-=> Quoting Jasen Betts to Tom Walker <=-

 JB> Hi Tom.

 JB> 07-May-04 11:58:50, Tom Walker wrote to Andy Ball
 
 TW> too ->  Here in the U.S. millions (or perhaps billions) of dollars
 TW> are being wasted -> building overlapping, incompatible networks.
 
 TW> Not necessarily. goverment Regualted Standards are Rarely Better.
 TW> The Competition of the War though typicaly is GOOD for the
 TW> Customer. Look at the Piched Battle between the Beta and VHS tape
 TW> standard/ We the Customer came away Far better off.

 JB> The way I heard it Betamax was technically superior to VHS.
 JB> how did the customer benefit?

He assumes that lower prices for lower quality is better for the customer.
 
 TW> And so we will in the Cell Phone Wars.

 JB> company A sells you a phone that won't work on companmy B's network
 JB> how's that good for competition?

 JB> if there were overlapping compatible networks the competition would be
 JB> more fierce, and the customer would be better off.

Alas, one reason for the different networks is the fact to to support
the density of phones found in major cities without needeing a cell
site every block, you need to use different frequency bands and
different protocols.

There's a limit to how many of those you can vcram into a phone before
it becomes too expensive.

So until they can build "all band/all protocol" phones *cheap* (which I
don't expect any time soon) we are stuck with the problem.
 
 -=> Bye <=-

 JB> -!-
 JB>  ! Origin: Open the pod bay doors, HAL. (3:640/1042)



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