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Cell phone handsets is a terrible business. Phone carriers practically give them away and pass along the 'savings' to the manufacturer while forcing ever more glamorous specs down their throats for the next turn of the model crank. The margins are thinner than PC's. Better they should take a model they already have, cram it with Google apps, rebrand it and split the revenues between Google and the carrier.
If you'd bothered to read the FCC ruling, you'd have noticed that the open access requirements apply to only 1/3 of the spectrum being auctioned.
1/3 of a freedom is still something. The Telco's have had an unadulterated grip on us for so long even prying a single finger from around our throats is a step forward and allows us to get that much more air.
From a revenue based on device sales perspective this might not sound good, but imagine what shopping, touring a city, etc would be like if you could do store locating via a web/gps device, while on the street (directing people to their clients) and price comparisons while in a store. Given Google has the ability to index and map all of the stores within a city, it could totally control advertising for the mobile world.
Which is I think what they're up to. Offer up a rich function phone service that's ad driven. "Before we connect your call how would you like to hear about merchants in your area who are....."
That would last about 10 minutes before I canceled the service. Thanks but no.
