unbundling of phone services

Joe Friedrichsen pengi.films at gmail.com
Tue Jun 12 23:54:02 CEST 2007


On 6/12/07, Robin Paulson <robin.paulson at gmail.com> wrote:
> so my question is:
> is there a similar movement anywhere for the equivalent of LLU for
> mobile phone networks? i.e. allowing other operators to use networks
> of vodafone/state-owned telco/sprint/whoever at reasonable price? most
> countries don't have monopolies providing mobile services (even nz has
> 2 providers), but they still act as though they are monoplies,
> providing (in my experience) vastly overpriced, very limited services

If I understood you correctly, there is something like this in the US.
These mobile carriers are called MVNOs (Mobile virtual network
operators -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MVNO ). There are a number
of options for service from MVNOs, but it's nearly all prepaid. The
MVNOs in the US were reviewed by C-Net, and you can read about it
here: http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3504_7-6260217-5.html?tag=arw .

It definitely feels like you're making a deal with devil when you sign
up for any kind of mobile service anywhere. I just bought a T-Mobile
prepaid phone, but I haven't used a US carrier yet so I'm not sure
what to expect. My best experience so far was with Vodafone in Japan,
but when I was in Australia, Optus wasn't too bad.

Joe




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