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Why Unlocked Phones Don't Work In the US
schnell writes "Unlocked cellular devices have long been a part of the wireless landscape in Europe and elsewhere. But longtime industry analyst Andrew Seybold explains why that model doesn't work in the US due to technology and frequency differences, and why LTE adoption may not make things any better."
Technology and frequency differences? You've got to be shitting me. They don't work because the cell operators are greedy assholes.
I only use unlocked phones and prepaid plans, T-Mobile, PagePlus mostly. It can be done. There are plenty of unlocked phones available on NewEgg, Dell, Amazon, and Craigslist.
They don't work in the U.S. because carriers (who, in the end, are no better than record companies) want to control everything about the devices, because a. they feel entitled and b. because they can use that control to extort extra money from the customers. I'll tell you this: they can take that sense of entitlement and stick it where the Sun don't shine. They are nothing more than not-particularly-fat wireless pipes, and it's past time they were made to understand that, and act accordingly. I'm thoroughly irritated that the government broke up old AT&T (as Judge Greene himself pointed out, that was partly in order to break AT&T's anticompetitive lock on end user equipment in order to encourage the development of more and better services) they failed to apply the same logic to the soon-to-be cellular marketplace. Allowing communications carriers to have total control over subscriber-level equipment just results in, well, all the things we complain about today with regards to our cellular providers.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Most of the phones I've ever owned have been unlocked, purchased direct from Nokia. Never had any issues with them "not working" with any carrier I could purchases a SIM card from.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
The phone companies(at least in Germany) have sort of found away around having to deal with people with unlocked phones moving from provider to provider, namely it's impossible to find reasonably priced data plans without signing a 2 year contract. The only data plans you could get were per-day plans at a cost of 5 euros a day. If you just use your phone to check your email you are looking at 150 euros a month, 2.5x the usual Telekom unlimited data plan(without even factoring in the free voice minutes you get). And by the time you have signed a contract, you might as well get the subsidized locked phone because it's going to be obsolete in 2 years anyway.
Monstar L
Yeah, breaking up Ma Bell was a terrible idea. I just loved having to pay rent on every phone in my house every month, because you weren't allowed to own your own phone.
You know nothing.
Breaking up Ma Bell wasn't the best idea our friends in DC ever had.
I don't think that breaking Bell was bad. The problem was that the government let the companies to do whatever they wanted.
In Europe standardization is usually taken more seriously, thus avoiding each country doing whatever they want and things becoming a total mess. That should be easier to do in a single country, and it's really a shame the US has such problems.
I'm not sure why we put up with it
Because most people who consider a mobile phone in the United States find it preferable to the alternative: no phone service and no handheld device.
My 4-band Nokia GSM phone worked fine with AT&T and T-Mobile.
Well, I basically just make voice calls, so maybe that's the issue...
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
So buy the phone you want, then get the contract and swap the sim into the phone you wanted. Now sell the "free" phone on ebay.
The baseband and frequency issues are easily addressed in unlocked phones, there are only 2 standards so yes it does limit the phones available to being either cdma or gsm but the rest is just BS in the disguise of not "confusing" the consumer. I have yet to see a Sprint or Verizon phone that cannot work on cricket when unlocked. Ditto for AT&T phones and T-Mobile. Subsidized phone sales are a completely scam but to be fair, most people are too stupid to look past the "cheap phone" to think about what they are really paying for it when considering the 2 year contract they sign to get it.
I used to have a Motorola quad-band GSM phone on AT&T. I unlocked it so I could bring it to Australia and New Zealand when I went there a few years ago. Worked absolutely fine for me. I still keep the phone handy for if/when I travel abroad in the future.
he has analysed nothing. how much money these "analysts" are paid for stating the bleeding obvious is beyond me. this should be under the no-shit-sherlock dept.
Many countries have different technologies and frequencies, but there are many phones capable of workign with all. As someone who travels between Asia, South America, Europe and Australia regularly I never have a problem, and each of these regions have different standards and frequencies.
The problem is the US, and a lack of sane regulation in the marketplace.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
I dunno; with the 2 clauses Google got the FCC to wire into the license terms, I had high hopes for LTE... Any app, any device; you can go far with that...
You might want to read this article, it was written in 1984 before the internets, it sums it up nicely. http://www.porticus.org/bell/whatkilledmabell.html
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
They don't "not work" because of "technology and frequency differences,", they have trouble because the oligopoly of telecom providers has worked hard to actively prevent unlocked phones from being marketable.
NATO split up the spectrum after WWII so that European military radios were on the US civilian frequencies and vice versa. The reason was so the US military could take its radios into Europe and use their default channels and not conflict with the allied military radios that were already there.
Most of the phones I've ever owned have been unlocked, purchased direct from Nokia.
For one thing, only T-Mobile has a discount for bringing your own unlocked phone rather than taking one of the subsidized phones. AT&T has no counterpart to T-Mobile's "Even More Plus" plans that knock $10/mo off voice or $20/mo off voice+data for purchasing the handset and SIM separately. But other Slashdot users appear to be of the opinion that T-Mobile has the worst coverage among the big four. For another, before I buy an N900 phone from Nokia, I want to know whether I will like it so that I'm not out $80 for return shipping and restocking fees for a phone that I turn out not to like.
Seriously, compare our rates. Our plans. The contracts lengths.
There's a reason why cellphones aren't as popular in Canada as everywhere else on the planet. And Canadians don't throw their money around like Americans and that's another thing bugging the cellphone companies.
> that model doesn't work in the US due to technology and frequency differences
That doesn't seem to have been a problem in Australia or New Zealand where there are also frequency differences between networks.
You just buy a phone with the right frequency for your network (850 or 900/2100) and you're right. Some new phones like the iPhone 4 support both sets of frequencies so are are non-issue.
