Cellular and Computing Industries Finally Collide 300
magarity writes "For years now cell phones have become increasing complex as computers become ever smaller. The two industries now directly collide. Of special interest is the change in mission statement by Microsoft from 'a computer on every desk and in every home' to 'empowering people through great software, any time, any place and on any device.' With mobile phone saturation in the industrialized world from +80% (Italy) to 45% (USA), this is the next battleground for information technology dominance. Both industries have giant sized players; the shakeouts, as well as implications for consumers, will be huge."
Europeans will have the edge (Score:4, Interesting)
Am I the only one who thinks this indicates that EU countries will be the major players in the future, with MS going by the wayside?
... until M$ buys a high-ranking EU bureaucrat (Score:2, Informative)
Might be necessity, not increased acceptance... (Score:3, Informative)
Celullar is Dead: Long live Mesh-Networks (Score:3, Insightful)
As for Microsft's involvement, who cares? I can't see them either dominating this space like they managed to do with the desktop. Interoperability will be the key, just like on the net today. Linux alread has a foot hold in this market.
Planet P [planetp.cc] - Liberation With Technology.
Re:Europeans will have the edge (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Europeans will have the edge (Score:3, Informative)
Market saturation is done on 'per capita' not 'per square km'...
Re:Europeans will have the edge (Score:2, Informative)
great software... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:great software... (Score:3, Insightful)
This sort of diversification may be good for the company, but when they loose focus on their core it becomes very difficult to maintain the kinds of market share that they are used to. Of course, these other things rely on their dominance on the desktop but at some point something has to give.
New mission statement (Score:4, Funny)
I guess this means they'll stop selling Windows.
Re:New mission statement (Score:3, Funny)
Re:New mission statement (Score:2)
I guess today it's muy turn to feed the trolls. Sigh :-(
Re:New mission statement (Score:2)
<recursion mode> Now, if it were to become sensational, that would be sensational! </recursion mode> :-)
I can't wait to see... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I can't wait to see... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I can't wait to see... (Score:3, Insightful)
Any device? (Score:4, Funny)
But I thought only NetBSD would run on my toaster...
-Charles
shitty screens (Score:3, Informative)
That WAP is shit. I can tell you as I have some experience (Nokia, Siemens, Sony, Ericsson, Alcatel, everyone plays his own game, with large differences in the ways things are shown). We have to go directly for web or for Java. I've tested some Nokias and Alcatels. For instance, Alcatel 525 WAP browser, in forms, it doesn't show you the next input till you've filled it!!
looking at cellular use objectively (Score:5, Insightful)
success and failure? Why (Score:2, Interesting)
Now they collide? (Score:2, Troll)
Re:Now they collide? (Score:2)
But moft is entering a market it wasn't in before. What monopoly are they leveraging?
Another article in the same issue of economist (Score:3, Informative)
whats a cell phone good for? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:whats a cell phone good for? (Score:2, Funny)
cell phone companies have advantage (Score:5, Insightful)
As phones become more intelligent, it only seems natural that phone manufacturers would have an easier time than microsoft because microsoft has to scale down its product, clean out bugs, adapt the software to be real-time --- all while getting new teams organized that have the ability to do this.
Cell phone companies already have a large number of experienced exployees that have been meeting th ese necessary goals for years.
Re:cell phone companies have advantage (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:cell phone companies have advantage (Score:2)
Cellphones are incredibly price sensitive, and a PocketPC license isn't cheap. While Palm is improving, it misses useful features like Java support.
Re:cell phone companies have advantage (Score:2)
Believe it or not, my sanyo would crash (freeze) quite often when I was using the crippled-ass web browser it had in it...
I wouldn't bet on cell phone companies having that big of an advantage: they are the ones going towards more complex OSs on phones, where as software companies are trying to 'dumb' down if anything software they already have some know-how in...
Re:cell phone companies have advantage (Score:5, Insightful)
To some extent, the stability has been somewhat related to the fact that past phones didn't allow 3rd party apps on the phone without being closely inspected and signed. Now that there are open development environments (eg. WindowsCE, Symbian), cell phone stability could drop to WinCE/PalmOS levels.
And to be fair, cell phones aren't 100% stable... dropped calls are sometimes the software's fault, it's not always obvious that this is the case because it's easy to assume it's due to radio interference or cell tower issues.
