The wireless industry is out of control.

Honestly, I don’t think that wireless consumers in the United States understand how bad they have it. There are 3 distinct tiers (levels) of carriers in this country, and consumers are being pretty much royally screwed by the first 2.

At the “premium” or first tier, we have AT&T and Verizon. They boast large nation-wide voice and data networks, with generally solid coverage. The problem is the price. We’re talking $100+ per month for one line of service, and even at this price were still talking limited voice minutes and data allowances.

What I would consider the second tier of wireless carriers is Sprint and T-Mobile. Although they both provide national coverage, it is not nearly as reliable (as far as land mass covered) as the first-tier, and their prices reflect that. On average consumers can expect to pay about $30 less for comparable plans on these carriers.

The third tier is comprised of regional carriers (Think Cincinnati Bell, U.S. Cellular) and pre-paid MVNO’s (Mobile Virtual Network Operators, who piggy back on the major carrier’s networks, think Virgin and Boost Mobile). These lower tier offerings often have no contracts, lower end devices, and limited plans or coverage areas. The bonus with these carriers are rates 50% or less of what first tier carriers are charging

So given this many options (notice I said options, not competition), why am I stating that consumers today are being ripped off? The reasons are many, but I’ll work up a short list. The first issue is devices. With only the top tier carriers receiving the newest and best devices, consumers who want a high end (or new) device, they will automatically be drawn to AT&T or Verizon. For example, keep in mind that the iPhone is (currently, we’ll see on Oct. 4) only available on these 2 carriers. The next issue is coverage. Consumers looking for a new cell phone or carrier will check how the service is in their area. Not only where they live but where they work and other places they frequent. Chances are unless you live in a big city you won’t have great service in all 3 areas on a non top-tier carrier. Even Sprint and T-Mobile have seemingly random dead zones in largely populated areas. The third (and biggest/most underestimated) problem is CDMA and locked GSM. Now I won’t bore you with the intricacies of the technologies but what it comes down to is AT&T (and T-Mobile) being on GSM (SIM cards), and Verizon (and Sprint) being on CDMA (no SIM cards). This inevitably leads to devices that can ONLY be used on one carrier, and never switched. If you want to change carriers, you must buy a completely new device. So even if you’ve braved the 2-year contract or opted to pay the ETF (early termination fee) to leave, the device is now useless.

These problems (along with countless others) all lead to the biggest issue: price. Because of the current market conditions and lack of competition, AT&T and Verizon are slowly gaining customers and market share, and smaller wireless providers are either losing money every quarter (see: Sprint) or being sold/purchased (see: T-Mobile). This all means that Verizon and AT&T are the only 2 companies that can often provide what consumers want. And unfortunately for us, this means that having a smartphone in today’s marketplace means $200 up front for the device, a 2-year contact including a $300+ ETF , and at least $100 per month for service.

This model is unique to the USA and is in extremely stark contrast to the situation in Europe. First off in Europe, all phones are GSM and all carriers operate on the same frequency bands (all interoperable). They are often purchased unsubsidized (no contract), unlocked and can be moved from carrier to carrier by simply replacing the SIM card. Second of all, there are literally dozens of comparable carriers in each country, which allows for device portability. These two facts put together lead to an extremely competitive marketplace with fantastically low prices. Consumers can see month-to-month (no contract) plans as low as 10 euros/mo., with unlimited plans in the area of 30 euros/mo.! The 2-year contract offerings are in the same price range, and provide completely free top of the line phones for signing a commitment. Carriers are practically fumbling over each other to offer more for less, and give the best deals. When the majority of their consumers could pick up and leave at the end of the month and move to a different carrier, there is extreme incentive to provide the best experience to their users (funny that Europe is showing the USA how markets work).

Now wouldn’t that be nice to have here? Well of course there are several issues with this, many of which cannot even begin to be explained in such a short post (more to follow), but I do not at all believe that the USA couldn’t see the same amazing competition and pro-consumer options available given the proper regulatory and market climates. We know that if there is device portability and there are more carrier choices, consumers will move to the best cost/benefit combination for their case. This inherently will lead to lower prices, better service, and a better wireless industry as a whole.

Can I please have the option to remove Android skins?

I’ve been an avid Android user ever since I bought my first device, a Sprint Evo 4G, a little over a year ago. I loved that device, and I’ve been an Android fan ever since. The things I like most about Android, which drove me to it and kept me on it, is the customization, the styling, and the usability. Android has completely moved me into the Google ecosystem, as Google would hope. I now use Chrome, Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Analytics, Voice, Talk, and all of the other amazing Google services. At this point, I couldn’t imagine my daily routine without these great products.

Being that my first device was an Evo 4G, the experience was using HTC Sense, as is true for many other Android users. I thought that this skin and experience was great at first, but I quickly hit the ceiling of customization and usability in a couple months and wanted more. I bought an Android phone to escape the walled garden of the iPhone, why was I being given the same experience with Sense? After researching and trying basic customizations to change the look of Android, I got fed up trying to tack launchers on top of Sense. My realization at this point is that I would have to root my phone (voiding my warranty in the process), and re-flash an entirely new ROM just to get the general features of stock Android (2.2 at the time). This kicked into gear my desire for stock Android on my devices…

In a few weeks, I was deep into the rooting and ROM flashing. I spent a lot of time on XDA developers forums (www.xda-developers.com), which has an amazing community, especially for the Evo which is a flagship for Sprint. I was doing my research, learning how to mod my device, and flashing a new ROM every week or so. This is fun for a while, but the luster wore of quickly for me, especially considering that this was my daily phone. Its like trying to work on a race car every night and driving it to work every day; far from practical.

