Why is that cellphone technology in the US always behind other countries?

[Cherrydog]

Why is that cellphone technology in the US always behind other countries?
Do you have any idea?

[jeisan]

i think australias cellphones need some work, they have their own area code there so are always more expensive to call even from a land line. its a big difference in price especially if im calling from the states to one. i think its a way to make people pay more than they have to. whereas in the US cellphones and their numbers are treated like any other number. the australian interstates need work as well but thats another thread...

[wan pak hin]

hehe.. cherry dog! i have been wondering why us cell phone and internet infastructure is kind of lacking compared to rest of world! and i have read many many thinga about all of this! i have even heard americans do not like to do sms messageing! and some networks do not support sms!, i would say from all things i have read that SPRINT PCS or something like that are the best cell phone company america has in technological ways!, but T-MOBILE is more of a global company and i guess that has it's benifits! see here i see american programs on fox japan! and when you see cell phones in the programs they do not even have color screen etc..!, but i admit cell phone calls in america are pretty cheap compared to calls in other places in the world i mean i think i pay... around 40 yen per minute for a call! which is around 35 cents!, which is quite alot i think! considering when i was in england i paid like 5p per minute on cell phone! which is about 7cents per minute!, but america suffers because your goverment does not invest much in telecom's etc..! i think japanese goverment invests something like 150billion yen per year on telcom's which is about 1.5 billion dollars!, whilst american goverment maybe spends half of that per year maybe! soo.. i guess that is why america is kind of slightly backwards when it comes to telecom techonolgy!, but you could IMPORT a european phone to america if you really wanted a better phone in a hurry i guess chery dog!

[jeisan]

err i dunno about that i think its pretty cheap compared to alot of places. i pay $44.95 a month for 350 minutes that i can use between 7am and 7:59pm then from 8pm til 6:59 i have unlimited minutes, meaning i can talk that whole period if my battery permitted and i wouldnt cost any more than i already pay, and seeing as how i generally stay up and sleep late their "off" period is when i mostly use the phone.

[Cherrydog]

ic. I am using T-mobile and my plan is about USD40 for 1000 mins during peak, and unlimited mins off peak and weekend. I guess it's a good deal. We got color mon cell phone about a year ago. Of course it's still way behind Japan and Europe...

[jeisan]

yeah mines unlimited on weekends and to other sprint phones anytime as well. they have crazy cellphones with color and digital cameras in them but i dont have one. mines ancient but i kinda like it that way because its durable, i dont know how many times ive dropped it.

[Enfour]

Penetration of fixed internet is higher in the US than anywhere else.. other countries went mobile, but the US went fixed internet..

It has to do with culture, household disposable income as well as space available in the home..

In Japan, it costs way too much to get a phone line installed, but then apartments are usually too small to have a full sized PC.. so most people went mobile.

Also demand.. US customers demand cheap voice services and not much data on mobile phones.. In japan people wanted good mobile data service..

just different markets - not better not worse..

[MangaMan2009]

what are ya talking about fixed internet

[Enfour]

Originally posted by MangaMan2009
what are ya talking about fixed internet

The reason mobile technology is better in other countries compared with the US is because while Japan went mobile, US went fixed internet..

That's why...

[jeisan]

fixed internet = land lines
where it comes into your house, while other countries, japan, use wireless internet a lot more. the US is just starting to promote wireless internet. actually i think today, saturday the 27th, they are offering wireless interenet connection for free across the country for the whole day so people will try it out.

[Spike308]

you know why the wireless tech is offset in other places, unlike Japan? If you watch TechTV, you'd know. Because develeopment over thre is at least 2 years ahead, and plus places are more downtimed (traffic jams) so the need for it is more (unlike the need for speed in the US). plus, more urban areas means more people to pay for the services, makign it to the point of that one cell phone tower supports a city, since Japan has learned to make an efficient system. AKA too much space for maybe 2 customers.

[Mashu]

The reason America is behind other countries is because America is so big compared to other countries such as Japan and European countries. And not just big but America is for the most part, urbanized throughout the whole country. This makes the building of a wireless infrastructure time-consuming and costly.

The growth of cell phone technology is also a booming industry and to suport these new phones and data requirements the phones use, your infrastructure has to be up to date. Its very difficult to keep up to date if your infrastructure is so huge. The lack of government subsidization, to my belief, also makes the cell phone companies invest their own money to build this infrastructure unlike other countries. America also has 3 cell phone transmission technologies competing unlike Europe and Asia which use GSM technology throughout their infrastrues.

[nikki_the_insane]

I agree with Mashu. It is much easier to switch everyone in Japan to wireless than it is here in the U.S. If we have to go wirless then that means everyone else has to go wireless to be able to communicate through mobile phone messaging or email thorugh cell phones and such and a lot of poeple won't do that.

It reminds me of a couple years back when the U.S. wanted to switch back to the metric system. They end up not doing that because that would mean everyone would have to learn or re-learn about metric conversions. They weren't going to do that.

[blockhar]

i agree with nikki, and all of you guys comments were on point. but we are catching up because more people want the technology, since the demand is there, the supply is coming. and as you can see, the companies are changing and advancing.

[kinskai]

Here in the Uk we have a mixed bag. For example i'm with orange and i pay £20 a month for 50 free off peak minutes a day, but any other calls cost more than usual calls on comparitive networks. SMS messages are about 8p and MMS about 25p. I pay £25 a month for 512kb broadband via land line but wireless is taking off over here because the cable and ADSL (landline) infrastructure isn't too good. I here in Tokyo their broadband speeds are amazing compared to the UK's, I only got off 56k dial-up 3 months ago.

[hyogojoe]

Another point that I think hasn't been mentioned is that America was the first country to get wireless telephony (I had a car phone back in the early 70's). Being ahead at the beginning means an older technology gains penetration first. That technology tends to get used long after newer technology is available due to the cost of upgrading infrastructure.

The same was and is true of TV systems. The US got color TV first using NSTC, which it (and Japan) still use even though PAL delivers much better color.

hyogojoe