私の電話を放しなさい
DELLコンピュータを所有し、ソニーとそれを取り替えることにすることを仮定しなさい。 そうするあなたのインターネットサービスプロバイダーの許可を得る必要がないまた更にそれについての提供者を言いなさい。 古い機械の上でちょうど詰まり、新しいものをセットアップできる。
今度はあなたの新しいコンピュータが特定のウェブブラウザかオンライン音楽サービスと来たが、別の1つを好むことを、仮定しなさい。 ちょうど新しいソフトウェアをダウンロードし、取付けることができ古い1つをアンインストールする。 新しい音楽サービスに申し込み、古い1つを取り消すことができる。 そして、もう一度、許可シークは言うまでもなくあなたのインターネットサービスプロバイダーを知らせる必要はない。
そのようなコンピュータ、ソフトウェアおよびサービスのああおよび開発者はプロダクトを直接、提供者の承認を得ないで、および提供者にペニーを与えないでインターネットサービスプロバイダーを通って行かないで提供できる。 インターネットサービスプロバイダーは組合せへの貢献のために単に俸給を受け取る: あなたのインターネット接続の提供。 しかし、すべての実用的な目的のために、それは接続される制御しなかったり、またはネットワークをものがネットワークに引き継がなかった。
これはデジタル資本主義が働かせるべきである、大衆市場パーソナルコンピュータ工業および現代インターネットの場合には、人類の歴史で、富作成の最も大きい噴出の1と同様、そして消費者権限委譲のすばらしい科学技術回転の1つを作成した方法であり。
従って、それはすべてこれを作り出した同じ国が次の大きい技術のプラットホームに関しては後方、息を詰まらせるようなシステムの市民を引っ掛けたこと耐え難い、携帯電話。
近視眼的のおよび頻繁にちょうど明白で愚かな連邦政府はそれ自身が長年に渡る少数の大きい無線電話オペレータによって今いじめられ、だまされるようにした。 そして結果はPCモデルの正反対のずっと携帯電話システムである。 それはひどく消費者選択を限り、革新を窒息させ、企業心を押しつぶし、そして米国を作った。 携帯電話として移動式技術の世界のlaughingstockは、ちょうど強力なパームトップ・パソコンに変形させている。
涼しく新しいサービスの消費者、ハードウェアメーカー、ソフトウェア開発者または提供者であるかどうか、管を所有するため会社の許可なしでアメリカの携帯電話の世界の移動をすることは困難である。 他の技術セクターの力は消費者および賢い企業家に流れる間、携帯電話競技場に巨大なキャリアの手に方形に残る。
ソビエト大臣モデル
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
with no comments.
Read more articles on Apple and BlackBerry and DELL and Dell and Hardware and Macintosh and Microsoft and Mossblog and Phone and Software and Treo and Verizon and Walt Mossberg and Web and Windows and at&t and browser and cellphone and handheld and handsets and iPhone and internet and network and online and palm and sony and wireless.- [+] Digg: Feature this article
- [+] Del.icio.us: Bookmark this article
- [+] Furl: Bookmark this article
