Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Will the mobile phone dam burst in the US

D-Link has announced it will sell a $600 "unlocked" GSM phone in the US: D-Link Introduces V-CLICK Dual-Mode GSM / Wi-Fi Phone. Oh, yeah, it does WiFi too.

Will this break the dam erected by US mobile companies? As of now the US is a "developing nation" in terms of its mobile technologies, a result of an oligopolistic market. If vendors can make money selling interesting hardware, and if one or more national GSM providers cracks under the strain and offers GSM cards for the device that work, then the dam will burst. The big losers would be the non-GSM vendors. Bye-bye Sprint.

This phone may be irrelevant as a device, but it's fascinating as the first shot of what will be a great non-violent battle...

No comments: