Big Communications Companies Fight New Technology

[Guest Blackwater]

BBC

A court is set to decide on a row between operator T-Mobile and wi-fi

phone firm Truphone.

 

Truphone has accused T-Mobile of hindering its service by blocking

calls made to numbers owned by the fledgling mobile operator.

 

To rectify the situation, Truphone has applied for an injunction to

force T-Mobile to put the calls through.

 

In court documents T-Mobile said it had offered Truphone a deal to

route its calls that had been rejected.

 

The Truphone service works by routing calls via wi-fi when handsets

are within range of wireless hotspots the phone can connect to.

 

By using the wi-fi and the net Truphone hopes to cut mobile call

costs, particularly those made to long distance numbers.

 

In its court documents, Truphone said T-Mobile was "abusing its

dominant position" by not putting its numbers through.

 

In papers filed to the court by T-Mobile, the operator said a deal had

been done over handling calls but Truphone had rejected it.

 

Truphone said it could not comment on the legal row while the case was

ongoing. T-Mobile said it could not comment as it was in the middle of

court proceedings.

 

The case was first heard on 11 July and a final decision is expected

on 16 July.

 

- - - - -

 

I'm suprised we haven't seen more such cases in the USA.

Oh well, just WAIT ... as new technology makes the old,

large, communications companies more and more irrelevant

they are bound to come up with ever more creative ways

to undercut the newcomers. We've seen some efforts in

the past ... telephone carriers who didn't want any

alternative providers to use their lines for voice

or internet. Cable TV companies who tried to outlaw

satellite TV in areas they dominated. Increasing

noise about VOIP.

 

Even thus, I think we've barely seen the tip of the

proverbial iceberg here. When 'alternatives' move from

being a mere irritant to a genuine THREAT to profits

the lawyers will come out of the woodwork and swarm

over the landscape the way Microsoft lawyers swarm

over OS-X and Linux.

 

The BIG change will come when traditional wired

communications are threatened. So far, most everyone

depends on the copper or fiber backbones created and

maintained by Big Com. As long as they can rent/lease

that physical network they can still make tons of

money. But what if the importance of physical networks

diminished ?

 

There's a technology intended for short-range networking,

generally in office buildings, called "ZigBee". Your data

is sent to the nearest device supporting ZigBee an then

to the next, and then to the next, until it finally gets

to where it's going. Given the sheer density of cell

phones nowdays, what happens if each is set up to support

a more robust form of ZigBee - your text, and some voice,

messages bypassing Big Coms physical network entirely

and instead jumping from phone to phone to phone to

phone directly ?

 

No, it's not good for long-distance ... too much

'latency' (transfer delay)... but it IS good for text,

some voice apps, e-mail and certain kinds of web apps

where a touch of latency doesn't matter. Intracity

'ZigNets' COULD be implemented right now.

 

Big Com makes BIG bucks on this kind of communication,

and suddenly it wouldn't. Think it's going to take it

lying down ???

 

Remember the stories of when automobiles first became

popular ? Cities would write ordinances requiring that

each auto be preceeded and followed by a man on a horse

carrying a red lantern and shouting warnings. Clearly

the town blacksmiths, carriage-makers, stablemasters

and horsefeed providers were behind such laws. What

legal idiocies will Big Com come up with ? So long

as they still have a fat wallet, they can buy senators

and congresscritters.

[Guest Ace]

>

> I'm suprised we haven't seen more such cases in the USA.

> Oh well, just WAIT ... as new technology makes the old,

> large, communications companies more and more irrelevant

> they are bound to come up with ever more creative ways

> to undercut the newcomers.

 

Unseen to consumers, this has been going on since 1996. Telcos in the US

have been protect their 50 year old business models with literally billions

of dollars and a lot of broken promises. Billions of dollars buys you a

lot of government. There are quite a few disruptive technologies that have

been implemented in other parts of the world which benefit the consumer.

We don't see them here due to laws and rules developed by Congress, FCC and

others. The carriers took $200 billion of tax payer money to create a fiber

optic network that reached to every house. How's your fiber optic

connection today?