Re:cell phone companies have advantage (Score:2)
Amen. There are plenty of cell phones out there with really crappy software. An open cell platform and a linux-quality OS would make me wet my pants with joy. The problem, imho, is that cell phone companies treat your cell phone as if it's their property. Drives me nuts.
Re:cell phone companies have advantage (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:cell phone companies have advantage (Score:3, Interesting)
Phone companies software quality certifications (Score:2, Interesting)
while some problems may come from the software it is important to notice that mobile phone companys (telco in general) have made huge investments in quality management
specifically that i remember now, all of the bigger player have serveral ISO9000 compliances and many are CMM certified (specially Siemens that has level 3 and Motorola that has from 3 to 5 depending on the specific facility/factory)
while microsoft (and other software companies developing for computers) has none in all it's divisions
Re:Phone companies software quality certifications (Score:2)
- and many are CMM certified (specially Siemens that has level 3 and Motorola that has from 3 to 5 depending on the specific facility/factory)
Let me tell you, from first-hand experience, that there are definitely a couple cases where all of the engineers are dumbfounded that the organization could be assessed at level 3. Yes, telcos invest a lot in quality, and they've had a lot of time to work that out, especially with the hardware they produce because they've been doing that for 15 years. But in some cases, the organizations are having trouble shifting the whole institution's mindset towards software-driven rather than hardware-driven, let alone around the idea that the code be secure enough to allow external uninspected code to run on their devices.Re:cell phone companies have advantage (Score:2)
Windows CE is already scaled down. It already has had the bugs cleaned out (they are on the fourth version now). And, as of CE 3.0, it is a real-time OS.
80% italy - why? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:80% italy - why? (Score:5, Interesting)
And you wonder why the 2 globally dominant mobile phone operators in both consumer sales and network kit (Nokia and Ericsson) are Finnish...
Ericsson (Score:2)
Re:80% italy - why? (Score:4, Insightful)
A quote:
RIGHT NOISES. That's because Europe's fourth-largest economy suffers from an outdated, expensive telecommunications infrastructure...
From: http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_09/b3670213.h
Re:80% italy - why? (Score:2)
Probably because like most of Europe it is far cheaper to put up cell towers than to have wires run everywhere.
Note that Europe is much more densely populated than the US, there are actually land lines absolutely everywhere, and the wired telephone was a state monopoly. Your argument just vanished.
I don't know about 'cell towers' so much. I think most of them are on churches, that sort of thing. Perhaps tall buildings are denser in Europe as well (purely rural areas? they hardly exist anymore in the Netherlands, and where they are, there are churches).
The cell phone thing is driven by kids. They want their own phones, and use SMS like they're insane. When your phone is half a year old you're uncool. Adults just thought they were pretty cheap and very useful. Especially when abroad, it's easier to have a cell phone that just switches to some local network than to have a public phone card of whatever country you're presently in.
Plus aggressive marketing from many different competitors, who really compete directly, and who had to give huge discounts on the phones to get subscribers. It's not often that a media/communication market is open like this (choice between five or six equal competitors).
I've heard that in America, it's not so easy to switch to a new phone. In Europe, you just remove the simcard from the old phone to the new one and you're done, everything is ported over.
Re:80% italy - why? (Score:2)
Your answers are here [uchicago.edu] and here [uchicago.edu].
Re:80% italy - why? (Score:2, Interesting)
'Nuff said about Japan.
Re:80% italy - why? (Score:2)
Probably it's the same reason that smart cards are much more popular in Europe than in the U.S.: because their POTS phone system sucked.
In the U.S., it was cheap, easy and reliable to authenticate each credit card purchase with a phone call to the Visa/Mastercard mother ship. Since that method wasn't as practical in Europe, they went with self-authenticating smart credit cards. Result: they end up looking more "high tech".
Re:80% italy - why? (Score:2)
What are you talking about? The POTS in Europe is great. I think the whole creditcard issue is more because Europeans don't like being in debt. At least in Norway, most people seem to only want to spend what that have (unlike Americans that like to spend and worry about it later).
Re:80% italy - why? (Score:2)
Quality of the land lines is excellent.
