - rather, it is encapsulated on a 1xRTT channel and transmitted instead of voice data. At the far end the system then takes the data out of the 1xRTT data stream, digitally modulates it into modem signaling, and injects that into the PSTN as standard PCM data.

This doesn't even tie up a "modem", as all that is happening is that the base equipment is just using a time slot on the PSTN trunk, just like a voice call.

So, this is UNLIKE using their US$60 service, as this is using a single 1xRTT voice slot (thus burdening the system no more than a voice call), instead of taking up a chunk of the EVDO channels available.

Moreover, Verizon *used* to offer exactly this sort of service: you could do a normal 1xRTT data call to their system and access the Internet at the relatively slow speeds of 1xRTT for only the cost of the minutes used..

Re:Peachy....

[LunaticTippy]

Yeah, I didn't even go into all that. I hear so many problems with cellphones that would munge a modem connection: Reverb, dropouts, clipping, ridiculously low fidelity, etc. Heck, it even interferes with communication using spoken English.

I suspect that a cellphone-optimized modem standard could get decent throughput, but what an idiotic idea. You already have a digital connection, just lame pricing schemes.

Re:Peachy....

[CastrTroy]

I was under the impression that modems and other analog data transfer methods like fax machines didn't work over cell phones, or other digital networks. When the analog signal is converted to digital, it loses some information, and the modem at the other end can't decipher the signal. Unless you're trying to do something completely different, in which case I misunderstood you.

Re:Peachy....

[vux984]

So, this is UNLIKE using their US$60 service, as this is using a single 1xRTT voice slot (thus burdening the system no more than a voice call), instead of taking up a chunk of the EVDO channels available.

Why wouldn't your phone try to use evdo when making a 'data call'? Why would it just use a 1x channel? I would have thought a phone would attempt to use the fastest data connection available when making a data call by default.

Just curious, not saying you are wrong. I don't claim to know anything about the handshaking or routing process for cellular data, especially the newer stuff.

Re:Peachy....

[LunaticTippy]

Oh, I misunderstood. I thought you were placing a voice call to avoid paying for their data package. I guess I don't understand your complaint.

Re:Peachy....

[Anonymous Coward]

Your phone sucks?

I can do this over a serial link on my LG phone from 2001. 14.4Kbps, but it works.

Re:Peachy....

[tomz16]

You can dial any modem at 14.4k for free (just using minutes) from any vzw cell account... I have personally confirmed this works on several phones... If you just want to use the internet, then they provide their own DUN number. #777 user/pass = qnc/qnc for 14.4k, so you don't need your own ISP or modem bank. BUT IT DOES WORK WITH ANY MODEM on POTS!!! (FYI : Contrary to what many other posters here assumed, the signaling is digital between your phone and tower, it gets modulated/demodulated)

This is the only solution advertised and supported by them. (I believe it used to be called mobile office, or something like that)

You DO need to ensure you have the right modem init string in order to get your phone to drop down to this data rate. Do some reading on the net.

--The stuff below is unadvertised, but also confirmed working by me and many others--

In a 1xRTT service area, if you have National Access MOU enabled on your account you can get 144k service to the internet. I called customer service to get this code on my account when it first came out, but I believe it's now added automatically to all new accounts. phone number = #777, user = (yourphonenumber@vzw3g.com), pass = vzw. Again, just uses minutes. (To use this, you usually have to change a setting in a programming screen on your phone to disable EVDO)

If you poke around in your phone's firmware and change the tethering profile details, you can also tether at full EVDO speeds using just minutes. I'm able to get full EVDO over bluetooth with my plain old verizon razr v3c (stock firmware)... again, just using regular plan minutes. I've used this all over the US, and the performance for EVDO is very comparable to my first DSL connection! Again, do some research on the net. The info is out there.

-Tom

Re:Peachy....

[bernywork]

Most handsets however, will behave as a modem, allowing you to use the handset as a 9.6k modem to call the destination number. This in the GSM world is known as a data call. I presume that something similar exists in the CDMA world.

Re:Peachy....

[wowbagger]

You can dial any modem at 14.4k for free (just using minutes) from any vzw cell account... I have personally confirmed this works on several phones... If you just want to use the internet, then they provide their own DUN number. #777 user/pass = qnc/qnc for 14.4k, so you don't need your own ISP or modem bank.

That no longer works from what I understand: if you use the #777 number you will be on the EVDO system if it is available. The only way around this is to disable the EVDO support in the phone.

However, if you know differently (as in, you have actually done in in the past few days and confirmed that it both works, doesn't violate Verizon's TOS, and doesn't cost anything but minutes) I would be glad to hear I was mis-informed.

Please clarify: by "user/pass = qnc/qnc" do you mean that literally - literally use qnc for the user and qnc for the password?

In a 1xRTT service area, if you have National Access MOU enabled on your account you can get 144k service to the internet. I called customer service to get this code on my account when it first came out, but I believe it's now added automatically to all new accounts. phone number = #777, user = (yourphonenumber@vzw3g.com), pass = vzw. Again, just uses minutes. (To use this, you usually have to change a setting in a programming screen on your phone to disable EVDO)

And that MOU costs US$60 on top of the normal cell charges if I am not mistaken - I don't think you can get it free of charge any more.

If you poke around in your phone's firmware and change the tethering profile details, you can also tether at full EVDO speeds using just minutes. I'm able to get full EVDO over bluetooth with my plain old verizon razr v3c (stock firmware)... again, just using regular plan minutes. I've used this all over the US, and the performance for EVDO is very comparable to my first DSL connection! Again, do some research on the net. The info is out there.

And if Verizon catches you doing this, they can and will terminate all service as this is a violation of their wonderful service contract. Unfortunately, I have exactly two choices in cellular server where I live: Verizon or nothing. Reducing that choice to "nothing" is not something I wish to do.

Re:Peachy....

[slimjim8094]

This is called CSD - Circut-switched data. Basically, voice is digitized and sent as data. If you use the phone as a modem (a regular modem), the computer sends the phone binary, and the phone makes a phone call. Without the DAC-ADC step, which would make it even more useless than this is.

You don't do as well as you do even over copper, so you're better off with packet-switching anyway.

It's no different than a phone call, and only uses up minutes. It just skips the DAC-ADC step. AT&T actually allows this; something like $5/mo. I don't need it, pay the $20/mo for PSD myself (they don't know I tether, they disallow it but don't check it). They call it a fax thing. Look it up under fax; maybe Verizon has it hidden somewhere.

Re:Peachy....

[adolf]

It's not as bad as you think.

I've made v.32bis (~14.4kbps) calls using a CDMA phone, and it worked fine. I've even sent faxes with a cell phone (to a Vonage-connected fax machine, no less), which also worked fine. It's been possible to do this stuff for ages.

Here's the trick: There isn't any voice compression involved.

All one needs to do is connect a serial (or USB, depending on phone) cable to the telephone, and treat the device like a regular old analog modem. ATDT[insert number here], and things go off without a hitch -- the phone itself already knows how to behave just like a modem, as least as far as your own computer is concerned.

It looks something like this:

RS-232 -> fake cell phone modem -> CDMA data -> cellular base with fake v.32bis modem -> v.32bis over POTS -> recipient's modem

(replace "fake" with "virtual" or "nonexistant" or "software," depending on how you choose to perceive the combination of a device and cellular network which together emulate an analog modem but really share very little in common with one)

So, similar to the old dialup packet switched networks (tymnet, telenet, etc), there is a little magic involved in the middle. When you call an ISP using a cell phone, -you- aren't calling an ISP; instead, you've just instructed Verizon's base to so with the data you provide. In this way, analog v.32bis data never, ever hits the airwaves - everything turns into a cellular-specific protocol long before it gets broadcast from either side.

Re:Peachy....

[wed128]

What do you mean you connected with your voice...you chirped into a handset? that's amazing!

Re:Peachy....

[tomz16]

That no longer works from what I understand: if you use the #777 number you will be on the EVDO system if it is available. The only way around this is to disable the EVDO support in the phone. Yeah, and IIRC you need 2 init strings to cause it to drop 1xrtt as well AT&QCQNC=#, and another one, AT&QCMDR=# ? I believe... don't remember what the numbers were off the top of my head, or if I even got all the letters completely right.

However, if you know differently (as in, you have actually done in in the past few days and confirmed that it both works, doesn't violate Verizon's TOS, and doesn't cost anything but minutes) I would be glad to hear I was mis-informed. I've used it up to about 2 months back or so when I changed PDA's. (My T3 was unhappy with the evdo/1xrtt for some bizarre reason beyond the well known pap/chap issues. 14.4k was fast enough for e-mail, so I never dug into it)

Please clarify: by "user/pass = qnc/qnc" do you mean that literally - literally use qnc for the user and qnc for the password? Yes, those are the username/password you would use in a regular DUN connection

And that MOU costs US$60 on top of the normal cell charges if I am not mistaken - I don't think you can get it free of charge any more. That sounds more in line with what an unlimited plan would cost for 1xrtt. MOU is enabled by default on all new accounts as it is needed for "get it now", and picture messaging. If you have vcast, you essentially get unlimited MOU (shhh!)

