Cell phone firms just don't get it

ONE THING has become clear to me lately, cell phone companies don't get it. By "it", I mean the Internet.

In general, they simply think it is another feature to add to an already overworked handset. What am I talking about? Think about all the things that are being bolted onto a modern phone, PDA functions, cameras, more cameras, keyboards, messaging, video, video games, and a host of others you probably don't know about.

Do all these things make sense? Some might be a yes, others not so much, a few fall into the "disembowel the marketing genius who thought this up". I will wait until I get my hands on a NGage2 before I mention that one. Some things you want in a phone, others not. The best of these hybrids are edging toward acceptability in form factors and the Treo600 is a good example of that. Battery life still can't touch my Nokia 6360.

So, it seems that cell phone companies are bolting things on to a product where small size and long battery life are a plus. Add in that they cost way more than a separate phone and other device, and you have a lose/lose situation. From my perspective, it makes as much sense as an aquarium without a hair dryer, stairs without a microwave oven, and a rake that can't cure malaria. Welcome to cell phones.

So, why don't they get it? They are going toward the bigger and more side of things when people want smaller and longer battery life. If you want to make your brain hurt more, think about this. All the cell phone companies will subsidise your purchase if you sign a long term contract. The more expensive the phones are, the more they have to subsidise it to make the purchase palatable. A $79 phone can be 'free' with a one year contract, and it will cost the provider $79. A $499 smartphone sold with the same contract for $399 costs the provider $100.

You'd think that a provider would want you to buy the cheaper phone, which is feature-free, has a longer battery life, and is smaller than the Swiss Army phone. That however is not the case, they want you to get the bigger, bulkier one, and will generally subsidise the big phones more.

The reasoning is that the more features that a phone has, the more you use it. The more you use it, the more you use the phone network to transfer that data. The more you transfer, be it voice or data, the more you pay. Bumping the average network use per client up is the stuff that provider executive dreams, and bonuses, are made of. The network use of a person sending a picture is hundreds of times that of them calling someone and describing what they saw.

Since most people pay by the minute or by the K transmitted, it makes a lot of sense for the providers to get you to use more. That is the basis for the increased subsidies and the drive for more features. The idea of sending video over the cell network is the stuff of providers' most fevered dreams. Those dreams tend to be about the Jaguar they will be buying with your money.

So you get a big, bulky phone that does everything you need, 12 things you don't need, and 17 you didn't even know your phone could do. That phone costs the provider a good chunk, you a bigger chunk, and when you see the bill, it will be the biggest chunk. But the providers could make more money from you while costing you less up front, and lessening the subsidies they pay.

How? Simple, separate the network from the device. Instead of a phone that has features, sell someone a small card that does the data transport only, no power, no UI, no nothing. All it would do is connect anything it plugs into to the net, drivers permitting. It is an abstraction layer for the net. Your SIM card can plug into this.

This little device could be handed out with every cell phone contract. If you can make a cell phone for less than $100, you can make the same thing without a screen, battery or keyboard for a lot less. Put it on the same bill as the phone, and tell people to use it all they want with whatever they want. They get a small device and a small phone, and most likely a small bill.

If you have a WinCE device, plug it in, and away you go. Decide Palm is a better fit? Plug, plug, done. Laptop? Camera? Video camera? Game system? You get the idea. It is not a trivial thing to make it trivial to use, but it can be done. PCMCIA, USB, and Firewire all made it happen.As an incentive, I would wager that the grand total for all firewire peripherals sold is dwarfed by the money spent on cell phone peripherals and service. That said, it has been done before, and it can be done again. Money talks, and Nokia, Sony/Ericsson, Motorola and other have more than enough at stake to do what it takes. The carriers also have enough at stake also to make it work.

If each device cost $50, and they make a customer use $10 per month more in network time, it is generating revenue in less than a year even if you give them away. For the user, it frees them from buying large bulky devices that do things that they don't want. It costs a lot less, increase mobility, and increase portability.

If the standards bodies showed any signs of intelligence, they would make it in a ruggedised form like a USB thumb drive. Keep it on your keychain, and every time you need to do something on the net, plug it in.

With a device like this, anything can be networked, you just pull out the card and plug it into anything with the correct slot. Network providers will love it, you spend more on them. You like it, you can send anything from anything anytime. Devices can be smaller, cheaper, and more reliable. Everyone wins.

The problem is, the carriers don't see this. They keep running at the bigger, heavier, power hungry side of things. If they went simpler and cheaper, they stand a good chance of making more money. If you can buy two or three devices a year at $100 each, that becomes a lot more palatable than a single $500 device that does them all badly, but is quite unwieldy.

With a decoupled system, a separate network and device, most problems go away. All it takes is someone to stand up and buck the trend. In the end, both users and carriers will benefit. Heck, even the device manufacturers can win, they will sell more devices. µ