The large market share of cell phones was initially due to the fact that a cell phone was seen as a status symbol.
But when all your friends have cell phones, you must have one too for purely practical reasons.
Never happen (Score:3, Interesting)
For another, people's thumb tendons won't let them....
Only geeks will geek on the phone all day long and the cell doesn't do anything the pc doesn't do better, except walk around. And what kind of geek wants to walk around?
What MIGHT happen is people can be their own rolling data centers with secure VPN to their home box, their own mp3s playing from home in their hifi earphones and a Dragon Ball Z type Scouter visual thingy to keep an eye on the important stuff with.
All with provable open source very good privacy.
However, not only is this not here yet, it might well be illegalized in the very near future....
Re:Never happen (Score:2)
Whips out cell phone on the way home from work and hits "traffic update/quickest route home" shortcut. Avoids gridlock.
Says "Hey phone record memo: 'Honey pick me up Duffs beer and a some razor blades while you're out please', phone - deliver memo to Wife and verify." Puts phone in pocket
Stops for gas. Clicks button on phone to pay for gas. Gets AT&T/Exxon promotional discount.
Pulls into driveway of mistress, phone chimes with "Dinner at inlaws" reminder his wife sent him last week. Pulls out of mistress's driveway.
Calls wife, points phone at self and asks "Honey do I look okay for dinner?"
Slides phone into car cradle and keys up favorite soothing music mix.
Remembers to call his kids to see if they've managed to get that darn DVD player set up for movies later.
I was waiting for this war (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I was waiting for this war (Score:2)
Well the XBox is interesting, mostly because it's being absolutely caned in sales by Sony and it's shedding 3rd party developers.
Same way Sony has - by having critical mass in both sales and developers, and being plain better.
Promise me something? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is from someone who misses corded dial telephones that never broke, or if they did the phone company swapped you for a new one. There were a lot of problems with that era, but some nice things, too. I still have a classic ugly-beige tabletop phone with a hard-to-turn dial and a REAL BELL. And even Alexander Graham Bell could probably use it in minutes.
Hiptop equipment (Score:3, Interesting)
The flipside were the belt-cases they wore to carry the things around. Definite geek-factor there, both good and bad.
Don't get me wrong-- I think the correct approach is to keep adding things to phones rather than stripping things off computers. Open Source taught us that lesson. But the ergonomics and design 'cool' factor needs some work.
Re:Hiptop equipment (Score:4, Interesting)
It's an interesting point but makes little difference. These guys have probably carried laptops for years, as has a lot of other people. The market is flat.
The issue at hand is where the growth is going to be, being the top dog in a stagnant market is fine but MS' valuation is based on growth. If they can't grow they will be relegated to the status of GM or Exxon.
Nothing wrong per se but share prices will be 1/5'th of current.
Change in Mission Statement (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it was pretty inevitable as MS realised:
Unfortunately for them, they're entering markets with some extremely focused competitors who already dominate the space. In competing against Sony, Nokia and Ericsson (none of whom are likely to miss tricks the way IBM did in the 1980s), Microsoft are discovering what it's like to be on the receiving end.
Another Key Factor. (Score:2)
Re:Another Key Factor. (Score:2)
Hmm (Score:3, Funny)
In other words, phase one (a computer on every desk and in every home) has been completed +/- 10%. Now it's time to go out and achieve 100% (+/- 10%) proliferation on portable devices.
What's next, owning my brain?
Re:Hmm (Score:2)
Can't wait! (Score:4, Funny)
Will it ask me for an administrators password when I want to change the ring tone?
And what will I do when I get an 'Ignore/Cancel' error message?
I can see it now: mid conversation, and all of a sudden a message pops up 'There is a new security patch for your phone. Would you like to install it now?'
Microsoft phones need a color screen... (Score:2)
Sorry, but someone had to say it!
Just make the damn phone work (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Geographic range
2) Sound quality
3) Dropped calls
75) Playing tetris
76) Browsing the web
77) Checking e-mail
It's a phone, for God's sake.
It's all software (Score:2)
Re:Just make the damn phone work (Score:2)
Funny & Insightful parent :) (Score:2)
Then again, I thought 3210 was being too flashy with these logos and whatever (99.9% of the time it's in my pocket, noone sees the damn logo, and picture messages noone I know ever use, oh and my dial tone is unique so I know it's my phone ringing, not some popular melody). But, the 3210 was a big hit because of that stuff.