And if Verizon catches you doing this, they can and will terminate all service as this is a violation of their wonderful service contract. Unfortunately, I have exactly two choices in cellular server where I live: Verizon or nothing. Reducing that choice to "nothing" is not something I wish to do. Sure, Verizon CAN terminate your service for using 1xrtt or evdo MOU while tethered.
However, the WILL part is hotly debated online. If you run torrents all night/weekend, chances are good that they will eventually shut you down, but 99.999% of the people doing this never have a problem. To date, I haven't heard a peep from them, and I use MOU extensively at least a few times a month while traveling.

(btw. 14.4k should be fine to my understanding, as they used to openly advertise this service, and even sell data cable connection kits to use it!)

Re:Peachy....

[b0bby]

I'm not sure what your setup is, but I can use the bluetooth DUN to my work-provided Verizon E815 and dial a modem at 14.4 - painful, but it's come in handy. So it certainly is possible, at least on some Verizon provided devices.

Re:Peachy....

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Yes it is. I used to work with modems extensively. I had to simulate line noise and what not to test the reliability of our custom x/z modem implementations. I spent a lot of time talking into the the line on a connected phone. I tried connecting many many times, it only happened once that actually connected. Still, one of my proudest accomplishments.

Re:Peachy....

[Bobfrankly1]

I need to pay them US$60 a month to access my own damn modem. You actually don't. What you do need is a phone that is capable connecting as a modem through the computer, but often some third party software that assists with the connection. Previously having worked at Radio Crack (Shack of the uninitiated) I used to sell such setups, and then set them up in store. I wish I could remember the software package, but you definitely can connect a phone as a modem. Last time I worked there was 2 years ago, so they may not have the software, but typically what is available from the phone manufacturer is less this adequate for the task. Notably, most of the setups were with Motorola phones.
-
Don't rely on Verizon for hardware support between your phone and computer unless you want to pay them 60 a month. If anything, you might get further with the phone manufacturer

Re:Peachy....

[PitaBred]

Huh, that's funny. T-Mobile gives me unlimited data on my phone. I can also hook up that phone to my computer, and the unlimited data plan STILL APPLIES. No extra fees. Verizon is just double-dipping stupid people with that. There's no significant difference between surfing the web on your phone or on your computer except for readability, and they charge more for it. There's a reason I dropped 'em.

Re:Peachy....

[Single GNU Theory]

It seems to. I have Verizon service, and my phone has options to set the next incoming call to be a fax or data call. I assume it's so I could receive a fax with a fax machine hooked up to my phone somehow, but I've never used the feature.

Re:Peachy....

[cibyr]

Because when you're only talking to a 56k modem, 1x gives you more than enough bandwidth. It also has the wonderful property (as mentioned above) as being essentially the same as a phone call, in terms of the burden placed on the carrier (and so should be charged for the same as a phone call).

Re:Peachy....

[Anonymous Coward]

This info isn't quite correct. The 1xRTT is still using far more than a single voice channel. Voice channels only use 14.4k on the CDMA network, which is one of the reasons why they charge for it. Inexplicably, some users are still able to use this feature, and boy are they pissed when they upgrade their phones and lose this ability. For plain email 14.4kbps is quite tolerable. For attachments it sucks, but usable.

The command to force most phones to use the slower connection is set in the modem init strings. It's at$qcmdr=2 for the QNC(14.4) or at$qcmdr=3 for 1xRTT or EVDO.

Look at it like this, they even disable the Blackberry's built in GPS and mapping software so they can charge $10/month for the service. The phone can do it by itself, but they don't make money off of that.

Re:Peachy....

[cameldrv]

They don't charge $60 a month for the basic tethered data service. They charge for the fast EVDO data service, but if you're willing to live with the 1xRTT service, which typically is 80kb/s, just hook your computer up to your modem, specify 1xRTT, and you're on the internet. Verizon bills you for the minutes that you are connected to the data service as normal voice minutes. This works very well for occasional use when out of range of Wi-Fi. If I used the data service more often I would probably get the more expensive EVDO.

Re:Peachy....

[Andy Dodd]

Except that most CDMA phones had the ability to use 2G circuit switched data, in which case you used the phone as a modem (with standard AT commands) and it was all-digital up to the analog modem at the other end. There was a 14.4k speed limit on this.

This would allow people to dial up a modem or ISP and get slow circuit-switched data only using their airtime minutes (instead of the per-kilobyte charges for packet switched data). It was slow but it was cheap, and is how I used data occasionally on my Treo 600 and 650.

At some point (around 2005), VZW closed this loophole, forcing people to pay per kilobyte or get an unlimited packet switched data plan. CSD could not be used, whether to Verizon or to another ISP.

Missing "haha" tag...

[Shoeler]

I fully expected to see the "haha" tag on this story.

I'm shocked to not see it.

Verizon is starting to get it

[DarthTeufel]

Its just a good sign that Verizon is starting to get it. They're starting to understand that keeping things closed and proprietary might not be the best business model. They understand that they have the infrastructure up that a company like Google needs to make their cell phone work. And even their FiOS TV is slowly starting to come around. Its going to be rough for a bit, and right now their FioS customer service absolutely stinks (I recently made the switch)... but they're trying.

Re:Verizon is starting to get it

[plague3106]

No, they don't "get it." They want to new spectrum to remain closed (the opposite of what Google is pushing for) so that when the FCC finally does agree to let it remain closed, VZW will nix their open access shortly after.

Re:Verizon is starting to get it

[Ossifer]

Are they starting to get it, as you suggest, or are they getting something else -- that the FCC might soon ban them from locking down their network & sold hardware?

T-Mobile, AT&T, and Apple are already getting sued for this...

Open to what?

[LamerX]

You will be open to all devices EXCEPT anything that uses GSM. Big whoop, it's still a proprietary phone system. It's like using Visual Studio, sure you can pay to access the API, but it still won't work with other systems.

Re:Open to what?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like using Visual Studio, sure you can pay to access the API, but it still won't work with other systems.

Mono?

Re:Open to what?

[vux984]

You will be open to all devices EXCEPT anything that uses GSM.

Oh come off it. Its not like Verizon is excluding GSM to be spiteful or something. The radios are fundamentally different, and their entire infrastructure is CDMA and doesn't support GSM. They couldn't allow GSM if they wanted to.

That said, much of Asia is CDMA, and the number of imported asian cdma phones that have the potential to work with Verizon is pretty huge.

Re:Open to what?

[Wdomburg]

A proprietary phone system used by seven out of twelve major cellular carriers in the United States?

Re:Open to what?

[Anonymous Coward]

are you really that fucking dumb or are you just a troll fag?

Re:Open to what?

[San-LC]

That's like being mad at an apple because it's not a vegetable. Mad at Dell because you can't run Mac OS X on a PC. Your argument is flawed.

Re:Open to what?

[Erwos]

I thought that the Asian CDMA phones used different frequency bands? I'd kill to get some of those slick Korean smartphones over here.

Re:Open to what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except you can run OS X on standard PC hardware. It's called OSx86

Google- trend setter?

[Bananatree3]

is that this has a LOT to do with Google's latest bid on the 700mhz spectrum. If not the reason, this latest action by Google certainly is on the top list of reasons why Verizon probably did this abrupt change. It reminds me of the kind of paradigm Gmail set with its massive space offerings. Suddenly, Hotmail went from a puny 2 megabytes of space to a whopping 200mb+ in a few months. Yahoo, and practically all the major email companies have massive storage because of the shift. My hunch is we are going to be seeing a paradigm shift within the cell industry, not just Verizon. I hope so at least :)

iPhone?

[Chabil Ha']

Is this an attempt to lure iPhone users to their network? Pretty interesting considering they had the first opportunity at being the exclusive network for the iPhone.

Re:iPhone?

[jspayne]

Nope. iPhone is currently a GSM phone - a fundamentally different and incompatible technology.

Re:iPhone?

[Wdomburg]

Erm, that's an unlikely motivation considering the iPhone wouldn't work on their network (GSM device, CDMA network).

sprint - verizon?

[Anonymous Coward]

So can you take a Sprint phone and have Verizon activate it? That could be interesting. If I'm not mistaken, neither company lets you activate the other's devices on their network.

Re:sprint - verizon?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true. Verizon has activated phones from other carriers for me. It has to be done by a CSR, and the phone must be E911 capable. Other than that, they just warn you that they may not be able to do over-the-air updates of the PRL on it.

Ok cool, but...

[aztektum]

Competition is a good thing

However...

While most Verizon Wireless customers prefer the convenience of full service, the company is listening through today's announcement to a small but growing number of customers who want another choice without full service. Would they mind defining what "without full service" means? Also, how much more are they going to gouge "bring your own" customers? There's always a catch/hook/rub/premium for have it your way.

I never understood why the obsession with mobile companies locked phones/formats? Right, lockin so you can only buy their ringtones and use their premium services. But I worked at Sprint for a couple years and at that time they lost their asses on phone swaps. Wouldn't it be easier if they simply sold service, supported open standards and reduced operating costs by not stocking a giant cache of crappy phones they cover under replacement. That has to chew into those premium service profits really fast.

Offer a solid damn service and let people fight Motorola, Samsung, Sanyo, etc over device issues. It's like expecting the gas station attendant to fix your tranny after he tops you off.

Re:Ok cool, but...

[hal9000(jr)]

Would they mind defining what "without full service" means?

Very likely it means that if you call up with a problem and they decide it's your phone and not their network causing the issue, support ends. Just like when you get cable or DSL, they will set-it up to work in their stock config and provide support, but if you change anything, you are on your own.

