[Novalug] Interview with the Mad Dog re: Openmoko

[Ken Kauffman]

Similarly, I bought an unlocked quad band GSM phone that is not even
available in the United States and slapped my AT&T SIM in the phone.  Works
just fine.  I also went to Europe and bought a "foreign" SIM card and
charged it up (aka: pay as you go) and that worked equally as well.
Actually it worked better because the network seemed to have more total
coverage wherever I went.   I really liked the European pay as you go
model.  Essentially, it's $1 to get a SIM card which you can find just about
anywhere.  Then you can either go to their website and add money to the card
or you can buy a voucher at the store that has codes you can dial in that
charges up the card.  It's really quite flexible.

Ken

On Feb 11, 2008 2:40 PM, Paul Bohme <novalug at bohme.org> wrote:

> John B. Holmblad wrote:
> >
> > I think that ATT has more to lose than to gain by going "open device"
> > so I would not to see an Openmoko handset registered on their network
> > anytime soon. T-Mobile, on the other hand, I think does have an
> > incentive to go "open device"^2 and allow Openmoko and other similar
> > devices based on, say, Google's Android software platform, to be
> > registered on its network.
> >
>
> I have a Neo1973.  Works fine on AT&T.  Bought a 'pay-as-you-go' SIM to
> slap in it for development/tinkering.  (How shockingly rip-off it is can
> be another entire conversation.. ;-)
>
> Remember that GSM is fundamentally different from CDMA in many ways,
> including how CDMA welds the identity to the phone.  GSM allows you to
> pretty much - goofy vendor 'locking' aside - take the SIM out of any
> device and pop it into another, and your identity as a paying human goes
> with.  Gives you (the user) far more freedom to pick a physical device
> with which to utilize the service you're paying for.  Handy when a phone
> dies and you need a replacement, especially since often your phonebook
> and other info are stored on the SIM as well.
>
> Could be why pretty much the rest of the world (outside of Japan, which
> uses their own variant of CDMA that isn't compatible with anything else,
> IIRC) uses GSM.
>
>  -P
>
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