Ever wonder why your cell phone can’t do certain things: like send instant messages? Or synchronize your calendar with the calendar on another device? Or upload a new photo to your favorite online photo site?
Much of this has to do with “open access,” or lack of open access. Cellular service providers use competitive practices to “lock out” application providers from allowing the phone to do what users want to do - this ensures the cellular provider makes more $ from the user.
The market is changing with the new rules from the FCC, which is opening up new frequencies (which will be used in next generation cellular handsets) with a special rule: companies who use the frequency must allow competing devices to also use the frequency. This is known as open access.
With open access, customers will have the ability to choose the device which does the things they want to do — unimpeded by a provider’s service-blocking. This ultimately forces providers to open up their own systems, under pressure of market competition — no one wants to buy a device that is “blocked from access” compared to a device which allows for “open access.”
The following article from Wired explains the technical details: FCC Auction Ensures Open Access — If in Name Only, By Bryan Gardiner
Open-access proponents let out a collective sigh of relief in late January when an anonymous bidder with a fat purse exceeded the $4.6 billion reserve price for the nationwide C-block of 700-MHz spectrum.
The still-sealed $4.71 billion bid, which came during the auction’s 17th round, means that the Federal Communications Commission’s open-access stipulations will be all but ensured when a future network based on C-block spectrum is built out. Google and other companies fought hard for these open-access requirements in the months leading up to the auction.
“I think this is ultimately a good sign,” said Gregory Attiyeh, managing director of FTI Consulting. “Even though we won’t see an open-access network for a while, it reinforces the fact that open access is the thing of the future: It gets the ball rolling.”
The open-access conditions attached to the national C-block of spectrum ostensibly mean that the eventual winner of the licenses must allow all compatible devices and applications to run on the network. That’s in marked contrast to the way most cellular networks work today, where the owners of the spectrum — the carriers — have virtually total control over the handsets and applications that use their networks.
Open-access proponents see the change as necessary to encourage innovation and competition in a wireless-devices industry that has long been stifled by U.S. carriers’ unwillingness to relinquish control.
The end result is features like VCC, FMC, mCue, VoIP, can compete within the marketplace. The technology has an available spectrum for users to communicate with each other in the ways they want to communicate: anywhere, at any time, in any medium (video, voice, text, photos, files, VoIP..).
Next generation handset designs as proposed by the Open Handset Alliance and Google Android intend to take full advantage of the open access rules.
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