That is a reasonable response for any business. It just means the handset vendors will have to have a crack support team to support their phones.

Re:Ok cool, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like expecting the gas station attendant to fix your tranny after he tops you off.

Come on now, what were you really thinking about?

Re:Ok cool, but...

[644bd346996]

Wouldn't it be easier if they simply sold service, supported open standards and reduced operating costs by not stocking a giant cache of crappy phones they cover under replacement? No. That comes too close to the competitive landscape that Google and others are trying to create. If cellular providers end up as commodities, they won't be able to earn the huge* profits they currently enjoy, and they'll have to spend more money upgrading their infrastructure. It's the same situation as with ISPs. (Ever notice how both our cellular networks and our broadband are lagging way behind European countries, Korea, and Japan?)

*Huge compared to, eg. Dell, which sells products in the most commoditized high-tech markets.

Re:Ok cool, but...

[Corporate Drone]

Offer a solid damn service and let people fight Motorola, Samsung, Sanyo, etc over device issues. It's like expecting the gas station attendant to fix your tranny after he tops you off.

Right ... the attendant should only have to fix your tranny if s/he is unable to top you and get you off...

Re:Ok cool, but...

[burgundysizzle]

Offer a solid damn service and let people fight Motorola, Samsung, Sanyo, etc over device issues. It's like expecting the gas station attendant to fix your tranny after he tops you off.

I sir am quite frankly shocked that you would take your transvestite (tranny) partner to a gas station attendant to be "fixed". I have no idea what it entails but please other users of the gas station may prefer that whatever it is that you did it at home! I also do not what to know how the gas station attendant "tops" you off. Disgusting!

Yours an indignant Burgundysizzle

Tagged 'itsatrap' and 'itsatrickgetanax'

[Anonymous Coward]

Nuff said.

I don't trust these fuckers any farther than I can spit.

Complete Non Story

[birdowner]

While this sounds like a grand announcement, compare this with GSM networks (like T-mobile or AT&T). You can already use any GSM phone, even one that T-mobile does not sell. You don't need their permission, and it doesn't have to be approved in their "state of the art" testing facility. If anything, this news brings them closer to the device independence of GSM, but is still not completely there.

I think we can all agree

[rehtonAesoohC]

I think we can all agree that this is definitely not Verizon lifting her skirt for us.

This is more like Verizon bringing us to her front doorstep with promises of gratification, only to slap us and call us names for even implying something might happen.

The whore.

Re:I think we can all agree

[FarHat]

Whores usually follow through. What you are describing is a cocktease.

Just in time

[sm62704]

After being completely satisfied with Cingular for several years now, AT&T bought them out and thoroughly shafted me. My bill was never over $50, I never went over my minutes, and when AT&T bought them I had a $150 bill the first month, with another $450 added the next! They shut off service, and even with the damned thing shut off they STILL charged another $150, including tax on service I never recieved. They're going to have to sue to get a penny of it.

I've been using a pay as you go phone, and have been looking for a replacement for the theiuving bastards at AT&T.

Verizon has been first on the list for a while for two reasons: I can still use my Razr, which still has most of my numbers in it, and my roommate's boyfriend (ex now I think, I haven't seen her since I dropped her off at work Friday) has Verizon, and his phone is one of the qwerty keyboard phones that doubles as an MP3 player. I drooled when he showed it to me.

The only thing worrying me about Verizon is a slashdot story from a few weeks ago about them cooperating with the NSA. Does the NSA track hookers, I wonder? Quite a few of my close friends are hookers and I'd hate for them to get in trouble. Is prostitution considered terrorism these days? It seems everything else, from drugs to political discourse, is.

But this item is very good news, and puts Verizon up a notch. The other company I've been looking into is US Cellular, which I understand I also can use my Razr with.

-mcgrew

Re:Just in time

[King Gabey]

Funny, the least interesting part about this post is Verizon...

Re:Just in time

[locokamil]

So let me get this straight: not only do you have a /female/ roommate, but you are also friends with hookers?

Friend, if you have a newsletter, I am interested in subscribing to it.

Re:Just in time

[nunyadambinness]

My bill was never over $50, I never went over my minutes, and when AT&T bought them I had a $150 bill the first month, with another $450 added the next!

Forgive me for being skeptical, but honestly, I don't believe you. Care to explain how this is possible using something other than inflammatory remarks and exclamation points?

Re:Just in time

[sm62704]

Actually, yes. Although I haven't seen my roommate since I dropped her off at work Friday morning at the taxi company she drives for. She may have tried to call me last night about midnight; my phone rang, but it's out of minutes.

The Chinese have a curse "may you live in interesting times." I have an interesting life.

Her ex-husband (I never met the guy, thankfully) led the police on a high speed chase through Springfield a couple of weeks ago, sideswiping a couple of cars and almost hitting a couple of police detectives. When they caught him he had a loaded gun and marijuana in tha car. It made the front page of the local daily (link)

He had previously spent time in prison for trying to kill her. His parents told her that they found out he was on his way to murder them. I suppose he'll be behind bars for quite some time.

No newsletter, but I have a slashdot journal. I used to keep a diary at K5. It was pretty popular.

Re:Just in time

[DECS]

The first problem with your story is that AT&T didn't buy Cingular. Instead, Cingular acquired the AT&T name and rebranded itself. The company didn't change anything but its name.

The second problem is that the RAZR phone doesn't work across different network types.

The third problem is that your thinly veiled troll about Verizon and the NSA and hookers might suggest you have a more interesting life than you do.

In reality, Verizon is an absolutely vile service provider, equally bad if not significantly worse than the rest.

Re:Just in time

[sm62704]

In reality, Verizon is an absolutely vile service provider, equally bad if not significantly worse than the rest

This is the only part of your comment that matters, and I thank you for it.

Re:Just in time

[sm62704]

What do you want, the damned bill? I have no idea why it went up. I do know they lost a customer.

This is what we've had in the UK for years...

[DamonHD]

...from most carriers anyway (some like Orange have a fee to get phones on or off their network).

Ie, if you have a GSM or 3G phone and a SIM card then you can just use it in the UK.

You'll have to pay the carrier for the SIM and traffic of course, but from any reasonable device you want.

Rgds

Damon

PS. I think most Europeans, used to being behind on technology, are baffled by the US phone 'notwork'...

Re:This is what we've had in the UK for years...

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Ie, if you have a GSM or 3G phone and a SIM card then you can just use it in the UK.

This is exactly the way it works in the US with AT&T and T-Mobile, the two national GSM carriers in the US. AT&T offers UMTS (GSM 3G) and HSDPA, too (T-Mobile is waiting for the spectrum they purchased to become available).

PS. I think most Europeans, used to being behind on technology, are baffled by the US phone 'notwork'...

I'm not sure I'd describe Europe as 'behind on technology', but I would recommend that they learn more about the mobile phone situation in the US before judging. There are five national mobile phone networks, using three different technologies (GSM/UMTS, IDEN, CDMA2000) on four different bands (850/1900/1700/FMR). That's not even considering the hundreds of local and regional players, many of whom have more subscribers than major European carriers.

This seems typical of the "standard European comment about US mobile phone networks". The US has over 100 million GSM subscribers. You could at least bother to scan the Wikipedia article about Verizon Wireless before talking about how "poor" our mobile service is here. Yes, things are billed differently here (we pay for incoming calls but typically pay less per minute). Some things are better (unlimited EDGE/UMTS/HSDPA for $20/mo, "free" nights/weekends/in-network calling), some things are worse ($0.15 per SMS - send AND receive). But we're not some kind of mobile backwater. Evil providers notwithstanding.

Re:This is what we've had in the UK for years...

[DamonHD]

Well, I'm glad if I'm wrong!

Note, though, that the places I can use my (UK-purchased) SIM are of course much wider than just the UK, and thanks to a bit of regulator intervention the whole EU market is starting to get sane... And indeed a customer of (say) Vodafone can get some reasonable deals in most Vodafone territories outside the EU too, without much/any specific prior arrangement, just turning up and roaming.

Note that the UK alone musters T-mobile, Orange, Vodafone, O2 and 3 as real physical national carriers with very high coverage.

Rgds

Damon

Re:This is what we've had in the UK for years...

[BlueScreenOfTOM]

Again, assuming you subscribe to a GSM service in the US (AT&T, T-Mobile) you are free to roam just about anywhere in the world with GSM, including, of course, the UK. Additionally, I know AT&T at least offers a "World Traveler" program which provides roaming discounts in various countries. It's still expensive to roam, but entirely possible.

I subscribe to Verizon because CDMA is better all-around than GSM. I purchased a cheap pre-paid GSM AT&T phone that I fill when I need to go overseas.

Re:This is what we've had in the UK for years...

[Anonymous Coward]

Note, though, that the places I can use my (UK-purchased) SIM are of course much wider than just the UK, and thanks to a bit of regulator intervention the whole EU market is starting to get sane...

Even if US phones couldn't be used outside the country, keep in mind that the UK is about half the size of the state of California and the entire US is only about 4% smaller than all of Europe. Having a phone that works outside of the country is not such a big deal for most people.

Re:This is what we've had in the UK for years...

[ScrewMaster]

True enough. I do travel to Canada on business now and then and my Sprint phone works just fine there.

Re:This is what we've had in the UK for years...

