Do We Need National or Global Radio Technology Standardization?
In the United States, we’re dominated by several wireless radio technologies that cellular devices operate on: CDMA, GSM, HSPA, LTE, WiMAX (and possibly more). What’s the problem with this?
- It puts a burden on manufacturers to create multiple radios to communicate on the various technologies and integrate them into their devices, rather than just developing one device that can be sold by all carriers.
- It makes it difficult for people who develop mobile operating systems, like Google’s Android, to have to support multiple different models and radio technologies. Just look at Android’s latest releases. 4.0.4 was just made available, but only for GSM devices. 4.0.5 is rumored to hit soon for the CDMA/LTE version running on Verizon.
- It prevents a mobile user from taking their device from one carrier to another. A CDMA device from Verizon will not work on AT&T’s GSM network. Granted, there are frequency issues as well, but that’s another topic.
- For the most part, the rest of the world uses GSM. But Verizon and Sprint use CDMA, making it difficult, if not impossible, to use your device while traveling internationally. There are global devices, but they are few.
I figured that if we were to standardize on a wireless radio technology, it would solve a lot of these problems. So I posed the question to Martin Cooper, the man who invented the cell phone. He raised a red flag about this saying that it would bring competition to a halt because manufacturers wouldn’t have any reason to innovate or compete, because they’re simply meeting a standard.
But I disagree. Standardizing on a wireless radio technology doesn’t prevent manufacturers and carriers from innovating with device specs (speed, storage, screen size, etc) or features (3G->4G, quad-core for gaming, etc). In fact, I think it frees up room for innovation by giving the manufacturers one less thing to worry about and allowing them to pump out a phone that can be sold across all carriers (saving them money having to tweak the device to work for a different carrier).
Plus, it puts more incentive on the carriers to provide better, more affordable service, because it makes it that much easier for me to take my device and cheaply switch carriers if my contract allows me.
Thoughts?
