News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on EU lawmakers snub Apple's pleas, vote to push for charging cable standard. Parent comment

Re:EU lawmakers snub Apple's pleas, vote to push for chargin... by scarface74 on Sunday February 02, 2020 @08:44PM (#22220788)
The right to use radio frequencies are auctioned by the government. If Apple bought the rights to use the frequencies it could do whatever it wanted with them.

For instance, Sprint had WiMAX for 4G before they had LTE, two carriers have GSM and two have CDMA. The government didn’t mandate the protocols nor did they force the carriers to use the same protocol or the phone makers to support both.

You also had the proprietary Nextel push to talk.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:EU lawmakers snub Apple's pleas, vote to push for chargin... by ClumsyPilot on Monday February 03, 2020 @06:50PM (#22230707)
Government absolutely do care what you do with the frequencies. The UK government auctioned 5G frequencies for a specific purpose. It took great pains to clear these frequencies, they weren't just lying around unused.

All the protocols you listed are open for adoption by various manufacturers. Apple absolutely would not be allowed to use them for a private protocol they keep to themselves. Airwaves are a public good, not private property. They even come with coverage obligations.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/media/media-rele...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:EU lawmakers snub Apple's pleas, vote to push for chargin... by scarface74 on Monday February 03, 2020 @08:34PM (#22231458)
But yet, we have an existence proof that a cellular carrier in the US - Sprint - had its own 4G protocol - WiMAX - that was only supported by Sprint

https://www.rcrwireless.com/20160401/opinion/worst-week-bold...

Not only that, even before Sprint acquired Nextel, Nextel was using the spectrum it had for its own proprietary wireless protocols and it wasn’t Big Government that killed either initiative - it was people exercising their own free will not buying Nextel phones and later WiMAX phones.

Most would link Sprint’s WiMAX decision back to its acquisition of Nextel Communications, which wrapped in 2005, and brought with it a significant load of 2.5 GHz spectrum licenses with specific build out dates. Nextel prior to being acquired had been testing various IP-based mobile broadband technologies, including various proprietary ones like Flash-OFDM and TDD-UMTS, as well as WiMAX and HSDPA.

[ Parent | on HN ]