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Note that the UK alone musters T-mobile, Orange, Vodafone, O2 and 3 as real physical national carriers with very high coverage.

How many of those are actual carriers and how many are MVNOs?

Also, remember that to be a "national" carrier in the US you have to cover a vast, vast area.

Alltel, for example, which is a large "regional" carrier in the US covers an area larger than Western Europe. Alltel also has over 10 million customers, which is 1/6th of the entire population of the UK.

SunCom (which is being purchased by T-Mobile), Edge Wireless, LEAP, Western Wireless, and dozens of other regional carriers cover an area larger than the UK, and none of them have more than 3 million subscribers.

I'm not saying the situation is better here than in the UK. UMTS deployment has been slow here (although EVDO was deployed more quickly), there are bizzare contracts and credit checks, and providers like Sprint and (particularly) Verizon lock down their phones to increase their revenue. We also have a shortage of good UMTS devices, probably because the US uses different bands from most of the rest of the world.

But GSM is very much alive here. You can buy prepaid SIMs at supermarkets and other places. You can get unlocked phones (T-Mobile and AT&T will unlock most phones for free after 6 months). There's a vibrant smartphone market (mostly BlackBerry and Windows Mobile).

The market is very, very different here. Covering Wyoming is an absolute nightmare, with 500 000 people in an area larger than the entire UK and population density 6x lower than Norway. Yet you can get GSM/GPRS/EDGE in Wyoming, in part because of regional players that fill in the gaps (and I don't pay to roam onto their networks either).

HTC Excalibur
Windows Mobile 6
Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE

T-Mobile USA
500 minutes ($60/mo, shared between 3 handsets)
Unlimited nights, weekends, in-network
Free roaming anywhere in the US
$0.49/min in Canada, $0.99/min in Europe, more elsewhere
Unlimited EDGE ($20/mo extra)

Re:This is what we've had in the UK for years...

[DamonHD]

All of the five that I listed are real carriers. We have MVNOs too, such as Virgin.

I hear what you say about covering low-density populations. We maybe get close in the UK with some of the more remote bits of Scotland.

But remember also that all of (well, maybe not "3", I don't know) our national operators have big markets all over the EU and beyond, so the geographical size issue is possibly less significant than the density issue.

Rgds

Damon

Re:This is what we've had in the UK for years...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, trigger-happy much? Why don't you go and start a war on Europe for insulting your American arrogance?

Re:This is what we've had in the UK for years...

[Anonymous Coward]

T-Mobile UK
Choice of 900 minutes or 1800 texts or a combination of these. (1800 units, 1 min = 2 units, 1 text = 1 unit)
Unlimited nights, weekends, in-network and out-network (fair usage 10,000 mins a month)
3G - 3gig fair usage but i've exceeded that many times with no reprisals.

No cost to recieve any calls/texts within domestic network.

I got an N95 4 weeks after launch on an 18 month contract for £30 ($60)

Not sure of intl costs at the moment but i think they're similar to your costs.

($80/mo (£40/mon)

Cheers

Andrew

Re:Any device? -Pretty much!

[appleguru]

No official word on pricing, etc, but as of now anyways it looks like it will be both affordable and not too difficult to meet the "minimum technical standard"

From ars (Emphasis mine):

All applications, operating systems, and runtime environments are supported so long as the devices connect properly to Verizon's CDMA network (they can make use of either the company's cellular and PCS bandwidth). The fee for certification of devices will be "surprisingly reasonable," we're told, and the program will be open to anyone. One Verizon exec went so far as to say that if someone builds a device in their basement on a breadboard, Verizon will test it and activate it. Smaller players will definitely be able to get in on the action, something that hasn't previously been possible.

technically not possible

[m2943]

This isn't Verizon's fault; it's technically not possible to call analog modems over cellular phones, on any carrier.

Re:technically not possible

[TheCRAIGGERS]

That's surprising, since I use my RAZR as a bluetooth modem for my laptop when I need to. Sure I only get 19200 baud, but it does work. I believe your facts are incorrect.

Re:technically not possible

[m2943]

You misunderstood. You're using your phone as a modem: your phone pretends to be a serial modem and uses your data plan. I do that all the time myself.

What the GP seemed to want was to use his phone to connect to a remote analog modem without using a data plan. It's not unreasonable, but basically, it doesn't work.

Re:technically not possible

[Twanfox]

I have used my Verizon Wireless cellular phone via bluetooth serial port to my PC to call Earthlink's ISP dialup service (as a regular phone call) and had it successfully connect and use it. Data rates sucked, but something > 0 when I was in a pinch. Unless they changed their service recently, I did what the GP was attempting to do, successfully.

Re:technically not possible

[TheCRAIGGERS]

No, I was actually using my phone as a modem to dial an ISP that I keep around for just purposes. Just to be clear, this is was dialup, I was NOT using a data plan, as I don't have one.

Re:technically not possible

[m2943]

I have used my Verizon Wireless cellular phone via bluetooth serial port to my PC to call Earthlink's ISP dialup service

That's not an analog modem call going over a voice connection, it's still a data connection with some magic at the other end. So, if your account isn't enabled for that kind of data connection, it doesn't work.

RAZR brain transplant, please?

[dazedNconfuzed]

So how long until I can replace the POS crippled RAZR firmware with the proper "original" Motorola RAZR firmware? and I don't mean a hacked copy, I mean a legit approved download from motorola.com or verizonwireless.com or walk into a Verizon store and get it re-flashed in 5 minutes???

Re:RAZR brain transplant, please?

[RobNich]

That's a good question. As far as I know, the OS that all other RAZRs ship with is called P2K (Platform 2000) and as far as I've heard, it only supports GSM. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)

The OS that Verizon uses on every phone is BREW, created by Qualcomm. Its restrictions (such as ObEx not working) may actually be a limitation of the software. (I don't know, I'm just conjecturing.) Verizon uses it because it supports CDMA. In fact, Qualcomm being the originator of the US CDMA standard, it was at least the earliest software that supported CDMA.

Re:RAZR brain transplant, please?

[lav-chan]

Mmm, pretty sure you're wrong.

1. P2K is a term i'm only somewhat familiar with, but i'm pretty sure it supports more than just GSM, since P2KCommander works with my CDMA RAZR.

2. BREW is not at all an operating system, it's a development platform (competing against Java). It was designed for CDMA but isn't married to it. Don't know why Verizon uses it, but i doubt it's for lack of alternatives.

3. There are no Bluetooth restrictions inherent to BREW. Every other CDMA carrier (e.g., Alltel and US Cellular in the US) ships the RAZR with the more-or-less-stock Motorola firmware, which supports ObEx, &c., just fine. You can use these firmware versions to flash Verizon-provided RAZRs.

Re:RAZR brain transplant, please?

[RobNich]

P2KCommander works with my CDMA RAZR

Good to know. I wasn't sure about that, since I've never seen a CDMA phone that wasn't a Verizon-branded version.

BREW is not at all an operating system, it's a development platform

While that's technically true, everyone at work speaks about BREW as a platform that includes the OS. According to Wikipedia, it's more of a psuedo-OS, as it normally (maybe always?) runs on top of REX RTOS.

There are no Bluetooth restrictions inherent to BREW.

It doesn't sound like it, but I've not seen a BREW phone that does do ObEx. I'm more inclined to believe that Verizon locks that feature down.

Every other CDMA carrier (e.g., Alltel and US Cellular in the US) ships the RAZR with the more-or-less-stock Motorola firmware, which supports ObEx, &c., just fine. You can use these firmware versions to flash Verizon-provided RAZRs.

From what I'm seeing on various hacking sites, you don't even have to flash it to use the P2K tools. So apparently even the BREW phones run the P2K OS but not the user interface.

Re:RAZR brain transplant, please?

[lav-chan]

While that's technically true, everyone at work speaks about BREW as a platform that includes the OS. According to Wikipedia, it's more of a psuedo-OS, as it normally (maybe always?) runs on top of REX RTOS.

Maybe, i don't know for sure, i'm just some idiot with a phone, so i'll concede that point i s'pose.

It doesn't sound like it, but I've not seen a BREW phone that does do ObEx. I'm more inclined to believe that Verizon locks that feature down.

They do lock it down. Depending on the firmware version, they either change a seem to disable the feature or they remove the code for it entirely. I think on one specific firmware version (0.2, i think, something like that) Verizon inexplicably forgot to do this and Bluetooth works. And ObEx works fine on BREW-enabled RAZRs with non-Verizon firmware, including my flashed-to-Alltel Verizon V3m.

From what I'm seeing on various hacking sites, you don't even have to flash it to use the P2K tools. So apparently even the BREW phones run the P2K OS but not the user interface.

I think Verizon's red UI is in fact just a BREW application itself, actually.

Finally!

[prxp]

It seems the Industry is finally realizing that "Open Platforms" are better than closed ones, and that is worthless fighting against this trend. One might thing this move is due to Google's Android, but it's not. It's more like Android is an older sibling.

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

The most successful companies are not open. Google contributes, but they also are extremely secretive on a lot of stuff. Where is the Google search algorithms? AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile... all of which have been pretty damn successful at making money without being open. This is just a marketing ploy. Real-companies keep their dirty laundry and secrets away from their competition.

Netscape, Doom and Java are all open. None of which came before they were popular.

