Liberi il mio telefono
Supponga che possedete una Dell Computer e decidete sostituirli con Sony. Non dovete ottenere il permesso del vostro Internet Service Provider fare così, o persino gli dite il fornitore. Potete imballare sulla vecchia macchina e regolare appena in su il nuovo.
Ora, supponga che il vostro nuovo calcolatore è venuto con un web browser particolare o un servizio in linea di musica, ma preferireste differente. Potete trasferire ed installare appena il nuovo software e il uninstall dal sistema centrale verso i satelliti quello vecchio. Potete firmare in su per un nuovo servizio di musica ed annullare quello vecchio. E, ancora una volta, non dovete neppure informare il vostro fornitore di Internet, e tanto meno cercate il relativo permesso.
L'OH e gli sviluppatori di tali calcolatori, software e servizi possono offrirgli i loro prodotti direttamente, senza passare attraverso il fornitore di Internet, senza ottenere l'approvazione del fornitore e senza dare al fornitore un penny. Il fornitore di Internet ottiene pagato semplicemente il relativo contributo alla miscela: fornire il vostro collegamento del Internet. Ma, per tutti gli scopi pratici, non controlla che cosa è collegato alla rete, o ha rinviato la rete.
È il senso che il capitalismo digitale dovrebbe funzionare e, nel caso dell'industria con computer personale del mass-market e del Internet moderno, ha generato uno dei giri tecnologici più grandi nella storia umana, così come uno degli spurts più grandi della creazione di ricchezza e di empowerment del consumatore.
Così, è intollerabile che lo stesso paese che ha prodotto tutto questo ha intrappolato i relativi cittadini in un sistema a rovescio e stifling quando viene alla piattaforma grande seguente di tecnologia, il cellphone.
Un miope e spesso appena un governo federale stupido normale si sono permessi che ora bullied ed imbrogliato da una manciata di centralinisti senza fili grandi per le decadi. Ed il risultato è stato una linea telefonica mobile che è l'opposto diretto del modello del pc. Limita severamente la scelta del consumatore, soffoca l'innovazione, schiaccia l'attività imprenditoriale ed ha fatto gli Stati Uniti il laughingstock del mondo di mobile-tecnologia, appena come il cellphone morphing in un calcolatore tenuto in mano potente.
Se siete un consumatore, un creatore dei fissaggi, uno sviluppatore del software o un fornitore di nuovi servizi freddi, è duro fare un movimento nel mondo americano di cellphone senza il permesso delle aziende che possedere i tubi. Mentre l'alimentazione in altri settori di tecnologia fluisce i consumatori e gli imprenditori nimble, nell'arena di cellphone rimane esattamente nelle mani degli elementi portanti giganti.
Il modello sovietico di ministero
That’s why I refer to the big cellphone carriers as the “Soviet ministries.” Like the old bureaucracies of communism, they sit athwart the market, breaking the link between the producers of goods and services and the people who use them.
To some extent, they try to replace the market system, and, like the real Soviet ministries, they are a lousy substitute. They decide what phones can be used on their networks and what software and services can be offered on those phones. They require the hardware and software makers to tailor their products to meet the carriers’ specifications, not just so they work properly on the network, but so they promote the carriers’ brands and their various add-on services.
Let me be clear: Any company that spends billions to build and maintain a wireless network deserves to be paid for its use, and deserves to make a profit and a return for its shareholders. Not only that, but companies like Verizon Wireless or AT&T Inc. should be free to build or sell phones or software or services.
What Is Needed
But, in my view, they shouldn’t be allowed to pick and choose what phones run on their networks, and what software and services run on those phones. We need a wireless mobile device ecosystem that mirrors the PC/Internet ecosystem, one where the consumers’ purchase of network capacity is separate from their purchase of the hardware and software they use on that network. It will take government action, or some disruptive technology or business innovation, to get us there.
To my knowledge, only one phone maker, Apple Inc., has been permitted to introduce a cellphone with the cooperation of a U.S. carrier without that carrier having any say in the hardware and software design of the product. And that one example, the iPhone, was a special case, because Apple is currently the hottest digital brand on earth, with its own multibillion-dollar online and physical retail network.
