USA Today's Leslie Cauley has this puzzling piece today that carries the headline "AT&T flings cellphone network wide open." Say what? Just like that AT&T is following in Verizon's footstep by allowing any application, any device to work on its network?
"You can use any handset on our network you want," says Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T's wireless business says in the article. "We don't prohibit it, or even police it." de la Vega even goes so far as to proclaim AT&T the most open network ever. "We are the most open wireless company in the industry," he says.
AT&T claims it has always been open...it just didn't tell anybody. Now, however, sales people in AT&T phone stores will make sure customers know.
But one device AT&T sells will remain closed. The iPhone, of course.
What is this? How can AT&T suddenly proclaim openness and, even more ridiculously, proclaim that it has been open all along?
For one thing, as Ryan Block notes, this is a PR game by the nation's top mobile provider. AT&T is no more open today than it was yesterday. What AT&T means by "open" is that you can take your SIM (subscriber identification module) card out of your AT&T phone and plop it into any non-AT&T phone and run on AT&T's network.
A SIM card applies only to GSM networks, one of the two prevailing wireless standards which is nonetheless the more universally available standard. The SIM card is a circuit board that holds the details of the subscriber, security data, and memory to store personal numbers and is what helps the network identify the subscriber.
Putting an AT&T SIM card into a non-AT&T phone means that that a customer's phone number will work on the new phone, but does it mean that AT&T's network will support all the applications that the non-AT&T phone offers? I think not.
Because that's the real innovation that Verizon will embrace once it goes "open." Verizon Wireless has announced its intention to support Google's open mobile software platform Android, joining T-Mobile and Sprint as, if not official Google partners on the new platform, then as enthusiastic supporters.
Speaking yesterday at UBS' annual media week event, Verizon president Denny Strigl said:
Android is not something we have formally signed onto...but rather it is an operating system and we are open to any and all operating systems. Will we support Android? Sure we will, just as would any other operating system under the open access model.
Granted, Verizon will still have the final say in whether applications or devices can work on its network, something that rankles a lot of people and raises suspicions about whether Verizon's openness is merely a ploy to fool the world.
Yes, yes. AT&T is more open today because its GSM standard encompasses SIM cards and Verizon's CDMA standard won't even allow this. But Verizon is moving to a new standard next year called LTE that will allow reduce this problem.
In any event, if AT&T is the most open network ever, does that mean it will sign onto Android, or, as Verizon has done, become extremely supportive of the operating system? If that's the case, then why doesn't the USA Today article say so?
As you can see, this curious PR gambit only serves to raise questions about AT&T's so-called openness. I just need more information.
Cynthia Brumfield at 6:59 AM|Comments(0)
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