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Verizon Embraces Google's Android
An anonymous reader writes "BusinessWeek has up an article on Verizon's decision to fully support Android. After passing on the iPhone, the company says they're going to open their network to more devices, move their network to GSM-based radio technology (LTE), and now support Android. 'In an open-access model, though, Verizon Wireless won't offer the same level of customer service as it does for the roughly 50 phone models featured in its handset lineup. Though the company will insist on testing all phones developed to run on its network in the open-access program, Verizon plans only to ensure the wireless connection is working for customers who buy those devices.'"
In all of the diodes down my left side.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Are these the battle lines draw against Apple/ATT
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I feel like when it comes to open networks, Verizon has always been that evil master that enslaves you and hits you with a rolled up magazine. It makes me wary that it's now trying to give us this treat of promises of open networks...
Something tells me they're just trying to lure us in so they can get a better swing with their magazine.
...of robotic sheep.
LTE is especially good news. It's an open standard, it similar underlying technologies to WiMAX and like WiMAX is all-IP - you can run any protocol over it you can run over the Internet, because your LTE device is an Internet connected terminal. Unlike WiMAX various protocols are standardized on top of it, so an LTE "phone" is still charge up, and plug in the SIM card, and go in much the same way as a GSM phone is today.
It's going to be hard for me to shake my impression of Verizon as a bunch of psychotic control freaks: maybe the Vodafone influence is finally having an affect. It'll be nice to have a third national operator with a genuinely open network that's worth considering. Being stuck with two GSM operators, one stuck with poor spectrum, the other barely giving a rats-ass about quality of service, sucks.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Verizon Embraces Google's Android
Too bad androids are only able to return the gesture of affection with a cold, dead indifference.
I wonder if Verizon's support for Android devices is indirectly due to Java's general acceptance as a mobile platform (J2ME), and their confidence that a whole OS based on it will be solid enough to provide predictable support for it. We're beginning to see Windows Mobile devices diverging in basic functionality as the T-Mobile Shadow, HTC Touch, and AT&T Tilt all have different interfaces. This likely makes it hell for Verizon to provide open access for WM. If Android can remain consistent in functionality, robustness, and usability, as well as maintain a relatively small footprint, I don't see why Sprint and T-Mobile wouldn't follow suit eventually. OTOH, AT&T may continue to drink Apple's koolaid and be the closed, leading edge, stylish carrier.
Verizon plans only to ensure the wireless connection is working for customers who buy those devices.
"Can you hear me now? No? Tough-- it must be your device!"
They know they need to do something "edgie" to court the "Hip" crowd and they see Google as the way to do it. Doing something like this seems like a marketing ploy to keep them "cool". Who need to say they have good service when we have "the cool" phones.
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
Hitler is freezing his balls off right now.
Ok, I get it now. I've been trying to figure out why a company that is so closed and so anti-consumer most of the time (I happen to be a current subscriber and hate them, especially after they automatically extended my contract when I got married and wanted to consolidate cell phone plans with my wife, who was also a Verizon customer) would be suddenly opening up their network, not restricting software, etc. After reading these quotes from the article, though, I do get it now.
Reading between the lines, you can tell they don't like the fact that they have to support their customers. Things were great when they were just signing up customers right and left and didn't have to do much support, but now that they have to actually support their subscribers they don't like it. So basically, this "opening" is just a way for them to support their customers even less, and dump as much of the support on the handset providers as possible. The company strategy is still about helping the consumer as little as possible and screwing them over as much as possible; it just happens that that is now most easily done with an open network.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
No, GTE.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Stop charging my first born for service.
Verizon's Data-Plan is 80 per month base (with no option for not buying voice time), versus T Mobile's 40 a month (with no Voice plan). That doesn't include the use of wifi spots, which comes standard for t-mobile but is extra on Verizon. I'm an open-source guy, but I'll take a locked proprietary phone that works as a bluetooth modem for my (soon to own, hopefully) Nokia n810 over a google android phone on an open network any day of the week, when it's going to cost me 40 less a month.
no music support and no touchscreen
proud caffeine whore
Afte reading the article, this is what grabs my eye:
. . . Verizon Wireless won't offer the same level of customer service as it does for the roughly 50 phone models featured in its handset lineup . . . Verizon plans only to ensure the wireless connection is working for customers who buy those devices. "They have to talk to their handset provider or their application provider if they have particular issues," McAdam says.
