Re: My Dinner With Marc Andreessen

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On Fri, 05 Jul 2024 10:56:20 +0200, Andreas Eder wrote:

Free markets ten ro become oligopols, if not regulated.

 
Case in point: the introduction of mobile phones. The Europeans decided
that there had to be a common standard, rather than having every carrier
build its own proprietary network. So they came up with a Government-
mandated spec called "GSM". Yes, it was a complex. bureaucratic spec, but
it was a proper spec, with compliance tests and everything. So you had
proper interoperability. The only thing that tied you to a particular
carrier was that you got your SIM card from them. So switching carriers
was as easy as getting a new SIM card.

Ahh, except that the spec included SIM Locking, with which all that
compatiblity can be made irrelevent for a user with a network-locked
phone:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_lock

Worse Telstra in Australia silently clamped down the network
locking so my new Telstra-locked 4G phone won't work with a
Telstra-reseller's SIM (same network, resold by another
company), even though my old 3G Telstra-locked phone does. So I
wasted my money on that (they'll unlock it, but for more than I
paid for the phone).

By the way, an example of BS on Wikipedia:
"In Australia, carriers can choose whether to SIM/Network Lock
 handsets or not, however in practice, is rarely performed except in
 limited cases. Almost all handsets available on the Australian
 market have no such restriction."
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_lock#Australia

Stores here are _full_ of locked phones and have been for decades.

This checks out for the UK though:
"The UK's mobile networks are to be forbidden from selling phones
 locked to their services from December 2021."
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_lock#United_Kingdom

Mobile networks banned from selling locked phones
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54692179

So yes governments can mandate universal SIM compatibility, though
it looks like it's not something broadly applicable in Europe, and
it's not just thanks to GSM. GSM clearly served the purposes of the
network operators more than those of users, by allowing them to use
common hardware while still restricting its usage to one company's
network. There's also still different frequency bands which aren't
all supported by phones.

Here in Aus I got an unlocked Nokia instead, and I now know I can't
buy new Telstra-locked mobile devices expecting them to work with
my SIMs anymore. So that's market forces at work. I'm one new
customer in the unlocked phone market, although a pretty grumpy
one who'd have been better off in the UK. I'll get around to
selling the locked phone on Ebay eventually.

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