FYI... I just finished implementing the OMA(Open Mobile Alliance) guidelines for DRM. During my testing, I found two Verizon phones that required DRM on a piece of audio before it could be set as a ringtone.

Bait and Switch

[mpapet]

The tiger can't change its stripes and I don't expect Verizon to either.

from the summary: "Devices will be tested and approved"

This is the classic strategy whereby they get bragging rights "It's wide open!!!" and yet mysteriously few, if anything will ever get on because of the details conspicuously absent from the announcement.

1. How much does testing cost?
2. How much does approval cost?
3. Once it's approved, how much is the daily/weekly/monthly tax the device/app builder pays to Verizon?

This is Extreme Marketing 101. All the hot oil you can dream up and no popcorn.

Re:Bait and Switch

[Anonymous Coward]

The tiger can't change its stripes and I don't expect Verizon to either.

I first skim-read that line as "The tiger can't change its stripes and doesn't expected vaseline either."

And scarily, it made sense.

Re:Bait and Switch

[wiredlogic]

This is the classic strategy whereby they get bragging rights "It's wide open!!!" and yet mysteriously few, if anything will ever get on because of the details conspicuously absent from the announcement.

Much the same as Microsoft making NT "POSIX compliant" while changing the names of function calls and their behavior.

And in other news,square pegs/round holes dont mix

[sirwired]

Errr... Verizon, Sprint and Alltel all use CDMA phones that are compatible with each other's network without a problem. No, you can't use a GSM phone with a CDMA network, but so what? I can't fit square pegs in a round hole, but that does not cause me to rail against companies that make those square pegs.

CDMA has some distinct advantages over GSM, which is why some networks use it. It is not merely to be difficult. Yes, the fact that most of the rest of the world doesn't use it is a problem, but that doesn't bother those of us that don't leave the U.S. often enough for it to matter.

SirWired

It's a trap...

[EveryNickIsTaken]

I'll get an axe.

Oblig Brannigan

[C0rinthian]

"If we hit that bullseye, then the rest of the dominos will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate."

Re:this spells the end of things

[sm62704]

linux fags will be infesting verizon. soon every cellphone will have aids.

You realise that the computer vuruses are all geared towards Microsoft, don't you Mr. Cowardly Homophobe? Or is that "Mr. Closet?" Viruses are one reason I'd not want a phone (or car system like that Ford) "Powered by Windows".

And I wish all the heterosexual guys would turn gay, so I could have their women! Damned jocks...

-mcgrew

(mods, you did good on that one.)

And God Forbid....

[Anonymous Coward]

..IF YOU HAVE TO PAY THE MICROSOFT OF THE TELECOM INDUSTRY

"Qualcomm - the Microsoft of the phone industry" /.'ers CREED
MICROSOFT=EVIL so therefore Qualcomm = Evil

      You can always count on the dimwits here to rehash the Boogie Men Dujour on a daily basis in regard to other "news"-

George Bush
Microsoft
Republicans
White Republicans
White Christian Republicans
White Evangelical Christian Republicans

      Now add Verizon and Qualcomm to the Slashdoters list above

      YOU DUMBASSES GETTIN THIS YET, YOUR ON A TREADMILL THAT HAS NO PURPOSE BUT TO GO ROUND AND ROUND, LIKE THE WHEELS ON THAT BUS YOU GET CARTED IN ON, THE LITTLE YELLOW ONE.

Oh and I like this form the Moderators Ministry at Slashdot which translates into we dont like what you say and think and isnt it interesting its only when I get close to the man behind the curtain, they pull this one out of which did not stop my last 10 trolls one after another-

From a canned Slashdot response-
Slashdot requires you to wait (until your are in agreement with our politcal bias) between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.

It's been 11, (now up to 15, 16, 22) minutes since you last successfully posted a comment (THEY ARE NOW BLOCKING ME)

Chances are, you're behind a firewall or proxy, or clicked the Back button to accidentally reuse a form. Please try again. If the problem persists, and all other options have been tried, contact the site administrator.

Translation- we will just prevent you from posting anything that does not fit our socio-political bent

Sorry but this isn't really new

[Anonymous Coward]

For years we have been using devices on the Verizon 1xRTT network that have not been sold to us by Verizon. Some of these devices have been developed by us in house and others were bought off the shelf from third party vendors. The Multimodem CDMA and the Airlink Pinpoint CDMA are two examples.

None of these devices were submitted to Verizon for testing. Perhaps this will change soon.

CDMA vs GSM

[chiller2]

I think the real story here is that CDMA is loosing market share to GSM. The latter is cheaper and globally widespread so Verizon are trying to bolster CDMA device usage.

Re:CDMA vs GSM

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe so, but you are forgetting that Verizon already has a big chunk of the GSM market through Vodafone.

Re:CDMA vs GSM

[chiller2]

Maybe so, but you are forgetting that Verizon already has a big chunk of the GSM market through Vodafone. That's not quite the case. Vodafone Group Plc (UK) owns 45% of Verizon Wireless. However, Vodafone do not have management control over them, so among other things, a decision to open the Verizon network won't have been a Vodafone one.

The only GSM network Verizon has any sway over is a 23% stake in Vodafone Italy. This isn't really a 'big chunk' of GSM.

Re:CDMA vs GSM

[DECS]

In addition, Vodafone originally hoped to buy out the original AT&T's wireless business and turn it into its own American GSM operation. Once that deal was done, Vodafone planned to pull out of Verizon Wireless (which it jointly owns with Verizon).

Vodafone lost out to Cingular in buying up AT&T's GSM. That made Cingular/AT&T the largest GSM operator in the US by far, and left Vodafone stuck with Verizon's CDMA2000 network in the US.

How AT&T Picked Up the iPhone: A Brief History of Mobiles

Re:CDMA vs GSM

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, that'd explain it. I was waiting for some expliantion as to what was going on, why this was relevant. I was thinking Verizon was GSM based and just let any GSM phone onto their network (like virtually all other GSM providers do) - certainly, I just hopped onto USA GSM providers with my Vodafone New Zealand phone without difficulty.

Yes, CDMA is losing market share. Telecom NZ made a big marketing effort about their CDMA network saying how good it is. But, even they are biting the bullet and will be migrating to UMTS in the future. Telstra (large telecommunications company in Australia) is straight shutting down their CDMA network and using the spectrum to expand their GSM/UMTS network. (It was always comical that Telecom could roam to Australia and the USA. Originally, it was good for people visiting the USA but since then, GSM networks in the states have rendered that irrelevant.)

The future, internationally, for CDMA is bleak.

Re:CDMA vs GSM

[Vegeta99]

IS-95 CDMA, anyway. UMTS's physical interface is CDMA =)

Why it's an iPhone Killer

[WED Fan]

Actually, on the contrary this may be a move by Verizon to put a hurt on AT&T's monopoly over the iPhone. I wouldn't be surprised if they designed this with the iPhone specifically in mind.

Unless Apple reworks the iPhone to work on Verizon, the iPhone will not work. However, this move encourages other manufacturers to venture into an iPhone like device without being exclusive to Verizon, or being otherwise contracted to Verizon. It opens the device market to some of the more advanced thinking taking place in Japan and Korea. It even allows for the development of open platforms similar to openMoko.

Apple will do best if they buy out the remainder of the AT&T contract, or they will be sent packing as the first-to-market-last-to-respond-to-changes device.

Re:Why it's an iPhone Killer

[nick5546]

CDMA is used by which percentage of the world population ? And what about GSM ? These numbers may have something to do with their decision of launching a global/worldwide device ?

Re:Why it's an iPhone Killer

[intheshelter]

The only problem is that other manufacturers haven't been able to come up with a device that works as easily and intuitively as the iPhone in 20 years so why are people making the assumption that they can pull their collective heads out now and get it right? I wish the iPhone wasn't tethered to AT&T too, but Jobs made that deal to get the functionality concessions he wanted so he can drive a wedge into the crappy US wireless industry. Less than 6 months after the iPhone's release and it appears the first cracks are appearing in the old business model.

mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

Hadn't thought of that, but so true: I have used all kinds of odd unlocked GSM phones bought for $20 on ebay, e.g. so I could take a cheap phone on a backpacking trip. With user-switchable SIM cards, you don't even have to tell the carrier about it, much less get their OK. Unlocking available in any major city for about $10, it's a really nice model, actually.

VZW is gearing up for a fight.

[Alcoholic Dali]

Verizon is opening it's network up as a response to the likely chance that Google is going to win the FCC run auction for the highly discussed 700MHz spectrum.

Google is going to open up that spectrum and forcibly alter how the cell phone industry works in the United States. Verizon, not wanting to be outdone, is sort of pre-empting this by saying they will now open up their own network.

The cell phone industry in this country is going to get shaken real soon, and it's going to be nothing short of awesome.

Truly Open?

[aphxtwn]

Does this mean we can write apps to stream video from a camera phone or use a VOIP app?

Re:Truly Open?

[JCSoRocks]

heh, possibly, but you'll be charged an arm and a leg for the data transmission. With with a "plan", data is still expensive.

Re:Truly Open?

[ReeceTarbert]

Does this mean we can write apps to stream video from a camera phone or use a VOIP app?

There would be nothing new to this, especially considering apps have been written since the very beginning just about everywhere else: from ad hoc applications specific to a certain model, to more general ones, the so called MIDlets, written J2ME (plus vendor's extensions).

