[LINK] Wireless Oligopoly Is Smother of Invention

[Kim Holburn]

American but still somewhat relevant to Australia.

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/06/wireless-oligopoly-is-smother-of-invention/
> Wireless Oligopoly Is Smother of Invention
> 	By Ryan Singel
> 	June 15, 2010
> If the people who brought us television had played by the same rules  
> that today’s wireless carriers impose — we’d probably all be  
> listening to the radio.
> Which is a nice way of saying the wireless industry — AT&T, Sprint,  
> Verizon and T-Mobile — needs some ground rules that make clear they  
> are common carriers that get the right to rent the airwaves by  
> abiding by fair rules.
>
> Right now, they play by their own rules.
>
> Imagine if the wireless carriers controlled your wired broadband  
> connection or your television set. You’d have to buy your television  
> from your cable company, with a two-year contract, and when that  
> ended, you’d have to ask them to unlock it so you could take it to  
> another provider.
>
> If the wireless company ran your ISP, you’d have to use a computer  
> they approved, and if you wanted to use a different one, you’d pay  
> more. Want Wi-Fi in your house? That’ll be an extra $30 a month and  
> $150 to buy an approved but functionally limited Wi-Fi device.
>
> Luckily, that’s not the case.
>
> Let’s recap the freedoms you have with your television: The specs  
> are standard and public. Any company that wants to make a television  
> — whether it be an HD, 3-D, internet-connected plasma 6-footer or a  
> handheld TV Walkman — just makes a television, according to  
> transparent (FCC) spectrum rules.
>
> Then you get to buy it. It just works. You watch the stations you  
> want. You can hook it up to cable or satellite or DVR or plug a DVD  
> player into it.
>
> With your home broadband connection, you can buy the router of your  
> choice, hook up as many computers as you like, and use whatever  
> programs you like on your computers. You can even use your  
> connection as a base station for your cellular phone, or have your  
> bathroom scale automatically report your weight to Twitter.
>
> You can even share that internet connection with whomever you like,  
> including strangers who might otherwise be customers of that same ISP.
>
> When you upgrade your computer or router (or even the smartphone  
> that uses your home Wi-Fi), your ISP doesn’t even know and doesn’t  
> care.
>
> The world of mobile in the U.S. is different. Much different.
>
> You only get a single device, one that has to be preapproved by the  
> carrier.
>
> The device is almost always locked down. If you manage to pry its OS  
> open enough to install software, you void your warranty.
>
> If you care to use your 3G connection occasionally as a modem for  
> your laptop, be prepared to pay $30 extra a month — or hack the  
> device and (see above) void your warranty.
>
> If you want to switch devices, you’ll often be forced to ‘upgrade’  
> to a more expensive plan, even if your current plan offers unlimited  
> data. For instance, Sprint has tens of thousands of users using its  
> old friends-of-a- employee plan, known as SERO, which offered  
> unlimited data on its best smartphones. Unhappy with the bargain it  
> struck, the company refuses to let those customers upgrade to new  
> devices — even if they buy the devices for full price.
>
> Any device that runs on these carrier’s networks must be approved by  
> the carriers.
>
> The wireless industry defends itself, saying that it’s changed its  
> ways. Long notorious for crippling their phones and strangling app  
> developers who wanted access to their devices, the carriers have  
> loosened their policies, since AT&T made its fateful deal with  
> Apple, which ripped control of the device out of AT&T’s hands.
>
> The result showed to the world how the wireless industry had  
> purposely crippled cell phones to boost their bottom lines,  
> customers be damned.
>
> Now, the FCC, which is mulling more official net-neutrality rules,  
> has the chance to finish the job Apple started, but couldn’t bring  
> itself to finish — removing the carriers stranglehold over mobile  
> devices.
>
> Unfortunately, the idea of setting basic, common carrier ground  
> rules — rules that simply lay out what freedoms we all expect — are  
> somehow being twisted into the government taking control of the  
> internet. (In which case, we must be living in a Communist country  
> because the proposal is simple.)
>
> Require the nation’s wireless carriers to publish the specs they use  
> on their networks, so that any device maker can make a device that  
> works on any network or all the networks. Then require the carriers  
> to offer service, with published limits, to any customer, using any  
> compliant device, at a fair price. Subscribers would have the right  
> to use more than one device, or at the very least, switch them with  
> minimal effort. Those devices could run whatever software they like,  
> so long as they don’t harm the network.
>
> That should be the requirement for the carriers who are using the  
> public’s spectrum.
>
> AT&T and Sprint and Verizon and T-Mobile may have paid hefty sums to  
> rent the airwaves, but they do not own them.
>
> The carriers will doubtlessly whine to Congress that their networks  
> are too special and too fragile. Meanwhile, they will brag to  
> customers about how strong and robust their cell networks are —  
> touting services like streaming video for the iPhone, Skype on  
> Verizon, and SprintTV on Sprint smartphones.
>
> They can’t have it both ways.
>
> If their networks are fragile, then they should lose their licenses,  
> and the country should redistribute them to tech companies that can  
> manage them well.
>
> If the networks are strong and robust, then like their wire-line  
> competitors they should have to open them up to any device that  
> comports with published standards.
>
> There’s a history of this. When AT&T was forced to allow non-AT&T  
> approved devices in the Carterfone decision, we soon saw an  
> explosion in new devices that found innovative uses for the network.
>
> We got home answering machines, fax machines and portable phones.  
> Even better, we got modems.
>
> Granted there’s been an explosion of innovation (finally) in mobile  
> devices in the past few years. Apple, Palm and HTC are all making  
> beautiful devices that feel like magic in your hand. The Kindle and  
> iPad are likewise magical, relying on 3G connections.
>
> But what we really need is to break the carrier’s stranglehold on  
> devices.
>
> We should free the makers and small companies of the world to make  
> devices without having to negotiate with carriers to get their  
> approval.
>
> Say you wanted to make a phone just for weekend nights, say one that  
> included a lighter and a slot for holding whatever kind of cigarette  
> you like. What carrier would offer that phone?
>
> Or how about ones designed for kids, the elderly or the disabled?
>
> A company could make a phone with guts that mesh with a number of  
> networks, making the wireless companies have to compete for your  
> business.
>
> Google made a half-hearted effort to break the carrier’s grip with  
> its Nexus One, which they wanted to sell directly to individuals who  
> could then choose their carrier. Among the problems leading Google  
> to close its online store was that the carriers soon decided that  
> playing that game wasn’t in their long-term interest. Verizon and  
> Sprint backed out of their commitment to support the device —  
> leaving U.S. customers with only T-Mobile.
>
> The carriers’s lobbying association likes to point to all the cool  
> new phones and ask “Where’s the harm?” The problem is the harm comes  
> from the devices and services that haven’t been invented yet,  
> because wireless isn’t an open platform.
>
> We literally don’t know what we are missing.
>
> When AT&T was forced to open its network by a federal court, the  
> challenge came from a device maker whose product, the Carterfone,  
> connected a two-way radio to the phone line. It was a nifty  
> invention, though one that few citizens used.
>
> But it opened the way for devices that we all use daily.
>
> It’s time to do the same for wireless.
>
> The airwaves are ours, not the networks’, and it’s past time for  
> them to be open.
>
> Now, we just need an FCC and an administration with the guts to  
> stand up to the dissembling and the lobbying of the nation’s  
> wireless carriers. They maintain profit margins of 40 percent, in no  
> small part because they keep choking innovation.
>
> If they don’t stop, they ought to lose their licenses.
>


-- 
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
T: +61 2 61402408  M: +61 404072753
mailto:kim at holburn.net  aim://kimholburn
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