Finally, after months and months of constant re-flashing of ROMs and modding my device, I pretty much got fed up chasing stock Android. I wouldn’t have to root my phone if I could get truly stock, untouched Android out of the box, with the full functionality that Google has already baked in. In comes the T-Mobile HTC G2. I dumped Sprint, sold my Evo4G, and bought the device, which has about as fresh, stock Android as you’re going to get outside of a phone with the word ‘Nexus’ in the title. No skin, no extra apps, and unblocked tethering. Life is good.

This gets me down to my point: Please phone manufacturers, give us a switch to turn off the skin, and turn on stock Android.

There was a time in the past, I’m looking at you 1.6 Donut, when a third party skin may have actually added to the Android experience. But in the age of 2.3 Gingerbread, this really isn’t true anymore. I realize that the manufacturers (and carriers, for that matter) are very invested, with both time and money, in keeping their skins on the devices and having consistent user experiences. I’m not asking them to give that up, I’m just asking for them to offer the advanced users (I use that term lightly) to get down to the base Android experience and build it like they want it. Put it as deep in the settings as you want to hide from regular users, but there really is no physical limitation to keep this from happening at this point in devices, only manufacturer ego. Device ROM is plenty large enough to hold even the most behemoth software packages, like Sense 3.0, there is no reason why they can’t throw stock 2.3 in there next to it.

The bottom line for me? My next device is going to be a stock stock stock Google Nexus device. I still like to root and mod my phones, but it shouldn’t be a necessary step in order to make a phone your own, make it do what you want, and get the experience Google intended me to get with an Android device. Differentiation is great, but choice on where I get that differentiation is even better.

Why I returned my Motorola Xoom

Today I chose to return my Motorola Xoom.

I had been holding off purchasing a tablet ever since the iPad became popular a year ago, and when Google announced Honeycomb, I was ready to jump onto the tablet bandwagon as soon as the Xoom was announced. I use Android daily on my T-mobile G2, and I have been extremely interested in the Android platform ever since the Nexus One. I’m pretty deep into the Google ecosystem now and I was sure that Google was going to extend their great platform to the tablet form factor.

After two and a half months with the tablet, I found myself not even powering on the Xoom’s screen for days at a time. There is nothing that this device offers that cannot be easier accomplished with a smartphone and a laptop (in my case a 13” MacBook Pro). Being a student, I need a device with me that I can get real work done on. For this reason, my laptop is always with me. There is no tablet available on the market that offers the kind of functionality required to get real work, such as heavy e-mail, web browsing, and notes all done with any type of efficiency near what a laptop can offer.

The only place the Xoom shines is while sitting on the couch, watching TV. In this setting, you can casually browse the web, keep up on things like Facebook and Twitter, read news, and play casual games. Beyond this, the Xoom really doesn’t have much mass user appeal. It can’t be used for content creation, and as far as consumption goes, there is an extreme lack of Honeycomb compatible/optimized apps, Hulu and Netflix are yet to be supported, and most major video formats for user-loaded video are either unsupported or poorly implemented.

Also, the Xoom is just too big. At 1.6lbs, with a small screen bezel, the Xoom is too heavy and awkward to hold with one hand. At first, I thought that the weight wouldn’t be an issue, but trying to do anything one handed really proved to be an arm-weakening task. This is multiplied by the fact that your thumb covers not only the bezel, but part of the screen while trying to hold onto the tablet. This leads to extra screen taps, and issues with tap recognition.

This brings me to my final point, price. When the iPad was announced over a year ago, Apple set the tablet price point at $499. Since then, other manufacturers are set on releasing at this price point, not realizing that they really must beat Apple on price in order to have a fighting chance. ASUS has proven with their EeePad Transformer that a 10” Tegra 2 Honeycomb tablet can be sold for $399, and I think this is a much more reasonable price point for a device like this that doesn’t have everyone’s favorite fruit on the back. At $599 for the 32gb WiFi model, the Xoom automatically priced itself out of the market.

So here’s the digest of why I returned my Xoom:

  • Android 3.0 (even 3.1) just isn’t ready
  • No hulu / netflix / video codecs
  • Too heavy / hard to hold 1 handed
  • Too expensive to beat the iPad

I eagerly await the day that a company can create a tablet that offers something that makes me want to leave my laptop at home, but until then, I’ll stick with my computer and my smartphone. I think ideal device will end up being something smaller and lighter than the average 10” tablet.

My first shot at a blog

Giving this whole blog thing a shot for the first time ever. Kinda surprising it has taken me this long to get on the bandwagon, but I think that while taking the summer off of school, now is the right time to devote some energy to putting down my thoughts somewhere slightly more meaningful.

I’m not exactly sure of the direction of the blog yet. My preliminary thoughts are that this would be my outlet to express my thoughts on different things, mainly how I feel about technology, business, and other current events when it sparks my interest. I’m hoping to get down a new major post every week covering a topic that hits me strongly, along with little posts here and there in order to keep the content going.

Well, let’s hope this goes well!

More to come… going to update with a bio section/post as I get the site built up better.

Top