The real reason that model doesn't work in the US is due to the carriers being allowed (by the buying public, or by regulators, depending on your politics) to impose such terrible prices and terms.
Yeah, breaking up Ma Bell was a terrible idea. I just loved having to pay rent on every phone in my house every month, because you weren't allowed to own your own phone.
You know nothing.
You know less than you think. AT&T was a heavily-regulated government instituted monopoly, and it was a lot easier to regulate that single entity that it was to regulate what was left of AT&T after the breakup, and the thirteen so-called "Baby Bells" that provided local phone service. And now, they've all come back under the umbrella of SBC, only now without much of the regulation, and are if anything are more abusive to their customers, and more generally corrupt, than the old AT&T ever was. So tell me again how the breakup was inherently a "good thing (tm)?"
It wasn't necessary to break up AT&T just to break the lock on subscriber-level equipment: that would have been an easy change to the relevant regulations: "AT&T doesn't own your phones anymore." Done. AT&T was broken up because it was a monopoly, and some people in government don't like monopolies. AT&T never really understood what the furor was about, considering that it was the Federal Government that granted them their monopoly in the first place, in exchange for a specific regulatory burden, quality-of-service standards and (most importantly) universal coverage. When you hear complaints about Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and the like cherrypicking what locales they service, well, now you know why. Also remember that, up until that time, AT&T did offer just about the most reliable telephone service anywhere on the planet. No, it wasn't cheap, I agree.
The Feds tried to break up IBM, and failed, and (if I recall correctly) the head attorney on the government's side said, "Well, big isn't always bad." So there's not a whole lot of consistency when it comes to antitrust enforcement. If any company was deserving of a breakup at the time, it was probably IBM. But they got a free pass, and AT&T got shattered. And in the end, because the rise of packet-switched networking and the Internet changed everything anyway, we all got those cool services that Judge Greene wanted us to have, and it didn't take a breakup to do it. I'm not saying that it was the wrong thing to do (or the right thing, for that matter), I'm just saying that you're incorrect in assuming that such a heavy antitrust penalty was required in order to let you buy your own phones.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
When the dominant model is to buy the phone with the plan, why should the networks pay extra for the millions of phones they ship with plans when the only benefit is to make it easier for the customer to switch to a competitor? Better for them to ship a cheap phone that can't use all the competitors' services.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Ownership of subscriber level equipment was just the tip of the iceberg of Ma Bells' abuses. If that's all you have to go on, it's obvious you aren't old enough to remember how bad it was. SBC's abuses aren't a patch on Ma Bell's.
No, Samsung use them.
According to w'pedia:
As of January 30, 2009 Micro-USB has been accepted by almost all cell phone manufacturers as the standard charging port (including HTC, Motorola, Nokia, LG, Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Research In Motion) in the EU and most of the world. Worldwide conversion to the new cellphone charging standard is expected to be completed between 2010 to 2012.
Ownership of subscriber level equipment was just the tip of the iceberg of Ma Bells' abuses. If that's all you have to go on, it's obvious you aren't old enough to remember how bad it was. SBC's abuses aren't a patch on Ma Bell's.
I guess you misunderstood me. The GP was saying that AT&T was broken up just because of their lock on subscriber equipment. Obviously there was more to it than that.
And the term "abuse" takes many forms. I do remember that AT&T's field service types were well-trained, and always did the job right. At least that was always our experience. Yet, ever since the breakup, the quality of field service has been dropping, to the point where I've had these guys just leave bare wires hanging from my ceiling. The last time I had service from SBC, the pricks charged me over $350 for "installation" when the house was already wired and the tech just plugged in his test set and got tone. They claimed the technician was in my house for five hours. I disagreed, and told them I wasn't going to pay, so they turned off my service. I went cellular for a while until I got Comcast Digital Voice (not that Comcast was much of an improvement.)
Never had a problem with anything like that when AT&T was running the show. So, there are tradeoffs. We broke up the monopoly and got more competition, but we failed to maintain a proper regulatory stance. AT&T's abuses were largely systemic, and yes that resulted in higher phone bills, but their service was pretty damn good. And they weren't allowed to cherrypick: you wanted a phone, you got it, whether you were in a city or on a farm.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Is because the U.S. fails so much at math that people can't figure out they'll be paying $2000 over their 2-year contract for their "free" locked phone.
Asia has over 850 million mobile subscribers this year, mind you that's more than the living human population of the US and Europe combined! Asia mobile subscriber growth rates far exceed and are predicted to continue to exceed the US and Europe for the next 5 years, continuing to out pace both those markets. Asia is like Europe, in that you buy the phone and the service separately, they are not tied together (phones are not locked). Now why did the author not mention Asia?
Real men don't need signitures!!!
For USA cellular phone networks, It's all about the money. Period!
It's popular to talk about why 'unlocked' phones, but I would wager that the vast majority of unlocked phone buyers do not care that the phone is unlocked. It's irrelevant. We're not planning to switch networks. It's the contract that is the problem. Locked phones are fine as long as they're off contract. And off contract is exactly where cell companies don't want their customers to be.
Exactly. This USED to be a problem back in the 90s and early 2000s when a lot of phones were only dualband (e.g. 900/1800). Any phone less than five years old will be at least triband now, and any phone that is less than 2 or 3 years old will be quad band or higher. Frequency differences are quickly becoming a non-issue in most GSM markets these days, provided you stick to one of the widely used frequencies: 850, 900, 1800, 1900, 2100.
They do. For as many places as they're in, their coverage tends to be rather iffy if you get out of the major metro areas.
Totally depends on what you're after. It's a so-so phone, but a pocket computer like none-other. Phone capabilities were tertiary (but still essential) for me, behind data and hackability. It's got some things that make no sense, and some that are just dumb, but I won't go to Android from here, never mind WP7 or the iPhone. And if you use Linux regularly, all the capability is there if you want it.