I long since figured I'm not average, pretty much a minimalist (like Win2k-serious business vs. XP-flashy thingy). Generalizing from yourself is always very dangerous, the marked for a computer-phone could be huge even if *you* don't need one...
Kjella
The fight for digital (as in finger) dominance (Score:4, Funny)
Nov 21st 1952
From The Historiconomist BS edition
The convergence of slide rules and notepads is bringing the giants of the plastic and paper industries into direct conflict
IT MAY look like a notepad, but the Orange PenNPaper, launched last month, is much more than that. With its lined pages, multicolored ink and spiral ring spine, it resembles other notepads on the market. But it has one far more significant feature: the lookup tables and conversion formulas on the inside front cover, indicated by the familiar-looking quadratic equation on the upper left side. For the PNP is the first "quick-reference notepad"--in other words, it does things a slide rule does. It is the paper industry's attempt to stake its claim in the new academic community of engineers and scientists created by the convergence of notepads and slide rules. It is no less than a declaration of war.
Microsoft is screwed... (Score:5, Interesting)
In the PDA market, size, reliability, and battery life are major factors, and those three have held WinCE devices back constantly - PalmOS devices have been able to do more with far less. (A 33 MHz Palm is far more responsive UI-wise than a 200 MHz WinCE device, and lasts far longer on battery.)
Now they're not only up against PalmOS (There are some great PalmOS smarphones out there, such as the Kyocera 6035 and 7135, Treos, and the upcoming Samsung I500 - I don't consider the I300 to be great since it's a PDA first and not a very good phone.) and Symbian (All of the Symbian devices I've seen performed their phone functions very well and had excellent integration.
What does WinCE have? It doesn't have battery life or reliability, and its hardware requirements mean that CE devices are almost always larger than their PalmOS and Symbian brethren. All three of these factors held CE back in the PDA market, but are even more critical in the phone market, where the Kyocera 6035 (One of the smaller smartphones) is considered to be monstrous in size.
Every MS-based phone that has hit the market has flopped, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
I see Symbian winning the market for "basic" smartphones, and PalmOS winning the market for "power users" who need mainstream PDA capabilities.
Innovators dilemma (Score:2)
If you haven't read Clayton Christensen's Innovators Dilemma [google.com] you owe it to yourselves to do that.
One of the observations he makes when a disruptive technology comes along is that the dominat player in the "level" above always gets displaced.
Re:Microsoft is screwed... (Score:2)
Microsoft could bury Palm and Symbian, and if they were determined enough they could even guarantee that no one would ever touch Linux again. They have the money, the technology, and the content deals that would make not choosing their software the kiss of death. They could make WinCE so desirable that manufacturers would be begging to use it.
But they aren't going to, and the reason is simple. When it comes to consumer electronics price per unit is king, and Microsoft simply isn't interested in competing in a market that doesn't have a double digit profit margin. And who would blame them. If you had the choice between investing in a business that had an 85% profit margin and years of outrageously high returns and one that had a 5% profit margin you would concentrate on the market with the higher profit margin too.
So Microsoft dabbles just enough in these ancillary markets to guarantee that they don't completely miss the boat, but they are in no hurry to develop something that might compete with the PC. Unless, of course, they can make the sort of profit margins they are accustomed to.
Microsoft is desperate for new markets. Their stock price still reflects high expectations of growth, and the PC market is simply not going to provide that growth. However, Microsoft can't afford to enter new markets where there is fierce competition. It does them no good to win a market if the profit margin for their software drops too low.
Microsoft's real problem is that they are starting to compete with software developers that are willing to accept far lower profit margins, and outside the entrenched market created by Windows Microsoft is going to have real problems overcoming this problem.
Re:Let us thank screwed Microsoft (Score:2)
Since it is thanksgiving time in the US, a time when we traditionally get together to thank Microsoft for permitting us to use technology throughout the rest of the year, let us take this time and remember to thank Microsoft for their generosity in graciously permitting Linux, Palm and Symbian to exist.