RT
--
Your Bookmarks. Anywhere. Anytime.

US Cellular

[Anonymous Coward]

US Cellular (corporate) won't allow a VZW-branded Razr to be activated onto their network. Only USCellular-branded phones are permitted. The corporate stores have a database of all the ESN numbers for all these phones too, and if your phone's ESN isn't in the database as a device that had been originally sold thru a US Cellular authorized store or agent, then you will never be able to get it activated at a corporate US Cellular store. There are a dwindling small number of independent US Cellular "agent" resellers in small towns around the midwest and great plains states who you might be able to talk/bribe into in activating a non-USCC phone, but by policy they are supposed to refuse to allow this. The agents are technically capable of activating any CDMA2000 phone, since they have access to submit any ESN, but in actual practice, only if you happen to personally know or be friends with an agent or an agent's employee with this level of USCC network access, they generally will uphold the policy. Good luck finding such an agent. I could not. I paid thru the nose full retail for a brand new USCC Nokia 6265i phone (the last of the true Nokia CDMA phones, they're extinct now) after I didn't really like the first one I got with the subsidy discount but I am very happy with their service and will stay with them for a long time to come.

Re:US Cellular

[sm62704]

Thank you. I imagine I won't be able to use it with Verizon or any other company, either =(

Welcome to the early 1990:s Verizon

[hpj]

I'm sorry, but being fairly new to this country (From Sweden originally) the backwardness of the cell phone industry in the country never seizes to amaze me. As it stands now I can either choose fairly open networks (AT&T and T-Mobile) or fairly good coverage (Verizon).

I recall an incident where I lost my cell phone as I just arrived here and tried to go into a store and buy an "unlocked" phone (Because I travel a lot and usually just get a cash card wherever I go instead of roaming which is a lot more expensive). The people in the stores didn't even understand what I was talking about and in the end I just gave up and bought a locked phone so I had something to use.

Re:Welcome to the early 1990:s Verizon

[Anonymous Coward]

CDMA phones ARE unlockable, its the law in the US that providers have to let you into your phone. You need something called the MSL code. Ask your provider and they will give it to you.

Almost like GSM?

[Gadzinka]

Wow, it's almost like it was for a decade on GSM networks all over the world?!? Except that no one needs acceptance tests from local operator, if their device complies with GSM standards.

That's what I call progress, ten years in the making.

Robert

Interesting timing on that

[Solandri]

The 700 MHz spectrum auction is supposed to happen before Jan 28, 2008. Verizon's announcement says the technical specifications will be released in "early 2008". Sounds to me like it's to discourage any further mandates by the FCC on the bidding process, and to provide a disincentive for any other bit players thinking of lining up behind Google. "Oh, there's no need to mandate any more openness requirements, we're already going to do it. See, look at this announcement we made. What? Of course we're going to follow through on it. Trust us." It's pretty pathetic that I'm this cynical of Verizon's motives, but that cynicism comes from 3 years experience as a customer.

Re:Interesting timing on that

[A New Normalcy]

As a (reluctant) long-time VZW customer, I sincerely hope that their bots scan /. I talk with many people in the business world, and the majority of VZW clients would bail as soon as a carrier with similar coverage arrived on the scene. ...Lorenzo

"Full service" - a possible definition

[StreetStealth]

I really can't believe that Verizon would be the one to do this, but it sounds like what "full service" means in this case is Verizon drawing a distinction between traditional "voice-PCM-bits-are-more-expensive-than-regular-bits" service and forward-thinking (obvious?) "bits-are-bits" service. Where "full" means they're "taking care of" the voice and SMS for you for extra money, the latter letting you find your own VOIP provider to use over their data network.

If they can actually roll out a service like that... I'll be utterly floored.

Should we thank google?

[DTemp]

Based on this article over at ars, it seems like Google had a big part in this. Pushing for open access rules in the FCC frequency auction (that Verizon originally SUED OVER but relented), and creating the Android platform that Verizon KNEW it had to somehow get a piece of, after viewing AT&T laughing all the way to the bank with the iPhone deal... yeah I think this wouldn't be happening without Google.

Freedom!

[amigabill]

Oh thank god. Finally, some better choice. Hopefully we'll see phones with their original software and all features intact instead of Verizon disabling things. Woot! I hate my current phone, and almost bought another last week, maybe I'll wait a bit and see if this goes anywhere.

Ahh... Competition

[Bellum Aeternus]

Competition is a good thing. I'll have to assume Verizon suddenly deciding to 'open up' has more to do with fears about what Google's new initiatives with Android and Intel/Cisco's new initiatives with WiMax will bring; rather than just doing this from their goodness of their own hearts.

The government keeps allowing these telcos to have monopolies, but the market keeps finding way around them, and proving how bad an idea government supported/allowed monopolies really are.

Re:And in other news,square pegs/round holes dont

[a_nonamiss]

Errr... Verizon, Sprint and Alltel all use CDMA phones that are compatible with each other's network without a problem. I had to reread your post a couple times just to make sure I wasn't mistaken. Have you ever actually taken a Sprint phone into a Verizon store and asked them to activate it? I have. Let's just say it's a no-go. Yes, they all use CDMA. Yes, the basic underlying technology is the same. No, you can't do it. Just because a manufacturer makes the same basic phone, for example the Moto RZR, for both Sprint and Verizon does not mean that the same phones can be used on different carriers. That is precisely what this whole thing is about. It's also why the best phones aren't available in the US. (compared to Asia and Europe)

Re:And in other news,square pegs/round holes dont

[xenophyx]

I can't fit square pegs in a round hole, but that does not cause me to rail against companies that make those square pegs. You're just not pushing hard enough.

Can you point me to a good reference to those advantages (I really don't know)? I'm struggling to find anything that isn't largely based on personal opinion.

Re:Any device? -Pretty much!

[moosesocks]

Translation:
"Nobody wants to build decent phones for our proprietary network, because we've completely destroyed our reputation among the manufacturers by intentionally crippling their phones."

Now Verizon wants smaller players to get in on the action, and hopefully fix their reputation by coming up with something innovative. I'd imagine that they're not only jealous of the iPhone, but also the amazing GSM phones that Europe's had for quite some time now. Let's face it -- the current selection of CDMA phones absolutely sucks.

I'd also imagine that the FCC (or the Boston police department...) would have a few things to say about a breadboard phone :-P

This is what you call a moment of clarity

[wattrlz]

This doesn't seem so outlandish to me. Verizon just realized that they no longer have to go through nearly as much trouble subsidizing old and locking down new phones if any tom-dick-and-harry mom-and-pop outfit can now develop and sell a phone that they'll get revenue for. They'll probably be up to their old tricks with billing as well. Oh, and, you want tech support for your new phone? That'll be a $200 a year service contract and $200K licensing fee from the manufacturer...

Re:Any device? -Pretty much!

[PayPaI]

It's not like anyone is going to implement a CDMA phone from scratch.
You get something like (a CDMA version of) this: GM862 and build the rest of the phone around that.
A quick google turned up this: quad band CDMA module with 1x but no price.

Re:And in other news,square pegs/round holes dont

[Wdomburg]

TDMA causes a lot more interferenc. Try putting a cell phone next to a computer speaker sometime; phones using TDMA signalling, such as GSM, will often cause a pulsing buzz, particularly when receiving an incoming call or text message

TDMA has less effective throughput in mobile applications. In order to prevent interference with other users a certain amount of dead air is left between time slots.

The prevailing CDMA standard (CDMA2000) includes high accuracy timing signals, which enables low cost implementation of location services in the form of aGPS. Since GSM lacks this the carriers had to look elsewhere and have largely standardized on U-TDOA, which also provides acurate results but at the cost of deploying "time measurement units" throughout the network.

It should be noted that as of UTMS the GSM air interface has also switched to a CDMA variant (W-CDMA), so some of the advantages don't apply to 3G service. But of the two major GSM carriers only AT&T is offering 3G service and only in major metropolitan areas and some of their major handsets (*cough*iPhone*cough*) only support the "2.5G" EDGE standard.

Bah

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile, in more civilized countries, this type of lock-in would be illegal in the first place.

They'll be patting themselves on the back for not killing people randomly next. How far you've come from capitalism and free markets to predatory protectionism.

does this help the openmoko project

[michaelbuddy]

I was reading a linux magazine a few days ago, where the openmoko project leader said he was in talks with networks, deciding who would be the network (probably only 1) for openmoko.

Re:does this help the openmoko project

[kidcharles]

I was reading a linux magazine a few days ago, where the openmoko project leader said he was in talks with networks, deciding who would be the network (probably only 1) for openmoko. I think you are mistaken. The Neo 1973 phone, which is associated with the Openmoko project, is designed to be a GSM phone for use on any GSM network. This limits it to AT&T and T-Mobile in the U.S., but there is not going to be a single network that the phone works on. The whole point of the thing is to be open, including not being tied to a provider. Locking it into a network (ala the iPhone) would be completely antithetical to the entire mission.

Not likely

[megaditto]

More users means more revenue for them. You still gotta pay for access (on their terms), so why wouldn't they want to aprove as many as possible?

Most likely this testing will be very lax, just enough to appease FCC.

Re:Not likely

[TFloore]

More users means more revenue for them. You still gotta pay for access (on their terms), so why wouldn't they want to aprove as many as possible?

Sorry, no. You don't make money moving bits. That is a commodity market, and gets commodity profits (almost none).

