IP: Wireless Carriers Accused of Antitrust Violations

[David Farber <dfarber@earthlink.net>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Hinden <hinden@iprg.nokia.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 08:40:19 
To: farber@cis.upenn.edu
Subject: Wireless Carriers Accused of Antitrust Violations

Dave,

For IP.

Bob

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 From Slashdot:


http://www.wirelessconsumers.org/whats_hot.html

Wireless Carriers Accused of Antitrust Violations

Posted by michael on Sunday April 21, @06:30PM from the pin-drop dept. 
phoneboy writes "From Wireless Consumers Alliance: A class-action lawsuit 
was filed on April 5 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District 
of New York on behalf of wireless consumers seeking to end the control of 
the handset market by wireless carriers. Read the Antitrust Complaint. 
While the complaint is fairly short and easy to understand, a summary is in 
order: The carriers basically dictate required features to handset 
manufacturers. Phones are tied to specific carriers and cannot be moved 
between carriers. Carriers refuse to allow handsets on their network they 
didn't approve. Handset manufacturers thus cannot sell handsets that aren't 
approved by carriers because carriers will not allow them to be used. All 
of this rises costs for the consumer, making it difficult and more 
expensive to switch carriers, and unfairly restrains trade for both 
handsets and cellular services. As someone who recently tried subscribing 
to AT&T's new GSM service with an unlocked GSM phone (they didn't allow me 
to "activate" the service unless I bought one of their phones), I'll be 
watching this case very closely."

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