I am the GP, and I didn't say AT&T was broken up JUST because of their lock on subscriber equipment. It was just one blatant example of their abuse I could describe adequatly in a single sentence.
There was a lot more to it than this. AT&T was prohibited from being in certain markets (computers) because of the "regulated monopoly" status. They had fantastic technology available via Bell Labs, but they couldn't sell it directly. They also had UNIX. They owned it. But they couldn't make money off it.
The government wouldn't let AT&T sell computers because it was believed they would have an unfair advantage in the marketplace if they controlled everything from end to end. They could make their computers work better or cheaper on their networks. Few people remember now how much it used to cost to connect a third party modem to a Bell phone line. But you could rent a modem from Bell that would plug right in! And then you'd pay, and pay, and pay rent forever.
The management of AT&T decided it was better for the company to be broken up so they could get the new entities into markets they thought would make them more money than just carrying traffic. At that time, the small computer industry was beginning to take off, and they wanted a piece of that. They wanted to take on IBM, and even without the local providers, they were still about the only company large enough to succeed.
This isn't about technology, or customer service, it's about BUSINESS. Everyone who owned AT&T stock got shares in all of the new entities, and the idea was that the new entities, moving into new markets, could make more revenue combined than the old monolith. That translates into higher overall dividends, and higher aggregate share prices.
It's all about "maximizing shareholder value".
Sometimes in business, you have to think about what your company can be, rather than what it IS. If the railroads had thought this way, they could have been the first into the airline business, but they thought of themselves as RAILROADS, and not as "transportation providers", and by the time they realized what was happening, it was too late.
The management of AT&T tried to branch out, to get into the game, but unfortunately nobody thought of them as a computer company. They didn't discover how to properly market their new products till they were outclassed by the other players. Their early UNIX boxes were good products that just never sold well.
For the average US resident that has little reason to use their phone outside the US, the only reason to have an unlocked phone is simply to say one has an unlokced phone. For some people, buying the lock phone and breaking it is half the fun. For people who travel outside the US, it is probably more likley that there will be a cost advantage to buy a prepaid phone in the destination country if a phone is needed. For instance, AFIK, if I went to the UK a phone with a hour of air time and many text messages would be less than 30 GBP. It would probably cost me more to use my own phone with international plan charges and roaming charges.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
My unlocked N900 works just fine here in Colorado, on T-Mobile's network. And the 3.5G speeds are more than sufficient, averaging 4 Mb on the DL side, with peak rates around 10 Mb. Perhaps the perception that unlocked phones "don't work" is due to the consumer being largely in the dark about their options.
Totally depends on what you're after. It's a so-so phone, but a pocket computer like none-other.
I'm not interested in a phone as much as a pocket computer. The problem is that I'm not a fan of paying upwards of $50 per month for phone service when I currently pay $5 per month to Virgin Mobile USA because I use fewer than 40 voice minutes per month, mostly to arrange a ride to or from somewhere. I'd even be satisfied with a Wi-Fi-only device, but chains like Sears and Best Buy don't have the Samsung Galaxy Player 50 or Archos 43 yet.
Seybold can keep having it "not work" for him, and making up excuses for that outcome. That's great.
Meanwhile I'm going to keep living in the United States and keep buying unlocked phones, picking the device I want when I want it, not being tied to a 2-year upgrade cycle, refraining from using idiotic phrases like "Verizon Phone" and "the new phone on Sprint", and paying half price on a data plan because T-Mo and AT&T can be negotiated into giving me the "non-smartphone" rate.
I have a feeling it's going to work out just fine.
It's nice. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
Oracle bought Ninnle, quietly fired all the Devs and shut it down.....Damn you to Hell, Larry! Why?
The main point of the article should have been that the EU created a competitive landscape by restricting competitors to interoperability standards that do not exist in the USA - i.e. allowing customers to go from carrier to carrier without the need for a new phone. Here in the US, you are automatically subsidizing a new phone when you sign up for service with any major wireless company - and if you don't use the subsidy by buying a new phone every two years, then you're leaving money on the table. Yes, a waste, but that's what evolved over here vs. the general EU model of the customer providing the phone and the carrier supplying the SIM (though subsidized plans exist).
Me, I'd prefer the ability to switch carriers and not to have this hidden subsidy. If the phone works and you're happy with it, why quasi-require the owner to chuck it for a new model? Just more e-waste with no tangible benefit except for those that like to further line the pockets of wireless carriers through the use of additional (previously unreachable) services. I also like that the EU mandates that the caller to the cell pays for the call. Seriously cuts down spam calls - because calls to cell phones are 5x more expensive than landline calls. An additional benefit is the possibility of giving a phone to your kid and being able to call them at will - but they cannot make calls unless they refill the SIM bank account.
Anyhow, IIRC, the iPhone 4 has two external antennas that are nominally tuned to certain frequencies but which through some electronic happiness inside can actually cover a wider variety of frequencies than the one that they are 'naturally' resonant on. So your signal quality on a 700MHz band using a nominal 850MHz antenna may not be great, but it may still work. The current iPhone 4 is capable of handling signals ranging from 850MHz-2.4GHz... so the current design limitations may be just that, limits by design to lock folk into AT&T in the US market. Then again, I don't know enough about all the technologies, compatibility issues, etc. to say for sure that it can be done.
$20 a month discount is almost $500 over two years. A Nokia N8 is $550 at Newegg.com, but I think one can do a bit better. Most good phones cost over $100 on a subsidized plan. So I think the case can be made for consumer appeal right now - regardless of whether you can change carriers or not. What I want my government to do is its job - foster competition by mandating that all US carriers have to offer non-subsidized plans with significant discounts to allow manufacturers to make phones and market them directly to consumers and not have the consumer screwed over by paying the same rate as someone who buys a subsidized phone.