So, who's to say if "the wirelss connection is working" - The customer? Verizon? The device itself? Application support? What kind of sense does THAT make? I can't hold a call for 5 blocks in a downtown urban area, but because my 'phone provider says the coverage maps report solid coverage, the problem of course must be my handset -- which of course they can replace with a "newer, better model" for just $199.95.
Add to that their sudden outbreak of common sense regarding their business model, in that
. . . the bulk of their energy goes to helping current subscribers with questions and problems. McAdam & Co. decided the business model was not sustainable."
What a great opportunity for Verizon to reduce their already phenomenally bad customer service and imply that it's not their fault that they must do.
That might be the most ingenious corporate spin I've ever heard. Seriously.
-- Dedicated Cthulhu cultist since 1982 A.C.E.
I think they're better off than taking the iPhone route. The issue with iPhones is that you've only really got a subset of customers (albeit a very large one), and it's unlikely to grow beyond that. With an open platform, I think Verizon are covering a much larger customer-base. That and the added fact that anything with Google on it is likely to sell well.
ilovegeorgebush
Verizon just blew up the US cell phone industry.
Go read Joel Spolsky's newsletter (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html) for a fuller understanding.
Happy times are ahead!
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Are voice calls over LTE handled similar to VoIP? If so, does this mean calls will have the same pricing as data (because they are the same). Does this entirely change the mobile phone business model?
One of my biggest bitches was being forced to run their proprietary crap apps on the phone instead of plentiful Java apps. I also hate all the fcking branding: External LCD shows Verizon Logo when shut, internal screen has "Verizon" at the top, etc. $200/month isn't enough to let me put what I want on the phone and make it look like a want? My son downloaded a stupid game the first dat he had it because he thought it was free and we found out last month that we have been charged for it for a year. Screw that! If Sprint didn't suck more I'd still be with them.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
I've been working with the SDK since it came out, and though it is still lacking in some of its promised features, by the time the first phones come out next year it's going to provide some very interesting competition in the industry.
I'm glad that a major provider is jumping on. From a development perspective at least, Android is a breath of fresh air in the mobile phone industry. Hopefully it will be for end users as well, but I suppose that remains to be seen. =)
-Vendal Thornheart
April Fools in december? Oh shi-
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't a big chunk of Verizon owned by Vodafone? Vodafone got a temporary injunction issued against T-Mobile in Germany, and now this. Is Vodafone is going to war?
And this is a change in their customer service how? Like with the phones that they currently support they can explain to me why I can't reply to an SMS outside my area code?
They say they are going to switch from CDMA to GSM, but why do they have to alienate all their existing customers by switching protocols? The network should support both CDMA and GSM simultaneously. That should be their goal, to support as many different devices as possible, instead of just particular phones.
> Verizon Wireless won't offer the same level of customer
> service as it does for the roughly 50 phone models featured
> in its handset lineup.
I can't wait to get a different level of customer service from Verizon!
I, for one, fully support our android overlords.
--- sig moved for great justice.
I can think of lots of good stuff to make too.Like firewalls and encryption to stop wifi/bluetooth crackers. Enough innuendo. How secure is it?
I thought Schrodinger's cat was in Pandora's box !? Apparently the cat escaped by pushing the lid open.
'In an open-access model, though, Verizon Wireless won't offer the same level of customer service as it does for the roughly 50 phone models featured in its handset lineup.'
Surely less of a bad thing is a good thing.
VZN is just trying to lull Google to sleep so VZN can buy/control the spectrum for less. The worst thing Google could do is trust any of the remnants of MA Bell. If any part of the MA Bell cartel gets this spectrum it will be anything but open. We need open handsets AND open access to networks with spectrum viable for mobile devices. One without the other will perpetuate closed markets.
