Obama Asks FCC To Make Carriers Unlock All Mobile Devices 378
New submitter globaljustin writes "According to a Washington Post report: 'Several months after calling for legislation to unlock cellphones, the White House filed a petition (PDF) with the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday asking that all wireless carriers be required to unlock all mobile devices so that users can easily switch between carriers. ... the National Telecommunications and Information Administration said that allowing unlocked devices would increase competition and consumer choice, while also putting the burden of changing networks on companies rather than consumers.' This move should be met with universal acclaim from cell phone users, right?"
Re:The worst part of this... (Score:4, Interesting)
Another person asleep during the GWB years?
Or any other president in fact. All presidents are selective enforcers of the law.
So, that KORUS treaty is still a problem, I think. (Score:5, Interesting)
The interesting part is treaties can (and do) override what the US federal government can do.
Re: Topology (Score:1, Interesting)
CDMA is a newer standard compared to GSM. CDMA is still protected with patents (Mostly held by Qualcomm). While a lot of the patents surrounding GSM have expired (?). CDMA is more efficient for the given bandwidth (both number of connections and energy), while GSM is based on time or frequency division.
In countries like India, government regulation ensured that CDMA players didn't get any advantages monetarily, due to the better bandwidth utilization, over GSM players. Thus, ensuring a slow death for CDMA.
Re:Universal Acclaim? (Score:5, Interesting)
If it's anything like the UK it'll do nothing to subsidies as you're still contracted to 12 to 24 months or whatever, the difference is that when that time is up (or even before hand if you fancy paying for a contract you no longer use or have the option to buy out) you can now go to another carrier without needing a new phone for their network.
This is how it works in the UK. We still have contracts that subsidise handsets that you can be tied into, the carrier just can't prevent you using your device on another network afterwards or even at the same time if you're so inclined.
Re:Obama and the FCC dont get cell phone tech (Score:3, Interesting)
You can't have that many antennas in the phone without it being too big. There are half a dozen frequency bands ranging from 700Mhz all the way up to 2100MHz, and one antenna will not do it all.
Sure, it's easy enough to have a software defined radio like they do, but the amplifiers, LNAs, matching networks, and antennas are all cut for one or maybe two bands.
Re: Topology (Score:0, Interesting)
As I understand it, it's better designed for large geographical areas. US is a very big country.
Re:Not "ours" (Score:5, Interesting)
having worked for a phone company, in the very department that handles number portability, I can tell you that moving your number around is a huge pain in the ass for the phone company. And no, it's not because their systems are in the dark ages. It's because the PSC gives out number blocks in groups of 10,000. (think 555-555-0000 through 9999) and they ONLY give you so many. Now imagine your blocks of numbers filled with people that don't even have services with you... so now you have maybe 5 numbers in use in a block of numbers... and a major hospital gets built and needs 10,000 phone numbers. You go to the PSC and ask for more numbers, and they say "No, you already have 100k numbers in that area and you are only using 45% of them. Use the other numbers!" But the hospital needs them consecutive and many of those blocks are contaminated with non-customers. There are entire departments dedicated to dealing with these sorts of issues,
Re:Obama and the FCC dont get cell phone tech (Score:4, Interesting)
Welcome to 2011. The iPhone 4S supported CDMA and GSM with one SKU.
LTE made the situation more complicated though with the 5C/5S
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/166356-iphone-5s-and-5c-the-best-support-for-3g-and-4g-lte-networks-worldwide [extremetech.com]
Re:Obama and the FCC dont get cell phone tech (Score:4, Interesting)
yeah that's why we don't have pentaband phones going from 900 to 2100 on umts and gsm.. oh wait we do.
cdma networks in usa were on purpose built so that you're tied to the network as the phone provider. they should never have allowed to do so because it's pretty obvious what the result from that kind of arrangement is..
When you trace the origins of CDMA back to PCS, it was developed to overcome the bandwidth-sharing shortcomings of AMPS. The tech lock-in was more of a happy side-effect (for Sprint -- at the time still making a lot of its money selling long-distance carried on lines running on the Southern Pacific Railroad's rights-of-way.)