Re: Maemo, What's the Carrier's Argument?
 

nokia did recently announce a LTE radio for handheld devices, iirc...

Re: Maemo, What's the Carrier's Argument?
 

Ah, so scientific is immediately invalid? What about peer review, studies and tests? :P It's off topic, but it's certainly no nonsense to look at something pragmatically. Can you provide me a link to 'the most recent scientific study' that you're talking about?

You know... it's funny that you say that, but I remember actually being in the room with a coworker who was on the phone with Southern Bell techs to explain to them how to set their packet switching systems from analog to digital to support frame relays. :P heheh Even in the 90's, that was STILL going on. :) Mind you, the techs were eager to learn.. but they had just no knowledge of data and packet switching even then. :)

Not I. Last time I had a contract was from 2004-2006 and haven't had a contract for my service since... and I STILL don't get any discounted rate despite using the same phone I'd bought in 2004. :) (HEY.. it works and it seems to take a lot of abuse, what can I say?)

Re: Maemo, What's the Carrier's Argument?
 

It's amusing some of the situations they are in, take orange.
I have a "virgin tariff" with orange at the moment (like pay as you go, but automatically paid monthly).
The only way I can transfer my number to a contract for my n900 is to go to another provider, so I want to pay more money but Orange can't do it!
Also Orange do not do any contract for web browsing on a phone, which is even more bizarre.

As a final twist looks like I'll be going with T-Mobile, and they are merging with Orange now.

The carrier world is a big mess! and that's in the UK I hate to think what the situation is like in the US!
At least things are slowly improving...never thought I'd say it, but thanks to EU regulations!

Re: Maemo, What's the Carrier's Argument?
 

The way I see it the carriers see their business model being converted to an ISP dumb pipe one. Fact of the matter is not very likely. If I need phone services I won't rely on voip or skype or such like. I'll rely on a local carrier to provide this. So no their business model is not so endengeared but they should remodel a bit to offer better data services maybe offer some other things along the way(like music subscriptions and such that some are starting to offer). But it actually needs to be VALUE not ringtones and themes.

They also need to start treating their customers as more than just sheep. A year ago I found out that my 3g data only connection had blocked incoming ports while my regular line with a mobile data option had them all open. I contacted their service departemnt and they told no all are blocked(took me a while to get this message accross). I was hoping that the blocked stuff was a mistake but it appeared the open one was a mistake. I didn't really care so much for this but I wanted this inconsistency resolved. So I did ask them to fix the other link. I do wish they would offer a let's say 5eur/month extra so that you would be able to manage your own firewall and not rely on theirs(as in all incoming ports open).

I can't see this hapening but this is how they would make some extra profit for near no work. Other options as well. Like extra for high bandwidth stuff(voip, videos) this isn't about download limits. It's how much you transfer per second on the pipe(something they still offer unlimited(or as high as technology will go) here).

Plenty of ways for them to make money from data and voice. They just don't want to just like any other established industry.

Re: Maemo, What's the Carrier's Argument?
 

What you're overlooking is that the infrastructure is inverting, from ISP over POTS to phone and other services over IP. So, yeah, it's not only likely it's underway.

Re: Maemo, What's the Carrier's Argument?
 

That's the dumb pipe theory. Unfortunately there's just too much incremental revenue they'd be giving up by not messing with phone functions and software. The last thing you as a business owner want is to have a gas station model: One on every corner, selling effectively the same product. The only difference might be price, if you have the stomach to run razor thin margins. There are companies that compete well, but they are the big integrated players who have control over every aspect of the product, like Exxon. Verizon's margins are much higher than an Exxon, and they like it that way.

Re: Maemo, What's the Carrier's Argument?
 

Or the corollary: when your 2 year contract is over, did you get a discount if you kept the phone?

Re: Maemo, What's the Carrier's Argument?
 

Right on target. However, it's important to draw a greater distinction between the oil companies and the end distributers and stations. Yeah, I'd hate to be at the very end of the chain where you're lucky to scrape a few cents off the retail price of gasoline, but Exxon Mobil and it's brethren aren't hurting by any means. ;)

Re: Maemo, What's the Carrier's Argument?
 

Nice thread.

Re: Maemo, What's the Carrier's Argument?
 

Back in the old good days, selling phones with contracts was illegal here in Finland. And then the the EU directive came, allowing operators to sell sim-locked 3G phones with a 2-year contract...

All this time I've been laughing at the poor fellows who manage to break their phone before the contract is over, or just get tired to the ridiculous call rates they are paying. I vowed I'd never fall to that trap. Oh, how wrong I was...

Yesterday, in anticipation of the coming N900, I signed a 2-year contract with the worst of them all - TeliaSonera Finland, the previously government-owned telco, which managed to waste 3 billion euros to a 3G license in Germany - which was voided when they finally figured they couldn't actually afford to build the infrastructure needed. For simplicity's sake, let's just call them the AT&T of Finland (yes, the same company also sells the iPhone here).

The reason? Well, they offered an unlimited data plan at a nominal 3,6Mbps transfer rate for 11,90 per month. Even comes with a free Huawei usb modem. The actual transfer rates remain to be seen, though... I'm more than just a little skeptical :cool:

Gotta love it when huge, monolithic corporations finally "get" it :p