Even so, Apple had to make a deal with the devil to gain the freedom to offer an unimpaired product directly to users. It gave AT&T exclusive rights to be the iPhone’s U.S. network for an undisclosed period of years. It has locked and relocked the phone to make sure consumers can’t override that restriction. This arrangement reportedly brings Apple regular fees from AT&T, but penalizes people who live in areas with poor AT&T coverage.
Apple has also, so far, barred users from installing third-party programs on the iPhone, though the company announced last week it will open the phone to such programs early next year. (Web-based iPhone programs–those that run inside the Web browser–have been available from day one.)
These restrictions have rubbed some of the luster off the best-designed handheld computer ever made.
A few other “smart phones” sold primarily to businesses have been freer of carrier restrictions on third-party software and services than typical cellphones. But even these handsets, such as Palm Treos, Windows Mobile devices, and BlackBerrys, have been partly crippled by carriers in some cases.
As a technology reviewer, I have met with multiple small companies that had trouble getting their programs onto consumers’ phones without the permission of the carriers; getting that permission often requires paying the carriers. Sure, there are some clumsy workarounds that can evade the carrier barrier, but it’s nothing like the ability small software companies have had for decades to offer their products for installation on Windows or Macintosh computers.
We also need much greater portability of phone hardware. Because the federal government failed to set a standard for wireless phone technology years ago, we have two major, incompatible cellphone technologies in the U.S. Verizon Communications Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp. use something called CDMA. AT&T and Deutsche Telekom AG’s T-Mobile use something called GSM. Except for a couple of oddball models, phones built for one of these technologies can’t work on the other. So that limits consumer choice and consumer power. If you want to switch from AT&T to Verizon, you have to swallow the cost of a new phone.
But the problem is even worse. The government didn’t require the CDMA companies to include a removable account-information chip, called a SIM card, in their phones. So, unlike people with GSM phones, Sprint and Verizon customers can’t keep their phones if they switch between the two carriers, even though they use the same basic technology. And, the government allows the GSM carriers to “lock” their phones, so a SIM card from a rival carrier won’t work in them, at least for a period of time. Techies can sometimes figure out how to get around this, but average folks can’t.
The carriers defend these restrictions partly by pointing out that they subsidize the cost of the phones in order to get you to use their networks. That’s also, they say, why they require contracts and charge early-termination fees. Without the subsidies, they say, that $99 phone might be $299, so it’s only fair to keep you from fleeing their networks, at least too quickly.
But this whole cellphone subsidy game is an archaic remnant of the days when mobile phones were costly novelties. Today, subsidies are a trap for consumers. If subsidies were removed, along with the restrictions that flow from them, the market would quickly produce cheap phones, just as it has produced cheap, unsubsidized versions of every other digital product, from $399 computers to $79 iPods.
The Federal Communications Commission is selling some new wireless spectrum that will supposedly lead to fewer restrictions for technology companies and consumers, but it’s far from certain that the carriers, with their legions of lobbyists and lawyers, will allow such a new day to dawn. Google Inc. is making noises about trying to bust open the cellphone prison, with new software and services, but that’s no sure bet either.
Remember Landlines?
We’ve been through this before in the U.S., though many younger readers may not recall it.
Up until the 1970s, when the federal government intervened, you weren’t allowed to buy your own landline phone, and companies weren’t able to innovate, on price or features, in making and selling phones to the public. All Americans were forced to rent clumsy phones made by a subsidiary of the monopoly phone company, AT&T, which claimed that, unless it controlled what was connected to its network, the network might suffer.
Well, the government pried that market open, and the wired phone network not only didn’t collapse, it became more useful and versatile, allowing, among other things, cheap connections to online data services.
I suspect that if the government, or some disruptive innovation, breaks the crippling power that the wireless carriers exert today, the free market will deliver a similar happy ending.
- Email me at mossberg@wsj.com.
Written by John Sullivan. Read more great feeds at is source WEBSITE
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