Exactly... (Score:2)
I replaced my old Palm recently... with a new one. It's simple, really. While WinCE was trying to cram every known thing into their PDA OS, Palm continued to provide the essential features to the user as quickly as possible. I hit one button and there's my address book or calendar.
Screw solitaire and mp3 files if I have to sit through a boot time.
Re:Microsoft is screwed... (Score:2, Informative)
I see this actually the other way around. SymbianOS 6 is way more powerful than PalmOS 4 (and very likely also 5) and this gap will widen even more with SymbianOS 7 [symbian.com]
Phone manufacturers have not been shy about voicing their hatred and disdane for MS. Symbian by the way is a recycled piece of junk. I won't bother rehashing the ugly history of symbian, but the thing has been in development for 6+ years. Do a search in google for symbian to find out how many horrible failures it's had. The only reason it is still alive is MS keeps dumping money into the product.
I've spoken to embedded phone engineers that work at qualcomm and others in the cell industry. Nokia, Ericcson, Sony, LG and motorola hate MS. It's just that simple. Plus symbian takes an order of magnitude more memory to run than other embedded systems. There's a good reason a lot of phones have a simple OS and don't have a full blow RTOS, memory and cost. When you sell phones for 30.00, you can't afford to spend 2.00 on the OS and 10.00 on 16megs of ram. Here is an excerpt from symbian's page
limited memory: mobile phones and handheld computers have a very limited amount of memory, with memory for running programs often in the region of a few megabytes and memory for storing files usually a few tens of megabytes. The challenge for the developer is to make their software usable despite these restrictions, and this requires a combination of skillful programming and careful design. Restricted memory also poses challenges in the design of the operating system itself
Notice they mention megs and not kilobytes. With the competative phone market every kb of memory counts towards the profit margin.
What? (Score:3, Funny)
What?
Where are they going to get that from?
M$ (Score:2, Funny)
Utility Vs. Toy (Score:4, Interesting)
But I think the other side of the coin is more interesting. Think of all the whiny, screaming. 15 year old high school girls with phones on the oublic bus as they annoyingly try out every ring tone at maximum volume. Think about how they call every single one of their friends over and over again to tell them assanine gossip. Think about their tacky leopard print phone face covers.
Beh. The phone in America has more of a "toy" feel to me than it does a "utility" feel. Does anyone have any insight as to how the folks in Italy feel about their phones? I can't imagine trying to drive there, I'd be yelling at every other bent-necked wheel-clutching gabber I saw.
Re:Utility Vs. Toy (Score:2)
Not until it is CHEAP and NEARLY FREE. (Score:2)
Wrong analogy (Score:5, Funny)
Mobile, only when it makes sense. (Score:3, Interesting)
From a pure function point of view, I'd like a mobile device that lets me schedule apointments, take notes, do some calculator type things, chat on the phone, chat online, and play music from my music collection (by this I mean remotely - the files would be streamed). However, it would have to cost only about US $30 a month (including unlimited local airtime) or else it would raise my expenses and I would realize that I didn't need it.
I really don't have any use for a web pad, but a laptop would be cool (really only to allow me to move around in my own house while computing). I would go for a laptop as my primary computing device (with an external monitor or projector for when I want a big display) and a mobile unit for the above described activities.
When it comes down to it, if these features raised my monthly costs much (over 5%), I would not pay. I'm cheap, and all of that mobile stuff doesn't really improve my life (it would probably hurt it by making me work more)
Please state the nature of the emergency (Score:2)
911 - "Please state the nature of the emergency"
you - "I'm being..."
msphone - "priveledge violation. press any key to reboot"
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/11/21/micro (Score:2, Informative)
This article [salon.com] (originally referred to in this [slashdot.org] submittal) comprehensively outlines how it's an uphill battle for Microsoft.
Mozilla's tabbed browsing is ideal for posting links on
Have to change those commercials (Score:3, Funny)
Clueless statements in the article (Score:2)
Gee, maybe it's because cell phones can often be bought for "free" or mostly for $100 while even a "cheap" pc costs ~$500. Not to mention the "slight" difference in functionality provided. Sheesh, that's like saying that the boat market is a failure because they have less market penetration than the auto market.