Going forward, we really should be converging on not necessarily a single worldwide standard, but a group of standards and frequencies that can easily be achieved by phones that cost around $500 in a few years. Then it will be even better when you can move the phone across networks in the US. If only the majority of the US realized how often we are not #1 in a particular area (cell phone plans, internet, health care, transportation infrastructure, ...), maybe we could apply enough pressure to get our government to do something. But so many of us think that we do things best and the government should just get out of the way. Do we have to fall down completely before figuring out we can be better?
The point of an unlocked phone is not really international travel. It is being able to switch providers quickly and easily so that you can get a better plan. Let's say you are on carrier A. Six months down the road, carrier B comes along with a plan that kicks carrier A's plan's ass.
If your phone is unlocked/uncontracted, you can just go to carrier B's store, sign up and pop carrier B's SIM card in and off you go. Call carrier A to cancel your account with them.
Now as you say, in the US, this doesn't happen because the carriers don't even OFFER SIM-only/Bring Your Own Phone plans to begin with. But in most other countries where phones ~are~ unlocked, it is the ability to constantly change carriers as better deals come along that is the big attraction to them. Being able to go abroad easily is just a bonus.
The summary is idiotic. The article isn't explaining why unlocked phones can't work in the US. It's merely stating the obvious facts that unlocking an AT&T phone wont work out that well for you right now...
The big problem? The EU has one standard, while the US has two. The EU standard uses 3 frequencies, while each US standard uses four. Big deal. A trivial technical issue requiring a universal phone to cost 5$ more. They don't exist for one simple reason... the carriers in the US are allowed to lock you in, and its more profitable for them to do so.
That's not to say it matters. Cell companies do such a good job advertising, that people will complain endlessly about their phone bill, but never switch to some other service with unlimited calling/data for half the price. Even with unlocked phones, their behavor wont magically change.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I have two unlocked Nexus One phones, one tuned for AT&T 3G and one for T-Mobile 3G. Either will work with any GSM service, but depending on the phone they may only get Edge/2g and not 3g for data. The key is in the on-board power amplifiers. All of the Nexus One phones handle all the available frequencies, but don't have power amps for all of them. A PITA, for sure, but for basic phone and data services, it's fine. I have an AT&T account and want/need the speed 3g gives me for some things when on the road, which is why I purchased the second phone. I was given the one tuned for T-Mobile, so it would only get Edge for data (200kbps vs. 2mbps for 3g) from AT&T.
Sometimes, real fast is almost as good as real-time.
Other than Apple who is not using the micro USB interface these days?
I would bet at this point I would be more likely to find an iPod charging cable in a store, than a USB cable.
Think about it. Imagine trying to buy a cable - I could see a handful of iPhone accessories in a 7-11, but probably not a micro-usb cable.
Normally proprietary cables are bad news, but ubiquity always trumps universality.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The main reason for phone companies to own the phones was so they had total control
If anything went wrong, there was only one point of contact required and responsibility taken (ignoring incompetenace of course)
Now (at least in Aus), if you report a phone fault, they will charge over $200 if it is in your property. It's not a problem for tech heads but normal people with poor fault isolation skills - well, it's just rip rip wood chip!!!
Now the telco's get just as much money but with less work and less capital outlay.
The subscriber level equipment was the best thing about Ma Bell. The stuff was indestructible. And if you could manage to break it, you were rewarded with a new one, free of charge. The only real issue I remember was line leasing abuses, which were quite extensive. Very similar to the old railroad monopolies. The breakup has given us comparability problems and little else. The actual monopoly is as powerful as ever.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I was born in 1985 so I was pretty curious to hear a contemporary account. But I will have to find that enlightening account somewhere else, because this is a bunch of Reaganesque pseudo-libertarian hooey. "They failed because of that outdated idea of too much government involvement! Get the regulation off their back! The free market would fix everything!" Well, in the 26 years since this article was written, we've de-regulated and we've increased competition, and we still have this problem of oppressive/entrenched telecom.
He criticizes Vail for idealistically thinking a corporation should only take "fair" amount of profit (how absurd!), and instead be focused on the public good -- such an antiquated viewpoint! So now with the cell carriers we have more competition, and a phone market which takes what I would easily describe as an "unfair" amount of profit, and public good never enters the equation. This is an improvement? I would prefer a government-empowered monopoly, or a few heavily regulated players, over the current system. I agree with this article's description of Mr. Vail's viewpoint. The government should be empowered to keep important societal assets -- such as telecom networks -- from too much private profiteering. Maybe it wasn't executed well with Bell. But that doesn't mean it's not unobtainable.
I don't have a N900. I do have a G1 that works just fine. I do have coverage issues though in some places. Though most of these same places verizons network has spotty coverage too. Most of these places verizons network did not cover it until recently and may still be flaky. tmobile tends to still be flaky in some of these spots. I often will find that I do have coverage in these flaky places if I walk outside the door. Honestly the difference between verizon and tmobile in coverage isn't sufficient for me to warrant sticking with verizon and I'm in the middle of nowhere often enough that makes me think "hmm should I be with verizon?" and then I think "wait, verizons coverage is about equal here anyway...". It isn't enough to warrant me using tmobile and I run a business off this phone so I need be able to pick up as much as possible. A missed call might lead to missed business. It tends to go down like this. I get the call- and I pick up and run out the door where the coverage is better or I just let it forward to my secretary. Like I said though since the majority of places 99.98% of places coverage is good it is only that other .02% that it is flaky. It doesn't warrant paying extra for verizon or having a bad service provider which does all sorts of crummy things to you.
