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Why US Wireless Isn't Wide Open
Geoffery B tips a story in Business Week about why the US cellular carriers' talk about opening up their networks rings hollow. "Even as the wireless industry chants a new gospel about opening mobile phone networks to outside devices and applications, some of the biggest US carriers are quietly blocking new services that would compete with their own. Would-be mobile-service providers, ranging from startups to major banks to eBay's PayPal, have encountered these roadblocks, erected by the likes of AT&T and Verizon Wireless. In some cases, cellular carriers have backed down, but only after inflicting costly delays on the new services."
I think that's an oversimplified sensational exaggeration to the notion that a business is out to make money, and would hence not readily open the market to more competition and subsequent profit loss.
For the record, trying to make money != greed. Not relinquishing a dominated holding (what they're doing is legal) is not greedy, it's intelligent business. What do the companies have to gain by allowing more competition in an already competitive market?
I can to some extent understand the carriers blocking alternative phone plans, that is kind of logical competitive behavior. But what on earth is AT&T doign in banking? It would seem more logical to have an open system where all banks can talk to all phones -- that is a great way to drive traffic, and traffic is what a cellular carrier should thrive on.
For someone from Europe, the idea that cell carriers do these kinds of shenanigans is just amazing. Here, you can buy a phone with no contract, pop in your SIM, and off you go. And banking is done over WAP or HTTP in the phone's browser -- which can access anything on the 'net without restrictions. If I want to get the latest Nokia, I can. And paying 600 USD for a phone makes perfect sense if you know you can keep it for a few years, have bragging rights, and choose and cheap plan for it.
The US model is just so strange, fortunately it seems like the exception from the rule.
The article is about "short codes" for text messaging (e.g., "Text 105312 to vote for the next American Idol!"). The telcos are slow to approve new short codes. This has little, if anything, to do with open network access.
Illustrative example: The wired phone network is an open-access network (i.e., you can call whomever you want using whatever phone you want and transmit whatever data you want), but that doesn't mean the phone company has to give me a 3-digit access number (ala 911, 411, etc) if I ask for one. This article is stupid.
Because the field is completely dominated by huge corporations with great influence in Washington, free markets are incapable of demolishing, and in fact work in favor of monopolies, people are too apathetic to learn, let alone do anything about it, too scared of offending the corpogoverment and worst of all, too resentful of each other to believe they can work together for their mutual benefit.
But... the future refused to change.
If it would let me use my phone's built-in GPS with Google Maps, sure I'd pay $150 extra for the phone. If I were allowed to transfer applications between phones, sure it'd be worth it.
The reason my phone doesn't allow Google Maps access to the GPS is because Sprint sells a similar service for $10/month. So if the phone lasts more than 15 months, it would have been worth it.
Add in other locked down features (can't email photos from the phone, can't easily copy files off the phone, etc.) and it would be easily worth paying an extra $150 to get full access to the phone.
'Course, your question was really "would most people shell out an additional $150" and I have to admit the answer is almost certainly no.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.