Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Verizon Sneak Attack on Googleplex! Or Not!
What to think of the announcement yesterday that Verizon will open itself up to consumers who want to use non-Verizon-sold phones for their wireless service?
Was it a bold way to thwart new rivals, like Google and Apple, who are promising–but have yet to deliver–a world without the fascist rule of the “Soviet ministries,” as Walt Mossberg has called the cellphone carriers, with new phones, networks and software?
Or perhaps a clever PR feint by the U.S.’s No. 2 carrier to get regulators (and consumers) off its back as an auction looms for new wireless spectrum, in which Google convinced the Federal Communications Commission to set aside some for a new open network?
Or maybe more consumer confusion, since pricing is unclear and Verizon’s CDMA technology is not compatible with more GSM networks?
Or maybe, just maybe, it means the American market–long held hostage by the onerous rules of companies like Verizon–might finally be like the rest of the world and let consumers make their own choices about the phones and perhaps software they want to use?
Well, we have absolutely no idea, since we’ll believe it when we see it and when other carriers follow suit. Right now, most seem to love their consumer-trapping walled garden approach, through which they think they are protecting consumers from the wilds of the more democratic wireless world.
Thanks boys, but we can handle it, I think.
Nonetheless, others weighed in on the move, although with different takes:
