> Carrier subsidized model should be ended to bring down consumer telecommunication costs. It only benefits the carriers.
In the US at least, everyone has to get on LTE before that becomes a reality. Sprint and Verizon 3G and older handsets can't speak the same language, I don't think. AT&T and T-Mobile both use GSM based systems so phone calls are possible using a handset form the other carrier, but their 3G frequencies are different - so you're hosed on mobile data. So, there's a de-facto lock into a carrier with your device even if there isn't one in the contract. (And $600 for a new device just for a different carrier is a hard sell, in a world where subsidies are gone.)
It's happening though. The problem is that companies like HTC charge the same price Apple does for the iPhone for what is a lower quality of product, in my experience. Once again, personal experience, but the number of hardware problems I've had within the walled garden of Apple are few compared to those in my Android days. And those that I've had have been fixed quickly by an Apple store representative, whereas with HTC or Verizon it was a multiple week ordeal.
That's something that makes the product itself even more valuable to me.
> The problem is that companies like HTC charge the same price Apple does for the iPhone for what is a lower quality of product, in my experience.
HTC charges a similar price for a lower quality phone that has a bigger display, more RAM, higher resolution display, more internal storage, external storage capability, etc, etc.
> In the US at least, everyone has to get on LTE before that becomes a reality
Many (most?) Verizon/Sprint phones support GSM already in order to gain worldwide roaming capabilities. If they just allowed R-UIM cards or allowed foreign ESNs to be registered on their networks, handset manufactures would quickly follow suit and ship multi-standard phones that aren't software locked to prefer a certain standard.
> AT&T and T-Mobile both use GSM based systems so phone calls are possible using a handset form the other carrier, but their 3G frequencies are different - so you're hosed on mobile data
High-end phones nowadays (such as the Xperia Z) support both 3G frequencies. Also, T-mobile are refarming their frequency allocations to open up 3G on their 1900 spectrum, same as AT&T. I could use my Euro-model iPhone 5 on T-Mobile 3G this year at WWDC.
I've always wondered: can a single phone have radios for all the different carriers? Could they share a single antenna? Could one be activated by the user selecting which network to get on?
> can a single phone have radios for all the different carriers?
All carriers in a single country? Yes, many do. All carriers worldwide? You'd be putting a lot of radios in the thing.
> Could they share a single antenna?
Not a radio expert, but I think each antenna has to be tailored to each wavelength. Maybe you can get away with one per band (one for 800-900, one for 1800-1900, one for 2100-2600)
> Could one be activated by the user selecting which network to get on?
You'd need a SIM card for each carrier you want and swap them out, and for American CDMA carriers you'd have to have your ESN registered with their networks beforehand.
All carriers worldwide would be tough, but a sufficiently multi-band GSM phone will typically give you pretty much worldwide roaming from a variety of carriers.
I'm in Europe. The last time I had a phone I couldn't effortlessly take to the US or Asia and use roaming was probably about '99.
Yeah, most modern phones will work most everywhere, but there'll always be one carrier's 3G or 4G network you'll miss out out. Some phones have really impressive radios in them now. Here's the Sony Xperia Z Ultra:
> You'd need a SIM card for each carrier you want and swap them out
There are phone models that support 2-3 SIM's , very useful when travelling so you don't have to swap anything but can call from different networks seamlessly.
I don't know about CDMA vs GSM, though I think it might work (there definitely are two-GSM-SIM phones, and GSM-and-CDMA doesn't seem philosophically different). Having a phone work on both AT&T and T-Mo, though, is easy, Galaxy Nexus or Nexus 4 can do that, just to name a couple of popular ones.
"All" I don't know about, but got to Aliexpress.com and search for "GSM CDMA" - you'll get a bunch of phones supporting multiple standards.
Many Chinese phones even sell with from two and up to 4 GSM SIM slots (that can be active simultaneously), so I wouldn't be surprised if you could even use both at the same time.
If the wireless situation doesn't resolve itself in the next few years, I suspect that it will drive software defined radio deployment to the masses. One phone with one antenna and chunk of silicon that can speak on any network, software permitting.
In the US at least, everyone has to get on LTE before that becomes a reality. Sprint and Verizon 3G and older handsets can't speak the same language, I don't think. AT&T and T-Mobile both use GSM based systems so phone calls are possible using a handset form the other carrier, but their 3G frequencies are different - so you're hosed on mobile data. So, there's a de-facto lock into a carrier with your device even if there isn't one in the contract. (And $600 for a new device just for a different carrier is a hard sell, in a world where subsidies are gone.)
It's happening though. The problem is that companies like HTC charge the same price Apple does for the iPhone for what is a lower quality of product, in my experience. Once again, personal experience, but the number of hardware problems I've had within the walled garden of Apple are few compared to those in my Android days. And those that I've had have been fixed quickly by an Apple store representative, whereas with HTC or Verizon it was a multiple week ordeal.
That's something that makes the product itself even more valuable to me.