15 Jan 2004 | Benjy said...

Yeah, it's true that we seem to be going in the opposite direction. Seems that our government like to let the market sort out standards rather than through regulations, but this makes things messy and costly for consumers. Most of the world has defined national standards for cell phones -- thus they can move their phone from provider to provider, and the phones are smaller because there's no need for dual or tri-mode phones.

In regards to electronics, manufacturers don't necessarily like standards because it allows their customers to freely move among brands for each item, and since our electronics interconnect more and more, then the more they can force us to buy from them. Got a Sony VAIO computer with MemorySstick port? Great, then you need a Sony Digital Camera and Sony Clie, too! Oh, and this Sony big screen TV has a MemoryStick port, too so you can look at your vacation pics on the big screen.

The other thing that I've noticed with electronics is that, like computers, the sales people act like you should expect bugs in the equipment. I was researching the new flat and flatter big screen TVs recently and there are major issues with all three technologies -- plasma, LCD, and DLP. The plasmas are prone to burn-in, which is an issue for those of us who watch lots of CNBC and ESPN, with the tickers on the bottom. LCD experiences blurring during fast action like video games or sports. And DLP has poor picture quality without an HDTV feed and requuires expensive projector bulb replacements. So why should I want to spend $3000 on a 42" TV when I can buy a 36" Wega for 1/3 of that and have no "bugs?"

15 Jan 2004 | Darrel said...

The other thing that I've noticed with electronics is that, like computers, the sales people act like you should expect bugs in the equipment.

Even more so with software. It's an outrageous industry these days. Software vendors expect you to pay them to fix the buggy software that they just sold you.

15 Jan 2004 | Graham Hicks said...

Sure, but these standards had over a century to evolve, they weren't always so compatible. Remember Edison sold his recordings on cylinders, not twelve inch discs. And in the end, most standards are defined by the market, not some committee (the ends of those wires on your stereo are called RCA plugs for a reason).

Wifi and digital music files and cell phones have only been around for a few years, and in some cases just a few months. Once they start to become commodities consumers will start to choose products that are standardized and interchangable which will force manufacturers to make more standardized and interchangable products, just like what happened with analog stereo systems.

Cutting edge is inherently unstable, incompatible and uncomfortable. I'm not sure what he expected going to CES.

16 Jan 2004 | miles said...

In england and wherever uses the same GSM standard, a phone comes with a sim card which you can switch between phones to retain all your address records, and I've never heard of a phone being incompatible with a network. You just go to a mobile network provider and buy a SIM card without a phone and put the SIM card in your own phone.

I know a few people that split their time between different countries in europe and have one phone but different SIM cards so, for example, you have a SIM card for an english provider and a SIM card for a spanish provider, and avoid roaming costs.

I imagine that there will be no roaming charges in europe soon since vidafone seems to be buying everything.

16 Jan 2004 | pb said...

I think that's a tired story.

Let's take VCRs, for example. They were notoriously hard to program or even set the time. I wouldn't be surprised if the 1 million Tivos have recorded more programs than the 100 million VCRs!

This is the result of progress and has been going on forever. THis point in time is not unique.

16 Jan 2004 | dusoft said...

Well, yes, but remember there are two types of mobile networks in US - GSM (as here in Europe, but not 900 but 1800) and CDCMA (or something like that) and those are incompatible

16 Jan 2004 | Raena Armitage said...

"I've never heard of a phone being incompatible with a network. You just go to a mobile network provider and buy a SIM card without a phone and put the SIM card in your own phone."

... Well, yes and no. For most GSM phones it's possible to put a provider lock on the handset's firmware so that it rejects a SIM that identifies with a different network. You'll often see this happen with prepaid mobile handsets in Australia and, I understand, with quite a few UK ones too. Here, they'll charge you anywhere between $50 and $90 (AUD) to remove the firmware lock, which I can tell you for a fact is a five minute job.

This is possibly what's happening in the US. You should be able to take an unlocked GSM phone and move it to another GSM network without trouble, but they've used this or some other method to lock US customers into using that network. Hell, they only just got around to permitting mobile number portability -- another barrier to changing networks.

Most US GSM carriers use 1900MHz, and I believe that some carriers recently began to use 850MHz in some places. If you were switching between the two, that's a fair call (even though many recent phones for the N American market are 850/1900 dualband). And if you're on a contract and you got your "free" phone, then locking to a network is probably fair enough. And if you're changing from a GSM to a CDMA network, then they're absolutely right -- the two don't mix.

But if your contract's done, or if you paid for it in full in the first place, you ought to be entitled to do what you want. I'm surprised more people aren't aware of just how insanely anti-consumer this practice is.

Is it even feasible to buy your handset from someone other than a telco? (My last three phones have been off the shelf.) All I see are wholesalers and vaguely shady online shops.

It's not difficult to unlock a GSM phone yourself -- just type "(your handset model) network unlock" into Google and see what happens. You can even download calculators that generate the appropriate restriction removal code for your mobile, based on its IMEI or some other variable.

Useless fact: GSM 850 and 1900 is used in the US because the portion of the band used by the rest of the world is reserved for the US military's domestic use.

16 Jan 2004 | Noah said...

Computers aren't, and have never been the problem... lack of standardization is -- the corporate desire to own the canvas as well as the paintbrush.

Hell, we'd still have 6 different color TV signals if the FCC hadn't forced the American television manufacturers to decide on one compatible format. This corporate behavior isn't new, but computers just make bad behavior that much easier (like stealing music, email spam, etc. etc.).

16 Jan 2004 | One of several Steves said...

This is possibly what's happening in the US.

No possibly. Exactly. Completely screws one of the biggest benefits of GSM technology.

25 Jan 2004 | Jason said...

a network is probably fair enough.