Hi, first let me say I totally echo Ricardo’s comments in that I really enjoy
your posts, find them packed with correct and valuable info and great opinions.
So keep at it.:)
That being said, I’m with Ricardo on this one. I think, possibly and I’m
willing to be corrected but your data on the US while correct is outdated.
We’ve moved off the subsidy model to an ownership model where you buy the
phone,own it unlocked and can move as desired. There are contracts available
with discounts if you wish to commit but there are also no contract options
available along with a host of equipment finance options or you can buy your
gear outright.
Secondly, the US carriers have migrated to GSM. I actually helped in
this process designing the VOLTE pods deployed on Verizon and interconnecting
VZW with other carriers mainly European for roaming and interoperability. I
can definitely tell you that the relationship between the carriers and handset
providers is now one that is more adversarial than what you’re proposing. It
may have been that way but the manufacturers of hardware are starting to try to
push around the carriers and the carriers push back. It’s not a situation
where the carrier and hardware provider play nice nice and work collectively to
screw the customer. Things just aren’t that friendly or organized.:) Add to
that some of the hardware vendors also build the cells and tower equipment so
you could have a Microsoft Nokia optimizing the network for their gear while
Ericsson gear might favor Sony and nobody Apple etc. It gets even stranger
when you realize an Ericsson packet engine might actually be a Juniper M10I
with an Ericsson label literally slapped over the Juniper. And I assure, none
of these business divisions talk to the others in anyway that even resembles
efficiency. I could never find the Ericsson contact internal to Juniper to
work together on routing problems for example and so forth.
Next, are we sure that the iPhone has an FM chip in it. I don’t
believe it does at least I don’t see it as an option on any of the chips
including the qualcomm 35 series but that may be the guy behind the keyboard
googling and not reality.:)
If there is an FM subsection on the chip on the dye we then have to ask
our selves is it wired in to the rest of the circuit or is it disabled by the
vendor. Many times chips are produced and are all similar but in reality
operate at different grades. A pentium 4 at 2 ghz is the same literal silicon
as one that runs at 2.5 it’s just the one that runs faster was graded higher in
testing and is that little bit better. Likewise a radio chip might be produced
and all the key features work but the fM not being ordered by the customer is
not functional or substandard so the vendor just disrupts the traces that head
in to this area of the silicon.
Next, someone raised the points of antennae. This is true, the antenna
array in most cell phones is tuned up in the 1.8 - 2.2 ghz range with obviously
some exceptions for lower and higher frequencies. A lot of the spectrum lies
in that range or in the 700 - 800 mhz spectrum. That antenna is probably some
sort of active electronics tuned to these ranges. FM being in the 88 to 108
MHZ range isn’t anywhere near the same wavelength. Many times the headphone
cord was used for an antenna but that’s not optimal. Also, many of these chips
have so much noise in the 100 mhz range as well as the AM band that you can’t
pick up a signal over the interference. All the noise in the circuits obscures
the over the air signal. Huge problem especially in modern digital radios
including table top radios. Try finding a good AM receiver these days, it
ain’t easy.
Finally and maybe most importantly, I personally think radio in it’s analog
over the air form is at the end of it’s useful life. I spoke to a fellow with
Clearchannel not that long ago and he told me in many markets now the number of
internet listeners exceeds the number of over the air listeners. More and more
cars are coming with XM or pandora or native Internet so the home of what was
exclusively the radio before is now that of all your digital electronics. The
broadcasters would love to have this change, no more FCC, no content police and
no more expensive radio engineer. I think hams will still fill the roll of
emergency communications but for the average joe they could care less whether
the signal was delivered over IP or over FM modulation. So my point is the
interest to enable isn’t there, even assuming the capability is. Believe me,
if Apple thought people cared about FM radio enough to buy there phones it
would be enabled tomorrow.
just my $.02
> On Jan 1, 2016, at 9:52 PM, Sabahattin Gucukoglu <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Hi Ricardo,
>
> Interesting thoughts.
>
> To be honest, I get the impression that the US has yet to get the full
> benefits of competition enjoyed by most of the rest of the world, who have
> had GSM all this time, and are now starting to realise what we now take for
> granted: that buying an unlocked phone is a long-term investment that pays
> off when you can switch to any carrier, and that the prices you pay for the
> phone are actually representative of their true value and not the discounted
> price carriers use to justify locking you to their networks. Before iPhone,
> and in a future world of low-price, low-margin smartphones, where Apple
> cannot enforce its interests on consumers by choosing its partners and
> hardware and software specifications and bringing with them the unwelcome
> consequences of lock-in, and every carrier works in every phone using GSM,
> there is at least the possibility for consumers to truly vote with their
> wallets. Unfortunately, just as with DRM in music, Apple had to sell out to
> the US carriers in order to grow adoption, and I think Apple has a way to go
> before being truly free of them. Their new upgrade programme and AppleSIM
> are a start, as is Google’s Project Fi, but as long as they’re dependent on
> deals with carriers just to sell their phones at reasonable prices and make
> basic phone functions work (4G, tethering) and they continue to approve
> carriers individually rather than just following standards and giving people
> what they pay for (what am I buying an “unlocked” phone for again?) there
> will always be a market for cheaper phones that cost so little you don’t need
> a carrier to subsidise them, or premium phones with less restrictive software
> features that are not locked to carriers. And the funny thing is, we’re
> already here. The draw of Samsung and Apple is there, but their grip on the
> consumer only lasts while they can get away with exerting that kind of
> control. My carrier in the UK couldn’t support the iPhone correctly without
> selling iPhones themselves; I temporarily moved to O2 to get the iPhone (and
> moved back to the VNO when they started selling iPhones and I could use 4G
> and tethering). And remember, all using GSM. And going in the other
> direction, Fi or AppleSIM or whatever, would only expose us to the potential
> misdeeds of our favourite vendors, now unconstrained by the competition
> offered by carriers, even as they support every band in the world on their
> flagship phones, to the potential benefit of consumers, but also potentially
> to the detriment of their wallets. You may think Apple can do no wrong, and
> I hope you’re right, but it worries me.
>
> So yes, my comment was flamboyant, but it’s not wrong. Apple still puts
> carriers before consumers, sadly. And not for nothing, either. :)
>
> On the App Store, which I agree is a more pleasant and sustainable experience
> for iOS developers, I simply meant that Apple makes money now from streaming
> app developers and helps the carriers by not using its FM chip. Having said
> this, I also believe Apple needs to recognise that developer interest will
> switch to the platform that is most rewarding, and both Google and Microsoft
> are desperately rolling out the red carpet to make that happen. As soon as
> alternatives become sufficiently tolerable and guarantee a decent income, you
> can be sure that the majority will win again. This is simple economics, of
> course. All the vendors you mentioned, plus Apple and Microsoft, are on the
> Play Store, for instance. You need to be there, because that’s where
> everybody is. I hope that Apple realises that developers are important, just
> as Microsoft did. I would hate to see iOS go the way of the Mac, and become
> just another underserved niche.
>
> A happy new year to you too. :)
>
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