If you are just paying for moving bits...
Your ringtone will not cost $2.99.
Your ringback tone will not cost $1.99 for the music snippet, plus $0.99 per month for the service.
Your text messaging will not be $0.10/message.

Why do you think they sell cameraphones with 2MP (and higher) cameras, and disable bluetooth file transfer so the only way to get the picture off the phone is with a picture message?

Verizon Wireless is in the business of offering "Premium" content, because that gets them Premium profits. They are not, and do not want to be, a commodity bit mover.

OpenMoko

[Anonymous Coward]

If FIC creates a CDMA version of the Neo1973 that will make things very easy for me. Right now it is difficult for me to move off Verizon's service.

I can imagine, though, that the unapproved-device service will come with horrendous gotchas like no free in network calls, different or no off hours times, limited data capabilities, incompatibility with family plans, and of course completely different and non-competitively priced packages. Which will all be played off as giving current customers incentive to use Verizon "preferred" devices. Sorry, Verizon, but you have given me little reason to be charitable with my assumptions.

In the end, I will be forced to move to another service next year to get my OpenMoko. Sigh.

This is news?!

[t1n0m3n]

I don't see how this is news. This is just a logical business step. The cellular company subsidizes cell phones with the intent on making up the cost on the cellular plan. So... How to make more money? Get a bunch of people to provide there own phones of course! Instant profit boost.

Now, what you will not see in the near future is Verizon unlocking the Verizon provided phones. That is unless they are commanded to do it via the US court system.

Re:This is news?!

[t1n0m3n]

Correction: This is news, but not something that is /. worthy IMO.

Read the GP

[sirwired]

The GP said that "Verizon uses a propriatary form of CDMA". This is not true. The different North American CDMA providers, can, and do, share networks. IIRC, Alltel makes more money selling their network wholesale than they make selling phone plans directly to consumers.

I think the announcements aren't exactly correct. What I think they mean to say is that they will now authorize any device that passes qualification to use Verizon's service, as in, you can walk into a Verizon store and activate to work with their plans and bill you for the privledge.

Any CDMA device will already work on Verizon's network (which is what I said), provided that your provider has a roaming agreement with Verizon.

SirWired

Re:Read the GP

[a_nonamiss]

Ah. I see. I misunderstood the intent of your original statement. Yes, my Verizon phone will function on Sprint's network, and vice-versa, using roaming. I cannot, however, activate a Sprint phone with my Verizon account. That's what irks me more than anything, not just about VZON, but the majority of the major carriers in general. To me, it seems a bit of a joke that a Sprint RZR can't be activated on a VZON account. They use identical hardware, but both companies have back-room deals with Motorola saying that the phones need to meet their specifications. Since VZON and Sprint have different specifications (namely different firmware and different OSes) the phones are not interchangeable. Even more, useful features are purposefully disabled or "left off" of phones because these companies want to protect their monopoly. My Palm 700p has bluetooth, and it has a fast Internet connection. I cannot, however, use it as a bluetooth modem. My GPS has bluetooth and it has the ability to get traffic updates over a bluetooth phone, but I can't use that feature. Although the feature would be trivial to include in the phone, since it already has the necessary hardware, VZON (as well as Sprint and Altell) have had the feature "unincluded" from the phone, because they want people to use Aircards in their PC's. Wifi is another feature that comes to mind. Palms had Wifi built into the OS, but the carriers insisted they leave it out of their Treo line for fear that people would use it for VoIP and stop using their minutes.

The free market is supposed to benefit the consumer. Why is it, then, that these features are commonplace on phones sold in other countries? I can get a better phone in socialist France or Communist China than in the USA.

Sorry for the offtopic soapbox rant. I'm tired of hearing how great the USA is when we're lagging behind in more and more areas. This problem is just an illustration of other areas where we're strangling ourselves creatively and economically, and my children and grandchildren are going to be the ones who pay for it.

Re:And in other news,square pegs/round holes dont

[xenophyx]

Wow... thank you, that makes so many things make sense now.

Re:And in other news,square pegs/round holes dont

[Samizdata]

I have worked in a position that allowed me access to a lot of VZW data, and I can confirm that Alltel was reselling VZW bandwidth, and, in fact, an entire region of Alltel service was converted to VZW without a single new phone being needed.

CDMA has its strong points

[sirwired]

I'm largely working from memory here, (I took a class on wireless comms in college taught by some PHd from Lucent)... GSM uses a TDMA (time division multiple access) -based setup (except for 3G setups, which actually use a new form of CDMA.) GSM/TDMA is spectrum inefficient due to the fact that silence takes up just as much bandwidth as voice. In addition, GSM/TDMA has a fixed maximum number of users for the cell. CDMA can theoretically handle a nearly infinite number of simultaneous connections on a cell, although as the number of calls goes up, the call quality goes down. For obscure reasons relating to carrier waves, CDMA has better penetration into buildings.

Given that all the "3G" standards are pretty much all CDMA-based, I'd say that the only part of the old GSM infrastructure that will be left after the transition is over is the SIM-card stuff. It'll still be called "GSM", but over the air, it won't even vaguely resemble the original TDMA-based version.

SirWired

Re:Any device? -Pretty much!

[PipsqueakOnAP133]

Wow... that module sucks. No EVDO? At least it has audio, unlike MultiTech's CDMA module.

What we actually need is a reference dev kit for Qualcomm's MSM6500 or better to be able to make something. Or a module based off it. It'd be neat if we could create a CDMA module that would plug in place of the iPhone's baseband board.

Right now, I'm still thinking we're better off getting old EVDO phones, powering up just the board with no screen or keypad, and using that as a module through rs232 or usb.

Re:Any device? -Pretty much!

[PayPaI]

If all you want is EVDO data, just get any of the USB EVDO modems that are available.
Here's one for $250, not including service. If you get one with service it'd be a whole lot cheaper, possibly free.
Back to modules, here's one that supports EVDO and has USB, audio (digital+analog). Uses the MSM6500 chipset.
Better information but still no pricing. Most likely it'd be in line with the GSM module, so $150 or so.

I thought they already did?

[Anonymous Coward]

VerizonWireless already is open -- as is Sprint's -- between each other's devices. I only found out this one when I inquired about why my phone sometimes kicks me off my web connection (it's because Verizon 'partners' with other carriers (re:Sprint) to provide service at the tower) and the other carriers (re:Sprint) don't pass my packets on. It seems to me it's still kind of a little secret, as most of the people I tell are surprised by this fact (including current Verizon employees).

CDMA is the dirty word here. Many of the posts have acknowledged this fact so I won't go there, but to say that my son's MP3 phone was really a WMA phone until I got inside it and fixed it http://www.bitpim.org/.

It is possible. Just disabled.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's my job to fix this stuff for Verizon, hence the post anonymously...
Verizon's CDMA network and phones can do a data call over the voice line. It's slow at just 14.4k. However, they've disabled it on all the newer phones with EVDO capability. This is specifically to get them to pay the $60 a month.

A couple of the Motorola phones have secret menus to re-enable it, and it does work after changing the setting.

Re:Any device? -Pretty much!

[AFCArchvile]

One Verizon exec went so far as to say that if someone builds a device in their basement on a breadboard, Verizon will test it and activate it.

Gentlemen, start your soldering irons!

Re:Any device? -Pretty much!

[PipsqueakOnAP133]

Those are pretty cool!

Yeah, my thought was more along the lines of "if we were to build a pda phone, what do we need?". Therefore having both EVDO data and voice were considered important.

FYI

[m2943]

http://navasgrp.home.att.net/tech/cingular/gsm_data.htm

It's a common misconception that GSM phones can make analog (dial-up) modem calls directly, but they can't. GSM is digital, and analog modems will only work over analog (AMPS) cellular. The "modem" in a GSM phone actually makes a digital connection to an IWU (Inter Working Unit) located at a carrier's Mobile Switching Center (MSC). The IWU has an analog modem bank that makes the actual dial-up modem calls. If a carrier doesn't provide an IWU, then analog modem calls are not possible.

CDMA = RUIM

[5of0]

For everyone's information ("CDMA doesn't have SIM cards!!11eleven!"), a recent development is the R-UIM card, which evidently can work as either a CDMA R-UIM card, or a GSM card. However, it seems that it is only for personal information, you can't just swap them out:
"*Enables users to program personal information once and roam between CDMA and GSM networks with a multimode device"
It seems that the RUIM card may work as a SIM card:
http://www.china.org.cn/english/BAT/109251.htm
Does anyone have any better info on this?

Not entirely

[daBass]

I can't speak for Verizon's CDMA network, but GSM most certainly has a "data" mode that nobody in Europe charges you extra for. When you make a data call, you get the native 9600 bps speed that the voice goes over, error-corrected and everything. It emulates a v.32 modem and you can thus connect to any normal modem, ISP, etc. I have done this many times and it is very stable. Heck, in the early days you used to have GSM FAX machines for cars!

Considering you can't actually attach a modem to a cell phone, I assume what the OP was trying to do was use the phone's data mode over either a USB or serial cable or bluetooth using the appropriate client software. Just that the phone tries to do it most likely means CDMA is capable of this.

That leaves only one option, Verizon really does not want to enable data mode for you and just charge you minutes of airtime without paying the extra $60.

Which is evil.