I did not and will not read a story on slashdot because I am not new here... however:
I have purchased unlocked phones from Tiger Direct and Newegg and think they are great. However, I can't use my unlocked phone on anything but AT&T or T-Mobile, so is it really much better than having a locked phone?
And India is not even mentioned. China has even more.
I guess the number quoted by GP for Asia is way too understated.
That said, the trend of locked phones exits mostly in CDMA networks in India(less than 30% of subscriber base), and that too only for the ultra cheap phones which cost around 20$ unlocked.
On most networks, people buy phones of their choice according to their budget, and then chose the network.
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I hate to tell you, but SBC is AT&T again...
The discussion above also confirms this - why everyone repeats this mantra about contracts? You buy contract only once with given provider, once it expires, stay on month-to-month, like in other parts of the world. And get a good unlocked phone.
Right now, Nokia phones on AT&T is the best possible money saver - AT&T does not have database with their IMEI, so they don't force you to pay through the nose for data. If you are individual, unlimited is just 15 bucks. Family? Granted, you already paying for unlimited messaging - then you just add $10 on top for unlimited data. That's it. Here is your $15-$20 monthly discount for unlocked phone.
And if you buy Nokia's latest N8, you get - imagine that! - 9 (nine) band phone, 4 GSM and 5 HSDPA bands, so you are 3G-covered not only in Europe/Asia, but in North America as well.
So, what is not working is the brain of some tech "journalists", unlocked phones are all good, for people, who know how things work.
I don't know if that is true or not. I did a month long road trip around the country this summer, and I got suprisingly good coverage from T-Mobile. Death Valley, Wyoming, North Dakota, Yellowstone and Yosemite all had no service. Pretty much everywhere else I got at least edge, and most places I got 3G. We were mostly on and around the freeways though. You also have to keep in mind that T-Mobile has a roaming agreement with AT&T. So, you will get voice and Edge anywhere that AT&T does.
Prior to T-Mobile, I was with Verizon, and I surprisingly found that locally I have gotten a little better coverage with a little lower quality with T-Mobile compared to Verizon. My travel generally runs from Santa Rosa, CA to Pittsburgh, CA
Quite right.
The technology, regardless of the band, is the same. Granted, the US operated in the 850/1900 FDD2/4/5 bands, and the EU not. Nearly 100% of all handsets support 4 bands GSM and 3 bands UMTS (FDD bands).
I know this since mobile phone certification is what I do for a living!
The SIM tech is not different. In fact, it's not allowed to be different. Not if they want to use GSM. They MUST conform to the core specs, otherwise they cannot certify their handset.
In the US, they must get PTCRB certification from a company like 7 Layers. In the EU, they normally should get GCF certification, though that is actually self regulated, while in the US, PTCRB enforces it's certification requirements for ALL GSM handsets.
Basically, the article is complete shit. When you get you information from a Carrier, you should expect them to explain why what they are doing is better for everyone.
The real reason is because Americans wont pay 600 bucks for a smart phone and a carrier wont subsidize the phone without knowing they can make the money back 3 fold over the contract. It's really rather simple.
Nice idea! Virtual mod point from me.
Four-band GSM phones work fine in the U.S., and all over the world. T-Mobile has a pre-paid plan for 10 U.S. cents per minute for those who don't often use a cell phone. T-Mobile will unlock the phones for you when you have been on their network for 3 months, if I remember correctly.
When you arrive in Campos do Jordão, Brazil, for example, just buy a SIM card for $7.50 U.S., and you will have a local number to give to anyone you meet there. And, of course, Google has cheap rates to every country, so people in the U.S. can call you while you are in Brazil.
See this article, which tested, and confirmed, the new Nokia N8's support for high-speed data on both major GSM carriers in the US: http://thenokiablog.com/2010/10/01/nokia-n8-3g-speed-test/
The Nokia N8 supports 3G on both AT&T and T-Mobile: http://thenokiablog.com/2010/10/01/nokia-n8-3g-speed-test
In Europe, all cell phones will need to be chargeable via micro USB interface starting January 2011. This might sound like manufacturers have become all green and nice and wanted to cooperate, but it was really the result of pressure put by the commission. They do a lot of bad shit, but some things they do are worth noting, like this one. Link to article.
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5852237,00.html
except it's actually lasseize-faire monopoly/duopoly subsidized by the FCC. By allowing different regions of the world to exist on different frequencies, they're effectively region-locking the hardware by default.
No hardware manufacturer has any incentive to provide any more support than the minimal required by regulation and necessity. Therefore, the USA is still a black-hole for any of the released devices because the frequencies are one-offs for anybody else in the world. Effective competition therefore cannot exist in such an environment.
Allowing this situation to continue into LTE is continuing the subsidizing of device lock-out monopolies.
Erm, I know that the plans here in Germany aren't the best, but you obviously haven't looked very hard at the deals out there as what you are saying in clearly false.
o2 Germany offer 1gig/month (there after at 2.5g speeds, unlimited) as a bolt on for 15 euros/month which can be cancelled with 3 months notice. 25 euros/month gives you unlimited 3g. In fact, if all you want to do is check email, 5 euros a month gives you 20mb of 3g speed and unlimited 2.5g a month. Couple that with a 10 euro base plan (which gives you 100minutes talk time and 100sms), that is only 15 euros a month. (www.o2online.de)
Then there is Blau.de which offer a similar package for under 10 euros/month for data and a 4euro option for voice. The blau plan runs on a month by month basis as well, so no 2 year contract. Oh, and you could look at e-plus as well, which offer similar priced plans.
About the only company out here that does tend to be expensive is vodafone.
I have never used a locked and subsidised phone here in Germany and have managed fine with reasonable rates. Maybe you need to look a bit harder for decent plans... (although it isn't that hard really). I think you need to change provider...
