UK networks Orange and O2 may not carry the latest Nseries devices, including the N97, if Nokia insist on placing Skype on their hardware (reports MoCoNews and others). While other networks have had success with the Skype infrastructure (notably 3 in the UK), the idea of being able to route calls over the internet and not the GSM services has struck fear into others.
Read on in the full article.
The carriers need to stop wasting their time with services and focus on making fatter and more reliable pipes.
Now more GSM. No more CDMA headaches in the states. Nokia is looking forward with this move.
The internet is series of tubes not pipes!
"the networks do not want to be reduced to �dumb pipes� where people move between networks simple on the cost and availability of data traffic."
How do you mean "out of touch" with your customers? This is already the situation!
As soon as phones started having Wi-Fi as standard, it was always going to be on the cards that VOIP clients would take over from GSM/3G, at least when the user is at home or in a hotspot.
I hope the networks don't try to engineer artificial restrictions and then claim it's "for the customer's benefit"...
So they were OK with Gizmo5, but now they're not with Skype? WTF?
The thing about Skype is that it's the only VOIP service which even non-techie people have heard of and know how to use. No one knows about Gizmo in the mainstream world.
A lot of ordinary folk (including people like my technophobic parents) have Skype accounts, so integrating Skype into a handset is a much more potent threat to the phone networks.
I personally think there should be a law protecting the right of manufacturers to include as many services as they want to in handsets. The more services there are, the more competition there will be, which means lower service charges for the end user. Networks need to be made to compete hard for our money, just like manufacturers are already doing.
On the other hand, there's also a danger that manufacturers will use their handsets to only push particular services (Nokia with Ovi, Apple with iTunes etc), and maybe that needs to be looked at too...
Right now i'm with O2, last contract was with Orange, before that Voda, and before that 3. I left each in turn because they couldn't/wouldn't give me what i wanted.
"Dumb pipes" is exactly what they are. They are ONLY there to provide a service, if i don't like the service i PAC up my number and move on. They are simply a service provider, have they forgotten that? In essence nothing more than something like your supermarket or petrol station. You choose where you fill up or get groceries based upon cost, choice of products, etc. If a supermarket started to tell you which products you could or couldn't have, or if they only gave your their own product (walled garden), you'd be off down the road to the supermarket that had what you wanted.
They are simply a service provider, have they forgotten that?
The networks have delusions of grandeur, they've been there ever since the whole idea of "walled gardens" was unwisely suggested as a way to earn extra revenue.
Maybe hardware manufacturers are heading down the same path though?
Ideally the networks, handset manufacturers and online services would be three separate things which could all be used with any combination of each other. That would provide maximum competition and choice for the end user.
If carriers were actually not looking to fleece folks with high rates just to make calls, they wold already have taken advantage of using IP-based telephony to support their revenue streams. Its not like smaller carriers weren't smart in using that approach.
Nokia, on the other hand, has pretty much declared war on the carriers even more openly. This was going to happen eventually - one could see the writing on the wall with the HSPA support with Maemo 5. I hope they can execute the user experience of this in such a way that it doesn't totally kill their carrier relationships.
Personally, good. Glad its happening. Open up and standarize VoIP over all the services and this gets even more fun.
Operators becoming dump pipe suppliers will also result in people having to buy their own phones with their own money. Now you can choose between expensive hardware and free calls, and free hardware and paid-for phone calls. Isn't competition a wonderful thing 😉
svdwal wrote:Operators becoming dump pipe suppliers will also result in people having to buy their own phones with their own money. Now you can choose between expensive hardware and free calls, and free hardware and paid-for phone calls. Isn't competition a wonderful thing 😉
Not the road to go down, IMO. Look at our poor cousins across the water. Not only do they have to pay stupid money for their phones (if they want anything remotely approaching a high end feature phone or smartphone), they then have to pay much higher tariffs than we do.
Example. Picked from the AT&T site. Had to use a Curve as an example smartphone, you won't find a Nokia smartphone in the high street stores.
No Commitment Pricing $549.99
2-yr Contract Price $399.99
Total Due Today $399.99
Mail-in Rebate via AT&T Promotion Card - $100.00
Price After Mail-in Rebate $299.99
You Save $250.00
THEN you add a plan: 450 minutes = $39.99. 900 minutes = $59.99. A month
Then add unlimited internet (with tethering) $60. A MONTH!
Text messaging? 1500 texts = $15. A MONTH!
What are we looking at here?
299.99 (after rebate) for the phone
Then a monthly fee of
$40/$60
$60
$15
----
$115/$135
Ouch.
UKJeeper wrote:Not the road to go down, IMO. Look at our poor cousins across the water. Not only do they have to pay stupid money for their phones (if they want anything remotely approaching a high end feature phone or smartphone), they then have to pay much higher tariffs than we do.
I'm from the UK and have a partner in the US, and i too find the mobile phone situation over there to be appalling. but i believe there are many factors at play with their mobile phone infrastructure. don't forget that in the UK mobile phones got really popular amongst non-business users (due to PAYG) around about 1998. in America it seems to be that mobile phones didn't really gain any kind of momentum in terms of public adoption until only a few years ago.
add onto that the fact that America is such a big place that there's no way that only 4 or 5 network providers could logistically supply the whole country with coverage, and on top of that the general attitude of accepting what's there without question....you've got a bad mix of issues there.
another thing, maybe slightly off topic but slightly relevant...in the UK, Nokia are generally regarded as a decent brand of mobile phone. when i first got my E90 and told my partner that i was excited to be getting another Nokia, she said "but Nokia are crap...why are you getting one?". looking at the Nokia phones that are standard on the networks over there, it's easy to see why she (and many other Americans) believe that Nokia are not decent phones.
I think that's a large part of why the iPhone has been such a success in the US.
There weren't any other mass market/media orientated smartphones widely available.
In the UK/Europe the iPhone did well but the feature set was nowhere near as revolutionary to people who already used to options like the N-series phones.
Canada is even worse when it comes to phones. One GSM carrier in Ontario - Rogers - and the prices are through the roof. But then again, it only a 15 million people market.
What these people need to understand is that us Phone Geeks will always find a way to get our favourite applications on our chosen phones!