I'll believe it when I see it. All they've done so far is make a couple vague statements to BusinessWeek.
All this talk of Verizon "openness" is just talk. Right in time for all the publicity around the 700MHz auction.
I have no idea what their strategy is, but I can assure you being more open is not their goal.
Tasha Yar begs to differ.
Opening their network and letting an open source community develop software for them is a positive step for Verizon. Currently they have some of the worst client side software available on their phones. Why not let users develop the software they like and go back to being just a service provider? They won't have to reduce their prices because current Verizon customers (myself included), have already accepted that we will pay an arm and a leg for cell data service. Android won't make Verizon phone plans cheaper, and might even make them more expensive at the start (due to the higher quality hardware needed to run Android). That being said, at least I'll have a real choice on what software I want on my phone, which is more than can be said for the iPhone and the morons over at AT&T, or Cincular, or wait, AT&T.
I doubt it's well characterized as a move so much as an expansion of the CDMA equipment. Currently, they have a CDMA network to the point of having embraced EV-DO as the 3G standard they went with. Looks like UMB (the 4G equivalent of LTE) has absolutely zero takers, and that Verizon plans to deploy LTE equipment to complement their current networks. Just like while I'm in a large city, I generally can get EVDO access, but if I go 100 miles away, I only get 1x RTT connection from the tower. Meanwhile, though I haven't used it in a while, the good ol' AMPS network is still active where I am at and is guaranteed for at least two more months (despite that digital networks have been essentially ubiquitous for nearly a decode now). I would expect their CDMA network to be live for probably a decade after the first LTE technologies become available to consumers, by which point getting an LTE phone would be chump change.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I just ran my MetroPCS phone (Nokia 6255) over to T-Mobile. Despite your insightful post, they laughed at me.
What now?
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Does Verizon's plans to deploy a full LTE network mean that CDMA will be gone in a few years from the US? Sprint says it's going to upgrade from CDMA to WiMAX, but has also indicated it might go LTE anyway. Verizon will probably eventually upgrade its CDMA to LTE instead of a CDMA successor, especially if the LTE network succeeds well, even if it's because of the new open devices rather than any intrinsic network advantage. Current GSM operators like T-Mobile will have to upgrade by then, and probably to LTE too. AT&T looks like it's going LTE instead of WiMAX.
Regardless of the technical advantages of LTE, WiMAX or an alternative, just getting a single network tech for all mobile telcos would be a huge benefit. The same phone to connect to any of multiple overlapping networks means redundancy and competition that improve quality and prices, while unifying the market for apps at either end of the network. Which could also be a worldwide state of affairs, as foreign GSM upgrades most likely to GSM.
Is the US really going to finally get into a completely GSM environment along with the rest of the world? And what about Japan, the mobile phone wonderland, which would be the only CDMA left (apart from the US abortion in making Iraq CDMA)?
--
make install -not war
would that mean every cell phone in the US is guaranteed interference? when the FCC tests a phone, what do they test? obviously not if it interferes with surrounding equipment. i've even heard the GSM noise on my TV at home (and i have a CDMA phone), so it either comes from the cable company, or the TV station. /rant
seriously... as somebody that works doing professional audio work i effectively can not have a GSM phone because they emit that noise even through shielded cables. they interfere with industry standard wireless systems. i like having a phone i can leave on when working (often over 12 hours per day), but every GSM phone i come across seems to cause interference problems. i don't just mean with wireless mics, but even if they are in a bag laying on, or next to, mic cables, they will bleed through. that is the #1 reason i can't buy an iPhone or anything else from AT&T/T-Mobile.
Verizon gets a lot of flak here and elsewhere for locking up phone capabilities. And as a current Verizon customer, I'd certainly love to be able to transfer files between my phone and computer with Bluetooth. At the same time, I still generally recommend Verizon to friends looking at switching or getting new service because here in San Francisco, as most places I've travelled in the U.S., my phone service just works.
Verizon Wireless reminds me of another company whose products I've grown to appreciate: Apple. Both companies seem to share a business model rooted in some common principles, producing a similar result: it just works.
