New Hardware Ahead
Such new software options sound great, but what about hardware? The "elevator pitch" on openness promises that any device will be able to access networks. That means you won't be stuck with your service provider's phones; if a phone doesn't harm a network, you can use it.
In the short term, handsets from outside the United States will likely see a growing presence on U.S. airwaves. The Nokia-dominated Symbian smart-phone platform, for example, owns the market worldwide but is installed on just a small percentage of U.S. cell phones.
Handsets won't be the only beneficiary. We will see gaming consoles, cameras, music players, and other consumer electronics being equipped with cell chips and cell access--even if they never make a phone call.
The Amazon Kindle is the first major example of such a device. The e-book reader includes a cell data modem that works only with Sprint's network, and its service bundles in the cost of network access as part of each item purchased.
"The folks from the consumer electronics side have been pretty vocal" about the benefits of such connectivity, says Forrester's Golvin.
Device manufacturers haven't bothered to integrate cell chips so far because if they did so they would have to work out complicated deals with a service provider and probably have to share their profits. But in an open-access world, Microsoft could build cell data access into a Zune, for instance, and simply prepay a carrier for airtime rather than make the carrier a full partner.
With the higher bandwidths to come from WiMax and the 700-MHz band, the inclusion of a cell radio in a camcorder or digital camera makes perfect sense. Instead of your having to offload pictures or video later, your files would transfer while or after you capture them.
"You'd never have to worry about the storage on your device," Golvin notes, and you could also become a live broadcaster "any time you felt like it."
Of course, if you have five or ten devices with cell phone chips, you won't want to pay $40 to $80 per month in access fees for every one of them. Network providers will have to be more flexible about the way they charge consumers.
The transition to a more open cell phone world will take a while--it'll be late 2008, even into 2010, before most of the benefits become fully available. Still, the device in your pocket certainly won't be like the average clamshell phone sold today. And if that phone doesn't do exactly what you want, you can change it.
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