EU Commissioner Wants Standard For Mobile Phone Connectors

Jantastic writes "European Commissioner Günter Verheugen wants manufacturers of mobile phones to come up with a standard connector for chargers and microphones. If companies fail to do so, proposed legislation should speed up this process. In theory, this could improve competition, while enabling longer life cycles for these devices."

Comments

USB?

[Toe, The]

You mean like USB and, I dunno... maybe mini-USB?

Re:USB?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nokia already made the switch.

Most of the new phones have mini-usb already. Instead of having two connectors, one for power and one for data, they can now have just one on the phone. Also, mini-usb is quite convenient for the other end's requirement and cheap to implement.

Re:USB?

[plover]

It is very nice. Motorola standardized on the mini-USB connector back around the time they introduced the RAZR. Every Motorola product I've bought since about 2005 uses a mini-USB jack for power and charging. This includes a Bluetooth stereo adapter, a couple pairs of Bluetooth headphones, a Bluetooth handsfree ear-bud, and at least five different models of cell phones.

And I have never had to buy a separate cable to connect my Motorola phones to my PC when it's time to upload new content. That's not true of my Sony-Ericsson or Nokia phones.

And because they're all the same, I have several identical power bricks, which is ideal for having one at work, a couple in different rooms at home, my wife has one, and our car chargers are all interoperable.

It's one of those levels of convenience that seems stupid and shallow (and probably is), but it definitely drives me back to Motorola as a customer.

Re:USB?

[Andy Dodd]

The problem is that there is no way to charge phones in a standard way with USB.

USB dictates that a device is only permitted to draw 100 mA unless it has negotiated a connection with a host AND that host has given it permission to draw more.

As a result, any device that charges from USB must either:
a) Limit itself to 100 mA or less (not going to happen)
b) Limit itself to only charging when it enumerates with a PC (see the "special driver" scenario, although there are admittedly better ways to do this - behave as a "standard" device for which all modern OSes have drivers, but still this is a very restrictive approach as it doesn't allow for "dumb chargers".)
c) Have some sort of method to signify the presence of a "dumb charger" to the device. THIS IS NOT COVERED BY ANY CURRENT USB SPECIFICATION. As a result it is at best covered by "de facto" standards. For example, mini-USB connectors have an additional pin not found in normal USB connectors. (Why, I do not know, I'm guessing "future growth" for later USB revisions). It is defined as "not connected" in standard USB, but it's a "de facto" standard (adopted by Motorola, Blackberry, HTC, Holux, and quite a few others) to signify a "dumb charger" by grounding this pin. (Unfortunately, most devices will fail to operate as a data device when this pin is grounded.)

Sadly, Apple does it in a different manner with weird resistances and voltages.

Unfortunately there's no way to standardize this without somehow incorporating it into USB 3.0. I sort of recall that this might have actually been taken into account for USB 3.0, but if not, it's too late for the EU - USB 4.0 is a looooooooong way away.

Re:USB?

[Zocalo]

The ones that I'll even consider buying any more do. The same goes for any another gadget with a potential for connection to a PC and a realistic expectation that USB will be capable of providing enough juice to charge it up. Heck, even some of my devices (a desktop fan and a *toothbrush*) that have zero real need for a PC connection use a Mini-USB socket for their power needs. Being able to go away and only pack one wall wart, plus have the confidence that even if you lose it you can get a local replacement without any hassle at all is about as good as it gets for portable devices.

Also, can anyone *please* explain what possible reasoning might lie behind EICTA's Tony Graziano statement that Verheugen's demand is "legally and technically impossible" due to differences in voltage and battery requirements within the European Union? Seriously. Inquiring minds want to know! I have a USB wall wart with a modular mains connector that you just snap the appropriate plug onto and that handles just about any input voltage you care to chuck at it and it has the EU stamp of approval on it, so I think it's absolutely legally and technically possible.

Re:USB?

[petermgreen]

The somehow, being the question
By issuing an ultimatum.

When you remove the sugarcoating the european commisioners message seems to basically boil down to "we can do this the easy way or the hard way, agree a standard among yourselves or we will come up with one and ram it down your throat"

Re:USB?

[tlhIngan]

Yup, that would be good, or at least require them to include an adaptor in the box. The other thing that they should sort out is getting these phones to be able to recharge with any USB power plug. The iPhone and the iPod are guilty here, requiring you to buy special 'iPod' capable power adapters. Then again it could be the plug manufacturers for not wiring all the lines up in the USB portion of the plug.

Actually, that is the problem. A USB charger doesn't just supply 5V on Vbus and that's it. A USB device that's properly spec'ed can't draw more than 500mA from a USB port, but given some USB devices, that could mean it takes days to charge via USB, or even, it doesn't charge at all. (There are devices out there that draw more than 500mA when busy, so it's actually possible to drain the battery while in use.)

