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ARJWright's Avatar
Posts: 861 | Thanked: 734 times | Joined on Jan 2008 @ Nomadic
#1
Across several threads, and across several years, this community and others has talked about this issue of carrier involvement on the side of mobile devices. There's a positive and negative side to these carriers, but I want to concentrate on the Maemo questions:
  • Nokia is already a known commodity to carriers, does Maemo help or hurt their perception here?
  • Maemo is currently made up of groups of people and small companies that are usually contrary to some carrier goals; how does the introduction of Maemo 5 change that, if at all?
  • Is it possible for carriers to not only embrace the kind of open-network development and use that this commnity aspires to, while guarantering a compariable level of quality of service, while keeping some scheme of making a profit (even if the profit doesn't look like current numbers)?

Like many of you, I'm in favor of getting carriers out of my wireless life. And at the same time, I appreciate the kinds of pipes they maintain so that I can have a wireless life that's financially and ethically attainable.

What I don't hear in most of our discussion is how Maemo could be of value to carriers. Clearly, they've shown enough of a value to Nokia by being included as part of the Maemo 5 experience (the addition of a SIM card and WCDMA technolgies). What do we offer them?

EDIT: yes, this is based on this post, and just some general observations of everything here from perceptions, to politics, to app suggestions, to use-case conversations.

Last edited by ARJWright; 2009-09-04 at 20:23.
 

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#2
Personally, I'm offering my business to them. I'm switching to T-mobile for the express purpose of running the N900 with 3G. I think that's plenty
 

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#3
Originally Posted by ARJWright View Post
[*]Is it possible for carriers to not only embrace the kind of open-network development and use that this commnity aspires to, while guarantering a compariable level of quality of service, while keeping some scheme of making a profit (even if the profit doesn't look like current numbers)?[/LIST]
It is absolutely 100% possible, it's already happened in countries where regulators force networks to allow use of unlocked devices or even ban the locking of devices. When you stop locking you get an environment that's a lot more like the PC industry and the ISP industry: Does your ISP care what operating system is on your PC?

The reason they wouldn't want to admit that it's possible is because it involves competition, i.e. it involves hard work to win customers instead of just lazy milking of customers. The network operators in the USA seem to be the laziest of all.

No large company ever allows competition to increase if they can stop it. They have to be forced into competitive environments, and that's why we need strong government regulators to do the forcing.
 

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#4
Perhaps we need to pay for an "open-source" premium, similar to organic produce.

This way they get our business plus a premuim for whatever risk they are afraid of. Then when the marketplace is mature the premium is dropped since open is the commonplace not the exception.
 

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#5
Originally Posted by jandmdickerson View Post
Perhaps we need to pay for an "open-source" premium, similar to organic produce.

This way they get our business plus a premuim for whatever risk they are afraid of. Then when the marketplace is mature the premium is dropped since open is the commonplace not the exception.
So you want to PROMOTE non-open source, effectively.
 

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#6
Originally Posted by jandmdickerson View Post
Perhaps we need to pay for an "open-source" premium, similar to organic produce.

This way they get our business plus a premuim for whatever risk they are afraid of. Then when the marketplace is mature the premium is dropped since open is the commonplace not the exception.
This is possibly Nokia's business model for their high end smartphones in the US, almost all released unlocked: you pay a lot for them, but you get a highly-spec'd phone that shows some of what is possible when carriers are not involved in producing the device.

Last edited by klinglerware; 2009-09-04 at 20:20.
 

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ARJWright's Avatar
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#7
Originally Posted by krisse View Post
It is absolutely 100% possible, it's already happened in countries where regulators force networks to allow use of unlocked devices or even ban the locking of devices. When you stop locking you get an environment that's a lot more like the PC industry and the ISP industry: Does your ISP care what operating system is on your PC?

The reason they wouldn't want to admit that it's possible is because it involves competition, i.e. it involves hard work to win customers instead of just lazy milking of customers. The network operators in the USA seem to be the laziest of all.

No large company ever allows competition to increase if they can stop it. They have to be forced into competitive environments, and that's why we need strong government regulators to do the forcing.
Maemo would add on top of unlocked devices, the idea of open-access IP stacks, firmware, and network codecs.

Are carriers ready for that much openness? TI wasn't (as much) when a group here asked Nokia to ask them about opening the framworks that drive Wi-Fi modules.

At some point though, it does work for TI's benefit to do so. How does this community convince carriers the same?
 
krisse's Avatar
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#8
Originally Posted by jandmdickerson View Post
Perhaps we need to pay for an "open-source" premium, similar to organic produce.

This way they get our business plus a premuim for whatever risk they are afraid of. Then when the marketplace is mature the premium is dropped since open is the commonplace not the exception.
That would be protection money, they'd be being paid for not interfering with something that isn't their business anyway.
 

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#9
Originally Posted by ARJWright View Post
How does this community convince carriers the same?
You don't. It would be as pointless as appeasing some tinpot dictator, his interests do not overlap with yours.

The only way is to convince regulators to force carriers to accept whatever their customers use. Fuel stations don't lock, neither do water suppliers, electricity suppliers etc so why should phone connection suppliers be any different?

Connections are a commodity, they should be as cheap as they could possibly be, there shouldn't be any value added stuff forced on people.
 

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#10
Originally Posted by krisse View Post
That would be protection money, they'd be being paid for not interfering with something that isn't their business anyway.

Yea I know. But you would think you could eat vegatables and fruits without harmful chemicals on them. However, if you dont like such poisons you need to buy organic.

I guess that would also be protection money....
 

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