SIM cards on CDMA networks

[justIshmael]

so as many people know, there are SIM cards in CDMA phones in Japan (and other countries, but as Japan is home to the most lust-worthy phones [by my standards], it is the chosen referent) called, if i'm correct in this matter, UIM cards (at least the error message i get from a second-hand w42ca states "auIC(UIM) error, Insert card," and as this is a kddi phone, i'm guessing auIC is a proprietary title for such a card). thus, the first question would be "this new 'open' system will or will not be accomodating devices that have such identification cards?" the second query, obviously, follows: who do i have to shag to get an appropriately modified w42ca (or even a type-r) made to work on such a network?

follow-up to previous post: these "linux fags," are they a gay subculture of some sort? a brief survey of friends both homo- and hetro- sexual has, methinks, established one of two things: unlike the bears or butches, there is no linuxean gay subculture, or referenced anonymous coward is far more connected to the gay community than quite a few gay people, some of whom i would comfortably describe, with respect to the fulfilling of stereotypes, as very gay. and so not going, necessarily, out of my way to reference necronomicon, but is said anonymous coward privy to the knowledge of the ultra-gays? if so, let me be the first: wow!

Not just any device

[int-21]

No, it won't, thanks to the FCC and their "all phones must have E911 GPS capability", you can't just activate any old CDMA phone, Pretty much ANYTHING made before 2003 cannot be used, period.

I used to work for a verizon store, and this pissed off both myself and many many customers wanting to use older phones. (Startac, LG TM510, Bag phones, etc...)

This has another side effect being that only phones that verizon sells, has sold, or are the same model as a verizon phone can be used, since they use a whitelist of GPS-capable devices.

What about Sprint phones?

[Newer Guy]

It's my understanding that Sprint and Verizon phones are 100% technically compatible. Can I now cancel Sprint and sign my phone up with Verizon?

Re:What about Sprint phones?

[Animats]

Sprint is spread-spectrum CDMA, not time-division GSM.

Just say No to razor blades.

[Anonymous Coward]

"It might just be me, but Verizon could totally kick start this by NOT CRIPPLING THE PHONES THEY SELL. "

What part of the "razor blade" model do you not understand? You want a full-featured phone? Then pay full-featured prices.

Re:Just say No to razor blades.

[jasen666]

What does that mean? Verizon only sells their customized version of the phone, not a "basic" and "premium" model of each one.
Or do you mean we should just buy an unlocked one from elsewhere if we want the features that came on the phone to, you know, actually work as intended?

About Face

[architimmy]

In just the last few months Verizon seems to be making an about face in a number of ways. I quit the service after they threw hundreds of dollars worth of extra fees at me in the final two months of my contract (that's a good way to keep a customer at the end of their contract). I had called previously to point out the extra fees and got a bit of a run around. After calling to terminate my service however they simply wiped my last month's bill, extra charges (which I never paid), and even sent me 8$ in the mail about 4 months later. Essentially a customer rep had modified my contract removing a messenging service which Verizon no longer offered (but I still had as part of an ancient contract). I had turned down overtures to "upgrade" to much more expensive options. The rep simply dropped the messenging plan on all but the primary line of my family plan (hello huge surcharges).

At the end of the day, I used Verizon because they had better coverage in the areas I've lived the last few years. After pulling a fast one on me, I didn't feel it was worth it anymore so I switched. They way the resolved the problem without much fuss though made me think better of them. With an open network they might even be more attractive than any other options now. That is, once I finish my current NEW contract.

I would have to say Comcast just climbed to the #1 slot on my evil telecom company board.

FLV?

[tepples]

There's no significant difference between surfing the web on your phone or on your computer except for readability I disagree. One of the most popular higher-bandwidth formats that PC users are using lately is FLV from sites such as YouTube. Are most phones capable of streaming and decoding FLV?

Don't trust Verizon

[SoopahMan]

Verizon sued the FCC after the FCC agreed to 2 out of Google's 4 openness policies for the 700Mhz spectrum. If they're announcing they're opening up their current network (is this even an announcement, or an announcement that they plan to make an announcement?), it's almost surely just for show. Their business model does not allow for open devices.

Right now I've got a Verizon phone with no cell tower information on it. Why? Because Verizon blocks that information, charging $15/mo extra to get at something they go out of their way to disable. I could write software that figures out my location with it (this tower means I'm home, etc), but they've put up a wall and a fee. That's happening today. Doesn't sound very open to me.

I think customers might have had an effect

[neuromancer2701]

I am a Verizon customer and have had mixed results with them but the problems that my wife and family have had with the New AT&T are a lot worse.

The first thing I did when I saw that Verizon Wireless was not apart of the Open Handset Alliance was to send an email to customer support saying I might leave if they don't join. Out of 63.7 Million customers I wonder how many did that.

As others have said it has to do with the new 4G rollout, all companies are going to have the same tech. This also means that they can steal other customers with just a switch of a sim card. AT&T does not have this luxury becuase they are locked into the iPhone for X amount of time. I am going to enjoy the opportunity to screw over AT&T.

Vodafone experience

[Simon Brooke]

I've never been to Europe so I don't know how Vodafone treats their customers (Vodafone is part owner of Verizon Wireless) so I don't know who's influencing these decisions.

I've been a Vodafone customer in the UK for eleven years now. I use a phone they didn't sell me, and have applications on it that I wrote as well as various others

Even on the phones Vodafone do sell you, features are not normally disabled; the last phone I got from them (Sony Ericsson P910i) has a ringtone downloaded direct to it from the net for free, and various applications I installed from places around the net. I don't think you could survive with a 'lock the users in' policy in Europe - there's too much competition.

Re:And in other news,square pegs/round holes dont

[Andy Dodd]

"Let's just say it's a no-go."

It may have changed in the past two years (and in fact I've heard indications that it has changed and VZW started ESN whitelisting just like Sprint), but at least back in 2005 (the era when the Sprint Treo 650 was released 6-9 months before Verizon's) all barriers to activating a Sprint phone on VZW were on Sprint's side (random MSL codes for Sprint phones, instead of Verizon's universal 0000 MSL code.)

If you could manage to MSL-unlock a Sprint phone (required some heavy duty hacking), people were able to activate them on VZW without problems.

Re:And in other news,square pegs/round holes dont

[snoogans126]

TDMA causes a lot more interferenc. Try putting a cell phone next to a computer speaker sometime; phones using TDMA signalling, such as GSM, will often cause a pulsing buzz, particularly when receiving an incoming call or text message
I never realized that, I thought I just had a shitty phone. I've got a (work provided) Nextel Motorola I710. When sitting near my computer or TV, I'll hear the interference start about a second before the phone rings for an incoming call. My brain interprets the cell phone interference and the cell phone ringing in pretty much the same way.

MissingMethodException

[tepples]

It's like using Visual Studio, sure you can pay to access the API, but it still won't work with other systems. Mono? Three words: Missing Method Exception. Quite a bit of System.Windows.Forms is still unimplemented.

Tracfone

[Control-Z]

I don't care how open or closed the networks are, I'm not paying $40+ for cell phone service.

Tracfone works on Verizon's network and costs me about $10 a month. Initial investement was a $20 Tracfone + $50 minute doubler card + $20 60 min card, doubled to 120 minutes plus a code to add another 20 minutes. That was good for 3 months, I just added a $30 120 minute card doubled to 240 minutes. So now my cost is $10 per month. If you don't talk more than 80 minutes a month pay-as-you-go is the best deal.

Unlocking in minor cities?

[tepples]

Unlocking available in any major city for about $10 How much does unlocking cost in a minor city such as Fort Wayne (pop. approx. 200,000)?

Re:Any device? -Pretty much!

[RESPAWN]

I usually try not to get involved in these cell phone provider witch hunt threads becuase they never seem to go anywhere.**

Anyway, Verizon just recently released their iPhone competitor, the LG Voyager. Without performing a full comparison, I think the most fair comparison is to say that it does lack WiFi and the slick multi-touch interface, but it opens on the side for a full tactile QWERTY keyboard (in addition to the software keyboard), will allow you to SMS more than one person at once, does have a touch screen on the outside, and will browse OTA at full 3G speeds. In short, it's almost everything the iPhone should have been. Actually, just the tactile keyboard is enough to sell me. Like I said, I won't go through a full comparison of the two, but in my opinion the Voyager is a better overall package.

**I am of the opinion that all providers are equally bad and that you just have to pick the one that works for you. In my case, that happens to be Verizon, but only because 1) I have a good friend who works for them and who can help me out with the usual account issues, 2) my house is on the edge of Sprint coverage and my Sprint phone spent more time bouncing between Sprint and Alltel towers than actually receiving calls, and 3) Cingular/AT&T screwed me bad in a past lifetime and I refuse to go back to them. T-Mobile doesn't have a license to operate in my area and Alltel is a consideration, but in the past I've found their coverage to be somewhat lacking once I got out of their "back yard".

I knew you were lying

[nunyadambinness]

What do you want, the damned bill? I have no idea why it went up. I do know they lost a customer.

So it went up that much and you weren't able to find out why?

No, you were lying. I knew it and you just proved it.

but...

[m2943]

But with AT&T, you can use a regular GSM phone with no restrictions. And if you bought a decent phone from AT&T, you can just install generic firmware on it.

If you want a nice phone without restrictions on AT&T, the Nokia N95-3 seems to be a good choice right now.