Verizon Wireless To Open Network

A number of readers are letting us know about Verizon's plans, announced today, to open their nationwide wireless network to devices that they don't sell. A NYTimes blog posting puts VZW's announcement in industry context. From the press release: "In early 2008, the company will publish the technical standards the development community will need to design products to interface with the Verizon Wireless network. Any device that meets the minimum technical standard will be activated on the network. Devices will be tested and approved in a $20 million state-of-the-art testing lab which received an additional investment this year to gear up for the anticipated new demand. Any application the customer chooses will be allowed on these devices."

No

[Jonesy69]

No, the iPhone wont work. Lets just clear that up right now.

Peachy....

[wowbagger]

Peachy. So I can now get mobile devices by a wide range of vendors, and pay Verizon large amounts of money every month to use those devices. What great altruists are Verizon.

Verizon charges US$60 a month to access their data service from my computer via my phone.

I tried calling a modem under my control as a data call - while modem speeds aren't great, they are better than nothing, and I'd gladly spend minutes I wouldn't otherwise use for those rare occasions I want data access but have no WiFi.

It didn't work.

I verified that I could call the modem with a normal phone - thus the only variable left was Verizon. I contacted them, and asked them about this. I was VERY CLEAR that I was not trying to access their data service, but rather my own modem.

Their response? "Oh, you need the US$60 plan to do that." I need to pay them US$60 a month to access my own damn modem.

Sorry, but being able to access Verizon with other people's devices doesn't really thrill me - especially since every one of those devices will still have to license the CDMA patents form Qualcomm - the Microsoft of the phone industry.

Re:No

[BecomingLumberg]

Because a GSM phone won't work on a CDMA network.

Re:Peachy....

[LunaticTippy]

I am not trying to defend Verizon, a company I actively hate, but I'd like to explain why this didn't work.

Most digital voice service uses lossy compression, like the mp3 format. If you lossily compress the analog modem noise you won't have a stable signal. You would find the same problem with pretty much any cellular service and most VOIP services. Even with lossless compression you would probably have problems and end up with a low data rate.

Re:Peachy....

[wowbagger]

No, a data call initiated by Bluetooth DUN does NOT go through the vocoder - rather, it is encapsulated on a 1xRTT channel and transmitted instead of voice data. At the far end the system then takes the data out of the 1xRTT data stream, digitally modulates it into modem signaling, and injects that into the PSTN as standard PCM data.

This doesn't even tie up a "modem", as all that is happening is that the base equipment is just using a time slot on the PSTN trunk, just like a voice call.

So, this is UNLIKE using their US$60 service, as this is using a single 1xRTT voice slot (thus burdening the system no more than a voice call), instead of taking up a chunk of the EVDO channels available.

Moreover, Verizon *used* to offer exactly this sort of service: you could do a normal 1xRTT data call to their system and access the Internet at the relatively slow speeds of 1xRTT for only the cost of the minutes used..

Re:Any device? -Pretty much!

[appleguru]

No official word on pricing, etc, but as of now anyways it looks like it will be both affordable and not too difficult to meet the "minimum technical standard"

From ars [arstechnica.com] (Emphasis mine):

All applications, operating systems, and runtime environments are supported so long as the devices connect properly to Verizon's CDMA network (they can make use of either the company's cellular and PCS bandwidth). The fee for certification of devices will be "surprisingly reasonable," we're told, and the program will be open to anyone. One Verizon exec went so far as to say that if someone builds a device in their basement on a breadboard, Verizon will test it and activate it. Smaller players will definitely be able to get in on the action, something that hasn't previously been possible.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

That's 27% of the *smartphone* market, which is not even close to 27% of the mobile phone market. Same article later talks about Apple having 3% marektshare overall, which is not nerely as impressive.

Re:This is what we've had in the UK for years...

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Ie, if you have a GSM or 3G phone and a SIM card then you can just use it in the UK.

This is exactly the way it works in the US with AT&T and T-Mobile, the two national GSM carriers in the US. AT&T offers UMTS (GSM 3G) and HSDPA, too (T-Mobile is waiting for the spectrum they purchased to become available).

PS. I think most Europeans, used to being behind on technology, are baffled by the US phone 'notwork'...

