US leading the mobile world
The US leads the world in mobile.
I realise this statement might seem out of whack given that many would argue that Asia and Europe are way ahead in the mobile game and always have been with penetration at over 100% in several countries because many people have more than one cellphone.
I know that when I returned to the UK in 2005 after being out of the country for five years that I felt way behind the curve when it came to watching friends constantly text and take photos. Hardly anyone seemed to be using the phone then to make calls.
When I left the States, paging was still all the rage.
But the view that the US is king-pin in mobile comes from John Donovan, the chief technology officer for AT&T, one of the country's largest carriers with an exclusive deal with Apple's iPhone.
Yes, that is the same company that seems to get hammered every other week for issues about dropped calls in regards to the iPhone in big urban areas like San Francisco and New York.
And yes, that is the same company that attracted the ire of users when it decided to end unlimited data plans at a time when consumers use their phones for accessing content in greater numbers than ever before.
And yes that is the same company that is now involved in a class action suit over those data plans which some customers allege were used to bait them into buying an iPad 3G.
All that aside, Mr Donovan took to the stage at VentureBeat's Mobile Beat conference in San Francisco where the chat centres on that all-consuming device so many of us carry everywhere.
The bespectacled Mr Donovan - who said he has a BlackBerry, iPhone, Android HTC, iPad, Kindle and wears a sensor to monitor body temperature and heart-beat - announced that his company "will move heaven and Earth" to meet the data needs of its customers.
Exactly how, he didn't say.
He was equally circumspect as to who to blame for this growing list of issues that have gleaned negative publicity for the company.
It was a little bit of everything, he said, from new chip-sets, phones, applications, traditional device-testing and a shortage of components that AT&T faced.
"I'll tell you the things it's not been," Donovan said. "It's not been capital, it's not been conviction and commitment."
During the question and answer session, Mr Donovan admitted to being weary of constantly being asked the hardy perennial about the US lagging behind the rest of the Asia and Europe when it comes to mobile.
"I get so tired of hearing that," Mr Donovan told conference organiser Matt Marshall.
In fact far from being a laggard, the US is way out in front, contended Mr Donovan.
"In the last three years, the US has been a clear leader when it comes to phones, design, operating system and applications."
He might well have a point, but I can't help here because when I asked Mr Donovan to personally expand on this view, he told me point blank that he wouldn't. His spokesman promised to send me a statement an hour later to put some meat on the bones.
And while Mr Donovan said that he wasn't trying to fob me off me, we shall see.
As the CTO of one of the major carriers in the US his point of view holds at least a modicum of interest.
But to that statement expanding on Mr Donovan's belief that the US is the leader of the pack, I am still waiting for it.
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~02~RS~)
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In terms of the carriers I would agree that they are leading the rest of the world as they are rolling out 4G today. It will be 2012 at best before Europe has a basic 4G infrastructure in place.
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Depends where you live. The USA is not one country, it's not even 50 states, it's hundreds of micro (or at least meso-) countries.
In the big cities like SF, LA and NY the US may be up with the curve, but not elsewhere. Even in upscale places like Cape Cod the cellphone reception is abysmal.
If you can't get a signal to the people, you don't lead the world in anything.
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Dear James,
Unfortunately, 4G in the US - as promoted by Sprint - is not the 4G network. WiMAX is the name of the service which is pitched at 4G. According to ITU, governing body that actually creates standards, WiMAX [as well as first LTE, which will be deployed in US by Verizon and AT&T later in the year] are 3G standards by definition.
More on WiMAX here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WiMAX
More on 4G, and explanation of 1st gen LTE, WiMAX etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4G
Secondly, in my own country I can use a 3.5G service dubbed HSPA+ which enables me up to 14.4Mbps, i.e. faster than WiMAX/"4G".
More than a year ago, I wrote a story on my publication that explained the move - http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2009/3/27/sprint-pathetically-renames-wimax-into-4g-to-keep-interest.aspx[note to moderators - if you feel this link as a pitch, feel free to remove it].
From my personal experience [own an AT&T and Vodafone worldphones], US definitely lags behind the rest of the world, even country I currently reside in [Croatia]. The major reason for issues US faces in terms of mobile coverage and penetration as such is lack of investment in the infrastructure and what caused that lack - mentality.
Charging for incoming text messages and calls disappeared from majority of countries back in 1990s, yet US carriers are nickling'n'diming their own customers. Naturally, real competition cannot happen - as foreign carriers are barred from entering the allegedly "free" market.
If Rogers from the North or America Movil from the South would be allowed to enter the U.S. market, two things would happen:
1) Better prices for the consumer
2) Better coverage due to competition
3) More American jobs as foreign companies tend to hire more and more Americans compared to American companies who love to "off-shore" [not just outsource, but offshore].
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I suspect that John Donovan, the chief technology officer for AT&T, like someone who has a top of the range private health insurance in the USA and lives near a centre of excellence honestly believes that the USA leads the world. However for the masses the reality is different; from personal experience of needing to purchase a local pay-n-go phone in order to receive GSM calls (by having them forwarded when out of GSM range) outside the bigger cities and then being charged for those incoming pay-n-go calls shows the Balkanisation of telephony that ensures that as a whole the USA is way behind the curve.
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