[IP] Re: OpenMoko phone

[David Farber <dfarber@cs.cmu.edu>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Erich M." <me@quintessenz.org>
Date: October 2, 2007 7:47:24 PM EDT
To: dave@farber.net
Subject: Re: [IP] Re:    OpenMoko phone

> From: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@killermarmot.com>

> The OpenMoko uses standard, off-the-shelf GSM hardware and software.
> There should be no problem getting it approved, it won't differ  
> from any
> other phone in that regard.  The GSM stack is locked-away and
> proprietary, something the free software folks are not enthusiastic
> about - but they understand the need for it.

Jonathan, Dave and all,

As to my knowledge there is no real lock on the openMoko phone. Just the
possibility to have one installed if a carrier should order 10 million
pieces ;)

The GSM stack is always somehow a different thing to the rest of a
mobile phone as you need to have it licensed by the European Telecom
Standards Institute [ETSI, private institution financed by telcos and
suppliers, supported by EU leaders]. Licensing there is not throat cut.

The funny thing is: only unlocked GSM phones comply to the ETSI standard
that covers more than 80 percent of the world market. Every GSM
standardized SIM card has to be accepted in any GSM network per default.
 That is the point, locking is anti-standard. So the OpenMoko is
extremely compliant to that.

All you get until now in real life in EU is a non standard GSM handy.
Hardly anybody has been buying an ETSI standard GSM phone in EU for the
past years. You get the latest locked model "for free" with a 24 months
contract from the operator. Voice is GSM, data is UMTS/HSPA "up to 7,2
Mbit/s"

The latter denotes as follows

- Forget 20 percent in the beginning. Those bits are error control & c &
- by far the most of the mobile radio towers  in EU are only connected
by 2 Mbit/s copper or less to their respective circuit switched networks
- the rest of the bandwith is being shared of all users in a cell.


in metropolitan areas there is either fair UMTS connection 500 Kbit/s
plus download - or none at all because the mobiles congested their
networks in the urban space. On the countryside there is not much even
in Austria which is a tiny, but due to topography defined as a test
market for mobile providers. There are four nationwide networks by
incumbent mobilkom [leader] Austria, T-Mobile, Orange and Hutchison 3G.
All offer "highspeed" as said.
:)

 For the curious, we've done a couple of looks at that phone  
(shipped to
> us here in the US, incidentally...):
>
>     http://lwn.net/Articles/247187/
>     http://lwn.net/Articles/251519/  [ NOTE only viewable by paid
> subscribers ($5/month djf]

Anybody on the list got 5 bucks or a pwd ready?
;)
Just kidding
is
Erich Moechel

> jon
>
>
> -------------------------------------------

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