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European Carriers Claim Apple Should Pay for Network Infrastructure
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That is just untrue. In many countries, e.g. Sweden, tethering has been part of the deal with most carriers for a long, long time. It has been AT&T that has played the non-tethering card, not Apple.
Yet another reason people can expect unlimited to be gone when the next iPad/iPhone get released
Every company is inching closer to continuing to screw customers with smaller and smaller caps
Every company is inching closer to continuing to screw customers with smaller and smaller caps
this is stupid and insane. let's say that apple and google now have to pay. ok, fine. apple and google now offer unlocked phones with no contract for $400.00 with a disclaimer saying "do not use on anybody's network."
then, when the customter buys it and activates it, no fault on apple and google.
if the carries are crying that bad, then change your plans to accommodate the traffic. 1 G limit and CHARGE the END CUSTOMER! that's called capitalism. what will happen is that competition will start and eventually come back to normal.
communist pigs the europeans are. no, don't put responsibility on anybody. go after the "big guy."
jerks....
then, when the customter buys it and activates it, no fault on apple and google.
if the carries are crying that bad, then change your plans to accommodate the traffic. 1 G limit and CHARGE the END CUSTOMER! that's called capitalism. what will happen is that competition will start and eventually come back to normal.
communist pigs the europeans are. no, don't put responsibility on anybody. go after the "big guy."
jerks....
What Apple should say.
'Sure, we'll cover some of the costs of your network upgrades, meanwhile, we've got some expensive potential upgrades we want to test for the iPhone 5, heres the bill for testing, the bill for the salaries of our employees, We're upgrading our Data centre, its only fair you pay for that. Ooh! and I guess you could cover the cost of production for our iPhones and iPads.'
'Sure, we'll cover some of the costs of your network upgrades, meanwhile, we've got some expensive potential upgrades we want to test for the iPhone 5, heres the bill for testing, the bill for the salaries of our employees, We're upgrading our Data centre, its only fair you pay for that. Ooh! and I guess you could cover the cost of production for our iPhones and iPads.'
Not sure how broad you meant this comment to be...but from what I can tell Europe IS pretty forward looking, until that drops them into a recession and severe Austerity measures. Suddenly not so forward looking...
What flies in the face of the reason the carriers are trying to apply here is their own hypocrisy in the form of the many pay as you go plans they offer.
For example: you pay for £10 for 1GB of data usage. You as a customer expect to be able to use this, as and when you have the need for it. Yet for some obscure reason, carriers apply a "best before" date to these plans. If you don't end up using all the bandwidth you payed for within a stipulated time frame you're out of luck, access denied. Please pay again. The carriers have taken your money and ran with it. Insufferable companies.
For example: you pay for £10 for 1GB of data usage. You as a customer expect to be able to use this, as and when you have the need for it. Yet for some obscure reason, carriers apply a "best before" date to these plans. If you don't end up using all the bandwidth you payed for within a stipulated time frame you're out of luck, access denied. Please pay again. The carriers have taken your money and ran with it. Insufferable companies.
I advise you to check your facts first. The EU (not the telcos) wants a universal method of charging cell phones, read "one adapter suits all". And I think that is a great suggestion, don't you?
The carriers are greedy a**holes, no matter what country, period. They all want a piece of every phone and service, and now they don't even want to pay their own costs to do business. Wow. Yet, the carriers have no problem paying for all those commercials that say "...we're the best, we have the fastest network, join us, we have room for you...blah blah blah...".
STOP messing with our phones, STOP trying to take over the world one (binding) consumer contract at a time, STOP acting like dictators and communists, and just focus on what you are - a network service provider. PROVIDE b*tch.
STOP messing with our phones, STOP trying to take over the world one (binding) consumer contract at a time, STOP acting like dictators and communists, and just focus on what you are - a network service provider. PROVIDE b*tch.
In a way I almost feel for the carriers. A promising business model of locking customers into underperforming handsets and then charging a premium for the service is now rapidly collapsing before their very eyes. What looked like nothing but high profit margins in perpetuity 10 years ago, now looks like the bleak, bombed-out landscape of Europe after WWI.
In essence, these are just the machinations every dying business model must go through. The carriers are desperately holding off the day when they cease to matter and are really nothing more than low cost bit haulers. The future of the cell phone industry belongs to companies like Apple, Samsung, HTC, and other handset manufacturers. The real profitability lies with innovations on the handset side, and the market for hauling the bits around will come to resemble Comcast vs. your local phone company the only difference is we'll be adding Verizon, Sprint, and whoever else manages to survive the inevitable change that is coming to that mix.
Granted, the carrier's old business model won't go without a fight, but it will eventually go. Commercially, there just isn't anything all that sensational about getting data from point A to point B. The days of wanting an iPhone but not wanting AT&T or wanting an HTC Evo but not wanting Sprint are coming to a close because arbitrary handset/carrier couplings don't make sense anymore and customers want more flexibility.
In essence, these are just the machinations every dying business model must go through. The carriers are desperately holding off the day when they cease to matter and are really nothing more than low cost bit haulers. The future of the cell phone industry belongs to companies like Apple, Samsung, HTC, and other handset manufacturers. The real profitability lies with innovations on the handset side, and the market for hauling the bits around will come to resemble Comcast vs. your local phone company the only difference is we'll be adding Verizon, Sprint, and whoever else manages to survive the inevitable change that is coming to that mix.