To cope with this, there is a "USB Charging Specification" that specifies how to identify the charger, so devices can do a quick detection, and if it is a charger, start drawing 800mA, 1A, 2A or however much they want to to ensure a fast charge, or even slow charging while busy. This is done via a specially selected set of resistors hooked to Vbus and ground to the D+ and D- lines. The charger itself shorts D+ to D-, and whe connected, instead of the idle state that is expected (D+/D- low - pulled by weak pulldowns from the host), it detects a "1" state on both pins. The device then knows it's safe to draw whatever it wants.

Oh yeah, unconfigured USB devices can only draw 100mA for a limited time - long enough to charge its battery so it can identify itself, at which point it must disconnect, boot up, and identify itself, at which point, it can draw 100mA or 500mA from the port (depending on what the bus can supply).

Cheap devices can use just 5V on Vbus and charge. Proper USB drives that pass USB certification can't, and if they attempt to draw more than 500mA from a host port on a PC, it's a fail. Hence schemes like these so they can pass certification, but still be able to "fast charge" properly. It's surprisingly difficult to do USB power "properly."

USB 3.0 devices can have 150mA unconfigured or 900mA (I believe) configured.

Re:USB?

[jimicus]

You can get cells with their own special USB connectors (like iPod/iPhones).

Then it's not a USB connector, is it?

It's just a random proprietary connector and you just happen to get a USB lead with it.

Re:USB?

[QuantumRiff]

But your looking at it from the wrong side. You did not need to purchase two additional cables that cost a few pennies to make, and sell for $10-$25, in addition to car chargers, international chargers, etc. That's why the industry is dragging its feet.

Re:Sounds good to me

[eln]

Any reason why we (consumers) should be against this?

Well, since this is the government, they'll inevitably come up with a standard where the connector is 6 inches long and 3 inches wide, has 874 tiny easily breakable pins, and requires a power brick that weighs 20 pounds. Also, the chargers will cost $438,000.

USA Competition!

[glassware]

Man, it's a good thing here in the U.S. we don't have any overzealous regulator deciding what kinds of power adapters we should have on mobile phones. Here in the U.S. every vendor decides to make their own unique adapter, with their own unique configuration, and their own labelling, and their own connector, so that we have to have the latest power adapter for every phone every time we upgrade.

Looking over the dozens of adapters I've had to buy over the years, it's great that I can have such a variety of choices. Each of these dozen products clearly demonstrates competition at work. In fact, some companies compete so hard they don't even put the name of the phone on the power adapter, so even though the connectors look alike I have to doublecheck all their UL listings to see which one applies to each phone so I don't burn it out every time I plug it in!

What's great is that, now, some vendors are even creating better lock-in techniques. Some USB adapters I have work on some phones and some devices but not on others. Some old adapters fit perfectly but produce error messages on other devices. As a result I have an awesome drawer filled with tons of high-end technology and I get to sift through it to find the advanced technology I need to run my phone.

The best part is that, if I forget my adapter, the company makes tons of profits on selling after-market power adapters! They make so much money on those $30 aftermarket adapters that they can afford to drop their prices elsewhere! That's why I pay $150 per month for my cellphone service when most poor Europeans pay a few dozen Euros each month for their highly regulated mobile phones.

Living without regulation is really the best way to go. I mean, my mobile phone company charges $15 per month for unlimited text messages, and their profits are so good I get all sorts of benefits from working with them! So many benefits that I can't list them all here.

Re:USA Competition!

[freedom_india]

Your sarcastic comment would be funny, if it weren't sadly true.

Guenter is an attention whore

[Kabada]

As spiegel.de, where I first read about Guenter Verheugens plans, says: "It's a nice idea, but 7 years too late, and your doing it for publicity only!" This commissions' term is nearly over (or at least close enough to being over for this plan to not have a rat's asses chance of being implemented while Guenter is still in office). Thus I can only agree with spiegel's assessment: Verheugen wants to go out with something attentiongrabbing (hereby accomplished) and those plans will be put back into a drawer once he leaves office.

Re:Restoring the balance

[Chris Burke]

Wasn't that a clear cut case of laissez-faire capitalism to the rescue? Did some government body force IBM to open their platform?

Well, in a way... when IBM lost their copyright infringement lawsuit against Compaq for reverse-engineering and clean-room-reimplementing the IBM BIOS. That's not so much a government body saying "You must open your platform" as "you can't stop others from opening your platform for you as long as they abide by the law."

You better believe IBM didn't want anyone else to be able to make compatible hardware. But there was a huge financial incentive for anyone interested in making clones to make compatible hardware, and the law just happened to be on their side. I actually shudder to think what would have happened if the legal environment then had been like it is now.

So it kinda is still a bad example. IBM was forced against their will to open their platform, but this was actually a result of a weakness in the anti-laissez-faire monopoly granted by copyright law.

The problem in this case, is that just about nobody has an incentive to make compatible chargers. At least not phone makers. Why, when they can charge extra for proprietary cables? I really couldn't say if there's any patent or copyright related protection makers of these proprietary chargers could claim, but it isn't clear it would matter either way.