Alec Saunders is a great guy, with a grin permanently etched on his face. I enjoy each chance to chat with him and lately, to engage in a blog discussion about the future of wireless spectrum.
Late last week, Alec [and likely some other readers] missed the sarcasm in the second paragraph of my August 8 posting. As a result, he accused me of pulling his leg, but in his post, I believe he is pulling mine.
Part of the problem may be that the NY Times has now placed its editorial behind its pay wall. As such, I suspect many did not see the NY Times closing paragraph and therefore didn’t understand my reference to the US wireless market as being primitive. The Times said:
The closed nature of America’s wireless networks is the main reason that its cellphone technology is so primitive compared with Europe’s and Japan’s. The F.C.C.’s new rules go part of the way to solve this, but unfortunately, American consumers have once again been denied a truly open and competitive cellular market.
Regardless of the source of the confusion, Alec wrote a paragraph worth examining further:
By not imposing use of spectrum rules, allowing consumers choice, and demanding that consumer be treated fairly by the very monopolies which they have created through their auction process, the US regulator has allowed a confusing mish-mash of technologies and anti-consumer behaviors to hold back the progress of the wireless industry. It’s ironic, given the US viewpoint that they are technology and free market leaders.
I disagree with Alec on the pejorative tone of allowing a ‘confusing mish-mash of technologies.’ It sounds like a criticism of the FCC and Industry Canada for not picking a single winner in the digital mobile technology sweepstakes.
Let’s face it. Had governments picked a videotape winner, we might all be stuck using Betamax. The free market picked VHS, not because of better picture quality, but (among other reasons) because with a 6 hour tape, one could record a whole week’s worth of soap opera episodes on a single tape. [Beta only offered a maximum of 4 hours of recording.] Consumers, faced with a choice, selected the winner.
Would GSM have been government’s first choice of digital standard?
Sure, there may have been some consumer confusion created between 3 competing technologies. But doesn’t that mean that customers saw competition and choice?
Is the software applications world any different? Competition and confusion between Windows and Linux? Firefox and Explorer? Pick the instant messenger. Name your choice of social networking service: MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn. It is all so confusing.
Surely no one would argue that there should have been a single mobile wireless technology, any more than we would want to preordain a winning software application.
For the same reasons that both Alec and I want the freedom for entrepreneurs and kids to innovate and create new applications “without having to pass through the carrier’s approval process,” wouldn’t we want carriers to have the freedom to build networks that respond to the marketplace?
I’d suggest that markets are better at picking winners than governments.