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No, and sorry if I come to strongly. But this "regulated by the market" dogma (and that is what it is) is an extremely simplified which gets repeated over and o

by nanairo 16y ago

No, and sorry if I come to strongly. But this "regulated by the market" dogma (and that is what it is) is an extremely simplified which gets repeated over and over again, despite plenty of examples that it doesn't work. Even Adam Smith, the very father of capitalism, did not trust businessmen, and pointed out that it would not work in case there weren't plenty of supply and plenty of demand. The mobile market is not a free market. It's an oligopoly. Admittedly this is due to a limited spectrum resource so there's not much that can be done. But in an oligopoly is veeery easy for companies to stop competing and try to keep the status quo. Case in point: the RIAA and movie industry, and the fact that neither are CD at the equilibrium price, nor is either really innovating. Another case is academic journals publishers (there's another oligopoly there, and prices have been going up), oil cartel etc... So "this will be regulated by the market" is not an argument: if it were it would have been regulated even before the iPhone and Android arrived, but it wasn't was it? (sorry for the tone, and I understand in the USA people have grown up with this pseudo-religion, but maybe you are different. But you have no idea how many times "free market" is used as a panacea.)

jacoblyles 16y ago
I would like to point out that the reason for the cell phone oligopoly is that spectrum access is regulated - by the government. Poorly. (Forgive me for the quick soundbite. I'm googling for the articles I remember about how horrendously difficult it is to buy spectrum use rights in the US. It's not like buying lemonade. Like many regulations, wireless regulation was designed to protect the established players.)
- jacoblyles 16y ago
  I did find that until very recently, spectrum rights were non-transferable. And they are still single use; a central planning commission decides which parts of the spectrum will be used for which purposes, and the owners of the spectrum aren't allowed to deviate from this. The central planning commission has a long history of snubbing new uses of the spectrum in response to lobbying from existing companies (ex. TV companies used the FCC to torment FM radio startups in the 40s, pushing back its adoption).
buster 16y ago
That's why i said it should be better regulated by the government.

by nanairo 16y ago

jacoblyles 16y ago

I would like to point out that the reason for the cell phone oligopoly is that spectrum access is regulated - by the government. Poorly. (Forgive me for the quick soundbite. I'm googling for the articles I remember about how horrendously difficult it is to buy spectrum use rights in the US. It's not like buying lemonade. Like many regulations, wireless regulation was designed to protect the established players.)

jacoblyles 16y ago
I did find that until very recently, spectrum rights were non-transferable. And they are still single use; a central planning commission decides which parts of the spectrum will be used for which purposes, and the owners of the spectrum aren't allowed to deviate from this. The central planning commission has a long history of snubbing new uses of the spectrum in response to lobbying from existing companies (ex. TV companies used the FCC to torment FM radio startups in the 40s, pushing back its adoption).

buster 16y ago

That's why i said it should be better regulated by the government.