Symbiosis 60

The living together in permanent or prolonged close association of members of usually two different species, with beneficial or deleterious consequences for at least one of the parties

Connecting People??? How about Fragmenting the World.

Posted by Maciek Thursday, December 20, 2007

I was debating whether I should write this post about Nokia or not but then I thought to myself... I need to release some steam since I'm being treated like a bastard child by Nokia.

It's no secret that once you lay your hands on any nokia phone, you like it and become a follower. The user interface is easy to use blah blah blah. Then if you are an advanced user and you get to play with S60...it just swallows you in. Recently I decided to switch from N95-1 to N95-3. In either case I was going to loose / gain something. By giving up N95-1 I lost the access to 3G during my trips to Europe. With N95-3 I gained the access to American flavor of 3G..but NOT really. I'm a T-Mobile subscriber (yeah..those who read my previous posts probably will vomit if I'll mention "Lavender" operator any more) which is yet to deploy their 3G service but on a different frequency that the US version of N95-3 operates (it uses at&t frequencies). Because of that I feel that Nokia is an unfair player on the US market. We already have the abundance of shitty phones (RAZR, RIZR, KRZR, STPD, crippled CDMA flip phones on Verizon or Sprint, gazillion of flip samsungs on at&t and my fav T-Mobile). I spit on carrier's selection. It makes me even more sad when I see that Nokia decides to flood the shelves of carrier stores with VERY basic phones. If you want a basic phone but one that would be successful - give us 6300. Spare us the "wonderful selection" of one or two 3G capable phones that work only on at&t. Yes..the recent unveiling of 6263 on T-Mobile gives us a hint that 3G days of T-Mobile are near. That makes me think...if Nokia can churn out one phone that will support WCDMA 1700 (aka T-Mobile 3G flavor) then obviously Nokia has done the testing and research required for the device ond the network. And here comes the part that totally pisses me off. N95-3 was released at the time that Nokia COULD already implement 1700 WCDMA along with 850/1900 (at&t). They chose not to. This is an obvious point that Nokia said to themselves..let's f..k around with America, give them a taste of 3G in a great device. If it fails, we will never do anything else. Well..the early adopters (including myself) are a living proof that N95 with US 3G would be even a bigger success if it was released as such from day one. People are selling their 95-1's left and right are switching to 95-3 even if it means loosing some money (for the buyer..they have to sell their Euro 95 for less and buy US version for more). So now comes the time of N82, another uber device, yet the virtual family is still split between two worlds. How is it possible that Nokia is supposedly "Connecting People" when they release N82, having the specs for US and EU 3G frequencies with ONLY European frequency. No EU/at&t, No EU/t-mobile, NOT EVEN at&t/t-Mobile. This simply SUCKS. If this trend will keep going on, I don't think Nokia will be worthy of their own slogan since they do more fragmentation than connection. Any company can claim to be "Connect People". Mr. Alexander Graham Bell was the only one worthy that slogan as he was the first one that really connected everyone. So my comment to Nokia.... Don't treat USA (hell...I'll even say the Whole America) like the unwanted child that you can tease with nice toys from time to time) and for GOD SAKES create kick ass devices that will make everyone (or at least 95%) of the population happy. The translation of my comment is (N82-3, N96 and whatever other N's will be coming out with Either mixed with Euro and BOTH N.A. frequencies or at least if it's designated for the American market then make it work on all 3G frequencies here). You'll make a LOT of people happy. Trust us..we're just as pissed about our government being a bitch with frequencies as the rest of the world but we can't do anything about it - YOU Can. Connect People.

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2 comments

  1. Kreator Says:
  2. Operators will choose what ever they please for their product lineup, it's not Nokias fault US operators have so crammy lineup on devices

    And for the 3G frequencies... why does the US always have to change the frequencies? Nothing thats in use in Europe can be taken into use without 1st changing the hell out of it. And operator-specific 3G frequencies... that's just unbelievable stupidity. Rant to those who makes these kinds of idiotic decisions, not Nokia for trying to please customers in US where operators are almost impossible to please. ATT and T-Mo just have way too much power

     
  3. Maciek Says:
  4. Mikko,

    I agree..the operators do have TOO much power. I do not think though that it's just one operator that came up with the idea of WCDMA on 850/1900/1700 Mhz frequencies. I'm not that familiar with how it works but my guess is that they look at the frequencies available, technical possibilities of launching services on them and then decide to deploy it. From what I've heard (or what everyone has been told) the European WCDMA frequencies are simply not available in Americas. It IS the US that dictated these frequencies in the first place to this part of the hemisphere and now everyone follows it. But then again it could be as well for the same reason that PAL, SECAM, NTSC and Region 1,2,3,4,5,6 on DVD's exist, and that movies are released with six month delay in Europe vs US (not always)..basically to make more money and control the market. But BECAUSE of that, manufacturers all over the world release region free DVD players, or Multi system TV's that work all over the world or even the reason that P2P networks exist. This is a fight between the governments and the manufacturers...which most of the time happens that is a win for the product manufacturer that releases multi-protocol devices and in the end for the customer. In my book Nokia (and others) ARE fragmenting the world by not releasing the devices that support the frequencies on both continents. USA is a freaky country where people are being pushed into believing that they have the freedom to do anything but in reality there's more censorship and control here than anywhere else. US butchers up everything they touch to for the obvious reason of "crowd control"... But if the manufacturers can release Quad band GSM with WCDMA 2100 AND 1900 then I don't see a reason not to release a device that would be a true world phone. Here's another thing that the American government tried to push...in Iraq..when they announced the bidding for wireless spectrum they wanted to award it to CDMA operator..imagine if Iraq would be the "backward oasis"...the only country with CDMA in the Middle East surrounded by GSM all around. Luckily this did not fly with Iraq government or whoever made the decision.. Now I do not plan to go to Iraq any time soon but I would go F..ing crazy if I'd land there just to find out that only piece of crap Sprint / Verizon phones work there. :-)