Both companies control the hardware (Apple by making it, Verizon by installing their own interface), so they can solve users' problems when they crop up (under warranty, anyway...). And both companies charge a premium up front for their products, with users receiving solutions in exchange while using it. If you want to save some money, you get a PC and spend time and/or money getting things set up, configured, updated, upgraded as time goes on, or you use AT&T wireless and take your chances with network connectivity and customer service. But Verizon and Apple base their business models on making it work, and charging a premium for that.
No doubt folks will post here with horror stories with Apple tech support or Verizon customer service. My point is that in comparison, a given group of customers (non-techies with Apple, busy people with Verizon) are more satisfied with these companies overall than with other companies. Check out Consumer Reports' most recent survey of cell phone companies - they all rated abysmal in service, but they found Verizon the least so...
You're pretty smart. Thanks.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Just so you know, Verizon's plans start at $10/month if you are willing to pay $0.10 per minute for all services (voice/data) and $0.10 per text message/email. The only way to pay less than that is with t-mobile's prepay plans.
T-Mobile seems to allow unlocked phones...so why get a bundled one?
Only because it's cheaper, I guess.
They can also reduce their support costs by letting people do whatever they damn well please to their phones. A good deal of the problems people call cellular providers up about are caused by restrictions the providers put in to try and nickel-and-dime them on extra services... like downloading games. I probably cost my current cellphone provider more than I'll ever earn them in profits just trying to get them to explain how I could save my address book, because they refused to say "you can't do that because we disabled that feature on all our 'basic' phones". They sent me to three different stores to try and get a magic cable that would solve my problem, and they spent at least half an hour at each store looking for the cable. When they finally found one, and it said "feature disabled", and I called them back, I finally got a tech who knew (or was willing to admit) that they'd crippled the phone.
We'd BOTH have been much better off with Android.
I have never found verizon to be especially evil. Corporate, to be sure, but never especially evil. I think this is a great move in the right direction. Of course they want to reduce their support costs! It's funny how people now want to blame companies for wanting to make money. Making money is a good thing as long as it isn't at all costs.
I have some relatives that work for Verizon and what goes on behind the scenes is truly beyond description...but at the end of the day I like their service a lot, they are moving in the right direction with FIOS (ESPECIALLY the symmetrical bandwidth offering!), and they're moving in the right direction with this.
I think most of the people complaining about this are pie-in-the-sky idealists who are holding out for a vision of the world that will never arrive, or at least isn't due in for a while. Their competing with comcast is reason enough to like them, as is their extremely good cell service, despite the ridiculous cost of their data plans. This is a good thing.
Stop charging my first born for service.
Hey, this isn't a soup kitchen! If your first born wants service, they have to PAY for it, pal!
This was changed back during the summer.
It's $59.99 a month for EVDO high-speed internet whether you have a qualifying voice line or not.
Given the fact that the service covers over 280 million people makes it worth a little extra. I doubt Verizon would charge you less for their data plans if you decide to use a non-standard handset.
The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the
The text state that LTE is GSM-based, but the only thing they have in common is that they are telecom technologies. The radio technologies are radically different, the infrastructure is radically different, and the architecture is also radically different.
Do people actually do use "support"? Granted, I am an engineer and i don't think like most people. (As my wife has forced me to realize.) But I just can't believe that people call customer service for anything other than to complain about their bill or ask about new phones and plans. The only customer support calls I ever make are to the power company to tell them that my power is out again (happens at least once every other week), or to Comcast to tell them that the cable is out. On the Comcast calls I always spend a little extra time screaming about how I hate being treated like a criminal in that my DVR will not let me watch recordings off the hard drive if there is no cable connection. When you pay for a service, you basically have to deal with whatever garbage they give you as hardware. Why call and talk about it? You aren't going to change anything. Android, on the hand, will change things. You will be able to choose service providers on the merits of their service quality. You will also be able to buy the user experience (hardware & software) that suits you.
The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the
"high-speed internet" ... that is limited to things like e-mailing and websurfing according to their terms of service. That's a lot of money for only partial access to the internet.
Sprint is cheaper than T-mobile even, and especially if you're on their SERO plan.