Granted, the carrier's old business model won't go without a fight, but it will eventually go. Commercially, there just isn't anything all that sensational about getting data from point A to point B. The days of wanting an iPhone but not wanting AT&T or wanting an HTC Evo but not wanting Sprint are coming to a close because arbitrary handset/carrier couplings don't make sense anymore and customers want more flexibility.
Probably because Google was never really in bed with specific Telcos... I suspect disabling tethering was one of AT&T's demands, because I was actually able to tether before people on AT&T could (Proximus in Belgium).
I disagree. First, the handsets are still useful, since in many places (home, office, uni, cafés etc) you have wifi access. But mainly, it is the carriers that provides the (non-wifi) data service, and so they have the power to charge whatever they see fit. Naturally, that means that many smartphone users will jump ship if there is a good competitive market. It it their choice. But sure, if they can made a win-win argument to some companies to share the cost (and profit), it is of course up to them. But what's up with this whining?
And that recession was caused by? And will be deepened by? Think hard grasshopper
(Or shall we start the money presses as well and print 900 billion Euros?. That sounds like a plan).Seriously?
Has Europe forgotten Economics 101? The cost of infrastructure and anything else that your business incurs gets passed to the customer, NOT the technology partner. Like a previous poster said, if you don't want the hassle then don't partner to offer the technology to your customers. It's real simple.
Here endeth the lesson.
Has Europe forgotten Economics 101? The cost of infrastructure and anything else that your business incurs gets passed to the customer, NOT the technology partner. Like a previous poster said, if you don't want the hassle then don't partner to offer the technology to your customers. It's real simple.
Here endeth the lesson.
I think it is Apple that disabled it when your phone is activated. Technically the cell phone carrier only knows the phone is asking some data on the internet. It does not know whether the request is originated from another device connected to the smartphone.
And that recession was caused by? And will be deepened by? Think hard grasshopper
Well, grasshopper, I think we were talking about how forward looking Europeans were...but thanks for the on-point snark.
Why does MacRumors continue to push this completely bogus line of propaganda?
- being able to change SIM cards means the handset owner can determine their carrier
- embedding SIM info in software means the handset manufacturuer can determine the carrier
This is a dumb article that seems to be entirely grounded in sensationalism and little to no facts. If these devices cause the demand for network infrastructure improvements - the customer is going to end up paying for it one way or another, and it'll get paid for somewhere in your wireless agreement. The rest of this is just posturing in how the carrier/manufacturer subsidies work out or how your data plan gets billed.
Yawn.
Yawn.
If they're going to do that, the better way to go would be for Apple, Microsoft, HTC, Samsung, Motorola, etc. to band together and buy or create their own shared global network (or maybe just start in certain countries), cutting these carriers out of the equation completely. Would it be expensive? Hell, yes. Many billions, hundreds of billions even. But they'd get complete control over their product for the first time, no more concessions to be made, would have to pay nothing back to the carriers for the "privilege" of being on their network, and could charge whatever voice and data plans they want and keep 100% of the profits. This would also help standardize every phone to the same technology.
This would be roughly tantamount to a demand that Burger King pay for my angioplasty.
You KNEW the phone was going to be high traffic. If you don't want to put the strain on your network, don't offer the phone. Hell the iphone 4 is the easiest of all: don't create micro sims for it, period.
You can't have your cake and eat it too: you want the most popular phones in the world on your network, then you better have the network to back it up. If you're unwilling to build up your network to meet the needs of smartphone users, then just continue to offer the motorola razor and add the jitterbug to your list of available devices.
You KNEW the phone was going to be high traffic. If you don't want to put the strain on your network, don't offer the phone. Hell the iphone 4 is the easiest of all: don't create micro sims for it, period.
You can't have your cake and eat it too: you want the most popular phones in the world on your network, then you better have the network to back it up. If you're unwilling to build up your network to meet the needs of smartphone users, then just continue to offer the motorola razor and add the jitterbug to your list of available devices.
Not suprised that this is the carriers stance.
Here in the UK the ISP's after years of saying buy our fast internet pipes with unlimited download, they even used to run adverts showing users running out of there download limit and not being able to do more till they stumped up more cash for more download limit, were suddenly surprised when people bought them and started downloading, watching online as they had been sold in the adverts.
All of a sudden the ISP's were crying that the BBC should fund upgrades to cope with the extra traffic generated by iPlayer when people were doing it as the ISP's were selling such a thing as a feature of the contracts that they were selling.
Here in the UK the ISP's after years of saying buy our fast internet pipes with unlimited download, they even used to run adverts showing users running out of there download limit and not being able to do more till they stumped up more cash for more download limit, were suddenly surprised when people bought them and started downloading, watching online as they had been sold in the adverts.
All of a sudden the ISP's were crying that the BBC should fund upgrades to cope with the extra traffic generated by iPlayer when people were doing it as the ISP's were selling such a thing as a feature of the contracts that they were selling.
money
Oh, yes, those, and also flashy conferences, executive parties & banquets catered by the best restaurants with top notch security and tens of thousands of dollars worth of entertainment, skyscrapers, stadiums... Oh right and the network & Employees.
Oh, yes, those, and also flashy conferences, executive parties & banquets catered by the best restaurants with top notch security and tens of thousands of dollars worth of entertainment, skyscrapers, stadiums... Oh right and the network & Employees.