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Open is as open does
18 Dec 2007
On the one hand, its delightful to see AT&T touting itself as “Open”. That gives us three ostensibly open-mobile networks here in the US ... in the form of Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. AT&T has always been open as has T-Mobile - in the sense that their GSM technology allowed you to purchase unlocked devices to run on their networks. Contrast this with Sprint and Verizon each of which supports a slightly different flavor of CMDA. Sprint does not allow foreign devices ... although it is considerably more liberal when it comes to foreign applications like Mobio’s. Verizon has always run one of the most closed networks, where both foreign devices and applications are barred from its networks. So it is great to see Verizon joining the Open bandwagon with a commitment to open up its network by the end of 2008. But the end of 2008 is a long time away and a lot can happen in a year. So while we applaud Verizon’s for saying they’re “Open,” we want to see them put their money where their mouth is ... that is put capital behind making their network open.
Not to be outdone, AT&T followed with an “open announcement” of its own. This is clearly a marketing announcement only and one that does not rock the mobile world here in the US. GSM-based mobile phone companies - we have two in the US ... AT&T and T-Mobile ... start out far more Open than those based on CDMA. The technology allows you to take any unlocked phone and run it on any GSM-based network in the world. And AT&T has always allowed both “foreign” (not purchased through AT&T) devices and foreign applications on its network. T-Mobile is not quite as liberal on the application side so the AT&T announcement will - no doubt - put pressure on executives there to open up their network to downloadable mobile applications other than those available through its TZone program. Largely the issue with T-Mobile is that they don’t have their own data network but lease capacity from others, which means that they have kind of a love:hate relationship with all-you-can-eat mobile data plans. Love ‘em - but only so long as I can ensure the consumer is buying a lot of value-added applications from T-Mobile. Hate ‘em otherwise ... because there’s a chance we might be losing money on ‘em. If you get our drift.
Both AT&T and Verizon are getting in on “Open Chic” in response to Google’s announcement of the Open Handset Alliance aka “Android”. This is a move to create a phone operating system based on Linux that will work across networks and will allow customers to create their own mobile widgets and applications and contribute them to the phone ecosystem. However this shakes out, one thing is clear. Mobile phone companies like to sell applications that Google, Mobio, and others in the mobile ecosystem would like to give away for free in exchange for advertising support. And consumers are getting fed up with paying through the nose for mobile phone service in the US that is far inferior to that seen in the rest of the world. The situation is likely to get worse before it gets better. Why? Because Census data shows that the cost of telephony service - which used to amount for 7% of household income - is now pushing into double digits.
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