fgoldstein <ion...@gmail.com>

At 2/27/2008 06:11 AM, Lee Dryburgh wrote:
Just as with my quick look into the Verizon open network claims, my
look into AT&T open network claims are the same - nothing of substance
and certainly nothing newsworthy, let alone anything that deserved the
media coverage it got:

http://groups.google.com/group/EmergingCommunications-public-general/...

I think AT&T was responding to the publicity that Verizon got when
they announced that they would be allowing "bring your own" handsets.

Verizon uses CDMA, which is popular here in the US.  I dare say it's
technically superior to GSM (2G), but the GSM world went to some
lengths to prevent CDMA from joining the SIM club.  So CDMA sets don't
have SIMs, and their ESNs have to be registered with the network.
That led to a kind of subsidy-lock system in reverse, where the phones
are subsidized but you still couldn't bring your own.

As a result of the rules for the 700 MHz C Block, which require the
network to allow the user to "bring your own" device, Verizon adopted
a new policy.  Besides, it costs them nothing -- it means they can
have more iPhone-like unsubsidized phones on their network.  They got
a lot of publicity for it. (I even got interviewed about it on New
England Cable News.)

So AT&T, which of course had adopted GSM a few years ago (after using
ESN-based IS-136 TDMA for years), announced that they too would be
open.  It's a non-event, true, but it means that instead of their
merely looking the other way at SIM swaps, they officially accept what
is standard practice elsewhere.

Verizon will be migrating to LTE, which uses SIM cards, so the CDMA
problem will be phased out over time.