You are confusing micro USB with mini which is normally B but there is also A (same pins, different socket shape) and a mixed socket used for OTG.
They must have gotten better from when I looked, I no longer live in the country, so oh well.
Monstar L
I am in the United kingdom with an ancient triband siemens phone. In england I have a Walmart (asda) sim card, free from the supermarket, with calls at 12cents a minute and texts 6cents. Data 30cents a mb. Credit lasts forever so I top up a fiver every six months or so, I don't make many calls. They piggyback on the vodafone network and so coverage is excellent. If I want to change I can port my number to another provider in 24hours and rivals give away their sim cards for free like aol discs, often with some starter credit.
I have a old smartphone for mobile email and google maps with a t-mobile sim card in it which gives me 6 months of data for 30 dollars up to a gigabyte a month aup.
Visiting Austria I could not get a free sim card but had to pay 15 dollars at the supermarket for a yesss card which came with 15 dollars of credit at 10cents a minute and a gigabyte of data which lasts for a year. I was happy with that.
Visiting the usa a few years ago I was able to get a t-mobile payg sim card off ebay for 10dollars with 15 dollars of credit. I put it in my european phone and it worked just fine. But after I left it expired because I did not keep constantly topping it up. When I visited this year I could not find anything similar. They cheapest way seems to be to spend 30 dollars on a payg phone with sim card and then throw it away when you leave which is insane. So I just used my uk sim card, payed roaming costs and made very few calls. In the UK most payg operators will do you a month of data for a fiver. In the usa I couldn't find anything similar for under 40 or 50 dollars so I downloaded openstreetmaps before I went and forgot online mapping.
So basically unlocked phones work fine in the USA in theory but you can't get the cheap sim card deals like in europe. At best everyone pays twice the amount in the US and at worst much more than that for casual users. Low users like myself would pay 10x the cost to get the same in the USA.
Link is down? Google cached here: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:HdaOm4yMaSkJ:www.fiercewireless.com/story/seybolds-take-fallacy-unlocked-phones/2010-11-10+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=ubuntu
All you have to do is rewrite the baseband radio tables. There are radio tables available for use in the iPhone that allow use on T-Mobile networks.
The iPhone antenna is not so optimized for the AT&T frequences that it can't work in the T-Mobile frequency ranges, despite what the article is claiming here.
-- Terry
Breaking up Ma Bell wasn't the best idea our friends in DC ever had.
Here in the Uk & Europe we've got loads of different phone companies - a monopoly isn't required for standardisation, just sensible regulation. We can standardise multiple companies over 24 countries, somehow you failed to standardise anything over a single country. Amazing.
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
I just use blau.de and get a data addon for the size I want. 10 euros for 1 gig or 20 euros for flat rate. This isn't out of line with what I spend with T-Mobile for data on a no contract postpaid plan when I'm stateside.
Are SIM cards a necessary part of GSM, and are they inherently not compatible with CDMA?
I.e., would it be possible to imagine a tech spec that used CDMA for radio transmission, and used SIM (or similar) cards to allow the phone know "what phone number am I"?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
In addition to that, it's a virtuous cycle: You can change to a better plan because the phone is unlocked.
But also, because people have unlocked phones, carriers are more responsive, and offer better plans. After all, why bother to offer a better plan if your customers are captive?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Yeah, it has got a lot better in recent years. I know it used to be pretty bad, but when the iphone came out, the other companies had to change their pricing model to compete.
I agree with everything you say, but you still use the fucked up US terminology. A phone isn't "subsidized" to $100; you pay an additional $20 / month for 24 months or a total of $580 for it. Not paying $20 a month for a phone is not a "discount" if you don't get the phone. Allowing bundling of product and service in the US has let the carriers not only raise the price of the service to ridiculous levels but even define language to use their own doubleplusgood terms.
We have pretty much the same everything at the same prices in Finland, but all the parts are priced separately. When you pay 17 euros a month for you Galaxy S you don't call it "subsidized" or "free" even though there's no up front cost.
So this means technology, patented systems and much more sould be used and shared by all companies in benefit of end user choice.
Thing is, companies keep building out to these different standards precisely because consumers let themselves be locked into one or the other, and didn't demand portability.
Free markets do a lot of things right. Here's a case, in my opinion, of them not working so well: consumers often fail to understand complex issues.
Understanding that you should pick the ice cream that says "vanilla" on the tin if you prefer that flavor to chocolate is something everyone can do, and the producers and retailers organize themselves according to the amounts demanded across the consumer base.
Understanding the long-term benefits of buying an open vs. closed platform---or more abstractly, buying a higher-level plan economy vs. free market---is not something people do well. Either that, or they prefer the benefits of closed systems more than I do :-)
For example, Microsoft likes to say that Windows is an open platform---anyone can write software that goes on top of it and Microsoft can do nothing to control people. The game console market functions differently; there's a lot of top-down control from the platform provider. Similarly for the Apple App Store.
Similar stories can be told about telecommunication and electricity: someone should operate the wires that make up the basic transmission system. Someone should deliver stuff via those wires (joules, voice calls, datagrams). If you own the base "platform" (wires), you might use that to control what the wires are used for.
People seem to prefer the iPhone to Android and Android to N900 (and the Freerunner). They like gaming consoles. They seem to be annoyed about incompatibilities and Little Dongly Things (http://www.douglasadams.com/dna/980707-03-a.html) but not do much about it in terms of their purchasing decisions. They tend to discount the long-term advantages of promoting open platforms and the greater amount of innovation that tend to happen on top of them. If people truly have short-term preferences, they're not wrong to do so, but see also Dan Gilbert and Daniel Kahnemann's TED(.com) talks.
