What do the carriers think? [LWN.net]

What do the carriers think?

Posted Jun 28, 2007 15:25 UTC (Thu) by stevenj (guest, #421)
Parent article: An update from OpenMoko

What I'd really love to hear is what the carriers, especially the US carriers, think of the OpenMoko project. I get the impression that the carriers would rather exercise absolute control over what software can run on your phone, since heaven forbid you do something with your phone without paying for it.

I've just been shopping for a new Verizon phone to replace my old basic cellphone and my old Palm Pilot, and it's been eye-opening to discover how crippled many otherwise-amazing phones are by the total control of the carrier over the software. If you don't like the calendar interface, or the email program, or some other feature, you have absolutely no recourse.

And don't get me started on the absolutely ridiculous degree to which particular phones are tied to particular carriers. It's like having to buy a different computer depending on internet provider you choose; there's no reason for carriers to have this kind of power as long as the phones adhere to the correct technical standards. (Which makes me wonder—if you have an open phone, will it be possible to hack it to talk to any carrier you want, whether the carrier likes it or not?)

I really hope that OpenMoko can help to change this situation. Cellphones have become general-purpose computing devices central to our lives, and it's long past time for users to be in charge of them.

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What do the carriers think?

Posted Jun 28, 2007 17:36 UTC (Thu) by Los__D (subscriber, #15263) [Link]

(Which makes me wonderif you have an open phone, will it be possible to hack it to talk to any carrier you want, whether the carrier likes it or not?)

You already can, unless you bought a SIM-locked phone, which you got cheaper because of that lock. I highly doubt an OpenMoko will be sold as a SIM-locked phone, though. (Or maybe it's different in America, and they lock it no matter what?)

In Denmark, the providers are required to give you the unlock key after 6 months upon request (As far as can remember, maybe a year), usually you can also get it earlier by paying something like 2-300 DKK ($35-55).

What do the carriers think?

Posted Jun 28, 2007 17:49 UTC (Thu) by ajross (subscriber, #4563) [Link]

US GSM providers (AT&T/Cingular and T-Mobile are the big ones) work like they do anywhere in the world, which means you can run an unlocked phone on their network just fine. It's true that the phones they sell you are often locked to their network, but they will generally remove that restriction on request (just tell them that you are traveling to Europe). I have a Chinese-market Motorola A780 that I've been using for the past two years without trouble.

As for the carrier's preferences, my experience is that they're happy to work with any platform as long as it's cheap. The Windows Mobile stuff is (for the industry) comparatively very open and hackable, for instance, but it's pervasively available in the US because Microsoft is essentially dumping it to gain market share (and, sadly, because it just works better than PalmOS or Symbian). If a free (beer) platform showed up that worked well, they'd be happy to pick it up and use it.

What do the carriers think?

Posted Jun 28, 2007 19:07 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Linux is different. As long as they can benefit from platform openness - it's not a problem, it's a plus. Unless, of course, you want to deliver this openness to the end user.

That being said carriers should and will support uncrippled phones - as long as you buy them from someone else...

real carrier independence requires software radios

Posted Jun 28, 2007 19:15 UTC (Thu) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link]

I guess the real problem is the proliferation of mobile phone standards; for example, a lot of US carriers don't use GSM. The ideal thing would be if it were possible to implement GSM, EVDO, etcetera in software. It's technically possible (e.g. Vanu Inc. apparently had a GSM receiver running on a 1GHz Pentium laptop 5 years ago); I wonder whether it's nearing possibility for the CPUs that run in a typical smartphone?

(The initial OpenMoko-based phone is using a standard hardware GPRS modem from TI with a proprietary binary driver. This is understandable, as their primary concern is not the software-radio problem.)

real carrier independence requires software radios

Posted Jun 28, 2007 20:55 UTC (Thu) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link]

For software radio to be technically viable, it's not enough for the CPU to be fast enough to keep up with hardware radio alternatives -- it would have to keep up while drawing the same amount of power. Not my area of expertise, but this seems like a pretty significant barrier.

(Then there are the idiotic FCC rules.)

real carrier independence requires software radios

Posted Jul 3, 2007 23:55 UTC (Tue) by rise (guest, #5045) [Link]

According to my sources inside Qualcomm a decent number of chipsets are available that do CDMA as well as GSM, but for various & sundry (as well as stupid) reasons they're almost never used to do both.