They'd better read "Psychology of Everyday Things" (Score:2)
All these companies had better take a look at Donald Norman's "Psychology of Everyday Things." He talks quite a lot about telephones. In the fifties and sixties, nobody had any trouble using them. In the seventies and eighties, people started to have serious trouble using their office phones. (Do YOU know how to transfer a call on yours without dropping the connection?)
Now this crapola is spreading. When my wife and I went to buy cell phones we decided that even though our needs were significantly different, we needed to buy identical models so we could be a little user group of two and get technical support from each other (honey, how do I get this thing out of silent operation and turn the ring back on? sweetie, why is it saying "EXT-ROAM" when I'm supposed to be within my home area?)
On getting back from my high school reunion, I put some snapshots up on my web site and sent the URL to four classmates. Although they all have email, three of the four don't seem to know what a URL or a website is ("Did you really send pictures in that email? I'd like to see them but I can't figure out how... I'm not very good at this computer stuff"). Don't assume that everyone wants to run spreadsheets on their cellphones.
Please, guys, read Norman, and KEEP IT SIMPLE, will you? If you know how.
Re:They'd better read "Psychology of Everyday Thin (Score:2)
You pointed out the issue yourself: you now have different needs. YOU (and your wife) decided that your needs were different, meaning that YOU decided that the ability to simply dial/talk or answer/talk was not enough. If you want your phone to do more, you have to put up with complexity (meaning you have a learning curve to deal with).
Do you really think that if your phone system in the 50's and 60's were CAPABLE of transfering a call from one handset to another that it would have been any more intuitive then than it is now? Conversely, if all you could do on today's phones was dial or answer (no speeddial, hold, transfer, speaker, voicemail, forward, display, etc., etc.), do you think anyone would have trouble using it today?
You want to keep it simple? Don't expect anything more than the simplest function.
BTW, I'm not unsympathetic. I too hate it that my brain resists the effort to learn how to use a new device. The effort (short-term pain) is the price I pay so that I can benefit (long-term gain)from the device's functions. But I don't see how it can be done any easier. These manufacturers hire UI designers: I certainly know they do a better job of laying out the functions than I *ever* could! But there simply is no way to pack a bunch of neat features on a tiny device so that a person could just look at it and know how it all works!
Europe will be a major battlefield (Score:2, Insightful)
The list could go on. Many, many of the big players in the mobile phone market (phones, network technology, software) are located in. Europe. Europe is a huge market. Not only Italy or Finnland, but also the other big and small countries (DE, FR, GB, ES) have a penetration beyond 60%. There are approximately twice as many mobile phones in Europe as in the US.
And the younger generation wants to do more than just phone someone. SMS, Games, even the number of ringtones or display colors is a very important factor for many customers here.
I believe that while EMS (enhanced message service) was useless like WAP, MMS [ericsson.com] (multimedia message service) will be used widely. Many people (especially nerds) laugh about these uses but you shouldn't underestimate how much they are accepted by other people. Mobile Multimedia Instant Messaging willl later (with the help of GPRS and UMTS) bring the Internet into the mobile world:
EVERNET. It's not just a marketing hype! If the price is ok (and even if it isn't -> SMS), the (European) customers will use it, because it changes their life so much. For all these features you need software, capable delivering these "services":
You should take a closer look on the Symbian OS v7 [symbian.com]. It's a well engineered OS with a bright future. One day, at some places in Europe, it might be used more frequently than MS Windows.
We will see who will win this war. One could even call it a war between continents... but this would perhaps be too flamebait. My guess: At the end everyone will find their niche!
If only I could afford the service plan (Score:2)
Re:well duh (Score:3, Informative)
Re:well duh (Score:4, Informative)
With such differences, it's not a matter of infrastructure. You can take only those regions with coverage and the difference would still be there. The problem is in the offer.
Re:well duh (Score:2)
Mobile phones aren't as popular here because of POTS infrastructure beating the hell out of it. When AT&T and Sprint offer the same WIRELESS deals as they do LONG DISTANCE deals, then you may see the numbers change.
When I can pay 20 bucks for unlimited local calls and 10 cents a minute for long distance calls then we'll talk (rimshot).
Re:it's not suprising... (Score:2)
I was able to point out my own country on a map as well...Perhaps that 10% should be considered the margin of error?
