more on All hail the new iPhone - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

BTW, I realized a major problem with the Iphone may be the non- 
replacable battery. Often I find my self using my spare battery

Begin forwarded message:

From: Ole Jacobsen <ole () cisco com>
Date: January 13, 2007 6:51:37 PM EST
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Cc: ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: Re: [IP] more on All hail the new iPhone - Pittsburgh  
Tribune-Review
Reply-To: Ole Jacobsen <ole () cisco com>

My personal take:

Sadly, most cellphone handsets are "given away" (for some value of
give) in exchange for carrier "loyalty" (read contract) and lockage.

So, that's how you sell phones, in the US and perhaps most of the
world. But there IS another model. Go to Singapore, Bangkok, London,
Amsterdam, and many other cities in the GSM world and you will find
plenty of outlets selling unlocked phones (including of course
online).

And this is where I think Apple could have made a difference: "Upgrade
your phone today!" (assuming you already have service), and bingo, if
your phone is cool enough it will sell and could have been launched
worldwide, just like an iPod or iMac. This would have required support
for 3G (2100Mhz WCDMA, aka UMTS) and perhaps some negotiations with
carriers such as Vodaphone Japan (now Softbank), or DoCoMo which does
not offer "service with bring-your-own phone),

Or, if we acknowlede that Japan is a really hard place to break into
and you give up, at least with 3G the rest of the world's iPhone users
could roam there.

Jobs did say "3G is coming", but I am really disappointed that the 3G
band was not included in this first round. There are already MANY 3G
sets on the market, getting an iPhone would be a step backwards for
me in terms of worldwide coverage.

The note that Cingular will no longer unlock phones is downright
disturbing!

Ole


Ole J. Jacobsen
Editor and Publisher,  The Internet Protocol Journal
Cisco Systems
Tel: +1 408-527-8972   GSM: +1 415-370-4628
E-mail: ole () cisco com  URL: http://www.cisco.com/ipj




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