I'm not sure I'd describe Europe as 'behind on technology', but I would recommend that they learn more about the mobile phone situation in the US before judging. There are five national mobile phone networks, using three different technologies (GSM/UMTS, IDEN, CDMA2000) on four different bands (850/1900/1700/FMR). That's not even considering the hundreds of local and regional players, many of whom have more subscribers than major European carriers.

This seems typical of the "standard European comment about US mobile phone networks". The US has over 100 million GSM subscribers. You could at least bother to scan the Wikipedia article about Verizon Wireless before talking about how "poor" our mobile service is here. Yes, things are billed differently here (we pay for incoming calls but typically pay less per minute). Some things are better (unlimited EDGE/UMTS/HSDPA for $20/mo, "free" nights/weekends/in-network calling), some things are worse ($0.15 per SMS - send AND receive). But we're not some kind of mobile backwater. Evil providers notwithstanding.

Re:technically not possible

[m2943]

You misunderstood. You're using your phone as a modem: your phone pretends to be a serial modem and uses your data plan. I do that all the time myself.

What the GP seemed to want was to use his phone to connect to a remote analog modem without using a data plan. It's not unreasonable, but basically, it doesn't work.

Re:No

[Stonent1]

Verizon's biggest problem is themselves. They have the best coverage in my experience by far, but everything else about them drives customers away. They disable features on the phones, they customize the OS on the phones to ensure Verizon lock-in. They are the cellular version of the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld. "What you want extra butter for your bread?! NO SOUP FOR YOU!"

I've never been to Europe so I don't know how Vodafone treats their customers (Vodafone is part owner of Verizon Wireless) so I don't know who's influencing these decisions.

Re:No

[noc007]

(2) Verizon changes their network over to GSM nationwide.

(2) isn't going to happen.

Not necessarily. Verizon has stated [rcrnews.com] that it intends to move towards LTE [wikipedia.org]. LTE is essentailly 4G GSM. I guess they caved to the wills of their 45% stake owner, VodaPhone.

I don't know how the hell VZW is going to migrate their customer base. I suppose they'll allot a certain amount of spectrum for LTE with the according devices, then scale back the spectrum allotment for CDMA as customers upgrade away from their broken phones to the new shiny. Mind you, I am not that intimately familiar with CDMA, GSM, or VZW's spectrum and equipment to know if that's feasible, so don't quote me.

Re:CDMA vs GSM

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, that'd explain it. I was waiting for some expliantion as to what was going on, why this was relevant. I was thinking Verizon was GSM based and just let any GSM phone onto their network (like virtually all other GSM providers do) - certainly, I just hopped onto USA GSM providers with my Vodafone New Zealand phone without difficulty.

Yes, CDMA is losing market share. Telecom NZ made a big marketing effort about their CDMA network saying how good it is. But, even they are biting the bullet and will be migrating to UMTS in the future. Telstra (large telecommunications company in Australia) is straight shutting down their CDMA network and using the spectrum to expand their GSM/UMTS network. (It was always comical that Telecom could roam to Australia and the USA. Originally, it was good for people visiting the USA but since then, GSM networks in the states have rendered that irrelevant.)

The future, internationally, for CDMA is bleak.

Re:No

[Zebedeu]

I've never been to Europe so I don't know how Vodafone treats their customers (Vodafone is part owner of Verizon Wireless) so I don't know who's influencing these decisions.

It's hard to tell, because if they wanted to be dicks (and I believe they would), they would get hammered by the competition.

But for reference, I just bought a Vodafone-branded phone, even though it's unlocked and I'm using it on another network.
In this phone, of the three available buttons on the home screen, one is set to access the vodafone web page (which doesn't confirm if you want to access the internet -- it just does). As you might expect, this button is used for other things, like hanging up a call, which means that you can have lots of fun closing your web browser every time the person on the other side hangs up before you do, and you press that damn "vodafone live" option by mistake.

For what it's worth, I never saw the standard software for this phone (SE W660i) so I don't know if the button always had this functionality, but I had another SE (K750i), and it didn't have this problem.

I will buy a phone with Android as soon as it's available. I hope its open nature will stop companies from being able to pull crap like this, but at least I should be able to change some option on the web browser which asks for confirmation before accessing the web.