(lesson from DNA: three things had to align; his preferences, the sales rep's understanding of those preferences and the sales rep's understanding of the product. By asking "are you sure?", you're not aligning any of those, you're just making the sales rep even more certain of their wrong conclusion. Instead, ask them directly about their observations, or ask about the same things in different terms, or ask about the negation; i.e. "does it have a power adapter? How does it look? How does it work?" Might help you do family tech support over the phone as well) /ramble (sorry)
I live in Europe, and have lived in other GSM countries. TA is indeed well written, but omits a crucial part of the story: how networks got their spectrum. Sure, GSM frequencies differ between carriers hindering mobility (in the go-somewhere-else meaning, not the look-I'm-driving-and-still-have-si......-hello? meaning), but I suspect it's because they applied for these differing spectra themselves. Of course you're not going to want to cohabit with your neighbour, it congests your frequencies (fallacious argument, European cities are DENSE) and encourages mobility. Funny that Europe should adopt standards that foster competition while North America is happy to indulge these companies and rip off the consumer just a little more.
UMTS is based on GSM: "UMTS requires new base stations and new frequency allocations. However, it is closely related to GSM/EDGE as it borrows and builds upon concepts from GSM. Further, most UMTS handsets also support GSM, allowing seamless dual-mode operation."
The CDMA carriers in the U.S. have been distinctly inferior to the GSM carriers. Perhaps that is because CDMA was in the U.S. before GSM.
But if you don't already like S60 you will probably hate the N8.
It is one of the love hate type of things
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Have a look:
http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2009/06/10-companies-agree-to-standardized-mobile-phone-charger-in-eu.ars
Not long before that, they've forced mobile providers to drop roaming costs to 70 cent max. Now tell me how bad the government imposed competition and "regulation in general" is.
...protecting consumers and prohibiting the locking practice. In Denmark a device may only be locked for 6 months and most providers has skipped the locking.
US is wild west, the guy with the biggest gun gets the girl, Europeans are more civilized.
But other Slashdot users appear to be of the opinion that T-Mobile has the worst coverage among the big four
Yeah I've never quite understood where people are getting these ideas from.
I have T-Mobile, and have absolutely no problem at all with coverage. At the same time, I have people all of the time saying how they have T-Mobile and their coverage is horrid and they wish they never chose them. I ask them for details and it always boils down to a situation which I've actually been in... and it works fine. (like, the exact same area...)
I'm at a loss, but hey...
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
so if Apple does it it's okay?
It's not OK if anyone does it.
It's not OK if anyone doesn't do it.
It just... is. The FACT is that because of the iPod, there are iPod dock connector to USB cables EVERYWHERE. Even in places where, as I said, you would not go for what are considered ordinary computer cables.
That doesn't mean proprietary is better than non-proprietary if "Apple does it". It just means when something is common, it gives you the SAME benefit of having an "open" (open being defined as something tightly defined by a small set of member companies) standard. And that is OK when it happens, although in general it's very unlikely to happen.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What do you think will happen when EVERY phone (bar iPhone) uses Micro USB as standard?
That places with phone cables will probably carry one. I'm sure they do already.
What you and so many others are totally missing is how many devices that use the Apple dock connector ARE NOT PHONES. Not only the iPod touch and the iPad not phones, but there's of course the many years of domination that the iPod itself has enjoyed that has led to widespread distribution of iPod compatible cables, in places where there's never going to be phone stuff and therefore also no USB cables.
Hell, go into a hotel room. Are you going to find a mini-USB provided for you? probably not, but chances are actually pretty good that there's a radio in the room with an iPod compatible dock connector that you could charge pretty much anything but an iPad with....
Now perhaps you are starting to understand the full extent of distribution of the market, and that is really thanks to the iPod way more than any of the newer devices.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yes, there are more than just the one. Still, there are many GSM phones which don't.
How hard would it be for them to ADD a micro USB connector?
It would make sense, too -- the micro USB port would be a lot more durable than the dock connector, which is kind of fragile.
Make sure you tell the carrier after you do the swap and before you sell the old phone. Don't want them banning the old phone on their network for the person you sell it too.
The phones are all the same. Justify the fucking providers give you by pointing out they try to lock you in by having their own frequencies is retarded. People seem far too happy in the US to be screwed over by their mobile providers. I just can't see the joy in owning a mobile in the US.
Hey, I just bought an N900 a few days ago. I haven't bothered to get a phone contract for it yet because, well, that's not terribly imperative for me yet. However, I have done some research. I know T-mobile offers an unlimited data (and possibly unlimited text?) for ~ $25 per month. You can couple that plan with prepaid voice minutes (refills, topups, whatever) to keep your bill low if you really use such low amounts of voice data. Currently, I am using my N900 like a stylus driven laptop and I love the damn thing. I've sent e-mails with it. I've accessed my home network with it. Hell, I have Pidgin, Google Voice, and Skype running on it in such a manner that I can keep in contact with every person I know that uses the internet (the only reason I need voice, seemingly, is to talk to the folks that don't, like my Mom).
Anyways, the moral of the story is that, for someone like you that uses very few voice minutes and just wants a hackable pocket computer, the N900 really is a great platform. I've had mine two days and I can already tell it will be worth the investment.
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So in the future allow all carriers to license the same frequencies like in Europe or makes all phone be able to communicate on all the frequencies. Yeah, it wouldn't work with our current model, but who is to say the model can't change? Technology progresses. Duh.
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They do. For as many places as they're in, their coverage tends to be rather iffy if you get out of the major metro areas.
To be fair, having used Verizon (work phone) and T-Mobile (personal) for the 5-6 years I was in the states, I found that going out of the cities meant negligible coverage even for Verizon, so even when we say Verizon has the best coverage (very expensive and very bad lock-in tactics though), for a European (used to getting coverage from the subway to the middle of nowhere) it is still abysmal. And while on average I did see Verizon getting better signal in some suburban areas etc, in NYC T-Mobile was definately the better choice, as I was enjoying 2+ Mbps data transfer on my N900 (HSPA - I hear it is now called "4G" in the US hehe).
