Interesting People mailing list archives
Re: FCC sets wireless sale rules
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 09:03:05 -0400
Begin forwarded message: From: Brad Templeton <btm () templetons com> Date: July 31, 2007 6:05:43 PM EDT To: David Farber <dave () farber net> Cc: ip () v2 listbox com Subject: Re: [IP] FCC sets wireless sale rules On Tue, Jul 31, 2007 at 05:05:32PM -0400, David Farber wrote:
Begin forwarded message: From: ext Robert Hinden <bob.hinden () nokia com> Date: July 31, 2007 4:12:19 PM EDT To: David Farber <dave () farber net> Cc: Bob Hinden <bob.hinden () nokia com> Subject: Yahoo! News Story - FCC sets wireless sale rules Reply-To: bob.hinden () nokia com For IP. This is good news from my point of view and will result in a lot of innovation from the device vendors. Also, in my view, Google did get what they wanted (as opposed to what they were asking for). Bob
That remains to be seen. Generally, you can connect any unlocked GSM phone to the GSM providers. However, AT&T and T-Mobile only offer certain blessed
models for sale, and in particular only provide subsidies on them. Youcan buy an unlocked Nokia E61 for $350 with wifi, and use it on AT&T's network as far as I know, but you can get a Wifi-less locked Nokia E62 for $50 with
subsidies.They do however only officially offer certain data plans to certain blessed phones. While often the other plans work, the iPhone's $60/month plan is not
available on many of the other phones AT&T sells and not on any foreign phone you bring in. Now, they don't do open apps today. They block apps for two reasons. One, they compete with voice services (Skype or SIP get blocked) orother services the carrier sells. Two, they just plain use a lot of bandwidth and we know that with "unlimited" pricing the carrier wants to discourage
anything high bandwidth as much as they can. But will these new rules simply direct the victorious carrier to offer "any application" on bandwidth that is billed by the kilobyte, but stillprohibit applications if you want the "unlimited" that customers all love? Or will they just change the name to call it "Unlimited web surf and e-mail" while putting per-kb charges on other apps? That's still _open_ to all apps.
This is the thing that wholesale pricing might have changed. If the carrier's own services pay the same price as the resellers pay, they you would get competition over what unlimited actually means.Of course, the truth is nobody should own spectrum. The opening up of a few
mhz of spectrum where microwaves blare created the greatest period of innovation and price reduction in the history of radio. Yet, even with an example like that, people can't see it.Another hidden tragedy is the allocation of spectrum to emergency services.
What a waste. If all that spectrum were opened up, the police and fire depts. could buy superior radios, with ten times the features, at 1/10th the price, and they could all talk to each other and even to members ofthe public they wish to talk to. There would be so much spectrum available they would not need a priority channel, but if they insisted on one, their radios could be given special certificates that the access towers which made use of frequencies in "their" band could obey, though they would probably never
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Current thread:
- Re: FCC sets wireless sale rules David Farber (Aug 01)
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- Re: FCC sets wireless sale rules David Farber (Aug 01)
- Re: FCC sets wireless sale rules Dave (Aug 03)
- Re: FCC sets wireless sale rules Dave (Aug 03)