Flesh eating wireless viruses, perfect duds, FCC and more on Cellular Carterfone

I was hoping to take a break from Carterfone. But then both me and Jason started reading the operators responses.

Hmm…

Stoppard has this line in ‘The Real Thing’ [Probably my favorite play] “Persuasive Nonsense. Sophistry in a phrase so neat that you can’t see the loose end that would unravel it. It’s flawless but wrong. A perfect dud. You can do that with words, bless ‘em.“

So we decided to unravel the crap the operators wrote. Full text is here

The argument is simple – the vigor and strength of the operators response (They even forced Motorola, Quallcomm and LG to support them) is the best indicator of how far the market is from being efficient and innovative. Otherwise – what are they afraid of ?

We outlined to remedies, which are easy tom implement and get the industry 90% of the way toward fixing the problems

1. The Commission should require each carrier to publish the existing CPE standards they use for certifying devices for use on their networks. Carriers must accept any CPE that meets those standards, and can reject any CPE that does not. Certifications will be handled by existing companies who specialize in handset certification.

1. The Commission should require each carrier to communicate to consumers what portion of their monthly bill is used to pay for service and what portion is used for the device. Furthermore, carriers should comply with Carterfone and offer a service-only plan.

Then we went on the address the specifc arguments the operators made – like protecting us from wireless viruses (Flesh eating?) or giving us free phones (Just pay us $50 for 48 month but its FREE) and more crap.

Next is to go in front of the FCC in person. Which should be fun

Ram

Pattern recognition and replication: Idani rowing

An 18 month old on a rowing machine ? Yes – after watching his daddy doing it, it was time to replicate the pattern…

R

Why handsets should be subsidized – but are not today

As I was working on the FCC petition, and especially after thinking through Tim Wu’s subtle (or not so subtle) points around handset ‘Subsidy’ I got to realize that we are looking at a serious case of the misleading rhetoric shaping the discussion.

When you buy a car, you have two options: Put down the whole $10K upfront. Or lease it, pay $1000K and then monthly payments for 24 months of $500. Your car is not ’subsidized’ by the car dealership – you just pay for it over time rather then upfront. And there is full disclosure how the lease payments were calculated.

Now when it comes to cell phones, operators some how managed to get us to think they are ’subsidizing’ the handsets. And that we should be nice and say monthly “Thank you for being so kind and subsidizing my handset ” as we are writing a check for $50 for their great “wireless service”

Handset are not subsidized today. Consumers are paying an arm and a leg for their handsets. And we don’t even know how much we pay for the service and how much for handset. The remedy, as we discussed in petition, is to have operators comply with Carterfone and have a “service only” no handset bundled monthly plan. Then we will know how much we really pay for handsets…

Handsets can be subsidized – for example – through advertisements. “We will give you this handset for free, but we have our ad engine incorporated” – That is subsidy. What we have from cellular operators today is not subsidy, but rather handset leasing.

R

Free My cell: Cellular Carterfone

Together with Jason of Brash we just filed our comments on the Cellular Carterfone.

You can view the RF&JD comments on Skype petition- or if you want a brief summary

1. Cellular handsets have become handheld computers, used for accessing information and other methods of communication in addition to voice calls. Cellular handsets have become small and powerful computers & Handsets have become our link to society and information:

2. The current cellular market is tightly controlled and oligopolistic, which results in inferior consumer offerings. We listed four examples: (i) Limiting handset features (Bluetooth/VZW, WiFi-E62, Hardly any WiFi-GSM handsets in the market. Only one Nokia N series in the market) (ii) Example 2: Slowing adoption of new consumer services such as visual voice mail (iii) Bundling handsets with service: consumers pay the same monthly service fee if they bring their own handset or get an operator ‘free’ handset and (iv) the Verizon Brew service which allows VZW to control information services and charge for content.

3. Enforcing the FCC’s existing broadband guidelines in the cellular handset market will benefit consumers and create new business opportunities. Three examples we gave: Free handsets and richer consumer offering with lower monthly service fees, First responders can get new specialized equipment or (iii) New types of Medical monitoring devices that can be developed

4. Remedy: The FCC should insist on cellular operator compliance and remove any special treatment for the wireless indsurty. This is about LESS regulation and less protection. Its about enforcing existing FCC open communication guidelines. First Enforce Carterfone principles: Devices can be offered by third parties and can not be blocked, and (ii) Operators should offer “service only” plans that do not bundle a handset with the service. Second Apply wired & broadband Net neutrality principles to Wireles.

There is only one Internet and one public IP network. Some nodes might be wired, some nodes might be wireless through the cellular network, some might be wireless through WiFi and some might use both or different networks. Same open rules and principles should apply – regardless if and end point is connected through GSM, CDMA, 80211G, 802.3 of any other technology acronym we cant pronounce.

If you want to support the Skype petition – click here to file comments with the FCC directly (it is quite easy – would not take more then a minute. Put ‘RM-11361’ in field 1. Document type is ‘Comment’ and you can type your thoughts in the bottom. Pretty straight forward)

Clarification – I was not paid to file this by Skype, Nokia or anybody else. I believe it is very important for consumers and the industry. And yes – I might be involved in one of the opportunities that will be created if FCC follows through (that is if C will not ban me from doing another startup)

Idanese – English dictionary

While both of Idan’s grandmothers have detected many more words during their visits than we have (in both English and Hebrew), here are the ones we hear consistently:

“No” – luckily, less frequent than it used to be! Accompanied by definite head shaking from side to side. This is a kid who knows what he wants! (But sometimes just saying “no” is half the fun, and he’ll then reach out to accept whatever he just refused…)

“Uo-Oh” Appropriately and frequently used

“Shoes” – we’d think this was a strange addition to his vocabulary if it wasn’t one of our friends’ daughters first words.

“Mih” – music. Said while pointing to the CD player. And not just any music – he has his favorites, of course, which unfortunately by definition now skip all the time because he’s tried putting them in the CD player on his own so many times.

“Doh” – dog! Said with a BIG smile and enthusiastic pointing whenever we pass one on the street, or when Idan sees one out the window, or even when he hears one barking in the distance. More ammunition for Ram’s campaign…

“Mama” – finally, seems pretty consistent. We’ve confused him by saying both “Mom” and “Ima,” but he seems to have settled on “Mama” for now.

“Baba” – also sometimes “Dada” (again probably not helped by our interchangeable use of Aba and Daddy).

“Car” – fairly consistent, although he’ll let a lot of them go by without comment (unlike dogs).

He entertains us with a constant stream of sentences, and words that we haven’t yet managed to attach to a particular meaning based on usage, but which he says very clearly and emphatically (he is doing his best to teach us, but we’re slow learners).

He loves bringing us books to read, especially ones with moving parts (puzzle pieces, pop-ups, and anything else he can destroy – um, we mean, play with). And he loves dancing as much as ever – we just took a great video that we’ll upload soon. He’s also a great climber, and will slide down not only the small slide in our backyard, but also the much bigger one in the playground all on his own.

He also still holds the world record for ability to soak any bib or shirt with drool in no time flat. And is a voracious eater – but luckily very active so, aside from his Buddha belly, it doesn’t seem to stick on him.

That’s the update! (C) 20007 C