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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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