I’d heard about e-wallet functionality several years back and the idea seemed kind of lame at the time, but NPR featured a story on them as they relate to the Japanese cellphone culture and the iPhone’s lagging sales there.
What is an e-wallet?
An e-wallet is an electronic storage mechanism inside of a cell phone which can store, access, and utilize payment resources, such as credit cards and debit cards.
iPhone Japan lacks an e-wallet?
It’s true, but while the iPhone is a major step here in the States and many other countries, the iPhone is a bit of a laggerd in Japan. There the cell phone has been a significant popular commodity for some time, and the marketplace is rife with choices for consumers. In the US, the cell phone market is so heavily guarded by the wireless oligopolies, and the majority of cell phone customers require business reliability, not convenient or trendy features. This seems to have resulted in a lack of choice for cell phone consumers. And of the choices you have, your options with those devices are limited - i.e. you can’t buy a phone from one company and use it on another network. Does that make sense to you?
Apple and Google
It’s taken Apple’s iPhone and now Google’s wireless initiative to shake things up for the United States cell phone marketplace. Hopefully that will bring us up to speed with Japan! I wonder if and when Android powered phones will be available in Japan? Will they seem like dinosaurs?
This all eerily reminds me of how long it took Verizon and other national telecommunications carriers to roll-out truly high speed internet access (its still a work in progress as I write this). The US was way behind in consumer availability for high speed connections, and what little choice they had was expensive and comparatively slow. Its taken VOIP to get Verizon to take a bite out of Comcast’s cable lunch: IPTV.
Here’s an article at CNET about the FCC’s recent ruling about Robocalls:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10021092-38.html
In a nutshell, the FCC laid down some pretty hefty restrictions on robocalls. I’m so tired of getting robocalls! Unfortunately, the FCC didn’t put a stop to political campaign robocalls. I can’t stand those!
Yup. Android powered phones are on their way to a T-Mobile network near you. Will they have shell access? I doubt it. If I understand correctly, they’ll be able to run java apps, so I bet someone could write a shell application for it.
How much freedom will Android phones have? I’ve heard rumblings in the developer community about Google not being totally open about the underlying operating system. Time will tell, and anyway, anything is an improvement, considering the iron grip that mobile phone carriers currently have on their customers’ handsets. Ugh!
Google is in the news lately for championing the idea of using vacant television channels for wireless broadband internet access. Even though there are tons of vacant television channels already, they will all be vacant next year, when television networks go digital in February 2009.
To me, its a “no-brainer”. The airwaves should belong to the people, and its good that such a large part has been allocated to non-commercial ham radio. Now it would be nice if these higher quality frequencies would be available to commercial exploitation by everyone, not just gigantic corporations with large enough wallets to bully their potential competitors and create oligopolies.
The Wireless Innovation Alliance is a group of technology companies lobbying for the white space frequency airwaves to be made available to broadband consumer and business devices. If this goes forward, companies like Meraki which already have great software for rolling out mesh networks, will be in a great position to sell their services.
I certainly hope this happens. I’m curious who will be lobbying against this proposal. From the looks of it, the broadcast networks might be opposed. I wonder what Verizon, SBC, Comcast, Cox, and Cablevision are thinking?
Here’s the Free the Airwaves website.
Meraki sent me out an email recently about a “free upgrade” to Meraki Pro. I’m always a little skeptical of “free upgrades”, and I’m hoping they don’t change how I’ve got my wireless network setup. I offer limited free wireless access, plus increased service for paying visitors. So far I’ve only earned $1.20, so its not a windfall, and I believe the Pro version takes a bigger cut of any revenue earned. I’ll have to double check that though. Hmm, I just looked through their website, and it appears that no, its not the case. Its just the purchase price of the device itself is way more expensive. Up $100 to $149. Oh well!
When I was looking at a new town to move to, I was hopeful I’d find one with Fios. I am adamantly against giving comcast my money, their constant interruptions in service - which are only enough to be annoying not enough to complain about - and poor business practices make me a Verizon convert. Which means if there’s no Fios it’s DSL all the way for me.
Well Fios is in my town - just not my building. No big deal I’m sure we’ll be wired up soon enough, but for the time being the DSL will have to suffice. One problem, the only phone jack in the entire apartment looks like it hasn’t been used in a while. My guess is the last tennant had comcast, and if they had a phone had no reason to notice that the jack can’t physically support the splitter that Verizon gives you to make a jack - phone and internet friendly. I’ve never seen a device flop out of a phone jack quite like this. I’m going to have to call Verizon to come fix it, because I know this doesn’t fall in my landlord’s domain, and while I’m at it. I think I’ll mention how disapointed I am at the lack of Fios (again).