Re:it's not suprising... (Score:2)
Re:Yep... (Score:4, Interesting)
Italy size:113,536 sq. mi
US population: 278.4 mil
US size: 5,539,224 sq. mi
people per square mile:
Italy:504
US:50
cellphones per person per square mile:
Italy:403.2
US:22.5
# of cellphones:
Italy: 45.84 mil
US: 125.28
Re:Yep... (Score:2, Funny)
Italy: 45.84 mil
US: 125.28
The US only has 125 cell phones? Geez, that must suck. (And i can only assume the
Re:Yep... (Score:2)
Good for them that we rarely talk about bank cards (no embedded chips in the US), washer/dryers (common US models were designed in the 50s), car radios (no RDS in the US), TVs (widescreen penetration extremely small), trains (less high-speed tracks in the whole US than in Spain)...
wrong numbers? (Score:2, Informative)
(actua
2001 data unless otherwise stated:
US area: 3717.9 sq miles ??
US population: 284.8 million ??
US density/sq mile: 76.6
US share of world trade: 11.9%
US mobile users: 137.5 million (July 2002)
EU area: 1249.0 sq miles
EU population: 378.0 million
EU density/sq mile: 302.6
EU share of world trade: 19.4%
European mobile users 279 million
European penetration 70.2% (July 2002)
world total number of users: 860 million
Re:Yep... (Score:3, Interesting)
Wrong. (Score:2, Insightful)
You remember that thing they called the "soviet bloc", don't you? Romania was part of it. Italy wasn't, Finland wasn't, Austria wasn't - those are the EU countries with the highest market penetration for mobile phones. Here in Austria, I can get a fully digital landline set up within 2 days at a reasonable price, in any damn Alpine village. It's not much different in most of Western Europe. No, it wasn't always like this, but: the success of mobile telephony started after the modernisation of terrestrial. So, please forget the myth that cell phones took off in Europe because the "normal" phones just don't work properly. It might have to do with the fact that there's just one standard, GSM, but that's a wild guess.
Sure, there are no flat-fee "chat with your next-door neighbour on the phone" plans as in the US. But how does that help mobile telephony, which is comparatively expensive in any case?
What migration plan? (Score:2)
Excuse me, but WHAT migration plan?
And how is UMTS in any way based on GSM/GPRS?
There is no interoperability between GSM/GPRS and UMTS whatsoever - New spectrum, new handsets, and new base stations are needed. Essentially, to go to 3G in a GSM/GPRS system, you have no option but to essentially build an entirely new network from the ground up. (As a result, many European providers are hurting financially, thanks to being forced to buy new spectrum at outrageous prices.)
Meanwhile, CDMA2000 (2.5G/3G) and cdmaOne (2G) are fully interoperable - cdmaOne handsets like my Kyocera 6035 will work fine on a CDMA2000 network, whether 1xRTT (2.5G) or 1xEV-DO (3G), and CDMA2000-capable handsets will work fine in areas where CDMA2000 capability has not been added and only cdmaOne base stations are available. No new spectrum is needed, providers can use their existing frequency assignments.
There is a clear upgrade for CDMA providers from 2G(cdmaOne)->2.5G(1xRTT)->3G(1xEV-DO) - Where's the upgrade path for GSM providers? 2G(GSM)->2.5G(GPRS)->dead end.
I kind of agree (Score:2)
When I lived in Japan, I loathed cell phones, and was proudly a member of the 0.1% of my age group to not own a cell phone.
Now that I'm in the US, I have a cell phone, but I got one only because I was in a long distance relationship at the time, and long distance calls were cheaper on a cell phone. Also, I don't have a phone line at home, so it's also my only phone...
Personally, what I don't understand is cell phones that try to be computers or PDAs. I've owned three PDAs (starting with a Pilot 5000) and found all of them useless (other than being good conversation starters and having geek appeal). Personally, I think a cell phone that tries to be more than a cell phone is equally useless. If I get a cell phone, I want a phone. I want a phone that's reliable (as in, doesn't crash or get disconnected in the middle of a conversation), and I don't give a damn if it takes crappy pictures or runs Quake on a puny screen.
At least in the US, I think they're trying to make up for the crappy infrastructure by packing useless features into the actual phones. "You'll get disconnected every 3 minutes, but look, you can play games while you're disconnected!"
Re:Poor Penitration in the US (Score:2)