Totally depends on what you're after. It's a so-so phone, but a pocket computer like none-other. Phone capabilities were tertiary (but still essential) for me, behind data and hackability. It's got some things that make no sense, and some that are just dumb, but I won't go to Android from here, never mind WP7 or the iPhone. And if you use Linux regularly, all the capability is there if you want it.
Well said. I don't think it is worse as a phone than say the Windows Mobile (pre-7) phones, but the iphone is a more polished experience in that respect (although not even close to the easy to use plain ol' non-smart phones). But, being a computer geek, I could not see myself going to even Android (I won't even mention iOS), the phone functionality is bare but not annoying to make me can consider giving up the amazing capabilities. I will just wait until the next MeeGo devices (hoping that MeeGo will not be worse than Maemo).
All slashdotters should do themselves a favor and check it out. I imagine the average response will be:
- It's - a - UNIX - system... I know this... ;)
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
In my opinion, the USA needs a lot more regulation in the cell phone market. I would like to see:
1) requirement of interoperability of all hardware sold between carriers by some date (say Jan, 2013) (perhaps with a phased in approach, based on phone price, so vendors could sell very cheep phones that were not inter-operable, as long as they were clearly marked)
2) banning of contracts as they exist today. Phone leases would be allowed, but they could not be tied to a service contract, so the cost of the phone would be clear in all cases (and you would not be paying for a phone even when you did not get one). Thus you could end up leasing your phone from AT&T, then switching to Verizon and continuing to pay your phone lease to AT&T.
I hate to tell you, but SBC is AT&T again...
Well, sort of. More like AT&T has become SBC in an alien-parasite-converts-human-tissue-into-bug-eyed-monster sort of way ... and anyone who thinks that SBC (Stupid Bastards Club, Southern Boys Club, Sodomized By Cowboys, whatever) is in improvement over the old AT&T is mistaken. That's why I was trying to say in my earlier posts: that the breakup of AT&T, while presumably well-intentioned, did not have the desired effect, and in fact has resulted in a corporate and regulatory environment conducive to even greater abuse. Probably greater profit too, given the caliber of the people who ran SBC. Edward J. "These are my pipes!" Whitacre comes to mind.
.... works fine in Chrome on Windows though.)
Stephen Colbert had an hilarious take on the subject (search Youtube for "stephen colbert AT&T", I'd link to it but for some reason Chrome isn't letting me copy & paste between tabs. Oddly, I can cut & paste into a text editor. I'm on Ubuntu at the moment
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
What I meant is that there is no SBC. It is again under the AT&T brand (albeit Inc as opposed to Corp).
What I meant is that there is no SBC. It is again under the AT&T brand (albeit Inc as opposed to Corp).
My understanding is that there is no AT&T. The original parent company was subsumed by SBC.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Which was then assimilated back by AT&T in 2005.
Huh? Nobody here cares which phone you actually use with the sim.
One that hath name thou can not otter
The article author is simply a moron.
Apparently he doesn't actually know anything about how multi-band cell phones are made, and nothing about how the iPhone 4 is designed.
The 3GS was SDR. The 4 is SDR. This means you just change the RF SDR software and "presto!" you get other bands and other modulation schemes instantly. Whether you as a user can invoke these capabilities is an entirely different question. Jail break an iPhone and you probably have a good shot at it.
Apparently the loss of high tech in the US combined with industry pundits who don't actually understand the technology is starting to become more obvious. Does this clown even have an EE? Don't think he does or if he does he should be required to give it up out of incompetence.
You mistyped "the wrongly perceived alternative: no phone service and no handheld device" there...
One that hath name thou can not otter
It's called new company, or daughter one at most...
(and I'm sure for railways the biggest surprise was with how ridiculous amounts of subsidies and bail-outs airlines can get away with)
One that hath name thou can not otter
Only in very few places where are iPod is common...
I take it you've never travelled internationally. I've seen iPod accessories sold on road side carts in Cairo...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Quote from that web page: "Please note that since the original release of their paper, WCDMA was rebranded as 3GSM to avoid confusion between the WCDMA and CDMA2000 technologies."
You claim that the alternative of doing without is wrongly perceived. Could you explain what other well-known choice a U.S. individual user has between a phone that is locked to a carrier (whether through recognizing only one carrier's SIMs or through supporting only one carrier's frequency bands) and no phone at all? Most people don't know about buying an unlocked phone, and even those who do know won't buy if they can't get good signal coverage from T-Mobile, the only carrier with unlocked-friendly plans and frequencies. Handsets designed to work only on Wi-Fi (and which thus aren't marketed as phones) aren't readily available in brick-and-mortar stores except from Apple.
For example (not the case of "well-known choice" is the point with false perceptions)
One that hath name thou can not otter
Only one of the 48 U.S. MVNOs on your list runs on T-Mobile's network: Simple Mobile. (Verizon and Sprint don't use removable CSIM cards, and AT&T uses a different set of frequencies for 3G.) I checked Simple Mobile's list of unlocked GSM phone dealers, and they're all e-tailers. Unlocked phones don't work in the United States for two reasons: 1. Simple Mobile doesn't advertise, and 2. if you buy an unlocked smartphone from an e-tailer and end up not liking its ergonomics, you're out $100 for shipping, return shipping, and a 15% restocking fee. Locked phones, on the other hand, can be tried in carriers' brick-and-mortar stores.
Not sure about coverage, but considering they won't even sell you a phone if you live in my state (Vermont), it kind of makes it a moot point.
If you want to try and sell up T-Mobile, they need to actually offer service first.